Life is One Big Rollercoaster for Ronan
RONAN KEATING is riding the rollercoaster of his life. Having had sixteen top three singles (six of which were number ones), four number one albums (selling more than 12 million copies worldwide), dozens of sell-out UK tours and millions of fans the world over, this spunky lad from Ireland has the world at his feet and is loving every moment of it. In this intimate interview, Ronan reflects on his past success, discusses his soon-to-be-released album and reveals his plans for the future.
GIRL: Have you approached the new album "Destination" differently from your debut record 'Ronan'?
Ronan: I know what I'm about now, I found my sound, I know what I want and I wanted the album to sound like that. When I made my first album I didn't know what I wanted the album to sound like. I didn't know what exactly the sort of artist I was at that time, I knew I was a solo artist, that was about it. So I guess when I approached the music I knew that I was more confident than I was when I initially started the first album. So yes I guess I could be a little bit more adventurous in where I was going musically and lyrically.
GIRL: After all the hits with Boyzone, what did the success of your first solo album mean to you?
Ronan: I opened up to markets that never bought Boyzone records you know and if they did they didn't buy a lot of them. When it came to like, you know, 'Rollercoaster', 'Lovin' Each Day', it opened up huge markets for me, it was great. Countries are interested in my music that were never interested before. Meeting the people and actually seeing they wanted this, they wanted the music, they wanted me to be there in their country and get up on stage and perform, it was an incredible feeling.
GIRL: Have you found your vocal style has changed over the past couple of years of touring?
Ronan: I believe the more and more you sing the better your voice gets and that tour really helped me a lot because also you're singing for two hours, or an hour and a half or whatever it may be, constantly. When you're in a band there's other people singing so there's times when you can back off and your voice gets a rest but for an hour and a half on that tour I was singing all the time. That definitely made my voice stronger and I feel more confident in singing now. I can go into the studio and you know you, just belt it out and make it happen and you're done you know, whereas before you had to work a little harder to make it happen, which is nice.
GIRL: So let's catch up on how you've spent the past year...
Ronan: We finished off the first album, 'Ronan', throughout the world, promoting it. We did our tour, mainly in the UK and Ireland and Europe but we did shows in the rest of the world as well. So that's what I was doing - I was wrapping up on the last album, finished off the tour and then I started recording the new album 'Destination'. I started recording that August last year pretty much. I had the songs about a month before that, a few of the songs in our heads and whatnot, but we actually started solidly recording around August last year.
So Gregg Alexander and myself got into the studio between London and Dublin, at Windmill Lane in Dublin we did a lot of the vocals and then in London we did a lot of the production and it was actually nice to take that time out for a change and focus and make an album properly. You know this was great, it was six months of just focus, getting the album right, finding a sound, being comfortable with it, working on it, nourishing it and becoming the album that it is now, 'Destination', which is ready.
GIRL: How did you and writer/producer Gregg Alexander first get together?
Ronan: Gregg Alexander and myself met originally I guess it was two years ago almost now in Los Angeles. He came to me with 'Life Is A Rollercoaster', the first single. And I'd known Gregg obviously from the New Radicals ''You Only Get What You Give'. So he came to me with 'Life Is A Rollercoaster' which was, you know, I knew straight away from the first time I heard it was a winner, it was right, and we've had you know a working relationship ever since.
GIRL: Where does the album title 'Destination' come from?
Ronan: The original long version of the title of the album which was 'It Ain't The Destination, It's The Ride' came from the song 'Love Won't Work If We Don't Try' but it was a bit long. I thought by the time people get to the record counter they'd forget the name of the album so we called it 'Destination'. The reason I liked it so much is 'cos I feel very comfortable where I am and what I'm doing - where I am right now, musically, my family, my life, where I want to go, I understand now.
GIRL: Tell us about the song 'Love Won't Work (If We Don't Try)'
Ronan: 'Love Won't Work If We Don't Try' is a song about, you know, obviously the obvious... when you first hear it it's a song about two people in love and you know understanding that if you don't work hard in a relationship you can fall out of love and it can all fade away. But it's not only about that, it's about life itself and the challenges in life and about work and how you work as a person. You know if you don't work hard at something you will fail and someone else will you know step in front of you and fill your shoes, you know, it's kind of that idea as well you know which is quite cool.
GIRL: Which is your personal favourite on the album?
Ronan: My favourite song is a song called 'My One Thing That's Real'. It starts off quite ballady you know in the first verse and then it just opens up into this mid-tempo guitar driven, you know, almost rock ballad kind of thing. It's a song about this crazy world that we're living in, at least I've got you there you know, you're my rock and you are that, you know, that pillar of strength that keeps me going and my focus and my reason, my one thing that's real. It's just magic when it happens, I listen to it and I think I can't believe I recorded that song and that's what's great, that's what I love about it.
GIRL: You are now best known for your up tempo songs like 'Life Is A Rollercoaster' and 'Lovin' Each Day'. Do you miss singing the ballads?
Ronan: That's actually why the first single is 'If Tomorrow Never Comes' because I became very far away from it, you know, from the 'When You Say Nothing At All' end of what I do. So now I feel I just want to go back to that a little bit, you know, reintroduce that kind of side of it, 'cos that's what I love doing myself as well. The rest of the album then is you know... there's great movement and there's a great flow in the whole album.
GIRL: Let's talk about that single, 'If Tomorrow Never Comes'.
Ronan: The first single off the new album is a song called 'If Tomorrow Never Comes'. It was originally recorded by Garth Brooks, written and recorded by Garth Brooks, it was a hit across the US and Ireland funnily enough, but nowhere else and I actually saw Garth in Crow Park in Dublin in the stadium and it was just mind- blowing, it's a beautiful song. It's about a guy saying, you know, he's turning around here and he's going 'I want this... I love this girl so much, I need her so much, I just... have I told her enough,' you know. It's kind of like 'Have I Told You Lately That I Love You', the Van record, it's quite similar to that, it's like does she know how much I love her, does she actually know.
GIRL: Tell us about making the videos for your singles...
Ronan: I hated making videos in the band, I really hated it, because it was really tedious and boring. We used to sit around all day doing nothing so that drove me mad. But as soon as I started to make them on my own it was brilliant you know, I really enjoy it, I really get involved. You know you can, you can become creative and get involved with the director you know, come up with the ideas. It's fun that you know, I love that side of it.
GIRL: Who did you choose to direct the video for 'If Tomorrow Never Comes' and what's the idea behind it?
Ronan: I originally went to Kevin Godley, Kevin had worked on 'You Needed Me' for Boyzone, he also did 'When You Say Nothing At All' for me and he did 'The Sweetest Thing' for U2 that they invited us to be in with them which was great. The idea of the video is basically there's this girl and she's lying in bed in her room, our bedroom basically. I come out of the room, come downstairs and onto the sidewalk and I'm about to cross the street and I trip and from the moment that I trip we go into 500 frames per second type of thing and everything goes into serious slow motion and I'm falling all the time and just as I start to fall I realise there's this car speeding down the street and it's out of control and it's heading for me.
As this is happening the girl is in the bed up in the room, she's almost controlling the car in a way in her sleep, in her dreams, so when she moves in the bed the car kind of moves that way. So it goes into serious slow motion and I'm singing in normal time so what we did was we speeded up the record to like eight or nine times its speed and I sing it really fast on the day and then when they slowed all the film down I was singing in normal time but yet I was falling in you know in really, really slow motion. So it's quite amazing how it's done, a lot of camera trickery and whatnot and we shot on green screen and you know I had to wear a cover across my face and then they took my head off and put that on and it's amazing how it's done, it's very, very cool.
GIRL: Now you've built up an international reputation, is success at home in Ireland still just as important to you?
Ronan: I was really honoured recently to win an award, 'Best Irish Male', at the Irish music awards in Dublin. It was a great night, everybody enjoyed it, it was a huge, huge show you know, the bands that came on and performed you know - Enrique Iglesias was there and Muse and the Cranberries and you know obviously Westlife and U2 were there, they picked up seven awards. I got a chance to perform, picked up the award, presented an award to Paul Brady - 'Lifetime Achievement', so it was a great night. I think the hardest market for any artist is their own market, is their home market. So for me after nine years to still come home and you know to be patted on the back and say 'here you go son,' do you know what I mean? 'Here's an award for you,' 'Best Male Pop' is very special and a great start to the new album for me here in Ireland.
GIRL: You are now an established solo artist, what does the launch of this second album mean to you?
Ronan: It's only the beginning of my career. The second album is far more important than a first album I think, you know it really is, it's the challenge now you know. You can get out there, you get your first album out and you know people will buy it because they're intrigued and they want to know. Now you've got to impress them, now this is when it really happens so the second album's very important and I'm very excited to get it out and see what happens.
GIRL: What are your tour plans for 2002?
Ronan: We start in the UK in June and then through the rest of the year we hop through the world. We go through Asia, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, all of Europe and hopefully maybe take it on to some shows in Canada and maybe see what happens from there. But it's going to be a busy year and I'm very, very excited. I love being on stage, I love performing, I've got my own space, my freedom to do what I want to do, my choice of songs you know. You look back at your musicians and think that they're here and they're my band and it's just them and me and it's a very, very special feeling and they're a great, great band and I love working with them. We've been working two and a half years together now so we know each other very well and our actions and movements on stage. So we've a lot of fun on stage, we've a real vibe and I'm looking forward to getting out there and doing it. I've never done a world tour to this extent before, so it's going to be exciting for me.
- Sally Stratton
GIRL: Have you approached the new album "Destination" differently from your debut record 'Ronan'?
Ronan: I know what I'm about now, I found my sound, I know what I want and I wanted the album to sound like that. When I made my first album I didn't know what I wanted the album to sound like. I didn't know what exactly the sort of artist I was at that time, I knew I was a solo artist, that was about it. So I guess when I approached the music I knew that I was more confident than I was when I initially started the first album. So yes I guess I could be a little bit more adventurous in where I was going musically and lyrically.
GIRL: After all the hits with Boyzone, what did the success of your first solo album mean to you?
Ronan: I opened up to markets that never bought Boyzone records you know and if they did they didn't buy a lot of them. When it came to like, you know, 'Rollercoaster', 'Lovin' Each Day', it opened up huge markets for me, it was great. Countries are interested in my music that were never interested before. Meeting the people and actually seeing they wanted this, they wanted the music, they wanted me to be there in their country and get up on stage and perform, it was an incredible feeling.
GIRL: Have you found your vocal style has changed over the past couple of years of touring?
Ronan: I believe the more and more you sing the better your voice gets and that tour really helped me a lot because also you're singing for two hours, or an hour and a half or whatever it may be, constantly. When you're in a band there's other people singing so there's times when you can back off and your voice gets a rest but for an hour and a half on that tour I was singing all the time. That definitely made my voice stronger and I feel more confident in singing now. I can go into the studio and you know you, just belt it out and make it happen and you're done you know, whereas before you had to work a little harder to make it happen, which is nice.
GIRL: So let's catch up on how you've spent the past year...
Ronan: We finished off the first album, 'Ronan', throughout the world, promoting it. We did our tour, mainly in the UK and Ireland and Europe but we did shows in the rest of the world as well. So that's what I was doing - I was wrapping up on the last album, finished off the tour and then I started recording the new album 'Destination'. I started recording that August last year pretty much. I had the songs about a month before that, a few of the songs in our heads and whatnot, but we actually started solidly recording around August last year.
So Gregg Alexander and myself got into the studio between London and Dublin, at Windmill Lane in Dublin we did a lot of the vocals and then in London we did a lot of the production and it was actually nice to take that time out for a change and focus and make an album properly. You know this was great, it was six months of just focus, getting the album right, finding a sound, being comfortable with it, working on it, nourishing it and becoming the album that it is now, 'Destination', which is ready.
GIRL: How did you and writer/producer Gregg Alexander first get together?
Ronan: Gregg Alexander and myself met originally I guess it was two years ago almost now in Los Angeles. He came to me with 'Life Is A Rollercoaster', the first single. And I'd known Gregg obviously from the New Radicals ''You Only Get What You Give'. So he came to me with 'Life Is A Rollercoaster' which was, you know, I knew straight away from the first time I heard it was a winner, it was right, and we've had you know a working relationship ever since.
GIRL: Where does the album title 'Destination' come from?
Ronan: The original long version of the title of the album which was 'It Ain't The Destination, It's The Ride' came from the song 'Love Won't Work If We Don't Try' but it was a bit long. I thought by the time people get to the record counter they'd forget the name of the album so we called it 'Destination'. The reason I liked it so much is 'cos I feel very comfortable where I am and what I'm doing - where I am right now, musically, my family, my life, where I want to go, I understand now.
GIRL: Tell us about the song 'Love Won't Work (If We Don't Try)'
Ronan: 'Love Won't Work If We Don't Try' is a song about, you know, obviously the obvious... when you first hear it it's a song about two people in love and you know understanding that if you don't work hard in a relationship you can fall out of love and it can all fade away. But it's not only about that, it's about life itself and the challenges in life and about work and how you work as a person. You know if you don't work hard at something you will fail and someone else will you know step in front of you and fill your shoes, you know, it's kind of that idea as well you know which is quite cool.
GIRL: Which is your personal favourite on the album?
Ronan: My favourite song is a song called 'My One Thing That's Real'. It starts off quite ballady you know in the first verse and then it just opens up into this mid-tempo guitar driven, you know, almost rock ballad kind of thing. It's a song about this crazy world that we're living in, at least I've got you there you know, you're my rock and you are that, you know, that pillar of strength that keeps me going and my focus and my reason, my one thing that's real. It's just magic when it happens, I listen to it and I think I can't believe I recorded that song and that's what's great, that's what I love about it.
GIRL: You are now best known for your up tempo songs like 'Life Is A Rollercoaster' and 'Lovin' Each Day'. Do you miss singing the ballads?
Ronan: That's actually why the first single is 'If Tomorrow Never Comes' because I became very far away from it, you know, from the 'When You Say Nothing At All' end of what I do. So now I feel I just want to go back to that a little bit, you know, reintroduce that kind of side of it, 'cos that's what I love doing myself as well. The rest of the album then is you know... there's great movement and there's a great flow in the whole album.
GIRL: Let's talk about that single, 'If Tomorrow Never Comes'.
Ronan: The first single off the new album is a song called 'If Tomorrow Never Comes'. It was originally recorded by Garth Brooks, written and recorded by Garth Brooks, it was a hit across the US and Ireland funnily enough, but nowhere else and I actually saw Garth in Crow Park in Dublin in the stadium and it was just mind- blowing, it's a beautiful song. It's about a guy saying, you know, he's turning around here and he's going 'I want this... I love this girl so much, I need her so much, I just... have I told her enough,' you know. It's kind of like 'Have I Told You Lately That I Love You', the Van record, it's quite similar to that, it's like does she know how much I love her, does she actually know.
GIRL: Tell us about making the videos for your singles...
Ronan: I hated making videos in the band, I really hated it, because it was really tedious and boring. We used to sit around all day doing nothing so that drove me mad. But as soon as I started to make them on my own it was brilliant you know, I really enjoy it, I really get involved. You know you can, you can become creative and get involved with the director you know, come up with the ideas. It's fun that you know, I love that side of it.
GIRL: Who did you choose to direct the video for 'If Tomorrow Never Comes' and what's the idea behind it?
Ronan: I originally went to Kevin Godley, Kevin had worked on 'You Needed Me' for Boyzone, he also did 'When You Say Nothing At All' for me and he did 'The Sweetest Thing' for U2 that they invited us to be in with them which was great. The idea of the video is basically there's this girl and she's lying in bed in her room, our bedroom basically. I come out of the room, come downstairs and onto the sidewalk and I'm about to cross the street and I trip and from the moment that I trip we go into 500 frames per second type of thing and everything goes into serious slow motion and I'm falling all the time and just as I start to fall I realise there's this car speeding down the street and it's out of control and it's heading for me.
As this is happening the girl is in the bed up in the room, she's almost controlling the car in a way in her sleep, in her dreams, so when she moves in the bed the car kind of moves that way. So it goes into serious slow motion and I'm singing in normal time so what we did was we speeded up the record to like eight or nine times its speed and I sing it really fast on the day and then when they slowed all the film down I was singing in normal time but yet I was falling in you know in really, really slow motion. So it's quite amazing how it's done, a lot of camera trickery and whatnot and we shot on green screen and you know I had to wear a cover across my face and then they took my head off and put that on and it's amazing how it's done, it's very, very cool.
GIRL: Now you've built up an international reputation, is success at home in Ireland still just as important to you?
Ronan: I was really honoured recently to win an award, 'Best Irish Male', at the Irish music awards in Dublin. It was a great night, everybody enjoyed it, it was a huge, huge show you know, the bands that came on and performed you know - Enrique Iglesias was there and Muse and the Cranberries and you know obviously Westlife and U2 were there, they picked up seven awards. I got a chance to perform, picked up the award, presented an award to Paul Brady - 'Lifetime Achievement', so it was a great night. I think the hardest market for any artist is their own market, is their home market. So for me after nine years to still come home and you know to be patted on the back and say 'here you go son,' do you know what I mean? 'Here's an award for you,' 'Best Male Pop' is very special and a great start to the new album for me here in Ireland.
GIRL: You are now an established solo artist, what does the launch of this second album mean to you?
Ronan: It's only the beginning of my career. The second album is far more important than a first album I think, you know it really is, it's the challenge now you know. You can get out there, you get your first album out and you know people will buy it because they're intrigued and they want to know. Now you've got to impress them, now this is when it really happens so the second album's very important and I'm very excited to get it out and see what happens.
GIRL: What are your tour plans for 2002?
Ronan: We start in the UK in June and then through the rest of the year we hop through the world. We go through Asia, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, all of Europe and hopefully maybe take it on to some shows in Canada and maybe see what happens from there. But it's going to be a busy year and I'm very, very excited. I love being on stage, I love performing, I've got my own space, my freedom to do what I want to do, my choice of songs you know. You look back at your musicians and think that they're here and they're my band and it's just them and me and it's a very, very special feeling and they're a great, great band and I love working with them. We've been working two and a half years together now so we know each other very well and our actions and movements on stage. So we've a lot of fun on stage, we've a real vibe and I'm looking forward to getting out there and doing it. I've never done a world tour to this extent before, so it's going to be exciting for me.
- Sally Stratton
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