Louis Walsh talks Girls Aloud reunion, One Direction and X Factor

Louis Walsh spoke exclusively to Ladbrokes: LIVE about the recent Girls Aloud reunion, the prospect of One Direction reforming and dishes the dirt on X Factor.

I was too busy with Westlife to give Girls Aloud attention

I inherited Girls Aloud from Popstars: The Rivals, and the public picked them to go all the way on that show. Look, they had some brilliant songs, their songs are fantastic and they looked great. I was too busy with Westlife to give them attention, to be honest. But they did fantastic. They should have been a worldwide success really, because their songs just worked anywhere, but they were only really successful in the UK.

Everything about them was great, and, of course, I got Nadine [Coyle] to audition for the group. She had been on Irish Popstars, where she lied about her age, and all of that stuff. So I called her up, and she didn’t actually want to do it, you know? But she had such a good look, and such a great voice…I couldn’t imagine the band without her.

Of course, Sarah [Harding] is a great loss. It’s been two years since she passed away. Lovely girl, she was really nice, wild and funny. She always had a great look and carried this fantastic energy, and she just looked perfect on stage – that was her life. She loved being on stage, and the group are really going to miss that. But, look, I think the tour is going to do really well. I think it’s going to sell out and it’ll be fantastic for them. They deserve a second chance at it, you know?

If Kylie can play Glastonbury, then surely Girls Aloud can do it

Am I expecting any surprises on that stage? No, I don’t think so. I think people just want to hear their songs, and they’ve had an awful lot of hit songs over the years.

If Kylie can play Glastonbury, then surely Girls Aloud can do it. Absolutely. They have the songs, don’t forget. They have enough songs for a great show. People love them; they’re part of a generation’s childhood, and they still look amazing – they still look the same! Sound of the Underground was a great song. The Promise, Love Machine, there are so many! I asked them to do I Think We’re Alone Now, I pushed that on them, and I thought it should have been much bigger. And, of course, they had the Chrissie Hynde song, that was one of their biggest. People forget how many great songs they have, and that tour really is going to be fantastic. I think they’ll enjoy it even more now, too.

I don’t have a relationship with Cheryl, I don’t bother. I haven’t seen her and haven’t heard from her. But she is a nice girl, she is talented, and I do think she should be making more music, to be honest. I really do.

The Saturdays comeback?

Una Healy does a lot of TV over here, and I think she does a lot of country music now, because her uncle is a country artist here. I think she should stay doing the TV, radio and fashion stuff, rather than come back with The Saturdays.

Harry Styles is bigger than the band, he doesn’t need a reunion

I don’t keep in touch with any of the guys from One Direction. They were great for the show, and Simon [Cowell] very much made them what they were. They were very raw at the start, but he made them good, and he gave them great songs. He gave them a lot of time, and then he signed them to his label.

It’s all about the songs, and they had great songs after the show. It’s the same reason why Take That and Westlife are still as big as they are today; it’s the songs.

They’ve come so far from their first live performance. That’s down to confidence. Nobody is good at the start. Look at The Beatles in Hamburg at the start of their careers, playing all night, every night. You have to work at it. Look at the early Boyzone clips. You have to build confidence; you’re given great songs and then you become showmen. That’s what happened with One Direction.

Harry [Styles] was always going to be a pop star. He doesn’t need a reunion. He’s a star in his own right. He’s bigger than the band ever were. I’m surprised Zayn [Malik] hasn’t brought out more music, because I thought he was very talented. Maybe in time we’ll see them get back together, but I don’t see it. I wouldn’t recommend it, actually. Harry Styles doesn’t need it. It’s like how George Michael didn’t need Wham!, Robbie [Williams] didn’t need Take That. They might just do it for a TV show or a charity event, or something like that. But that’ll be it.

If I could only go and see one of the boys perform now, it would be Harry or Zayn. Harry is a pop star. But Zayn’s first song was so good, and he has the potential to do it all over again and be a huge success. He ticks a lot of boxes. He should make more music.

Niall [Horan] is a great worker. I put him through in Ireland and Simon would joke with me, and the fact that I was going to put everyone through in Ireland. But I really liked Niall. I wanted to give him a chance and he took it, and he worked really hard. He’s a worker. That’s why he’ll always do well.

The Voice hasn’t made a dent in the music industry

The Voice is boring. It just doesn’t seem to make any dent in the music industry. It’s not that the talent isn’t there; it’s definitely there. People just don’t care about the show. I don’t understand it. It just doesn’t mean anything. It hasn’t launched any stars, no hits, nothing.

They’ve got people like Tom Jones on the show, great artists, but nothing seems to work for it. You need to see the acts more regularly, as an audience. That’s what we had with X Factor. You need to see them doing different songs, different themes. The more you see them on your screen, the more you get to know their personalities, and the more invested you’re going to be in them on the show.

We used to vote for our own acts, absolutely!

Simon [Cowell] used to always give me the worst category. Every year he’d give me the category with the worst acts, or the funny acts, and every year I’d think ‘he’s got to give me something good here’ but he never would. We never knew until we walked through that door, you know, who we’d got. That was the strange thing about it. People thought it was all a set-up, but we knew nothing. He did, but he never used to tell me or Sharon [Osbourne] a thing.

I had Shayne Ward for Series Two. He was good, and I worked really hard with him because I knew I had a chance of winning. I got him a great song for the final. I knew that as long as I got him in the final, there was no way he was going to be beaten, because I’d got him Somewhere Over The Rainbow. Simon couldn’t stop us, then.

It was all real. We were all really working to win.

We’d have big campaigns to get votes, absolutely. If we really believed in one of our acts, we’d do everything we could to try to keep them in the competition. I used to vote for my own acts, absolutely! We would vote for the people we were very invested in, absolutely! I don’t remember how much it used to cost us, but if we were invested, and we really wanted to win, we would do whatever it took.

X Factor return would only work for me with Simon and Sharon

Every day with him [Simon Cowell] was funny. It was always interesting. He never sat back, either; he was always looking at ways of improving things.

It should come back, but everyone wants to be woke now, and everyone wants to be PC. You know, we wouldn’t be able to tell people what we think of them now. What made that show great was that it was honest, it was real, these people wanted to be famous, and we were the ones who were going to tell them yes or no. You wouldn’t get away with it now. You wouldn’t get away with laughing at people. But that’s real life.

It was always a brutal show for its honesty, but it’s a very tough business that we’re in. The longer the show went on, the more people would come on and they’d try and do what they thought we wanted, when we just wanted them to be themselves. We never knew who was going to be walking through the door next, whether they were going to be good or bad or ugly.

Would I want to be involved if they brought it back? I would like to be involved if it was me, Simon and Sharon. That’s it. Absolutely. I wouldn’t mind guest judges here and there. I think that kind of worked. But the three of us just clicked for some reason, even though Simon and Sharon didn’t really speak that much outside of the show.

But that was what made the show so good in itself. She had her own opinions, and she certainly wasn’t going to change them for him.

My proudest moment on the show was getting the job in the first place – closely followed by Simon having to bring me back after sacking me!

It’s funny, when he got rid of me, I had a contract in place already so I knew I was going to get paid, but then Sharon tipped me off that things weren’t working, and that they were going to bring me back. I think they’d just done a couple of shows with Brian [Friedman], who was a great choreographer. But he just didn’t understand the English and Irish culture.

There was no crawling back from Simon, or anything like that. He just wanted what was best for the show, and that’s why he brought me back.