www.musicweek.com INTERVIEWROBBIEWILLIAMS
After a triumphant reunion with Take That, a rejuvenated Robbie Williams is back as a solo artist, with an album brimful of confidence and pop smarts. He’s also happy, relaxed, funny, sweary, honest and ready to Take The Crown
INTERVIEW BY DAVE ROBERTS
14.09.12 Music Week 17
“I’ve enjoyed success and
I would like more success. If that
doesn’t happen in today’s altered
market then, yes, I’m going to be upset,
disillusioned, angry… in terms
of my career, I’ll be fucking pissed off” ROBBIE WILLIAMS
A DIFFERENT KIND OF PROGRESS
I
’ve interviewed a few famous people. I’ve even interviewed a couple of people more famous than Robbie
Williams (literally only a couple, mind. And even with them, it’s marginal). So, as I wait in the lobby of London’s Langham hotel, why am I nervous? I think because it strikes me that
whilst Williams is aware that this is a game, he doesn’t always want to play; that he’s happy to get on the promotional treadmill but maybe his hand hovers over that big red emergency stop button now and again. He knows the rules; he knows the
nature of our 45-minute ‘relationship’; he knows what he wants and what I need; he knows it’s all pretend; and he’s familiar with the roles and rhythms we have to slip into to make this work, to make it normal and easy. But you also sense he occasionally finds it all utterly ridiculous, or false, or just a grind – and that he has a compulsion to question it, or subvert it; to say what he’s actually thinking, or ask me what I’m actually thinking. Oh the horror. But, of course, it’s that sense of
uncertainty, the one that generates the nerves, that makes Williams perhaps
the most interesting pop star of the last 20-odd years. Not just interesting because he’s
sold over 60 million albums; and not just interesting because he’s won 17 Brits, or shifted 1.6 million concert tickets in a single day; just inherently, beguilingly interesting. He’s different, he’s complicated, he’s
funny and he’s contradictory. He’s the pathologically insecure boy from Stoke who can effortlessly bend record- breaking live audiences to his will. He’s a deep-thinking and sensitive soul who grins, winks and pratfalls just
in case anyone accuses him of taking himself too seriously. He’s one of the most famous men on planet pop who’s still not sure how he feels about fame (although maybe he finally has, more on that later). He’s… well he’s interesting, isn’t he? So, as I sit and wait, and receive word
that “Rob’s running a little late”, I hope fervently that, today, he simply wants to play the game. And then, even more fervently, I hope that, for 45 minutes at least, he doesn’t, and then I hope he does again, and then I’m not sure… and then I’m called in.
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