When they arrived on the scene in the ’90s, along with a host of other bands with finely tailored pop songs and engaging choreography, few would have predicted that Take That would still be doing their thing almost 40 years later. Like any band that’s stayed afloat so long, they’ve overcome obstacles along the way, including a near-decade hiatus and the departure of two members from their original lineup, one of whom, Robbie Williams, became a mega-superstar as a solo act.
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Now a trio consisting of Gary Barlow, Howard Donald, and Mark Owen, Take That stands as one of the most decorated of all British bands, with record-setting touring and chart numbers and notable performances at Olympics and coronations alike. Why then do these veterans sound so fresh and invigorated on their latest album, This Life, as if they’re still going for the brass ring instead of resting on their estimable laurels?
Well, as the trio explained in an interview with American Songwriter, they were raring to get back at it, as it has been six years since their last album of original material (Wonderland in 2017) was released. As it turned out, their respective muses let them know it was time.
“In some ways, we feel like it’s a little overdue,” Barlow says. “It has been a while. The thing is, with music, it has a way of tapping you on the shoulder. I think we were all starting to hear things and getting a little nudge from the music angels to just say, ‘This is a good chorus,’ or ‘This is a good verse.’ And as usual, outside of all the talking, all the managers and record labels, the music is the thing that always brings us back in a room together. Little pieces of music started arriving. That’s how we came to putting dates in and start doing what we do.”
They’ve also been given an energy boost by a new method of songwriting, a new location for recording, a new producer, and even a new record label. Regardless of the novel circumstances, this is a trio that always put their best effort into it, perhaps because they don’t take for granted the fact that there is such a demand for their product after all these years.
Donald explains: “When we split up in ’96, and we had the nine-year gap before we got back, and we made a documentary in 2005, the fact that somebody approached and said we’d love to do a documentary (Take That: For the Record) and we’d love to do a tour, it was like, ‘Are we gonna get bums on seats?’ Throughout those nine years, our music was always being played on the radio, because they’re just great pop songs. I feel very fortunate, because so many groups in the ’90s who were in a similar boat to us, literally fell by the wayside. I’m so happy I’m not in that position.”
Coming to America
To make the albums that they’ve released since the comeback Donald referenced, Take That would typically assemble and the three men would bang songs into shape from scratch. For This Life, they decided to alter that approach and write individually before bringing the material to the group. From there, the other members would make suggestions to the main writer. All three men expressed how much they took to this method.
“What it did was it kept the energy high,” Barlow says. “Because if Howard brought three ideas in, it probably already had taken him a week to get those three ideas. But he was bringing them in, and we were hearing them in ten minutes and getting excited and ready to work on them. ’Cause in the past, we’ve had our times where we look at each other for a couple of days, and that can take the energy down. So this idea of all coming into the room with ammunition, felt like a really good way of making use of the fact that we all live all over the world. And when we’re together, time is like gold for us.”
One song that immediately stood out once they got together to hear all the material was “Windows,” a Barlow-penned track that takes the listener from what sounds like pandemic-induced frustration (I’ve been through a year of madness) to elation (You opened up my windows.) That song proved to be the key to unlocking how the rest of This Life would eventually get made, starting with the choice of producer: Dave Cobb, who’s mostly known as the wizard behind some of the most renowned Americana albums of the last decade. That might seem like an odd choice for a group known for their atmospheric pop arrangements, but to the members of Take That, it made perfect sense.
“When ‘Windows’ came along, it was a sound that we thought could progress and that we could move that forward,” Owen says. “The next discussion became about producers and who we wanted to do this with. Because we love the people that we’ve worked with in the past: John Shanks, Stuart Price, Matt Ralph, they’re all amazing producers and brilliant. But we wanted to try to do something different. We started to look out and have conversations about what we wanted to do with this record. I heard a lot of Chris Stapleton and Brandi Carlisle kind of vibes in the songs, and I really liked the low end that this guy was getting in his records, and, obviously, that was Dave Cobb.
“We’d never met him before. We just turned up in Nashville, freezing cold, minus-two degrees, and he brought in a band and we started to record. At the end of those days, we knew that this was a new experience for us, and one we wanted to pursue further.” From there, Take That decamped to Cobb’s studio in Savannah, Georgia to record the bulk of This Life.
But rather than force Take That to meet him in his wheelhouse, the recorded evidence suggests that Cobb simply accentuated what this trio does best: the effortlessly unique harmonies, the anguished melodies in the verses gliding into soaring, triumphant choruses, the overall sophistication of the songwriting.
Speaking of that writing, This Life focuses on matters that will clearly resonate with the fans who’ve been with Take That since the start. While there is anguish that pops up throughout, there is also a sense that they’re reaching out to make things easier on their listeners who might be suffering. (Let go instead of holding on, they sing in opening track, “Keep Your Head Up.”)
But if there is fan service happening, it’s only occurring indirectly, as Barlow explains. “There’s never a moment where we’ve ever sat down and said, ‘Let’s not write from the heart. Let’s write for the audience.’ You can’t do that. It never works. Prescriptive music is not a good idea for anybody. But it’s funny. Our audience, when you come to our shows, it’s actually vast. It’s a few generations. But the bulk of our audience is possibly five, ten years younger than us.”
“So they’re at a similar time. They’ve had a life, they’ve had experiences, they’ve had the passing of time. They’ve had the highs and lows, which, if you’re living life, are going to get you at some point. The message, all of a sudden, looks like the perfect thing to be talking to your audience about. But it’s about where we are, our lives. It’s possibly the most personal record we’ve written.”
A Fresh Take
When you interview Take That, even with all three men in different locations, you can sense the camaraderie and easy joviality born of spending many years making music together. For example, after Owen gives a long answer to one question, Donald joshes that his bandmate stole exactly what he was going to say. Owen returns the favor by offering to bring tissues when Donald says it will be tough singing the ode to fatherhood “One More Time” in concert without tearing up.
Yet for all that silliness, you can’t help but notice the general sense of eagerness among the trio for people to hear this record, as if these guys know they have the goods. Donald mentions the “maturity” of “Windows” as being a goal for the remainder of the album, while Owen talked about how that song could go down as one of those special tracks which the band has been lucky enough to experience a few other times in their existence.
“There’s nothing more beautiful than to be able to sing a song and connect to it and believe it,” Owen says. “Our passion for that song, and to be able to sing it eventually on stage, it’s the most beautiful journey to be on, from an idea to it becoming a reality. And you put the harmonies on it. And it grows. At this stage, anything is possible. It gets very exciting when those come along.”
Donald talks about the vocal blend of the band as something he looks forward to experiencing every time the band records. “That’s a great part of the songwriting for me is the creation of the harmonies. Going into a vocal booth and throwing out weird notes that you wouldn’t normally do and different arrangements. And that sometimes makes the song go in a different direction. I think this album, probably more so than any other, is a very vocal album, as in, this is very structured with all three of us singing the songs at the same time, which is the sound we really wanted to go for.”
“It’s exciting, this,” Barlow says. “We made this music now, and we’re on a new label [EMI]. I think it’s our fourth label since we joined together in 1990. I was looking in my diary today, and we’ve got all these great performances we’re going to do in the next few months. We’re going on tour next year. It’s bloody great. I can’t believe we’re still here doing it, at the level we’re doing it, which is great. I think that moments like this, just before an album comes out, when the work is done, I feel very lucky.”
This Life closes out with the stirring “Where We Are.” When asked about it, Barlow laughed about the fact that he had to contradict his previous answer about not writing for the audience. “If you think about us as a gang and a team, our audience is a gang and a team as well. When you sing songs like ‘Never Forget’ at a concert, it’s your words, but it’s kind of their words too. I always think that ‘Where We Are’ is about our audience.”
“Of course, it’s about us and our journey, and that’s where the inspiration comes from. But as it’s coming together as a song, as you get the meat on the bone of the lyrics, it definitely could be about our audience. Because they are an army. And, bless ‘em, they’re still with us for years and years. And quite possibly, that is the song that we’ll dedicate to them right there.”
For all the talk about songwriting and new ways of doing things, there might be a simple reason why Take That is still active and so productive after all these years: friendship. Owens sums it up: “I prefer being in the band than not being in the band. It’s wonderful just to have an excuse to hang out with friends. And then having an album, and even just having people to sit around a table with to discuss life. I’m very grateful for that. And I can’t imagine not having that.”
