About three years ago, when the world had not yet heard of Covid-19, Robbie Williams received an email from his manager. “Robbie, in a few years you’ll be 25 years as a solo artist. We have to do something about that.’ Now, in the late summer of 2022, the time has come and it appears Williams’ thirteenth studio album, XXV. He then sings his greatest success songs again, as well as a few new songs, accompanied by the Dutch Metropole Orchestra conducted by now honorary conductor Jules Buckley. “I wish I’d come up with it myself, but the idea came from my management,” Williams says via Zoom from Geneva, where he’s on “sort of a vacation.” “You have a fantastic orchestra, which is also a lot cheaper than British or American orchestras,” he says with a big grin on his face.
Sing in thirty times
He liked the idea, but he didn’t really like the recording process. The album was recorded in April 2021, in the middle of corona time. The orchestra, which was expanded to seventy musicians for the occasion, could play at a safe distance from each other in the studio in Hilversum, but Williams had to record his vocals separately in London. ‘Guy Chambers accompanied my vocals. He has been my musical support and rock for 25 years, with him I wrote my greatest hits. But how hard that guy made it difficult for me. He heard things only a dog can hear. Singing a song again is nice, but thirty times is really too much. Pooh, I break out in a sweat just thinking about it. But in the end I am very proud of this album. It felt like a good way to reconnect with my old work, and maybe it’s a way for a new generation to learn about it.’
The idea to his greatest hitslike angels (1997), Rock DJ (2000), feel (2002), Come Undone (2003) and candy (2012), to be re-recorded, Williams liked because everyone should hear that he has changed. ‘My voice is different, it has become a bit heavier and more frayed, but I am also a different person than in 2000. It was nice to be able to reinterpret songs from half a lifetime ago like almost 50 years ago. I think especially those old hits are sung better now, now that I’m a grown guy with more life experience than the kid I was then.’
And especially a guy who is a lot happier and happier in life than twenty years ago, he quickly adds.
‘I really dug into my old work in preparation. Much more than I did when I was performing, when singing went on autopilot. I know where the crowd takes over and howls the loudest. Now I’ve really started listening and that brought me back to quite black years in my life. I was successful, but not happy, and was always driven by unrest. Always busy trying to fill some sort of bottomless pit as quickly as possible.’
That bottomless pit is his innate addiction. ‘You will never get rid of that, that well is still there, I just don’t throw unhealthy substances in it anymore, but I supplement it more calmly with other and healthier compulsions, such as work.’
never rest
It may sound strange to a man who has sold 80 million records and has nothing left to prove, but every day when Williams wakes up he thinks, ‘Okay, 24 hours to go today, I have to get to work. What I have achieved in the past does not count. I have to look ahead.’
That’s how he was raised, he says. A boy from Stoke-on-Trent, who had no certainty about the future. ‘Always going from nothing to something. And that’s how it still feels. Never rest, never satisfied.’
Knoeerds of hits
And then at the end of your teens you become successful with the boy band Take That – and you actually want to get out quickly, which Williams did in 1995. “I wanted to get into the real rock ‘n’ roll life, not be that neat little boy who demanded the band image.” After a few riotous years, Williams got tired of that and started as a solo artist. “That quickly got out of hand. Let Me Entertain You and angels became hotties of hits. Before I knew it, I was a stadium-filling pop star.’
Goal achieved, wouldn’t you say? ‘Yeah, but I wasn’t like that at the time. Now I can, open that door in me and let in some love and respect from the audience. Not before. When someone said something nice to me, I thought: what do you want me to do? It’s what I call the ‘British disease’: someone praises your qualities, and then you question them – typically British. I seem to have recovered a bit from that now.
‘Of course, I quickly sold millions of records, and that was nice. Success wasn’t the problem either, being famous was. Fame is a destructive consequence of success. The kick that success gave me was negated by the consequences. I’m sure if I had broken through and become famous in America too, I wouldn’t be able to have this conversation with you right now. I simply wouldn’t have survived that.’
Maddening fame
The kind of fame Robbie Williams had in Europe at the turn of the century was maddening, the singer now says. “It was of the same order that drove Michael Jackson insane. That’s why I fled to Los Angeles. Not to make it, but to escape the madness here. In LA I could live in complete anonymity, even though I was sitting there in a closet of a house. In America I could be Bruce Wayne while in the rest of the world I was Batman. And even if I was there alone, I felt even more lonely in London with 24-hour security.’
In retrospect, Williams thinks that it could also have worked out in America. ‘There were plenty of offers. All those talent shows with their juries wanted me, but I said no to everything. I sometimes regret that a bit, because it seems like a lot of fun to do, such a The Voice. But now they probably don’t want me and I’ll have to invent my own talent show. Yes, that’s what I want, to be Jan the Mole, or what’s that media tycoon of yours called? Oh yes, John de Mol.’
Robbie Williams is in a happy mood, makes jokes and seems to be comfortable in his own skin. “Fifteen years ago I would never have had conversations like this. Then I did my promotional rounds through the TV channels and a concert in a venue that was too small to draw attention to the ‘new Robbie Williams’. I especially didn’t feel like talking about myself.’ About the years of depression, anxiety disorders, addiction and drugs and alcohol. “And everything that nearly made me disappear into that bottomless pit for good. I haven’t drunk alcohol for 22 years and haven’t used anything dangerous for more than 15 years.’
180 degrees
It was his 2007 marriage to American actress Ayda Field that ultimately saved him, Williams says. “She was the first to pierce the armor I had built around me. First a small hole, in which more and more love could slowly seep through. When Teddy was born five years later, my view of the world really changed. Yes, as if I saw the light.’
The fear that having a child would give him a responsibility he couldn’t handle turned 180 degrees. ‘Suddenly I felt what the meaning of my life was. We now have four children aged 2, 4, 7 and 9 and everything I do is for them. When I work, it’s for my kids. No, my music doesn’t mean anything to them, but I feel with the elders that they are proud of me, and that alone is a reason to wake up happy every morning.’
And yes, that is quite a new and especially nice feeling for Williams, who has thought several times to stop. ‘In 2006 I had reached an artistic low point. Mine soul brother Guy Chambers was gone and I wanted to make a current sounding pop record. But everything on Rudebox sounded forced.’
Still, even after Chambers’ return, Williams no longer seems to have matched the successes of yesteryear. But he doesn’t mind. “No, I don’t really have anything to prove anymore. I enjoy the creative process. Pretty crazy, because somehow I’m very lazy. I do know that as a boy I wanted to learn to play the guitar, but just couldn’t muster the patience to study. That obsessive practice that classmates did was not for me. I prefer to surround myself with good people like Guy and then work together. I’ve had the same team around me for years and feel very uncomfortable between people I don’t know. That was also something I had to slowly realize, that I’m just not a social animal.’
Stars of now
With great interest and especially admiration Williams follows the performances of his compatriot Harry Styles. ‘The similarities are many. He was also in a successful boy band, One Direction, but seems to become much more famous as a solo artist. He has all the star qualities and a megawatt personality, is handsome and sings great. I can see from him that he is much happier and can handle his fame better than I was at the time. Yes, I’m a Harry Styles fan.’
Furthermore, Williams listens to what “my YouTube algorithms recommend.” He names the indie band Wet Leg, neo-punk band Idles and the American pop sisters of Haim as favorites. ‘But it all seems transient to me. Nice for the moment, nothing more. Harry is one of those people who stays and I hope to continue to enjoy him with my children for a long time to come. Really inspiring, such a boy. He has everything and seems happy too.’
Robbie Williams: XXV. Sony Music.
Metropole Orchestra
A few years ago, Robert Soomer, artistic manager of the Metropole Orkest, received a call from Jules Buckley, the former chief conductor: he had been approached for a still secret project with a great artist. The Metropole Orkest was chosen not because it is so cheap, as Williams suggests in this interview, but because it can work very efficiently and had the space, says Soomer. ‘In times of corona we were able to have the extra large orchestra of 70 musicians play at a distance of 1.5 meters from each other in our studio in Hilversum.’ Williams did not come to Hilversum during the six recording days in April last year, but sang his songs from a distance.