first major-label release: ‘I thought Gary was a great songwriter, but being honest, “Promises” was an all right song, but it wasn’t a great record. On top of that, we hadn’t worked out how to get all of these fans that existed everywhere alerted to the fact a record was coming out. There was so much hype around the group that the record company was almost wanting it to succeed too soon. This song was done with Duncan Bridgman at his own studio in Uxbridge Road: he produced it, played on it, but unfortunately I didn’t like it—to be fair to Duncan, though, I didn’t really know what record it was we were trying to make.’
Having said that, the single did mark the start of something big, not least their first ever chart entry. Robbie later remarked that the moment they all heard the single had charted at No. 38—their first chart hit—was the most excited he has ever been about any single, including during his own illustrious solo career. Apparently, the band jumped on his hotel bed so much it broke.
Nick Raymonde was equally pleased. ‘I thought when that first record had gone in at No. 38 that was a genuine hit, because at that time the Top Forty was regarded as success—actually, the fact that it only sold about 8,000 copies and probably hadn’t even washed its hands on the cost of the photograph on the sleeve was a more worrying reality.’
The video was low budget but did give an interesting insight into the band’s life on the road, featuring as it did footage of their club PAs and school shows, as well as a ‘live’ performance re-enacted at Hollywoods nightclub in Romford, one of their regular haunts. During the promotional campaign for ‘Promises’, they also made their first appearance on Wogan, which was Britain’s biggest chat show at the time, with viewing figures of twelve million a night. As part of his intro, Sir Terence called them—not for the first or last time—‘Britain’s answer to New Kids on the Block’.
***
Nigel Hassler of Helter Skelter Agency was, at the time, working for Primary Talent booking agents, and he became involved in some of Take That’s very earliest shows. Even at that early stage, there was a growing buzz within the music industry about these newcomers, as he explained to me: ‘I am always researching magazines, gig listings, seeing who keeps cropping up, who I need to keep an eye out for, and Take That seemed to catch my eye every now and then. So I went to the record label and Nick Raymonde put me in contact with Nigel Martin-Smith. The buzz was building already so I phoned him and said I’d love to get involved.
‘I was employed by Nigel Martin-Smith to try to get them on any kind of club show, mainly under-18s discos, the odd gay club and a schools tour. There was a combination of markets there from way back then. Basically, though, at that stage it was like pulling teeth trying to get them booked, and it was always for very low fees. We were almost giving the band away to give them exposure: I think it was about £200 a night on average.’ Given that this money had to cover fuel, food, any accommodation if it was needed and so on, it is easy to see that everyone involved was, at this point, just investing their efforts in the future.
Their innovative manager was very keen to gig the band as hard as possible—at the time this was a relatively forward-thinking strategy, one of hard road-work normally reserved for more rock-oriented acts. ‘Everybody was working very hard to break the band,’ explains their former agent Nigel Hassler, ‘yet it was actually quite difficult to fill up a date sheet; gigs were not easy to come by. Nigel Martin-Smith would take anything, so they ended up travelling all over the country; Ipswich then up north, then way back south, miles and miles and miles, wherever they could play in front of people.’
Far from concentrating on almost exclusively gay clubs, Nigel Hassler saw a much more focussed attention on school tours. ‘In my opinion,’ continues Hassler, ‘it was the first time this school touring schedule had been done so strategically. Occasionally the odd band may have done one or two school shows, but none had actually gone and done a deliberate schools’ tour. That’s what we were putting together for them. The typical day would involve playing a school in the afternoon, perhaps with a meet-and-greet afterwards and a quick signing session, then off to a club show and very often back in the car for a drive to a late-night club, not always in the same towns. Weekends were always two shows a night. It was relentless. They really put in the time.’
Having seen literally thousands of gigs in his career, Nigel Hassler was impressed by the band’s show even when they were playing tiny venues for next-to-no money: ‘They were great; they looked good, the choreography was fantastic, the costumes were well thought out, they looked like the “real deal”. You often get rock bands who can’t perform too well and they need a couple of years to actually develop and grow to become an accomplished live band, but from what I remember, Take That were doing very well indeed so early on. I actually went to one of their earliest London shows at the Brixton Fridge for a gay club night. They would usually play about five songs, playback with a live vocal. They were very, very good.’
Despite the paltry financial returns, Nigel recalls that their record label was firmly behind them: ‘BMG were giving them major push-ups to make some connection with the public. We had a few problems with show dates clashing with some booked by Nigel Martin-Smith’s office, and when I spoke to him about a few concerns, it was taken as me ducking out of doing work on the band; we had a bit of a disagreement and that was the end of the relationship. It was a fairly short affair but very interesting to see Take That at such an early stage in their careers. I think I may have made about five hundred quid out of the band!’
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