Hometown

What do you do when your record-breaking boy band retires in a blaze of glory after 14 years ruling the Charts? Well if you’re Louis Walsh, you start all over again.

Westlife and the X Factor judge together accumulated an incredible 14 UK number-one singles, sold over 11 million albums and 6.8 million singles in the UK alone.

Now the pop Svengali is at it again – this time with HomeTown, a six piece vocal group made up of singers from the four corners of Ireland.

‘I have that same excited feeling that I had when Westlife started,’ he says. ‘These boys have the talent and the drive and the rest will come. I believe in them as a group and I am confident that there is a gap in the market for them. They are six young, talented Irish boys and I think they will have the same sort of career as Westlife and can be the next Take That’.

The HomeTown sextet of Brendan, Cian, Dayl, Dean, Josh and Ryan has already been making waves in Ireland. Their debut single ‘Where I Belong’ became the fastest-selling single from a debut artist and the quickest selling single from an Irish artist in 2014. The single, penned by Irish chart toppers Kodaline, managed to beat Ed Sheeran and One Direction to the number one spot, a feat that is a source of great pride for the group.

Over the past twelve months, they have grown as a group, supporting Shane Filan on his Irish tour and playing to a 14,000 capacity crowd at the annual Childline concert in Dublin’s 3Arena.

This will be an extra special show for one certain member of the band, Cian Morrin. Cian is a born and bred Castlebar man, and this will be his first ‘hometown’ show since joining the band. After being eliminated from the X Factor three years ago, he believed his chance of chart success had passed him by. He was training to be a national schoolteacher but dropped out when he got the call from Louis Walsh. ‘I was on the X Factor in 2012 and I made it to Bootcamp but then got knocked out’, he says. ‘It is a cruel machine and I was 17 and quite naive about the whole thing, but I learned a lot form that experience. I gave everything up when I got into the band. For me my goal is to sell out a tour in Ireland and the UK by next year.’

The boy’s second single Cry For Help is due for release on March 27 in Ireland and is an upbeat pop anthem with an earworm chorus.