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I was a fairly good amateur musician, and I was an average professional. But the one thing I saw was that the big band business was fading. So I made an economic decision, and it turned out the best judgment I ever made in my life.

I loved being a rock and roll star, but it wasn't what I wanted in life.

Rock 'n' roll offered me a platform to speak what I felt. It also offered me a platform to support my mama and my brothers and sisters - twelve children.

We had a really vast music collection and I was raised around rock'n'roll, it's just the way it was.

The only thing that was economic, I might say, about my music career, aside from the fact that I did everybody's tax returns in the band, was the decision I made to leave the music business on economic grounds.

I joined a band because I didn't like school, and there's nothing else I'd rather have done. If I really wanted to make money, I'd be in real estate. But I'm rich enough. I have a son and daughter, a lovely home, and if I see something I like, I can buy it. That's rich enough.

Obviously the people that I admired, like the Beatles, were really into rock'n'roll, but it was already a little past rock'n'roll when I started listening and making my own choices about music.

I didn't plan on rock-n-roll. I wanted to learn jazz; I got to know some people doing rock-n-roll with jazz, and I thought I could make some money playing music.

The couple of years before I was declared bankrupt were the roughest. The bank letters, the pressure, the stress was awful. You're in this twilight zone of not knowing where your life is going, and yet you're in Westlife. Everything was great with the band. I was earning money, and it looked good.

The best decision I ever made, period, was to get into the music business.