later said, ‘because I’ve always been loopy!’
Robbie has a famously close relationship with his mother, and freely admits that during his darkest days to come, she was his rock. Back then, Jan ran a ladies’ clothes shop, then a small cafébistro and also a florist’s. Robbie went to Mill Hill Primary School in Tunstall, near Stoke, and then St Margaret’s Ward School. He was, perhaps predictably, the class prankster. Former school teachers who have been interviewed by the tabloids confirm this.
Like Mark and Jason, Robbie was a keen sportsman—again, Music Industry Five-A-Side tournaments play testament to his footy skills. Not surprisingly, his extrovert personality was drawn at an early age towards acting as a future profession (he told his mum he had no interest in being a pop star). In his early teens he joined the Stoke-on-Trent Theatre Company, playing small parts in Pickwick, Oliver (as the Artful Dodger) and Fiddler on the Roof. Although he would later claim to struggle with Take That’s dance routines, Robbie was also a keen break-dancer.
Robbie left school aged 16 and, after briefly working at his mum’s florist’s, he took a job as a double-glazing salesman.
He was not very good. ‘I just used to tell people they were over-priced and leave.’ Consequently, this career didn’t last long—he quit in order to focus on auditioning for acting roles. Despite his youth, however, he found that most roles were going to even younger actors with experience and often stage-school backgrounds. He did manage to win one role—and a clip that has surfaced on countless Before They Were Famous TV shows—is a bit part in the Liverpudlian soap Brookside. Years later he had a walk-on cameo role in EastEnders (on the phone behind David Wicks), which sounds like the CV of a typical wannabe actor…except that in between these two soap appearances, Robbie Williams was in one of the world’s biggest boy bands and went on to become the UK’s leading solo artist.
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The audition for Take That itself was at Nigel’s studio, and a nervous Robbie was keen to appear streetwise when he met what might be his future band-mates. ‘I came with my mum and I was saying through the corner of my mouth, “Right, Mum, go now.”’ He walked into the audition and Gary Barlow was sitting in the corner with a leather briefcase full of song sheets, wearing Adidas tracksuit bottoms, Converse trainers, an Italia 90 top and a coiffured Morrissey haircut. Robbie later said he was told, ‘This is Gary Barlow, he’s a professional club singer and he’s going to make this group happen.’ Despite thinking at the time that Gary’s haircut was ridiculous, Robbie has since admitted that he now sports a similar barnet. Music mythology has it that Gary introduced himself to Robbie and called him ‘son’. Gary’s confidence was understandable, as Nigel Martin-Smith obviously saw him as the core of the band—after all, by the time of these auditions, Gary had composed over fifty songs.
Howard had to take a half-day off his job as a vehicle painter to attend the audition, and he was late. Robbie said Jason was ‘very confident and liked Ford Escort RS2000 cars, Howard was shy, Mark was great and Gary was the obvious main musical driving force.’ Robbie sang ‘Nothing Can Divide Us’ by teen heart-throb Jason Donovan, but oddly admits, ‘I remember thinking what a weird bunch of lads they were and I really didn’t think we could ever be a band.’
The audition was soon over and Robbie was told that Nigel would be in touch. A few weeks later, his GCSE results were delivered and he’d failed all but two of them—consistent if nothing else (he got ‘shit-faced on Guinness’ when he received his results). The very same day, the phone rang and it was Nigel calling with the news that he wanted Robbie in the band. The timing could not have been more serendipitous. In a show of exuberance for which he would later become notorious, Robbie sprinted upstairs into his bedroom, flung the window open and screamed ‘I’m going to be famous!’ into the street. Robbie was just 16; Howard was the eldest at 20. Unbeknown to them, within eighteen months they would not be able to walk down any street in Great Britain without being recognised.
One footnote to add to the embryonic days of Take That is the fact that Nigel Martin-Smith insisted each member brought at least one parent with them to sign his managerial contracts. Pop music is littered with tales of teenage starlets signing contracts that are little more than slave labour. Nigel was clever—he knew that if his master plan with Take That worked, huge sums of money would be generated and he was adamant that every detail was precise. Being contractually transparent was an admirable first move. Plus, it gained the trust of the boys’ parents.
From day one, Nigel’s intellect and ideas were absolutely crucial to the band succeeding. This was immediately obvious by the intense programme of rehearsals he arranged, which saw his new charges spending hours every day in dance and choreography sessions, from the early hours until at least 7 p.m. Gary was writing constantly and their voices were improving all the time. Nigel oversaw every aspect of their prospective career, planning it all in intimate detail. The boys were also put on fitness regimes, with sit-ups, press-ups, aerobic work and gymnastics giving the whole experience a real boot-camp atmosphere. Outsiders sometimes wonder why this is so necessary, but if you were to take a bunch of 16—to 20-year-old men and ask them to create a business turning over an eight-figure sum in two years, you would expect there to be some long hours involved.
Let’s be honest, Take That is a pretty dreadful band name. It’s not as bad as The Backstreet Boys and not as good as Foreheads in a Fishtank, but it isn’t great. The boys had seen a photograph of Madonna with the caption ‘Take That!’ written under it and this was elongated to read Take That and Party. The latter two words were dropped when it transpired there already existed an American group called The Party, so that was that…Take That!
When they first heard there was a band called Take That, many music journalists thought it was a joke. It just sounded so limp, so wet. But their success became so huge that you soon forgot the actual words: they became more of a sound that you associated with the five superstars, and any reservations about the moniker completely dissipated.
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Over the twelve months after the five members of Take That had each inked the contract with Nigel Martin-Smith, they were still rehearsing and preparing. Rick Sky quoted Gary describing the band’s first ever gig in Flicks nightclub in Huddersfield thus: ‘There were about twenty people in the audience and a dog. Only about ten of them were watching…but it wouldn’t have mattered if only the dog was watching. Afterwards we were on such a high.’ That’s all those years playing to the pie-and-mash circuit coming in handy right there.
They had finally started to gig, and their workload was exhausting. In the year or so before they hit the big time, Take That took to the road relentlessly, racking up dozens and dozens of shows. At this stage the band’s lifestyle was far from glamorous: their average week comprised of piling into Nigel’s Ford Escort XR3i and/or a yellow Salford Van Hire vehicle and driving hundreds of miles to play countless gay clubs, then later schools and nightclubs. Funds were understandably tight, so the best they could afford each night were either numerous Little Britain-esque bed and breakfast guest-houses or a long drive home through the small hours. Howard later recalled in the ITV1’s 2005 documentary, Take That—For the Record how most of the gay clubs saw them ‘having our arses pinched and our front bits pinched’. If a gig was particularly hostile, missiles would be thrown. ‘Some of the audiences were kind enough to give us free beer. Say no more,’ said Mark on one occasion. Jason later admitted that he ‘left’ Take That for about two days during this very early phase, and actually considered going back to painting and decorating—he found the pressures and workload a culture shock but was soon able to gain some perspective and ‘rejoin’.
No record companies had shown any interest at this stage, so Take That’s debut single, ‘Do What You Like’, was recorded ready for release on Nigel’s own Dance UK label in July 1991. Written by Gary with Ray Hedges, who went on to work with Boyzone, the track
