Blowing through the country for the Dancing With the Stars final, Irish pop star Ronan Keating talked to Joanna Hunkin about his Mother's Day album, and putting his old boy band back together
You could hear the collective confusion. As Jason Gunn announced the upcoming guest on Tuesday night's Dancing With the Stars final, one Mr Ronan Keating, the nation simultaneously stopped, cocked their heads to one side and went, "What the ... ?"
It's not quite a million-dollar question - we all know TVNZ doesn't have that kind of cash these days - but it was certainly one worth asking.
Just what was Keating - a man who holds the world record for the most consecutive top 10 singles (30 in Britain) and has sold more than 22 million albums - doing on New Zealand's Dancing With the Stars? Surely times aren't that tough?
Keating laughs when presented with this question. And over the course of a long lunch (during which he let the Irish side down and didn't order potatoes - but did drink two rather large glasses of pinot noir) he answers it. In several parts.
His official answer and initial response to the question is simple. Exposure. He has a new album out, Songs for My Mother. This was a chance to promote it.
"I know how big these finals are, these Dancing With the Stars-type shows. This record was out anyway. I brought it out for Mother's Day in the UK, March 22, and if I didn't use this time, the record wouldn't have another life really. This was the time to do it. So I thought, 'Let's do it, what the hell'.
"It was a brilliant feeling though, it was lovely. People were genuinely excited about me being there, which on a night like that, where the final is the most important thing and who's going to win, to feel like you're an important part of that is a very nice thing."
It may not be the pinnacle of Keating's career, which began when he was just 16 and signed on to the Irish boy band Boyzone, but Keating has no delusions about who or what he is. And admits he's not above plugging himself to the mothers of the nation.
Although he does say, with ever-so-slight a smirk, that he will not be signing up to dance in the competition, now or in the future.
"I don't do those sorts of things. It's not my bag. I climbed Kilimanjaro in February with the Comic Relief team and we filmed it for an hour-long special. That's probably as close to a reality-TV show as I'll ever get. I couldn't bring myself to do one of those shows."
But back to the question at hand. Part two of the answer lies in Keating's work ethic. The man cannot sit still.
Scheduled to fly directly out of Wellington on Wednesday, he realised he had an afternoon free. So he changed his flights to stop by Auckland and fit in an extra interview.
"I'm a grafter. I get bored very quickly, I don't go on summer holidays and sit by the pool. I like work, I like being active. I don't like sitting back and watching the world go by."
It's one of the reasons, he jokes, he has so many children (Jack, 10, Missy, 8, Ali, 3). They keep him busy.
So 46 hours on a plane to make a five-day stop in Australia and a two-day trip to New Zealand wasn't a big deal. Even if it does come four days before he's set to run the London Marathon and begin six weeks of intense Boyzone rehearsals.
Which brings us to part three - and the final instalment of this saga - the reformation of Boyzone. As of last year, the boys are back together. And while details are still shady, there are plans to bring a world tour Downunder next year, following the release of a new Boyzone album at the end of the year.
So the appearance also served as a sort of refresher course for the New Zealand public, to remind them just who Keating was. And when the band announce their tour, we'll all think, "That's right - they're the ones with Ronan". Or something like that.
Keating split from the band, unofficially, in 2000, and didn't see, or even speak, to his bandmates again until 2007.
"I had absolutely decided I won't go back. I guess there was bit of falling out with the band, between some of us in the band. We didn't see eye-to-eye anymore. There was things said in the press afterwards that made that gap even bigger.
"It's a bit of a cliche but time is a great healer. As time went on I missed some of the things about being in the band and I missed some of the guys. When we spent time in a room together, I realised how much I missed them in my life. It took two years in total to get to a stage where we were ready: lose weight, get fit, all the things that it takes to be in a boy band again."
Band reformations are a dime a dozen these days, but Keating says Boyzone's move was not motivated by money. Unlike some others.
"The Spice Girls, they did it for out-and-out money. It was horrible, the whole thing was wrong. But Take That was an inspiration. I went to the show and thought, 'This is wonderful'. I forgot what it was like to be at a boy band gig."
And Keating has high hopes this time around will be even better than the first.
"We're older now and we don't take it as seriously as we used to. We all wanted to be Blur and Oasis the first time round. We were never going to be. But we never knew that, we fought with our boy band demons.
"Now we're older, it's fun to be in a boy band. Enjoy it. Take it for what it is - we're not going to change the world but we might entertain some people. We get it now."
LOWDOWN
Who: Ronan Keating
Born: March 3, 1977 in Dublin, Ireland.
What: Songs for My Mother - a collection of pop covers and traditional Irish songs inspired by his mother's own favourite songs - is out now.
In memory: The album is in memory of Keating's mother Marie, who died in 1998 from breast cancer. The following year, Keating established the Marie Keating Foundation, which will receive some of the profits from the album.
