Cool, daddy cool
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Robbie Williams
Source: Supplied
ROBBIE Williams has gone gay for play again.
The gayest straight man in pop is delighted the full title of his new swing album is Robbie Williams – Swings Both Ways.
“There is a history of gay people pretending to be straight,” Williams says. “I want to balance the sides. I’m a straight person pretending to be gay. I’ve had a lot of people to imitate. It’s easy when you’re British, we’re camp by nature anyway. My wife, who’s American, when she first came to England and watched the TV with me, she’d be like ‘Well, he’s gay, isn’t he?’ No he’s not, he’s just British.”
Robbie has never been more camp than on the title track Swings Both Ways, a duet with Canadian singer/songwriter Rufus Wainwright, a proudly gay man.
The lush, orchestrated track is full of salty euphemisms and ends with Rufus stating “Face it Robbie, you’re a little bit gay.”
“I have an itch to scratch, it has to be scratched regularly,” Williams jokes.
The British singer is only gay-friendly – he married actor Ayda Field in 2010 and their daughter Teddy has just turned 14 months old.
“She learnt to walk two weeks ago,” Williams says. “I’m working really hard and I find that I miss her. And I’ve never missed anybody in my life before. This is new for me. I like the new me. It’s a lot less taxing. Life’s good.”
Fatherhood almost helped Robbie lure Adele into dueting on Swings Both Ways – both new parents spend a lot of time together.
“We’re part of the famous kids club,” Williams says.
“Whenever we hang out with other mums and dads, they all seem to have sold a billion quid’s worth of clothes or sold 200 million albums. And it’s lovely and weird being in the famous kids club. It’s lovely for the kids, maybe they’ll grow up feeling not so weird because they’ve got other people to know, but I chuckle to myself when I look around the room and see all the famous faces who have gathered there because we happened to have children at the same time.
Robbie Williams had to pluck up the courage to ask Adele to sing on Swings Both Ways
Source: AP
“Adele’s been asked to do so many things by so many people, she’s inundated. She’s our mate. I really wanted her to be on this album. It would have been easier if she wasn’t our mate. Everyone on the planet wants her on their album and I wasn’t brave enough to ask properly.“
Swings Both Ways‘ first single, Go Gentle, is Williams’ fatherly advice to his daughter about her future romantic endeavours.
“Don’t try to make them love you, don’t answer every call … if they try and hurt you just let your Daddy know … when you go giving your heart make sure they deserve it, if they haven’t earned it, keep searching it’s worth it.”
Williams says it won’t be his last song for his daughter.
“You could write a whole album of advice for her. It’s going to get boring for people but every time I open the creative mind, I want to write a song about her. It’s quite obvious that’s going to happen, it’s the most emotional thing that’s happened to me in the last 14 months, it’s the biggest thing that’s ever happened to me.
“There is a bit of advice in this song but I’m pretty sure she’s going to make good decisions for herself. Her mum’s really cool; as long as I’m an attentive dad and I give her time and love she’ll be fine.”
The album is his first swing release since Swing When You’re Winning, his 2001 album that sold more than seven million copies worldwide. Williams tackled classics Mack the Knife, Mr Bojangles, Have You Met Miss Jones and a duet with Nicole Kidman on Somethin’ Stupid.
This time around he’s done half covers and half originals.
And crucially he’s reunited with Guy Chambers – the pair wrote most of his biggest hits together, including Rock DJ, Angels, Feel, Let Me Entertain You and Supreme - which is revisited on the new album as Swing Supreme.
Chambers and Williams fell out when the pop star wrote Come Undone without him in 2002. Since leaving Williams, Chambers has co-written with a variety of artists including INXS, Brian McFadden, Example, Darren Hayes, Delta Goodrem and James Blunt. However, neither man has enjoyed the success they created together, with their joint composition responsible for the bulk of Williams’ 70 million album sales.
Chambers, who is working on the new Rufus Wainwright album, got on stage with Williams during his UK tour last year – the first time they had been on stage together in a decade.
“We were always going to work together again,” Williams says. “I just said I needed to go off and do other stuff. He melted and couldn’t get his head around it. It caused me to go further away than I should have done – I could have been back earlier. But there was no huge falling out, he was a bit of a knob and I was a bit of a p—-.”
Swings Both Ways, like Swing When You’re Winning, has an array of duets – Kelly Clarkson, Lily Allen, Olly Murs and Michael Bublé.
Bublé sings on new Williams composition Soda Pop, partially inspired by UFO watching in Washington.
“I really like Robbie,” Bublé told Hit earlier this year. “He’s a really real, nice, insecure, beautiful guy.”
The love between the two recent fathers is mutual.
“I’m a fan boy when it comes to Michael Bublé,” Williams says. “He’s just so good at ‘it’. He’s got a voice of this generation but he’s like a time capsule, he’s got a voice that could have fit in anywhere over the last hundred years. It’s stellar. He’s got comedy timing, he’s a good-looking lad, he’s got tons of personality. I really, really dig him a lot.
“It’s a competitive industry, whether you’re in a band, a male artist, a female artist – and sometimes I’ll have an unnecessary hatred for people who are in the same game as me and I’m suspicious of them. That doesn’t exist with Michael Bublé, I just love him.”
Williams’ humour shines on No One Likes a Fat Pop Star, which includes the lines, “you just can’t be portly this side of 40, showbiz a single chin game. Scum paparazzi and weight police nasties have narrowed the hall of fame.”
With his 40th birthday looming in February, Williams says his waistline is in check.
“I am OK. I wouldn’t be making the Olympics in the perfect weight department but I’m not yet morbidly obese. Which can easily be attained. I like me food. I also don’t like me exercising. It’s something me don’t do very well. But it’s something I’ve got to get into. And I do. It’ll be, ‘Right, this is me, I’m the fittest man on the planet’. I batter it hard for about three months. Then one Saturday afternoon watching the football I’ll go and tuck into a chocolate bar and that’s it, I’m a fat b—— within a week.”
After being a fixture on radio, Williams struggled to get singles from last year’s album Take the Crown on radio in the UK and Australia. Britain’s Radio 1 suggested he was too old for their playlist.
“It’s weird,” Williams says. “I seem to be in some sort of transitional period from getting played to not getting played. Which I’m not too comfortable with, to be honest. I’ve had it my way for a long time. I’m getting close to 25 years in the industry now. It’s been an absolute amazing run. I can’t complain about the support I’ve been given over the years but I don’t like it slipping away. Nobody says ‘I’d like to be a bit less successful next year please’. Nobody on the planet wants that and I certainly don’t.”
HEAR
Swings Both Ways (Universal) out tomorrow
