Louis Walsh's boyband to perform their entry to Ireland’s Eurosong tonight

A BOY BAND founded by Louis Walsh that features two local singers will perform their entry to Ireland’s Eurosong on The Late Late Show tonight.

Next In Line, a five piece boyband that includes Conor O’Farrell (22) from Curraha and Joshua Regala (18) from Navan were revealed as hopefuls to represent Ireland in this year's Eurovision Song Contest at the start of May in Malmö, Sweden earlier this month.

The five piece band also includes Harry O’Connell (19) Conor Davis (19) both from Dublin and Nueng Kelly (20) from Carlow. Their song ‘Love Like Us’ was written by Cork born Bill Maybury and produced by Joe Rubel.

Speaking about the possibility of making it to the Eurovision final Curraha's Conor O’Farrell said:

“When we recorded the song we immediately felt it was a Eurovision song and luckily Louis agreed with us. We’ve sat on this song for nearly a year waiting for this moment and we are just so excited about being given this opportunity to be part of Eurosong”.

Fellow band member Harry O’Connell adding: “We all have our favourite Eurovision song – the two Conor’s love Mickey Joe Harte’s ‘We’ve got the World’ with mine being the Swedish entry in 2015 ‘Heroes’ sung by Måns Zelmerlöw".

Louis Walsh, renowned for his love of Eurovision added: “I think the guys would do a wonderful job representing Ireland in Sweden”.

Next in Line who have been tipped for superstardom after being unveiled as members of pop mogul Louis Walsh's new boyband previously told the Meath Chronicle how they wanted to conquer the world ..and make Meath proud!

Navan native, Joshua Regala (17), and Conor O'Farrell (20) from Curraha battled it out with more than 1,000 hopefuls to get a place in the line up of the six piece group.

Having spent a lot of time in Brighton in the UK writing and recording songs, the local lads said the opportunity was "a dream come true." Conor told of his excitement for the future:

"We have had massive support from home, the reaction has been amazing, our phones have been going crazy since the news broke," said Conor.

"We grew up listening to boybands from a young age, seeing them on our screens, the fact that we are in our shoes now and getting a little taste of what it is like is a surreal experience," added Joshua.

"We are very grateful for the opportunity and just want to make everyone at home proud."

The five piece band have been rehearsing for dizzying heights of fame in London over the last couple of years.

"We have been flying out to London and Brighton every two or three weeks to spend time writing," explained Conor.

"We are working with a producer called Brian Higgins, he's done a lot of work with Girl Aloud and The Sugababes. He has been giving us the opportunity to write on certain tracks which we didn't expect this early on so we are really grateful for that.

"We are working on 10 or 11 songs at the moment. Our sound is similar to Five Seconds of Summer and One Direction, it is modern but it has that certain edge to it."

Joshua, a Navan native explains how the band came together.

"Louis Walsh held auditions and more than 1,000 people sent in videos and 200 got selected for in person auditions over in Vicar Street in a process where we had to wait for the call back from Louis," he said.

"We got whittled down to the last 24, and then eight, and then the final five were picked," he added.

The Navan teenager is no stranger to the spotlight having made it through to the live shows of 'The Voice UK' in 2020. The then 14-year-old singer got a shock when all four celebrity judges turned around for his performance on The Voice UK Kids TV show. Joshua from Blackcastle wowed judges Will.i.am, Paloma Faith, Pixie Lott, and Danny Jones with his cover of Callum Scott's You Are The Reason.

Talent scouts for the show found a video online of the teenager, a former student of Beaufort College in Navan singing at the final of a talent contest and made it their mission to get him on the hit BBC show.

Meanwhile Sporting mad Conor said that the pandemic gave him the opportunity to focus on his music.

"I come from a very musical family, my dad is a singer, it's always been in the house," he said. " I grew up playing music but then I took a step away from it, I was playing GAA, football and hurling, that kind of took priority for a long time," he added.

"It was only really when covid hit that I started getting back into music and started posting videos on Instagram and TikTok and it got a great reaction so I kind of just pursued in in that sense then my mam heard about the auditions on the radio and she thought it would be a good thing to go for and I'm glad I did."

The Curraha native said he didn't give himself much of a chance seeing the competition and couldn't believe when he got that golden phone call.

"For the first round in Vicar Street I was particularly nervous, I didn't think Louis was going to be there and then you see him sitting in front of you then it was a bit surreal but once you start singing the nerves go," he said.

"With the second round of auditions in Liffey Street I recognised so many faces and people who auditioned for the X Factor I made peace with it that I wasn't going to make it so I actually enjoyed the second round more so I just went in with no expectations."

The two lads couldn't heap enough praise on to their mentor Louis Walsh who made Boyzone - with former Dunshaughlin resident Ronan Keating, - Westlife and One Direction household names.

"Louis is brilliant to work with, we couldn't ask for a better manager," said Conor.

"He is so facilitating, he is constantly on the phone to us, checking in on us making sure that we are ok. Obviously he has been things planned, there is no one else in the industry that has the contacts that he has so we are starting off with the best opportunity that any lad our age could ever dream of.

"We want to make music that people can enjoy and relate to. We want to play big stadiums, I've always a dream to play the 3 Arena, I have been to so many gigs there and I have always wanted to do it that would definitely be on my bucket list."