Robbie Williams

ROBBIE WILLIAMS

WHO IS ROBERT Peter Williams?

Is he the chubby fun loving lad out of Take That? Is he the drugged-up mess with platinum blond hair and painted black teeth that infamously turned up during Oasis’ headlining set at Glastonbury in 1995? Or is he the clean-living, world-conquering, consummate entertainer whose demons still lurk so visibly beneath the brittle but shiny veneer?

Truth be told he’s all of these and more. Robbie Williams is a complex motherfucker and that’s why we love him. But where do you go when you’ve scaled the peak of commercial success? We’re not just talking about any old jaunt up a grassy knoll here - we’re talking about the daily footslog that’s needed to go from being a bit-part member of a average boy band to a man who can rightly claim to be one of the most successful male artists the modern pop world has seen.

Well, if your name is Robbie Williams, once you’re reached that peak you just go and split with the one and only creative force that has driven you up there. Co-writer Guy Chambers was the Tensing Norgay to Robbie’s Sir Edmund Hillary, and together they concocted more hits than your average Saturday night dealer sees in a lifetime. In short they conquered pop’s Everest.

When pushed about the decision, Williams isn’t exactly backward in coming forward.

“As much as me and Guy now actually get on, the fact is this: he’s probably written with about 40 people since we’ve split up - 30 or 40, and [had] two hits maybe. It sounds really bad ’cause I haven’t got anything against Guy at all. But you know, people always say Guy was the hitmaker - well, where are they then?”

But it was never meant to be like this; not in Robbie’s eyes, anyway. If dark had triumphed over light he’d now be a washed-up, bloated singer making a living by flogging detergent and popping up on a reality TV show every now and then. We’ve all heard the stories of his debaucherous existence a thousand times. Hell, he’s even made a quid or two by singing about them. And even he’s surprised that he’s made it this far.

“All the way through my 20s, I used to be in a band that had a shelf-life of 24 hours,” he says of his time in Take That. “Now, innately I thought that my solo career had a shelf life of 24 hours! So even though there was success, I didn’t trust it enough to stay around.

“So at the beginning I didn’t enjoy it or want to enjoy it, or want to own it because maybe I’d miss it too much when it leaves me in the next 24 hours. And then it just stayed with me and stayed with me and stayed with me, and I’ve only just started to enjoy it really.”

These are words of a man who’s brokered a peace deal with his dark side - and that success continues to stay with Williams.

To call the singer simply successful, though, could well be the understatement of the year - Williams has the Midas touch. His world tour, Robbie Williams: Close Encounters, has shattered the Guinness world record for the fastest, and largest, number of concert tickets ever sold in one day - 1.6 million when the European leg went on sale in November 2005. And then there’s the small fact that he’ll end his 14-country, 44-date extravaganza in Australia this December by bringing along the biggest stadium production show that this country has ever seen - U2 included.

And if you think that Robbie’s been resting on his laurels - perhaps putting the feet up with nice warm cup of mocha and a well thumbed copy of TV Week in between gigs - then you can think again. His latest incarnation is ‘Rudebox’, the first single to taken from his new studio album of the same name.

Once again he’s taken the long and winding road when faced with the easier option of playing it safe and guaranteeing commercial success. ‘Rudebox’ is a nasty, dirty, bass-infused electro-funk-pop monster that’s produced and written with fellow Stoke On Trent natives/compadres Soul Mekanik - aka Danny Spencer & Kelvin Andrews.

When pressed to nail his new sound, Williams is impressively vague.

“’Rudebox’ is loads of different things,” he says. “Sometimes it could be a vibe delivered in a spaceship direct to the studio, sometimes it’s a really nasty girl dancing scantily-clad, or sometimes it’s a giant soundsystem… sometimes it’s actually just a box that tells you to fuck off, too!”

Charming.

Fortunately for us, collaborator Kelvin Andrews paints a bigger picture of the enigma that is Robbie Williams.

“Rudebox is wonky pop music, influenced by the underground,” Andrews says. “It was just three lads from Stoke having fun in the studio; no rules and no knobheads.”

The result is an electro-boogaloo number reminiscent of a bustling New York street corner, circa 1983. Forged around a sample from Sly & Robbie’s seminal ‘Boops (Here To Go)’, the song is twisted around Williams’ unique visceral lyrical stylings. The sound is unmistakably fresh - and yet, despite the heavy electronic feel, it’s got that unmistakable Robbie Williams cheek about it.

When it comes to the rest of the album, this time around, Robbie has cast his net wide across the musical landscape, trawling up collaborations with the best of the past and present. His new sound sees him team up with the rejuvenated electro-pop legend that is the Pet Shop Boys; and the man responsible for dragging Madonna back from the brink, William Orbit. And then there’s Mark Ronson, who’s had a hand in creating UK sensation Lily Allen’s debut album.

“They might say its ‘dance’ or ‘electro’,” Williams says of Rudebox, the album, “but it’s just what I like! It started off as a busman’s holiday, but it’s become something on which I’ve found myself. I was just doing my YTS [youth training scheme] up ’til now,” he adds.

The sound may have radically changed over the years, but the person behind it is still as honest and genuine as ever. And therein lies the key to Robbie Williams: here is a man who has everything that you and I could ever want, but there’s still a need to be accepted, a fragility that, despite the attention-seeking antics, makes you want to give him a cuddle and tell him that everything will be alright.

“There are no real moments where you go, ‘Well, I’m evolving’. There’s moments where you’re in the car, months later when you’re listening to the demo still and it hasn’t come out and you have that moment of ‘Wow, I love this tune. I hope people enjoy this as much as I’m enjoying this right now’. That’s the real beauty of my job - those moments,” Robbie grins.

Robbie Williams plays Suncorp Stadium Wednesday Dec 13 and Thursday Dec 14. Rudebox out on Capitol/EMI.

NATHAN THOMPSON

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,,...58-2902,00.html

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