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Robbie Williams opened up about being deterred from songwriting while in Take That.
In the Take That documentary, the “Angels” hitmaker recalled how he wanted to become more involved in writing lyrics, but frontman Gary Barlow took the lead on it.
At the time, Barlow, now 55, said he “guarded” his role as primary songwriter in the band by making it so he didn’t need anyone else to write tracks for the boy band. “I just don’t,” he said in the documentary.
Barlow claimed it stemmed from the desire to please everybody, from the record label to their manager. “I wanted to deliver, for everyone,” he said.
According to Barlow, Williams, now 51, would often call him about song ideas. “He’d sing me this, like, Oasis song, and I’d be like ‘Rob, please.’ If I’m a member of Nirvana, that’d be brilliant, but we’re Take That,” he said.
Barlow would reiterate that he knew what he was doing. “I’ve got the formula. I know what we’re doing. I know what we’re doing next,” he said.
“Out of everyone, [Robbie] was the one who was trying to lyrically do stuff and come up with stuff a lot, but no I never encouraged it,” added Barlow.
Courtesy of Netflix
He also admitted that he partially felt “above everybody else, musically.”
“You don’t realize you’re a backing dancer until a few years. [You’re like], ‘Hang on, I didn’t sign up for that,” said Williams.
The “Feel” singer thought Barlow couldn’t see how he was acting or “how he behaved.”
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Williams ultimately ended up leaving Take That for the first time in 1996 amid a public struggle with addiction and mental illness that ultimately led to tensions within the band.
He returned to the group in 2010 after reconciling with his bandmates, but departed again in 2011 focus on his solo career.
Take That is out now on Netflix.
