Ronan Keating says it best

                                                                                                  Photography: Ken Leanfore

13 December 2012

by Poppy Reid

"I didn’t want to tell stories of other people, I’m very adamant about that. I’ve hurt enough people. I didn’t want to hurt anyone else.”

Spring feels more like summer at a bar in Darling Harbour today, and in black jeans, shirt, waistcoat and jacket, Ronan Keating is dressed much warmer than Sydney requested. It’s only been a few days since the release of Fires, his first album in six years, but he’s wholly relaxed. Coming back from a hiatus whilst on the judging panel for X Factor Australia has provided an immediate soapbox, but perhaps it’s the safety net he found in recording a completely fictional pop album that sees him so at ease.

“There’s things I’ve been through in my life, situations in my personal life,” he trails off in that swift Dublin dialect. “So I just didn’t want to go there. I didn’t want to bring up old stories; I was the cause of these problems, so I don’t want to talk about that.”

At just 35-years-old, Keating has a musical and personal past that has given him enough fodder to record another Bring You Home, but it seems the divorce to his wife of thirteen years last year, was enough to have him re-evaluate his comeback.

“I didn’t know what I was doing,” he admits. “I was a bit lost, musically, I didn’t know where I wanted to go or what I wanted to do. After being in the industry so long you kind of question what’s next.”

Having sold 25 million records worldwide as a solo artist and 30 million alongside the recently reformed Boyzone, Keating shows artistic integrity in wanting a transformation. However, after his lowest charting record in Australia since 2005’s Turn It On (#25), moulding Fires (#12) on the type of pop topping recent charts may have backfired Down Under.

“It’s pop’s turn: girl bands, boy bands, Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, so it’s alive and well - we’re all riding that way. That’s why I felt it was the right time for this album.”

Keating explains his writing process as “flowing” – he wrote the track I’ve Got You in an hour and with the help of 23 songwriters including Shelly Poole (Janet Jackson, Massive Attack) and Rick Nowles (Lana Del Rey, Weezer), Fires was one of his most pleasant opuses to create. “It just felt good,” he smiles.

It wasn’t too long ago that Keating was as renowned for his philandering and infidelity as he was for his philanthropy and innocent serenades about love. Roguish media whispers created an image that, as a father of three, painted him in a cripplingly unflattering light.

“I think it was wholesome for a while. You don’t want to be one of these people who are in the press for negative reasons, I never wanted that.”

One constructive outcome of the past decade though, is Keating’s firm sense of self. Now dabbling successfully in film - his first project, Australian film Goddess, premieres in January - and with a Boyzone reunion tour in the works, Keating now boasts he is at peace with any self-appointed epithets.

“As a kid I battled with who I was, what I sounded like, the respect, the credibility as a boy band member,” he notes. “It’s just naivety, and immaturity. You grow up and realise it just doesn’t matter, that kind of rubbish.”

It’s clear that, although Fires is Keating’s first record with no autobiographical leanings, it has nothing to do with his musical morality. Protecting his loved ones is paramount and as he suggests, if you’re good enough, then it is enough.

“I think it comes down to the live performance. If you can make people believe it when you’re performing it live. I’ve always had a connection with that - it’s in the song.” It’s unlikely that any future releases will eclipse his 3x Platinum debut Ronan (2000), but you sense that for Keating, a man regaining his impeccable aplomb, making headlines for the right reasons - whether that be for his performances or whatever the mischievous tabloids choose to publish - is now right on the top of his list.

“It’s hard, you just want to live a good life, I have kids, and you’re leaving a legacy behind - you’re leaving a story. I want to leave them something good. I try my best.”