Just Williams

We haven't heard an awful lot from Robbie Williams since he lorded over what was probably the most entertaining Slane gig ever. There was magic in the air that night, though it's possible that you
had a better time than Robbie did. He was busy trying not to think too much about the ease with which he was able to hold 100,000 people in the palm of his hand.
In Stoke-On-Trent where Robbie grew up, there are those who'll tell you that he was already a star performer in his family's pub at the age of three. Robbie's dad was Pete Conway, a comedian who won New Faces, the early seventies version of Stars In Their Eyes. By the age of 8, Robbie was acting in local productions of Fiddler On The Roof. At 16 he was recruited to join a boy band, and every day after that was spent avoiding screaming girls. At 20 he got sick of the confinement of living the good-boy image. He was washed-up and tired and his bandmates were tired of him.
Tied up in a record deal which would never allow a solo career to flourish, Robbie wandered aimlessly with a pint glass and a backstage pass. The rock 'n' roll slob was forming and the tabloids loved it, especially when it was even hinted that he might be found somewhere larging it up with the Gallaghers. They were mad for it, the lot of them.
The fallout from Take That loomed all too predictable. Gary Barlow would be bigger than George Michael and cheeky chappie Robbie, the immensely likeable "ocean-blue eyed lad" would end in the "where are they now" TV shows. Except it didn't happen like that.
Lyrically, his early solo stuff gave vent to the anger he felt about his time in Take That. Now his lyrics are a little more thoughtful and diverse and as one song on the new album asserts "I'm just trying to be a better man". And when we meet in the St. James Club in London s West End to talk about his next album, the man is looking a lot trimmer and healthier than the boy.

DAVE FANNING: Has the massive success of the first two albums put more pressure on you for this one?
ROBBIE WILLIAMS: Well, this album s better. I personally think it s the best album I ve done and on the strength of that I should be alright. I don t feel that much pressure right now. I m sure if it went into the shops and nobody bought it I d be feeling pressure. But right now, the album as I see it is great and I hope other people agree with me.
What progress do you think you ve made?
I think with the lyrics on this album I get to the point a lot quicker. With me gaining some years since the last two albums, I believe I ve grown up a bit. And I think not judging by the first single which is not very grown up at all there s a lot of songs on there I would like people to listen to and go he s nearly there, he s nearly good at it . I d like 10 million of them to do it!
Would you like 5 or 6 million of them to be in the States or does it really matter that much to you?
I don t know if I m bothered about it. I don t really trust my own judgement on what I actually think. I sometimes say it doesn t really matter because it does really matter immensely. I base all of my life around I ll show em . I don t really know what I m doing it all for. I suppose it would be nice to tell the kids, Daddy was one of the only British acts that went over and broke the States . And seeing as I ve got nothing else better to do, I ll have a go.
Speaking of having a go, there s a line on the album about this Northern scum business . Is that you standing at a bar and some guy saying I ll have this guy, he s from Stoke not from London ?
I m itching for a fight, I really am. Except I don t fight. I don t like hitting people. I m really soft. It s like I d better hit somebody just to see how hard I am. I think that s what s going on.
How confrontational can you be in situations like that? For instance, there was one story where you were in a gas station somewhere in England and you saw these guys who were talking about how they were going to get you. And you bought a can of Pepsi, a cigarette lighter and some fuel and you walked right through them as if to say if anyone messes with me, this goes up . But you could have just walked out the back.
I couldn t because there was five of them. They would have been round at the exit quicker than I could get out of it. Don t hit me in the face! I d do anything to protect my vanity. If that means setting someone on fire, I ll do it.
Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jnr, Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby. They re the great entertainers. Do you think that in twenty years time you ll be No.5 on that list?
No, that embarrasses me. I d like to be. I d like to believe in myself at some point. Thank God they ve been before me because I wouldn t have a stage show. I steal everything from them and Freddie Mercury.
One of the things about you is that everyone knows you are the pop star that you re mocking! You kind of laugh at the whole thing and yet, at the same time, you are that person.
Yes, I can t take this seriously. Sometimes I wish I could take it a little bit more seriously, but I can t. It s just daft. Have you met other pop stars? Do you know what I mean? I can t be like them!
Speaking of pop stars, you met Bono who s very Bono and very serious.
He is very Bono, isn t he?
You met him and you were in his house and you went to the loo and there s all this stuff from the Bosnian President and Bill Clinton and that. Did you leave a message?
There was all this beautiful poetry from Salman Rusdie to the heads of state of different things and I was a few jars to the wind and I got this big biro and wrote To Bono, love Robbie . I don t even think I could spell my name at that point.
Is it good to go through a year or so of completely messed-upness and come out the other side?
When I m out the other side I ll tell you.
You did do an awful lot. You went into rehab for six or eight weeks.
I did lots of research into the field of alcoholism and every now and again I go back for a regroup to do some extra studying, but I must have passed the exams by now.
Were you one of those drinkers who only drank twice a week, Monday to Thursday, Friday to Sunday?
Yes, I was. I came over to Ireland once (interrupts himself) Perhaps I am showing off, because there s nothing big about being able to drink a lot. And I can t drink a lot anymore, I just pass out after about three pints But I drank 23 pints of Guinness once in Dublin. I got up very early. But it s never been the same since.
You once said that people can do what you did for ten years the whole Keith Richards thing. Are you glad you could only do it for a year?
I m a bit upset I can t do it, actually.
It s a bit wimpy, but isn t it a good way to be?
Yes, I m going to make spirituality the new rock and roll.
Really?
No. Yes, it s quite upsetting. I think many people are born with a book of drink and a book of drugs and sex with tickets in them. I think some people s books, like Keith Richards , are a lot bigger than others. I ve just used up all my drinking tickets, all my drugs tickets and all my sex tickets, and I m left with this empty book and just a pamphlet now. I m trying to get reimbursed at the club, but I don t think they ll have me back as a member.
So, does the pamphlet, empty as it is, make you happy, Robbie?
It does. It gives me the tools I need to live a nice life.
So are you doing all you can to be a better man, Robbie?
Sometimes yes, sometimes no.
The songwriting has always been pretty biographical. So you must be pretty happy, to judge by the songs.
Either happy or self-obsessed. I think it s self-obsession. But it s real. I m very egotistical.
How does it work with Guy Chambers? If you re the face, the attitudes and the words, is he always the music? Which comes first?
Both. I can go in with something and go I ve got these chords, can you do them properly? . And vice versa.
The singer/songwriter bit you always felt you had in you. But did you downplay it for the first year or two after Take That?
I still do. But in the last couple of weeks I looked up at my awards cabinet the top of my fridge and there s all these awards. There are three Ivor Novello awards which are for best songwriter and I thought God I m alright , put me cornflakes out, got my milk on. I won them, didn t I? That must mean I can do something good and I ve started to believe in it. I want to write for other people and with other people now.
Maybe produce or do other stuff in the studio?
No, I can t stand being in the studio.
Who s on this new album with you? Is Kylie on one of the tracks?
Yes, she s on the track called Kids . It s a duet.
Have you anybody in mind you d like to write for?
I don t mind. I don t mind going out whoring.
Going back a bit, by the time it came to hanging around at Glastonbury, was it the case that you didn t mind what the tabloids had to say because this was the real Robbie and he d escaped from five years in Take That?
I was far too drunk to be able to read the papers at the time. I think, by the second Glastonbury with Oasis, I d developed this new cool. It was quite a nice time. It was rock and roll. I d just been in a boy band
Is it really true that you stole 16 bottles of champagne before you went and you just found yourself on stage with Oasis?
I got beckoned by his nibs and I went up and danced.
The previous year you hid away in M People s caravan drinking with Feargal Sharkey in case the tabloids saw you.
The first time I was in Glastonbury it was really frowned upon. When you ve got peer pressure from five people four people in the band and a manager telling you you mustn t do this in the space of a year it was like, the straw that broke the camel s back. I didn t really care any more.
As you are now you re allowed to be what you want
It s no fun now I m allowed to be
You re not giving out completely about those five years in Take That, are you?
I m Robbie Williams because of Take That. Thank you very much. But I m over it now. I m not that upset any more. But I know what happened. I don t think it was much to do with the rules; that was just a by-product of other people s mean spirits. But if you re told not to do something, you ll go and do it!
When they used to publish the list of banned books in Ireland, they were the only books people wanted to get.
Do they still ban books there?
No! I don t think so. That was 100 years ago.
Stephen Gately The Unauthorised Biography!
That s banned, definitely. Especially the foreword by Mikey Graham! Do you think that you did in your twenties what you weren t allowed to do in your teens?
Yes. I had my teens when I reached 20.
And when you got drunk for the second time in your life did you realise that was maybe a mistake your Muhammed Ali poster was on the floor ruined and televisions in your house were broken?
Huge hangover, everything broken on the floor, and I d just been to my old primary school and peed in the playground at dinnertime. Then I thought to myself I must do that again, a lot . Bizarre.
There s the story your mother tells when you were four years of age in Torremolinos and she couldn t find you and there you were entertaining the troops with a little bag in front of you.
Nice showbiz story, that. It is true, funnily enough. It does sound like the start of some Shirley Temple film, though, doesn t it?
When it came to all the drinking and all that, my point is that it worked out so well for you. I think there s a new generation out there who think at least he s doing something about his problems, we re not . You lived it all out in public and people actually liked you for it.
Yes, I think people like to see somebody fail and then succeed. That s the scary thing at the minute. It s like, I haven t failed for a bit. I ve been on telly and in the papers an awful lot. I m sick of me. I ve got a third album out. I wonder what s going to happen?
Three years ago I would have thought you d have been worried about the idea of a backlash. I get the impression now you wouldn t care.
I don t think I would. I don t know until it happens, but I don t think so. I d go off and do something else anyway. Perhaps I might get upset, perhaps I won t.
Before Angels came out, were you happy coasting along being the Robbie in the papers, the Robbie with famous girlfriends, getting fat, drinking too much, making music and doing OK?
I don t know. I pulled it off and I m doing really well. That s enough to deal with. If success feels like this, what does failure feel like?
Are you still scared about failure?
Not as much. I think it would do me a favour for a while. I m going to have to go and find out what I really want to do then.
Are you your own worst critic?
Oh yes. If someone came up to me in the street and said to me what I think about myself, I d kill them. I m my own worst critic. There s a great line in Eminen s new album where someone comes up with a machine-gun and he says that ain t gonna do you no good, what are you going to do against a man who strangles himself? . I read stuff about me that s really nasty and I think I can go one better than that . I hate me more than you do.
Do you like that Slim Shady stuff?
I don t agree with a lot of the stuff he says some of my best friends are homosexuals, etc. etc. but I am into that album at the minute.
What s that Loudon Wainwright story? You did thank him on your album, didn t you?
Record company, management and publishers really cocked that up somewhere down the line. I borrowed this line out of this song called Jesus In A Camper Van and said somebody should get paid for this, I think it s Loudon Wainwright. And they went off and I thought it had been sorted. His name is on the credits on the album and about a year later he was on the radio and said right now I m suing Robbie Williams for 2 million dollars . And it was like what have I done? . It turns out that we didn t OK it.
You re one of the few people who genuinely like making videos. You like inventing characters for videos, don t you? Would you be interested in acting?
Yes. I get offered a lot of nice scripts which are really flattering. What if I can t do it? But that s what I need to do now. Because what I do for a living now I find very easy to do. That s not what stimulates me. Slane was like jumping out of a plane with no parachute and hoping that I d land on someone and I did. That was scary enough. I ve done that now. I need to get out of another plane without a parachute again.
Would you honestly think of taking a year off if you thought Eon Productions would offer you James Bond? It s a strong possibility if Pierce Brosnan can t do it.
I don t want to do James Bond. I m from Stoke On Trent and I speak with a high-pitched voice
Pierce Brosnan s from Navan
Yes, but he s butch and suave and sophisticated and I pee off balconies from hotel rooms.
How well did the James Bond video you made go down?
It went down really well.
That s a start. No-one s looking for Lawrence Olivier here.
Yes, but I don t want to do a James Bond where I have to be politically correct. I want to slap a girl on the bottom and go that s nice, luv, get your knickers on and make me a cup of tea . That s what Sean Connery said in one of them. Felix meet Bunny. Bunny meet Felix . He slaps her on the arse and goes Now on you go, Bunny, man talk . I m not Sid the Sexist, but that s great. I m not saying I do that in my home life.
When your dad won the New Faces thing in 74, he kind of blew it thinking he was bigger than he really was. Do you think you could have learned something from that 20 years later?
I didn t know he blew it because he thought he was bigger than he was.
I m only saying that. You tell me I m wrong or right.
I don t know. I didn t think my dad blew it. I don t think my dad wanted it. He was happy being it never struck me that my dad was bitter because he never made it. I think my dad s always thought he s massive anyway.
And when you bought your mum a nice house and a car, do you think she was totally happy with that or did she just want to make sure that Robbie was OK? Does she worry about you?
God yeah. I ve given her a couple of nervous breakdowns. She s my mum. She s petrified for me.
And a song like Strong should I take those lyrics literally? Like I m kind of weak in some ways .
Yes. I am. I don t like Strong . I don t like the chorus.
What s your favourite song from the previous two albums?
I don t like them that much at the minute. When you ve heard them to death, you couldn t choose. I do like them, but I ve listened to them to death.
You met Tom Jones. Is he something special to you?
I was in Las Vegas and Tom Jones was performing. We went to see him and it was my perfect sixties moment. He was at MGM and doing a stage show and all the seats were in little alcoves like in gangster movies with a lamp and a telephone. And he sang the song and then he stopped and said I d like to introduce you to a close friend of mine. This boy is very big in Europe. I sang with him. His name s Mr Robbie Williams . And the spotlight came on my table and I stood up and did my Robert de Niro and I sat down. I was the biggest girl, I went (sobs). It was Tom Jones but it was like Frank Sinatra going here s the little guy who s going to take my place .
I met you about half an hour after you came off the Slane stage. You seemed completely relaxed, as if you didn t give two hoots. Is that the way it is for you?
I was in shock to tell you the truth. There were 100,000 people bouncing up and down in a field and the moon was going up and the sun was going down and there was me going I m great . It was mind-blowing. It was too much emotion to take in. When I came off stage it was like a bomb had just gone off.
If there was one album you would take with you all the way
Biggie Small s Ready To Die. I like that album a lot. What would you take?
The White Album by The Beatles.
You re right. I m not just saying that to copy you. But you re right. It covers everything. They were really selfish like that. They didn t leave anything for anybody else. They covered everything and did it better than everybody else. I hate The Beatles for that!

Robbie Williams Sing When You re Winning album is out on August 28th