On course this week for the 15th UK Number One album of his career – a feat that draws him level with the Beatles – Robbie Williams was reunited with Nicki Chapman recently for her Mellow Magic show on Magic Radio.
Having first worked together in the 90s when Nicki was at BMG and Robbie was finding fame in Take That the pair discussed the old days, Robbie biopic Better Man and the possibility of new music…
Robbie opened the conversation congratulating Nicki on her new job before admitting that it’s taken him until now to fall in love with his: ‘I love my job now, but I didn't use to see it as a job, and when I didn't see it as a job, nothing kind of made sense. But now Daddy goes to work, and because Daddy goes to work, I have the best job in the world. I have to say, I'm in a golden period for how happy I am. You know, I'm happy and I'm grateful, and I'm deriving joy from things that I didn't use to be able to derive joy from. I feel blessed.’
The Better Man soundtrack is expected to hit the Number One spot this Friday making it Robbie’s 15th Number One album – a record that equals the Beatles: ‘Yeah, it's just another long line of surreal things that have presented themselves to me because I presented myself to the world. And it doesn't make sense in my soul or my heart, but I will grasp it with both hands. There’s a rational side of me that's a little bit embarrassed but I suppose that little bit of the rational side of me that is embarrassed, may keep me a tad grounded.’
The soundtrack has seen Robbie re-record all of his classic hits and there have been some changes – he thinks for the better: ‘Let me let you into a secret about I Found Heaven. Okay, so in those verses of the original the high notes aren't me - that's a singer that was drafted in to do the bits that I couldn't do in the vocal booth at the time. Not me so there's a bit of an inside story. But the process of re-recording things can be laborious but then what is created, the end product, is actually mind blowing to me. Rock DJ is better than the original, in fact, there's loads of things in the Better Man soundtrack that I have just bettered the original and breathed new life into them. And there is a studio album coming out, I'm not sure exactly when it'll be released, but yeah, keep them peeled.’
Much of Better Man covers Robbie’s early days in the music industry which is when he and Nicki first met as she was his record company publicist. Nicki confessed watching his recent documentary and the film has been hard for her telling Robbie: ‘Looking at some of the negativity that's come out and that honesty about what you were experiencing, I didn't see half of that, and I know it got a lot harder after you left Take That, but so it does, give me a heavy heart, because it was such a joyous time for me, and then to hear someone really had some serious lows at the same time…’
Robbie reassured her: ‘You know, there was, there was huge elements of what we did that were fun and exciting but everybody's career, and everybody's place in their own career is never just one thing, is it? But we're all tremendously fond of you, so I wouldn't worry or be concerned about your place in anybody's difficult times, because you were part of the medicine and not part of the illness.’
Robbie on the response to Better Man the movie: ‘I have been deeply touched by how profoundly touched people have been watching my life as a biopic. I wake up every day to a slew of emails and texts, and they're not like short texts and because of the length of these things that I'm getting, I know that it's doing something incredibly special. And I will name drop … texts came from Joey McIntyre from New Kids on the Block and Jon Bon Jovi and I have been receiving texts and emails from people every day. And it's truly special.’
‘I think that the first few times I watched it I'm getting over the fact that it is the greatest hits of my trauma, grief for the Tik Tok generation and then, because I've had to watch it over and over again at screenings and premieres, most of the time, I just get to sit there in, I would say, healthy ego, and enjoy me, enjoying people, enjoying a story about me. And I think that's where I'm at with the film. I can sit there with an audience and just go, this is magic. You know it's, yeah, special.
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