From chart-topping success to personal struggles, Evelyn O'Rourke traces Boyzone's journey through fame, feuds and friendship.
"These lads are going to be Ireland's answer to Take That," Gay Byrne said as he introduced a young band called Boyzone on The Late Late Show.
Standing in the middle of the lineup of the bare-chested young men, Gaybo observed with a wry smile, "They don’t play, they don’t sing, and they can’t write music."
The audience chuckled and the six lads laughed nervously.
The music started and the group started to dance frenetically. The reaction in the studio and at home was a mixture of shock, amusement and disbelief.
Watch: Boyzone's first appearance on The Late Late Show in 1993
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Roll on one year later and the atmosphere was completely different.
This time, Boyzone appeared on Echo Island, the popular children’s show. The programme aired a report featuring the winners of a recent competition on the programme.The big prize? To spend a day with Boyzone.
Schoolgirls Siobhán, Lin and Elaine beamed as they described how envious their classmates were.
Comparing those two television experiences tells a story about Ireland at that time.
The adult audience of The Late Late Show was stunned, bemused, and even appalled at the lack of obvious talent displayed by Boyzone that November night.
Regularly attracting audiences of 750,000 plus at that time, being on The Late Late was a big thing. You had to earn your spot on the nation’s most important platform.
As Gay himself pointed out, though, these lads had no measurable talent to offer the audience that night.
They had broken the unwritten rule.
But on Echo Island, there was no such scepticism. Siobhán, Lin and Elaine just thought the lads were gorgeous, funny and relatable.
And who understood that invisible, magical contract made between an artist and their fans?
Louis Walsh.
Walsh started in showbusiness as a junior runner, making tea and sorting post for Red Hurley before moving up in the showband circuit.
As he ascended the ranks, he met Johnny Logan and convinced him to sing at the 1980 Eurovision Song Contest.
Logan won, and Walsh’s reputation was cemented.
Looking across to the UK, Walsh was inspired by Take That, who had formed in 1990, and decided that Ireland was ready for a manufactured pop band.
In November 1993, he put an ad in the paper looking for young men to audition for a boyband.
Three hundred hopefuls turned up at the Ormonde Hotel in Dublin city centre, including a 16-year-old Ronan Keating, local Sheriff Street boy Stephen Gately, Raheny’s Keith Duffy, and trainee mechanic Shane Lynch, along with Richard Rock and Mark Walton.
Within days he got them a coveted spot on The Late Late Show.
This is where the documentary series Boyzone: No Matter What kicks off its story.
Commissioned by Sky Documentaries and made by Curiosity Films, with Ronan Keating on board as co-producer, the series aims to give an honest and unvarnished account of the boyband’s story.
It covers the highs and lows, the splits, the tabloid pressures in the 1990s, the successes and the impact of the tragic death of bandmate Stephen Gately in 2009.
It includes never-before-seen archive footage, emotional interviews, and reflections from those close to Gately, including his sister Michelle.
It tells the story chronologically and reminds viewers of the band’s remarkable success.
The group scored nine number-one singles in Ireland, and six in the UK, and sold over 25 million singles, filling arenas across the world for years.
Five Talking Points from Boyzone: No Matter What
The Boss – Louis Walsh
On The Late Late Show that night in 1993, six members of the band performed: Ronan Keating, Stephen Gately, Keith Duffy, Shane Lynch, Mark Walton and Richard Rock.
However, behind the scenes, the lineup was still evolving.
In Boyzone: No Matter What, Lynch explains the power that Walsh held over them.
"Louis didn’t like the lineup visually, so those other two guys - he just decided they didn’t fit in the group, so they were out."
So, shortly after their Late Late Show debut, Rock and Walton were dropped. Mikey Graham was then drafted in, and the band became five.
Keating explains the effect it had.
"Holy s***, he could get rid of any of us at any time, so you had to work ten times harder to keep your position in the band."
Walsh is unapologetic, he says: "I had to make sure they were hungry and they were ambitious. They could take nothing for granted."
This exchange highlights the invisible contract between Walsh and the five lads that drove them to achieve remarkable success but also led to darker, more turbulent times.
The different ways the band members were treated was a sore spot from the outset.
Gately and Keating were marked out as favourites due to their vocal skills, while Lynch and Duffy were relegated to the back row.
In one telling sequence, Duffy recalls how Walsh told them he was only paying for Gately, Keating and Graham to fly to London to record vocals, leaving the other pair behind as they were not required in the studio.
Such was Duffy’s devastation that his parents paid for him and Lynch to fly over so they could be around the recording session.
For Graham, things got difficult early on. He took a break to write some potential music for the band and when he returned, he was devastated to learn that the album had already been recorded - without his vocals.
"That hurt," Graham says.
"That really hurt."
He says it was only the responsibility of having to provide for his young daughter that compelled him to stay; otherwise, he was tempted to walk.
When asked about Graham’s isolation, Walsh says: "I probably ignored him, not realising - I thought he was happy being at the back."
For Lynch, his view on Walsh is: "He promised us the sun, moon, and stars, and he gave them to us."
But there were many bumps and drops along the way.
The Tabloids and Press Intrusion
The series details the toll of life in a boyband - the endless grind, the press intrusion, and obsessive fans.
Walsh was a master PR man.
He says: "I made up stories all the time to get the boys into the papers. My job was to promote them, and I managed to get them in tabloids at least twice a week for years."
One of the most painful moments in the documentary is the retelling of how Gately was forced to publicly come out as gay. For years the band and their management kept his sexuality a closely guarded secret.
But, in 1999, The Sun newspaper obtained evidence of Gately's relationship with his then-boyfriend. Rather than let the tabloids control the narrative, a deal was struck - Gately would give an 'exclusive' interview in which he would publicly come out.
The front page the next day read: "Boyzone Stephen: I'm Gay and I’m in Love."
Keating, Walsh, and Stephen’s sister Michelle are shown that front page.
Keating is angry, saying: "He had no choice - it was not a choice."
Gately’s sister Michelle gets visibly upset as she recalls the pressure he was under.
Walsh’s reaction, however, has raised eyebrows.
When shown the newspaper, he remarks: "It’s a great picture of him… he got the front page."
Walsh insists that he was trying to "protect Stephen Gately all along" but reckoned it was going to come out anyway and, in the end, being public "might make him happier".
The band firmly rejects this theory.
Splits, Reunions and Solo Careers
When Take That suddenly split in 1996, Lynch recalled: "It was like we won the Super Bowl - the fans were going to need somewhere to go." And he was proven right.
That year was significant for Boyzone, with a major high point being their performance at Wembley to thousands of screaming fans.
Commercially, they could do no wrong. As Keating says: "Everything we did worked."
Their version of Words elevated them to a new level of pop stardom, and the experience is described as "absolute fame with no media training."
The documentary then explores the shock within the band in 1998 when Keating suddenly announced that they were "taking a break" so he could pursue other opportunities.
For Duffy, the news came as a complete surprise. "I think it was more of a shock to me than anybody else… I remember thinking, I'm 26 years of age, I’m a pop star, and I’m loving this."
However, Keating insists he was very clear about his decision at the time, explaining, "Nobody wanted to break up… but everyone wanted a break."
The band officially split in 1999, and that summer, Keating had a smash solo hit with his version of When You Say Nothing at All from the Notting Hill soundtrack.
The documentary charts his mixed experiences as a solo artist in the years that followed and how his relationship with Walsh ruptured over time. Keating believes Walsh ultimately did not understand or support him as an artist.
Then, in 2007, he reunited with the lads for the first Boyzone reunion.
Over the following years, the series explores how the band came together and split again, how they argued and fell out with each other, and how they finally reformed for their official farewell tour in 2019. The band members speak candidly about these chapters in their stories.
Stephen Gately’s Tragic Death
Gately’s sudden death in 2009, at just 33 years old, was a devastating blow to both his family and the band. It was immediately followed by vicious rumours about the possible cause of his passing.
Michelle Gately says the media intrusion became so intense that, one night, her mother woke up to find photographers in her bedroom - they had broken into the house.
The band speak movingly about that time, recalling how they kept a vigil in the church the night before the funeral.
The programme’s archive footage of Dubliners coming to a standstill as Gately’s coffin was carried through the city centre is very moving.
The cause of Stephen Gately’s death was later confirmed as natural causes, due to an undetected heart defect.
The Lonely Limelight
As reviews for the documentary pour in, viewers have been struck by the honesty of the interviews and the sadness in many of the contributions. There is evident resentment towards Walsh, who is described as a puppeteer.
Keating claims that Walsh knew exactly "how to hurt me… and said vicious, nasty things."
For his part, Walsh defends himself, saying the band "believed their own publicity" but "forgot I wrote it."
Throughout the series, much of the blame is laid at Walsh’s door for his management decisions. However, it is clear that there was a clash of ideals at times. The young boyband members were full of dreams, but for everyone they encountered in the industry, this was a business - and money mattered.
There is also deep reflection on the pressures of being thrust into pop stardom. Lynch describes it as "mad… coming from humble beginnings to flying private jets." The limelight, as the band members reveal, was often a lonely place to be.
For viewers, while the documentary is sympathetic to their experiences, it is also fair to ask: without Lois Walsh and the band, where would any of the remaining four members have ended up? They were lucky and they got to experience an extraordinary adventure.
While the documentary tells the story of the Irish boyband that broke all the rules, it also offers a striking depiction of a changing Ireland.
And it celebrates the legacy of Stephen Gately - the young boy from Sheriff Street who made it to the top.
Boyzone: No Matter What is coming to Sky Documentaries and NOW this Sunday, 2 February.
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