12:13pm Wednesday 1st April 2009
RONAN Keating’s just got back from trekking up Mount Kilimanjaro, but he’s already on to a new project and planning the next.
“I’m never normally as busy as this,” he says, half-smiling, half-pained.
As well as helping to raise more than £1.5million for Comic Relief by walking up Africa’s highest mountain, Ronan is also releasing a solo album, co-writing Boyzone’s next album and gearing up for their forthcoming UK arena tour.
Easter weekend will see him flying Down Under to promote Songs For My Mother, released in memory of his late mum Marie, in New Zealand and Australia.
As we chat though, the aches and pains he picked up in Tanzania are the first things on his mind.
“I’m happy it’s over,” he says. “I’m wrecked, absolutely exhausted. I’ve never been as tired in my life. I feel like a zombie.
“I keep myself very fit, but nothing could prepare you for that, and the mental challenge too. The altitude, man. . . The pressure on your head and the nosebleeds. It’s heavy duty.
“I took a sat-phone with me. There was always a queue of people behind me waiting to use it – Mr Barlow and Mrs Cole being the worst offenders,” he adds, referring to the Take That and Girls Aloud figureheads.
“Gary’s a good mate of mine. He rang in the summer and said he was putting this climb together, and did I want to be involved. And no, we didn’t spend our time going up there arguing about boy bands!”
As well as having been a supporter of Comic Relief for some time – Boyzone had a No 1 with the official Red Nose Day single in 1999, for example – Ronan and his family set up a charity of their own after Ronan’s mum Marie died from breast cancer in 1998.
Since then, the Keatings have helped raised more than £6m for the fund, which aims to give women the best possible chance of beating breast cancer.
Ronan’s latest solo effort, Songs For My Mother, is a tribute to Marie and was recorded in two days last December.
The album, which consists of covers of her favourite songs and one or two that remind the family of her, is understandably very close to Ronan’s heart.
“It is a personal album, of course, but at the same time I feel proud that I can talk about her like this and be strong about it,” he says.
“There are songs on the album for everyone’s mother, that’s the idea. Songs are so varied that people will be able to find different things in the album that they can relate to.”
As any musician will tell you, recording an album of ten songs in two days is no mean feat, especially considering as the Dublin native was backed by a live orchestra.
“We did a lot of stuff in just a couple of takes, yeah, but some were really tough,” he explains. “Carrickfergus, for example. I had a large emotional attachment to that – it’s an old traditional song that’s been around forever and it’s the song we sang at me mam’s funeral.
“That was really tough to sing – I had to do the takes a few times there,” he says. He broke down in the vocal booth while recording another track, Mama’s Arms, which tells the story of a young son and his mother's death.
Harrowing as it may have been, Ronan insists he had a lot of fun recording the album, especially his version of Suspicious Minds.
“It’s hard not to fall into an Elvis impression doing that,” he says. “The arm starts going and you’re off.”
Ronan’s involvement with his family’s charity is very hands on. He and his family have input into the day-to-day running of the foundation, and he can reel off facts and figures, cancer statistics and survival rates with ease.
“We teamed up with Cancer Research UK four years ago, and we’ve had three Emeralds And Ivy Balls, which have been amazing successes every year, full of celebrities. We raised £600,000 at last year’s event,” he says with glee.
“We have these units that go out on the road, four in the UK and three in Ireland. People come on board, speak to an oncology nurse, find out more about cancer, how to check themselves, and what to do if they do find anything.
“It’s all about early detection with cancer. We’re about to launch in Germany, and in Australia. It’s a basic programme, but it’s obviously effective and people get it.
“I feel very proud that we’ve achieved it as a family, and as a charity. We’ve a long way to go, but there has been a six per cent increase in the survival rate of breast cancer in Ireland, which is a huge movement, a very positive one, and it's amazing that we're attached to that.”
–Andy Welch
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