We partied all night with Liam Gallagher – but his very un-rock n roll demands left us stunned, says 90s boyband Five
WHEN Five launched onto the music scene in 1997, covered in tattoos, piercings and spiky haircuts, they told us they were “five bad boys with the power to rock you”.
Put together by the same team behind the Spice Girls, then-teenagers Sean Conlon, Ritchie Neville, Scott Robinson, Abz Love and Jason "J" Brown were the antithesis of the clean-cut boy bands we’d become accustomed to, like Boyzone, Backstreet Boys and NSYNC.
The band spent the late 90s and early Noughties drinking, partying, fighting and dating celebrities.
And that was all while having huge global success with three Top 10 albums and 11 Top 10 singles, including two Number One hits - Keep On Movin’ and We Will Rock You, with Queen.
Now, Five are back together - well, three of them - and their first album in 20 years, Time, came out on Friday.
In an exclusive chat with The Sun, Scott, 42, Ritchie, 42, and 40-year-old Sean reveal just how rock n’ roll they used to be.
From chucking TVs out of hotel rooms and making absurd demands for beer specifically from foreign countries, to playing children's game Bop It! with a drunk Liam Gallagher, life as a teen pin-up was far from dull.
“It's a recipe for disaster when you've got 17 and 18-year-olds turning up to industry events,” laughs Ritchie.
“There'd be a bar with free glasses of wine and you've got a lot of stress in your life and you're really working hard, so you're just necking wines, and before you know it, you're in the papers doing something really weird, thinking, ‘I don't remember doing that!’
“We definitely chucked a TV out the window of a hotel just to try it - we had delusions of being rock stars!”
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Scott adds that the boys used to see how far they could push the boundaries when it came to their riders and making diva demands.
“I remember once we were in Germany and I said to the boys, ‘I'm going to see if they'll get me Stella [Artois], but I want it from Belgium.’ he tells us.
“In Belgium, they've got gold tops, not silver top, on their cans, so I said, ‘If it ain't a gold top, I'm going to go mad,’ but I was joking!
“Sure enough, when we turned up to the dressing room, there were 24 pint cans of Stella with gold tops from Belgium.”
“The power!” he adds with a chuckle.
We definitely chucked a TV out the window of a hotel just to try it - we had delusions of being rock stars
Ritchie Neville, Five
“Now we're lucky if we get Stella from the off-licence!” chimes in Sean.
But their biggest prima donna moment came in 2001, when they were due to perform at the festival Rock In Rio, on a lineup alongside the likes of Britney Spears, Guns ‘N’ Roses and Oasis.
The boys were due to be doing “back-to-back” interviews with the world’s media ahead of their performance in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil - but had been worn out by “four years of hardcore work with no days off”.
“On the flight over, one of us said, ‘Should we just tell them we're not doing the press and just chill on the beach and get drunk for days and then do the show?’” Ritchie recalls. “So we did - and our management went mad!”
Boozing with Liam Gallagher
Instead, the boyband ended up getting drunk with Liam Gallagher, 49 - his brother Noel apparently “wasn’t interested”.
“He thought he was too cool for us and he didn't care,” Scott adds.
He recalls going up to the roof bar of the five-star hotel they were staying in with Liam, and every time a plane flew over, the Oasis star would sing the chorus of his hit (What’s The Story) Morning Glory?
Liam then invited them all back to his room for a few more drinks - but “this is where it gets less rock and roll,” says Scott.
Far from the drug-fuelled, rock star scenes one would imagine of Oasis, Liam, Sean, Rich, Scott and his wife Kerry - who he’s been married to since 2001 - ended up playing the kids’ game Bop It! together.
You haven't lived unless you've played Bop It with Liam Gallagher
Ritchie Neville, 5ive
Scott remembers: “Liam was like, ‘Get on this lads, this game is absolutely legendary!’ And we're standing in a circle playing Bop It with Liam Gallagher and he's getting so annoyed that he's not winning.”
“You haven't lived unless you've played Bop It with Liam Gallagher!” adds Ritchie.
Scott also tells us how Liam was “so drunk” that he was sitting on the floor, singing the wrong words to Coldplay’s Yellow.
He then played them an Oasis album, and when any song written by him came on, he’d shout, “Check this one out lads, this is legendary!” Whereas when a song written by Noel came on, he’d groan “This one’s s***te!”
Jamming with Queen
While that’s a starry story, the boys say the pinnacle of their career was performing with Brian May and Roger Taylor, taking Queen’s hit We Will Rock You to number one.
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In fact, Ritchie says “jamming with Queen” was the best moment of his life - bar the birth of his seven-year-old daughter Ella-Rose, who he shares with Atomic Kitten’s Natasha Hamilton.
“We were rehearsing round at Roger Taylor's house for the song,” he tells us. “We called a break and the rest of the boys had gone off to get a drink. I was stood around, and still had the mic in my hand.
“Brian walked over to Roger’s stool behind the drums and they were having a quiet little chat. I just sang the opening line to Hey Joe by Jimi Hendrix and Brian's ears pricked up.
“He knows it, so he started playing. And then Roger picked up the sticks and joined us. That was so cool.”
'Rude' to Meat Loaf
Another big name Five crossed paths with was the late Meat Loaf - although Scott didn’t leave the best impression on him when he presented him with the award for Best Haircut at the now-defunct Smash Hits Poll Winners Party.
Scott, who proudly shows us his gongs from 1998 and 1999, recalls: “Meat Loaf is obviously an absolute legend, and I'm just a guy from Five and I was 18 years old, going up onstage to pick up this award, giving it the Big I Am, like I must’ve thought I was at the time.
“He puts his arm around me to congratulate me and I don't even look at him and go, ‘I'd like to thank my fans and my hairdresser,’ and I walk off the stage and he's trying to talk to me and I'm away with the fairies because I've won this award - which wasn't exactly like it was an Emmy or anything.”
Luckily, Scott got to apologise to Meat Loaf years later, when he and Ritchie did a sketch with the legendary singer, and one of them had to say to him, “Come on Meat, use your Loaf!”
But Scott is still “gutted” he acted so arrogant the first time he met him.
Snubbed by former bandmates
It was 2001 when Five originally split up, after Sean suddenly quit and left the four remaining members to use a cardboard cut-out version of him in their Let’s Dance music video and on tour.
They all got back together - except for Jay, who decided he no longer wanted to be in the public eye - for The Big Reunion in 2012, along with Blue, 911, Atomic Kitten, B*Witched, Honeyz and Liberty X.
They even went on to headline their own tour, the Five Greatest Hits Tour, in 2013.
But, in August 2014, Abz announced his departure from the band via a tweet, leaving Scott, Sean and Ritchie to continue as a trio.
When asked if they still speak to either Jay or Abz, there’s silence from all three, followed by a definitive “no”.
Ritchie adds: “We don't really have any contact at all. We've tried a few times but it's just no contact.
“It's just how it is. We wish them well.”
We don't really have any contact at all. We've tried a few times but it's just no contact, it's just how it is
Ritchie Neville, Five
The fact there are just three members left in a band called Five isn’t lost on them.
It’s actually a big part of the reason they’ve all been worried about releasing new music and touring together.
Sean confesses: “When one one of us was feeling confident, another one of us would say, ‘No, there's only three of us in a band called Five, it's a bit cringe.’ And being compared to that 20 years on, is there any point?”
Being stuck in lockdown is what finally made the three of them get back in the studio and start making music.
As Scott puts it, “It was better than drinking beer and making TikToks!”
Family affair
Now all grown-up, Scott, Sean and Ritchie are all fathers.
Sean has an eight-year-old daughter, whose name he hasn’t disclosed, Ritchie has Lola-Rose and Scott has four kids, Brennan, 20, Kavan, 15, and eight-year-old twins Bobbi-Rayne and Kaydi-Rose.
But as they prepare to go on their postponed tour around Australia and the UK later this year, they’re adamant it’s not all slippers and cups of tea backstage.
“Don't you worry, there's still rum on the rider!” laughs Scott.
“Obviously we still go out and have a few drinks before the show. But it is really nice for the kids to see what we do. My older ones look more embarrassed. But the twins are pretty proud!”
It's really nice for the kids to see what we do. My older ones look more embarrassed. But the twins are pretty proud... but don't worry, there's still rum on the rider
Scott Robinson, 5ive
And all three of the boys admit they find it “mind-blowing” that they’re still going all these years on.
“In the 90s, when we brought out the music the first time around, the record labels and managers all thought the genre of music was quite bad,” laughs Sean.
“I don't think anybody thought it had any longevity. I think it's a surprise to everybody just how long that era has lasted.
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“But I think, especially in these times, with negativity, mental health issues and COVID, our genre is a good remedy. It's uplifting, it's positive.”
Scott finishes: “We're doing what we're doing and loving every minute. I've never been happy to be a member of Five, the way everything is going now, bringing out new music and being onstage with these two - even if they annoy me at times!”
