TAKE THAT'S BACKROOM BOYS

 

EARLY on during last weekend’s moodily monochromatic fly-on-the-wall documentary charting Take That’s reunion with Robbie Williams the group are shown in a recording studio in New York when they were secretly working on their new album in September 2009.

 

 

The last to arrive are Jason Orange and Howard Donald and while the cameras are rolling a palpably nervous Howard confides his fear of feeling “really part of” the reunion while Jason adds: “On the plane over Howard said shall we make up a dance routine so we can show them something when we turn up? So we can say ‘we’ve got something lads – we’re contributing’. The two muppets at the back!”

 

Such self-deprecation is no doubt endearing but there is more than a grain of truth in the comment. ­Neither Jason, 40, nor Howard, 42, has ever appeared a lynchpin of the band, nor the most headline-grabbing. News of Take That’s latest reunion has largely been dominated by how the two egos – Gary Barlow and Robbie – will mesh together while Mark Owen, the original heart-throb, has been garnering attention all this year both for being a shock love rat (he admitted cheating on his now-wife with 10 other women) and for his battle with the bottle which ended in rehab.

 

But last Saturday’s documentary Take That: Look Back, Don’t Stare – for which cameras followed the band for 12 months – has given more of a voice to the quieter members of the group, giving greater insight into Howard and Jason’s roles and their cautious attitude towards the reunion.

 

Ironically Howard has found himself at the centre of attention today for another reason. The oldest ­member of the group (who has two daughters from two previous relationships) this week lost his fight to keep in place an injunction stopping an ex-girlfriend revealing details of their affair. We still know little of it, except that it occurred sometime between 2000 and the end of last year and the woman in question, soul singer ­Adakini Ntuli, is still banned from ­disclosing “any intimate, personal or sexually explicit details about the relationship”. The matter has, however, focused the spotlight on the singer who in the documentary revealed himself as less than happy that the band had invited Robbie back into the Take That fold.

 

“I’ve been sceptical about him coming back,” Howard confessed. “I’d like to think it’ll be cool and everything will be fine and we’ll be tight-knit but from what I’ve experienced Robbie has a changeable mind.” Meanwhile Jason was also shown questioning Robbie about his egocentricity.

 

“I think to understand Howard and Jason’s mind-set you have to go back to how they were originally viewed in the band,” says biographer Emily Herbert, author of Take That And Robbie Williams – Back For Good. “In the first incarnation of the band in 1990 they were on the periphery. The manager Nigel Martin-Smith had found Gary Barlow and recognised his singer-songwriting talents and the rest of the band was formed around him. Howard and Jason were already friends, grew up in working-class Manchester, had both discovered breakdancing and were specifically brought in as the dancers.”

 

When the band officially kicked off in 1990 it soon emerged that while songwriter Gary was the main singer, ­Robbie was the jokey, attention-­grabbing showman and Mark was the baby-faced pin-up.

 

“Really, Howard and Jason were the Andrew Ridgeleys of Take That and when you’re in a band alongside such a huge talent as a George Michael or a Gary Barlow, you will naturally be in the background,” adds former music journalist Sonia Poulton. “That was always the cause of tension between Robbie and Gary because ­Robbie was rebelling against being sidelined. I think the reason Howard and Jason didn’t rock the boat was because they knew they were being used as props but they didn’t mind so much. I think they thought they were fortunate to be there in the first place. Before Howard was in Take That, for instance, he appeared as a dancer on a corny late-night music programme called The Hit Man And Her alongside Pete Waterman. Howard would appear in very skimpy pants and dance on stage in a club. Nigel decided the group was to appeal to the gay market and it was very much Howard and Jason who did the rather camp routines.”

 

After Robbie left in 1995 and the band broke up a year later to the consternation of fans ­(special Samaritans phone lines had to be set up to cope with their ­dismay) it was Howard who was the most affected.

 

“I didn’t want us to split,” he confided later. “I walked out of the hotel and wanted to throw myself into the Thames.”

 

“It was certainly Howard who took it worst,” says Herbert. “Neither he nor Jason had the potential careers the others thought they had ahead of them. Great things were forecast for Gary in particular. Howard was desperate but then actually he turned it around and went on to have a very successful second career. He went to Berlin and became a club DJ who is in demand all over the world.”

 

Indeed, go on to Howard’s official website and you would be forgiven for missing the part about him being a member of Take That because his DJing career is given such prominence. Equally, Jason has referred to “the most important days” of his life as being those when he was in a breakdancing group called Street Machine Crew in his late teens. “All those ­different crews at the time – the ­competition was fierce. It was like the film Warriors without the violence,” enthused the singer, who currently has no ­significant other although he did have a “special relationship” with Lulu after she released Relight My Fire with Take That in 1993.

 

“After the band broke up Jason tried his hand as an actor with a little success but he basically went all ­cerebral,” adds Herbert. “He gave up alcohol and women and did meditation and yoga.”

 

 

But when Take That re-formed in 2006 and became one of the biggest success stories of the year Jason and Howard’s roles changed. “Originally Howard and Jason never had any lead vocals but one of the agreements they came to when they got back together was that it would be more equal,” says Herbert. “Now they all have some share in the songwriting credits which makes a huge difference with the royalties. When they split up the first time Gary was said to have earned £20 million while the others earned £2 million. On this new album Jason and Howard are both given a song each where they sing the lead vocals. A much greater effort has been made so they were more included.”

 

So how will Robbie’s re-inclusion in the band (they are doing 20 concerts to promote the new album which will net them £4 million each) affect the dynamic? In last Saturday’s ­documentary Howard suggests ­Robbie might find it the most difficult to gel.

 

“When you look at the four of us – me, Jason, Gary and Mark – we are bonded. More so than ever. Now Rob’s come in for this album I think it must be hard for him,” he says.

 

But, says Herbert, it is perhaps just as hard for Jason and Howard. “I wouldn’t like to call Howard and Jason the weaker members of the band but they’re not Gary Barlow are they? I think there is a danger they will be overshadowed again. If they were a bit worried about the balance could you blame them?”

 

 

 

Source...Express.co.uk

Some interesting extra footage from the DVD on youtube. The lads at Rob's massive mansion in the English countryside racing around. It's funny when Jay says he is glad they kicked Rob out of the band because if they hadn't have he wouldn't have had the solo success for them to be able have all of the fun. :lol:

 

 

Thanks for the links Scotty, you've saved me some money. I don't need to buy the dvd now. Not that I didn't like it (although it was a bit self-indulgent) I just don't seem to have any money lately. I'm going to have to do what that Tory Councillor (probably one of Gary's friends) said ... and go down south to pick fruit! I'll be pushing a Romanian out of a job ... but needs must.

 

Seriously ... I'm so glad they let Jason sing the lovely Flowerbed ... Mark's voice would have murdered it.

 

Kath

that was good, thanks for posting the links

 

:lol: at the guy in the rabbit outfit, I wondered if it was Robbie at first

I think it's a good thing they let Jason to sing Flowerbed, as he seems all that sensitive, just like the song...

 

And, I realized I like instrumental of Eight Letters. So, it's a good song, just without words. :heehee: Words are nice and all, but when I listen it it's like a song for good night, and instrumental is much better.

the dvd is #9 in the irish dvd charts this week.

They've finally grown up

 

 

'Look Back, Don't Stare' follows Take That as they settle old scores and reunite to record a new album.

 

"I learned to be a pop star before I learned to be a man. I didn't know how to sing that well, I didn't know how to play any instrument. I didn't contribute a thing to the writing. It could just as well have been someone else. Apparently, I smiled the right way. I won the smile competition in Oldham when I was 5 or 6 years old; apparently that was my training." This sober confession from Mark Owen, the British-born singer-songwriter, is the key to understanding "Look Back, Don't Stare," a documentary that follows his band, Take That, as they record their reunion album.

 

According to the tagline, this is "a film about progress," a wordplay on the title of the new album, "Progress," but the linguistic quip misses the point. This is a film about masculinity, or to be more precise, about men who have finally found their masculinity.

 

Take That from the movie, which shows the group members' progress over time.

 

I never thought of "masculinity" as a word that might surface in the context of Take That; that it might provide an alternative perspective to "teenage-girl idols," "kitsch," "toys," "commercialism," "manipulation," "marketing machines" and "ego." Certainly not after the album cover of "The Circus," which was released before Christmas two years ago and featured the band members, then still without Robbie Williams, dressed as acrobats wearing clingy, striped sailor shirts as if they were getting ready to make the usual jokes about sexual orientation.

 

The plot underlying "Look Back, Don't Stare" is of course the reunion of Robbie Williams with his old friends who still bear a grudge. His departure at the height of the band's success, his decision to embark on a solo career that positioned him as the talented and charismatic member of the band, the dirt he made sure to spread about Gary Barlow and the others whose solo careers flopped while he was packing stadiums and selling millions of albums, left accounts that sorely needed to be settled. Particularly painful was his absence from a television program that sought to get the guys together and eventually prompted Gary, Mark, Howard and Jason to hook up again.

 

Robbie's condescending attitude toward the band from which he sprouted is a key juncture in this relationship. It also marks the moment when things turn around. From that point on, Robbie's career starts sinking while the resurrected Take That emerges improved, mature and more popular than ever. When Robbie comes groveling to those who shaped him, it is an admission of his failure and a major victory for Take That. This is how the wayward son who thought he was better is brought back to the fold. A film crew is invited to document the rapprochement.

 

The main difference between then and now is that Robbie does not come back to the band he fled, the consumer product that was totally crushed by producers, managers and public relations executives. He returns to a band which for the first time in its history is holding itself accountable for results and functions as a real band that knows what it wants of itself. This band is hungry for success, it has a mission, and it has independent control of its artistry. Even more important in the context of "Look Back, Don't Stare" - it has the dynamic of a band.

 

In this respect, the film is not different from "Some Kind of Monster," which followed events in Metallica's studio room, and "No Distance Left to Run," which followed the return of Graham Coxon to Blur. A band is a band is a band; whether it is dressed in black, freaks out over distortion and sings about justice for all and children's nightmares, bangs out Britpop anthems or prides itself on choreography, disco innovations and shrieking female fans. In all three band films, there is an internal struggle between the two leading creative forces, yin and yang: the megalomaniac with his feet on the ground - that could be Lars Ulrich, Damon Albarn or Gary Barlow - and the complex negative counterpart with the wounded ego - that could be James Hetfield, Graham Coxon or Robbie Williams - who, like Homer in "The Odyssey," just wants to go home.

 

The greatness of "Look Back, Don't Stare" is that it is a human drama of conflict with great emotional complexity but not only that. It succeeds in doing what until now seemed impossible: it makes you appreciate Take That.

 

Haaretz.com