Ronan Keating
When Ronan Keating answered a newspaper advert to audition for a brandnew Irish boyband in 1993, he would have been hard pressed to believe that nearly 30 years later he would still be going strong. Singer, songwriter, broadcaster, TV presenter, actor, charity campaigner, loving husband and dedicated father… Ronan has never felt more inspired by life and his multifaceted career.
Ronan’s music career of course, started with Boyzone back in the early nineties. 2008 saw their first reunion after nearly a decade apart, for what was a spectacular comeback. After a sell-out 29-date tour, a Top 5 comeback single and a Number 1 Greatest Hits album, Boyzone re-affirmed their place in the pop charts and cemented this with another huge arena tour of the UK & Ireland. The boys were enjoying touring, being back together as a band and looking forward to recording their 4th studio album but on 10th October 2009 things changed forever with Stephen’s tragic and untimely death. For a while it seemed that maybe Boyzone could be no more but then Ronan, Keith, Shane and Mikey decided that Stephen would want them to carry on and indeed the album and subsequent tour they dedicated to their ‘Brother’. Released in March 2010 the ‘Brother’ album went straight to Number 1 in the UK and in Ireland and garnered the hit singles ‘Gave It All Away’ and ‘Love Is A Hurricane’. After much discussion and debate the remaining members of Boyzone toured the Brother album to sell out arenas in March 2011. In 2013 came a new record company and the ‘BZ20’ album and tour, with the anthemic hit single ‘Love will Save The Day’. In 2014 the Boyz were back with album ‘From Dublin to Detroit’, in which they revisited the great Motown catalogue, their first ever single in 1994 was the Spinners classic “Working My Way Back to You’ which was a hit on the Motown label in 1979. 2018 was the bands 25th anniversary and to mark the event the band released 7th, and final, studio album the Top 6 hit ‘Thank You & Goodnight’. The Boyzone story was then brought to a fitting end with the triumphant ‘Final Five’ sell-out shows at the iconic London Palladium in October 2019.
But from the end of Boyzone to the start; Ronan Keating was born in Dublin in 1977 the youngest of 5 children, he was only 17 when he won a place in a band being put together by Louis Walsh.
Ronan’s first taste of musical success came in November 1994 when he hit the top three for the very first time with Boyzone’s first hit ‘Love Me For A Reason’. Since then he’s not looked back. In those initial five years as part of one the biggest pop bands ever, he enjoyed success with an incredible 16 top five singles, six of which hit the number one spot. In August of 1999 he had his first ever solo number one with ‘When You Say Nothing At All’ from the hit movie ‘Notting Hill’.
In August of 2000 Ronan released his debut, self titled, album. It shot straight to number one in the UK Album Charts. It contained the two number one singles ‘When You Say Nothing At All’ (August 1999) and ‘Life Is A Rollercoaster’ (July 2000). It went on to sell a very impressive 4.4 million copies around the world and firmly established Ronan as an artist in his own right.
Solo album number two, ‘Destination’ (which includes the number one single ‘If Tomorrow Never Comes’), was released on the 20th of May 2002 and went straight to number one. To coincide with the release of ‘Destination’ Ronan kicked off a yearlong world tour starting with a sell-out Arena tour in the UK. Between May 2002 and May 2003 Ronan toured the UK, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, the Gulf, India and South East Asia.
In May 2003 the ‘Destination’ world tour came to an end and Ronan began writing and recording for his third studio album ‘Turn It On’ (released September 2003). In the same year Ronan was awarded with a prestigious BMI European song-writing award for his song ‘The Long Goodbye’, which enjoyed success in the US as a number one single in the Billboard country chart where it was covered by US country duo Brookes and Dunn.
2004 began for Ronan with ‘She Believes In Me’ charting at number two in the single charts and ‘Last thing On My Mind’ (a duet with US star Leann Rimes), hitting the top five. However, 2004 wasn’t just about music, in June that year Ronan made a visit that was to change his life - he visited Ghana on his first trip as a Fair-Trade ambassador for Christian Aid. Ronan spent a week visiting farmers and families across central Ghana to see first-hand how unfair trade laws are destroying livelihoods.
In August 2004 Polydor Records announced that they would release ‘Ronan Keating – 10 Years Of Hits’ to celebrate Ronan’s first decade in the music industry. The album went straight to number one and to date has sold nearly 2:5 million copies worldwide. This hits album saw Ronan get together with Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens) to record a version of ‘Father and Son’, which charted at number two on Christmas Day 2004 (losing out on the number one spot to Band Aid 20). The track has always been important to Ronan who had originally enjoyed success with it in 1995 when Boyzone released it as a single and it was the song, he sang at his Boyzone audition too.
In June 2006 came ‘Bring You Home’ which spawned the hit singles ‘All Over Again’ and ‘Iris’.
March 2009 had seen Ronan take a short break from his busy schedule with the reunited Boyzone, for the release of his special album to celebrate Mother’s Day, ‘Songs For My Mother’. A project especially close to Ronan’s heart, the album was a collection of songs that Ronan remembered his mother listening to when he was growing up; Mother’s Day being an especially poignant day for Ronan since the death of his mother Marie, in 1998. The album was a huge success both critically and commercially, giving Ronan his eighth Number 1 album in the UK, topping the charts for two consecutive weeks. The album also reached the top spot in Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. Ronan followed this up later that year with his 7th studio album, the critically acclaimed, ‘Winter Songs’. Released in November 2009, it again saw him teaming up with Steve Lipson to record 11 songs that evoke Christmas and Winter for Ronan.
In December 2010 Ronan received a call at home .. ‘Hello this is Burt’, that call was the start of what was to become his 8th studio album ‘When Ronan Met Burt’, which reached No 3 in the UK album chart. Recorded at the legendary Capitol Studios in early 2011 with a full 40 piece orchestra, with only 90 minutes to record each song, using Frank Sinatra’s old microphone and with Burt Bacharach himself producing. Ronan and Burt had together worked through Burt’s amazing catalogue of songs and finally decided on 10 beautiful tracks that Ronan was able to make his own.
February 2016 saw Ronan with a new label, Decca, and with a new album, his 10th studio album ‘Time Of My Life’ which saw Ronan taking on more writing than ever before. Inspired by his time on stage in ‘Once’, where playing the guitar daily re-kindled his love of song writing, Ronan worked closely with musician Dan Healy (whom he met during the Once run) and others to write most of the songs on the album.
Outside of music Ronan has always kept himself busy with other projects. Acting has started to feature more and more for Ronan, he debuted in Australian film ‘Goddess’, where he had his first lead role and then went on to prove his acting chops in a critically acclaimed run in the West End in ‘Once’ and 2017 saw Ronan in ‘Another Mothers Son’ a gripping true story set in the second world war in which Ronan was performing alongside Jenny Seagrove, John Hannah and Amanda Abbington.
2015 saw Ronan tie the knot with partner Storm in a beautiful ceremony overlooking the sea in Scotland with his children, friends and family in attendance and Ed Sheeran performing for their first dance. Then in 2017 they added to the family with the arrival of their son, Cooper.
In September 2017 Ronan joined Magic Radio to re-launch the Magic Breakfast show alongside co-host Harriet Scott. The show broadcasts across the UK to over 1.5 million people and as Ronan enters his fifth year his love for radio has never been stronger.
During the challenging lockdowns, 2020 saw the release of the studio album, ‘Twenty Twenty’, with Ronan celebrating his 20th year as a solo artist. Whilst his 9th UK Top 10 solo album would usually be the highlight of any year, that accolade was wonderfully overshadowed by the arrival of Ronan’s fifth child Coco Knox Keating.
After a year that deprived everyone from seeing nearest & dearest and others from returning to their homeland, Ronan inspired by the reality of the situation recorded ‘Songs From Home’, an album of songs from his Irish heritage. He tenderly takes on the U2 anthem ‘Where The Streets Have No Name’, duets beautifully with his wife Storm on ‘The Blower’s Daughter’ and reminds us of Paul Brady’s political folk song ‘The Island’ on a record that truly captures the spirit of the Emerald Isle.
As the shadow of the pandemic followed us into 2021, Ronan called on his extensive TV presenting talents as he joined the BBC’s prime time entertainment show ‘The One Show’, as co-host and also took a familiar seat in a revolving red leather chair as he joined the judging panel on ITV’s ‘The Voice Kids’.
Charity work has always featured largely in his schedule. Ronan has run the London Marathon twice and climbed Kilimanjaro in aid of Comic Relief. In September 2011 Ronan and a team took part in The Swim, they swam 56 miles across the Irish Sea in relay in an amazing 35 hours and 18 minutes, raising money for Cancer Research UK. Following the death of his mother in 1998, Ronan and his family set up the Marie Keating Foundation which now, in partnership with Cancer Research UK, raises huge amounts of money every year towards cancer education and research, in his mother’s memory. The charity funds mobile units that travel across Ireland and the UK promoting awareness of cancer and health issues, the units have received over 500,000 visitors. Fundraising for the charity has seen Ronan walk across Ireland twice and every year he hosts his Emeralds and Ivy Ball. Since it’s inception the Ball and Ronan have raised over a staggering £11 million pounds in the UK and 2019 saw the evening gala raise over one million pounds for the charity, making the Ball the biggest one-night fundraiser in all of Cancer Research UK’s calendar.
2023 will see Ronan continue waking up the nation for breakfast each weekday morning and joining them on the TV sofa in the evening’s but he’ll also be back on the road doing what he loves best… singing live!
