20 MusicWeek 14.09.12 INTERVIEWROBBIEWILLIAMS
over it. But in terms of my career, yeah, I’ll be fucking pissed off if it doesn’t happen.
What about critical reaction, is that important to you now? No, not at all.
Has it been previously? Oh God yeah, completely. But they’re faceless entities that don’t mean anything. When the people I wanted to like my albums have liked my albums, commercially they’ve done fuck all.
Will you be touring the album? Yes, I will.
out it was a cover version. It sounds like something you might have said though… Yeah, it’s something I might have said and believed at half past eleven and then by three o’clock completely changed my fucking mind.
It also, just to emphasise my stupidity, goes completely against the ethos of the album and the spirit in which it was made. It’s about dipping out of the game rather than charging back in, determined to win. Yeah: ‘I’m done with this. Who cares about being the biggest or the most popular? I’m actually above all that now. I’ve seen it for the folly it is, count me out.’ It’s a great and really powerful lyric… it’s just so not what I mean right now! But, if the album falls on its arse I’ll go ‘That was the one; that’s what I meant all along’.
So if Losers isn’t the most personal track (which it clearly isn’t), then what is? Different. ‘This time I’ll be different, I promise you.’
Who are you saying that to? I can’t say. I honestly can’t say. But it’s the most difficult… um…. personal…. inter-relationship with
ABOVE Robbie on fame and celebrity: “The byproduct of fame is some weirdness that I found difficult to deal with. Now I deal with it easily, I just don’t go out. You’ve won, I’m staying in”
“We were allowed to behave badly in the Nineties and it was more interesting. You’d go to the Brits and I’d offer Liam out, or Chumbawamba would drench John Prescott or Jarvis would wiggle his arse, and now… it’s bland”
someone that I’ve ever had in my life, and it continues to be, and it… kind of… as I get older… Nah I can’t even fucking talk about it.
Fair enough. It sounds like this time around commercial success is paramount to you. How do you measure that these days? Is it important that it outsells your previous albums? With some of them it’s just not going to be able to, because the industry has changed, the model has changed, we live in a different world. I’m insecure, like humans are. 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… and then I’ll probably go for a walk and get
ISLAND HOPPING UNIVERSAL’S DAVID JOSEPH ON SIGNING ROBBIE
Universal Music UK chairman and CEO David Joseph talks about signing Robbie Williams to Universal and his
expectations for the new album…
Can you tell us little bit about the process of signing Robbie – and why Island in particular was his final destination? I’ve known Robbie for many years, starting in the RCA days, and have always followed everything he has been doing. This partnership felt like a natural next step after the success of Progress. Robbie and his managers felt really good and energised by what’s been happening at Island in the past few years and when they met the Island team it just clicked.
Is the deal just for this album? Presumably you’d have liked a longer term agreement and will be looking to
extend it as soon as you can? We’re hoping this is the start of a long- term relationship between Robbie and Universal; I guess we’ll be judged on our performance.
Sum up what it means for Universal to secure a partnership with an artist of Robbie’s calibre – and, indeed, can you put into perspective where he fits into the pantheon of all-time-great British pop acts? Robbie is simply one of the best live performers this country has ever seen – he is writing his own place in our musical history.
When Robbie signed, were you already aware of his intentions to make a massive, all-out pop album? I heard some demos very early on which inspired great confidence. Robbie was clear what he planned to achieve with this record.
Now you’ve heard the finished article, what’s your reaction and what are you expectations? Robbie has made his best record alongside Escapology. I adore it from start to finish. Expectations are that the album title proves prophetic.
Can you talk a little bit about the backing you’re giving the album in terms of marketing and PR? Robbie, Tim, David and Josie are working alongside our international teams to produce the global campaign you’d expect for a release of this calibre.
Finally, what’s your favourite Robbie single of all time? That probably depends what day you ask me but the electricity of Let Me Entertain You is hard to beat. Look out for Be A Boy and Different from the forthcoming record.
When does that start? I don’t know. Well, put it this way, whenever people ask if I’m touring, I just say ‘Yeah’ and management go ‘Gah, shh, there needs to be an official thing, we have to do a thing, follow procedure Robbie’.
And promotional duties have started already... here we are in the middle of a day of interviews. Is this part of the job you enjoy or have ever enjoyed? It is now, yeah, because now I’ve got a record company, management and my head all onside, all in the right place. When Reality Killed The Video Star came out
and we didn’t have a first single, it kind of permeated through the team – and of course I was the guy out front. It made me not want to appear anywhere or be on anything, not with any confidence, anyway. This time round, everything’s in place: the goal’s
in front of me, the keeper’s come off his line, and I’ve got to put it to the left or the right of him to score. And I’ve scored before. I might even put it through his legs.
You also seem, unlike some pop performers, to try and have fun with the timeworn promotional process, and to say what you think rather than consult your notes from the record company or the PR department... It’s getting worse and worse, and I’m feeling the pinch for it. There’s been a song taken off the album that was considered not PC enough, for instance. And I think the pop world, along with the pop stars in it, have become, out of necessity, bland. Maybe it’s not their fault, but we were allowed to
behave badly in the Nineties and it was more interesting. You’d go to the Brits and I’d offer Liam out, or Chumbawamba would drench John Prescott or Jarvis would wiggle his arse, and now… maybe it’s because [they’re] in the Twitter generation and you can offend people so easily, and the media reacts so quickly…. They’ve probably watched other people do bland,
red-carpet interviews and followed suit. Which means eventually everyone’s saying the same thing. American pop stars and actors already do it, they do interviews and they give nothing away. And maybe that’s not such a bad thing, because when I tell the truth, people think I’m moaning or being big- headed, or all of the above. [Sighs] I just know it’s a bit fucking boring right now.
You sound like Morrissey. Yes, the world is full of crashing bores, as he would put it.
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