Boyzone to release album in tribute of gay co-star Stephen Gately
Boyzone will release an new album in tribute to Stephen Gately who died suddenly while on the island of Mallorca (Majorca) in the villa he shared with civil partner Andrew Coles.
Speaking to Sky News Ronan said: “When we’re together we feel Stephen’s here, so as much as possible we feel the four of us want to be together.
“We just want to really get our teeth into this album, get moving on it and get it made.”
Adding: “We have decided that what we do now is we’re going to make the next album for Stephen, we want to stick together because we find comfort in being together at the moment.”
“We have a couple of songs with Stephen’s vocal on it so that’s a saving grace.
“Thank God we have that, that’s very important to all of us and we know the fans would really appreciate that too.”
Keating said that he and fellow band mates Keith Duffy, Mikey Graham and Shane Lynch -Keating aimed to “keep his memory alive when the four of us perform, if we can do that. We don’t know that we can but we’ll try.”
Lynch told Sky News: “He loved being an entertainer. He loved this industry. That’s what he was born to do and the fact that Boyzone were coming together for an album was just his world, it really was his world.
Gately rose to fame in the Irish boy band Boyzone where they achieved six UK number ones and sold over ten million albums. He became one of the first teenage pin-ups to come out as gay in 1999.
Although pulmonary oedema was found to be the cause of his death, it is not yet clear why this developed. He was buried in an emotional funeral in Dublin a fortnight ago.
Before the funeral, Daily Mail columnist Jan Moir following an article that insinuated that the death of Stephen Gately was not “natural.”
Adding: “Healthy and fit 33-year-old men do not just climb into their pyjamas and go to sleep on the sofa, never to wake up again. Whatever the cause of death is, it is not, by any yardstick, a natural one.”
The article provoked more than 21,000 compliant to the Press Complaints Commission and was reported to the Metropolitan Police for investigation.
