Westlife

It all begins when Shane Filan, Kian Egan, Mark Feehily, Graham Keighron, Michael Garrett, and Derek Lacey formed a band called Six As One. Then they thought the name wasn't catchy enough and changed it to I.O.U, and released a song titled Together Girl Forever.

But things didn't go well for them, so one day Shane's mum phoned Louis Walsh, Boyzone's manager, and he agreed to manage the guys. Unfortunately only Shane, Mark, Michael and Kian were picked to stay in the group, while the others had to leave. Derek, because of his age, Graham, because he just 'wasn't right for the group', but he stayed to be the band's manager for a while.

Four lads in a group seemed uncomplete, so they went to Dublin and did an audition there, to try and get one more member. Meanwhile Nicky Byrne and Bryan McFadden met in a karaoke and decided to give the audition a try. There were some difficulties choosing between Nicky and Bryan, so Louis decided to take them both in. Unfortunately for Michael, he had to go.

Changing the name to Westside, these lads were already in their road to fame - they even became the support act of Backstreet Boys in one of their tours. But when they were just going to release their first single, Swear It Again, they had to change their name again, this time to Westlife. This was because there was already an American band called Westside. Ronan Keating became their co-manager then.

Westlife supported the Boyzone tour and did a small promo work themselves. Now they're well known by all the pop lovers out there with seven consecutive no. 1 singles (this achievement's recorded in the Guinness Book Of Record) in two years. All the best for Westlife - the lads deserved it!
~Thanks to www.filan.f2s.com for the info~