Robbie Williams: Somebody Someday [Hardcover]

Robbie Williams's Somebody Someday takes fans behind the scenes of his 2001 tour, laying bare both the mechanics of the pop machine and a man who can undoubtedly claim to be one of the biggest stars in the business. Williams rose from the ashes of teeny boy band Take That, confounding critics who had housewives' favourite Gary Barlow down as the only member with a musical future. Robbie had a shaky start to his solo outing but the massive hit "Angels" sealed his position as Britain's Clown Prince of Pop. His 2001 Tour was the pinnacle of his career so far and writer Mark McCrum had unprecedented access. The result is not simply a diary of the energy and vibrancy of live performance and the backstage madness that helps keep the show going, but of a rather vulnerable and sensitive pop star who loves what he does. Robbie talks candidly about himself, revealing a far more mature individual than the egotistical womaniser image perpetrated by the tabloids. The photographs by Scarlet Page are wonderfully unintrusive but at the same time capture many sides of Robbie that are rarely caught on film. Yes, there is Robbie pulling his pants down (again) and weeing against a fence, but we also see Robbie relaxing in his hotel room, strumming away on his guitar and kicking a football about by himself in a stadium corridor. It's a far cry from the bright lights and over-the-top personality he lets emerge on stage. Robbie fans would buy this whatever the quality, but it's a genuinely well-written and enjoyable journey through a few whirlwind months of a true star. In one of his earlier hits Robbie sang "Let me Entertain You"--from the talent and star quality than shines through here, he shouldn't even need to ask. --Jonathan Weir

In a much-publicised recent poll, Robbie Williams was acclaimed as the singer of the century (against such puny competition as Frank Sinatra), and (on the strength of a few songs) even beat Gershwin and Cole Porter as the old millennium's greatest popular composer. Which shows that there is an audience out there for this remarkable personality. Co-written with Mark McCrum, this is an autobiography that conveys the strange mixture of self-mockery and self-aggrandisement that make up the singer's complex personality. There is clearly more to him than the clown who drops his trousers to moon at photographers, and the energy of the book's text (written on his 2001 European and UK tour) vividly conveys what it's like to be at the centre of the media storm that follows him about. In the countdown to Christmas, here's a sure-fire winner if ever there was one.

‘The rock book of the year’ --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

‘It’s fascinatingly candid’ --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

'Sophisticated stuff. Beckham tried to do it with My World, but it had nothing to say. Plenty to chew on here.’ --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Related Titles --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

'Like the man himself - a good-looking sexy, funny book' --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

'Intimate and unsanitised the most honest portrait of this self-professed ego to date' --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

'It's fascinatingly candid.
Inside Rob is sexy, sweet, glamorous, petualnt, precious and sometimes a bit scary.' --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

'Robbie Williams wants to entertain us - with Somebody Someday, he has.' --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

'...an intriguing peek at what goes on when he tours, works and chills out, this is the Robbie Williams book. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

A lavishly illustrated production that reveals the character behind the headlines, the genius behind the face, the lifestyle behind the closed doors. This is what it's really like at the centre of the cyclone that is Robbie Williams. An intimate, private tour of his extraordinary and complicated life.

It feels really apt and appropriate that Somebody Someday was written at this stage in my life. I'm in a very different personal and professional space than I've ever been before.

There were some dramatic changes in my world earlier this year and these are reflected in the book. Somebody Someday spans a period of time when I was working through a number of issues whilst all the while I was out there as "Robbie Williams" on a massive sell-out tour. That's why this book is so important to me because in a way it's like a personal record of everything I've been through over the last few months. And for all you cynical readers yes it is 100% the real thing in fact it's about as real as it gets.

When I first met the writer Mark McCrum (soon to be rechristened "Crummy") I thought his take on the tour and me would be somewhat serious and uptight because that was how he appeared to be. They say the best writers are like chameleons and he is no exception. When we first met he was very formal and somewhat nervy but once he found his tour legs it was hangovers/morning-afters and running jokes (at his expense) all the way. We keep finding his CV cropping up in the strangest places as I think he's hoping to be a roadie some time soon.

If Crummy was a chameleon then Scarlett Page the photographer was like a ghost. She was just incredible; she never intruded on moments like photographers sometimes do. She took amazingly intimate photographs without you feeling her presence at all. Well, I only felt it in a nice way, as she's such a lovely person with a wicked way with the lens.

As you may have noticed I manage to steer clear of interviews despite the fact that I'm never out of the papers. If you want to know about "Rob" and you want the real deal and not the bullshit then Somebody Someday is as close as you can get.

Robbie Williams was born in Newcastle under Lyme in 1974. He joined Take That in 1991 and before he left, the band had had 8 no.1 singles. His first two solo albums sold 3 million copies and his third 4 million. He has won more Brits than any other artist ever. Mark McCrum has written three travel books and is the author of the bestselling Castaway.

1.
'If I'm drinking and taking
drugs, I'm the last person
on earth that I'd want my
daughter to go out with.

But hopefully the person
that I will become will
be somebody I'd let my
daughter go out with.'

WE SHALL SEE WHAT HAPPENS

It's well after two o'clock on the second day of rehearsals and everyone's waiting for Rob. At one end of the vast, concrete-floored oval that is the Docklands London Arena, the set is up: the rows of lights, the stacks of speakers, the white cyclorama, the drapes, the black front curtain, all miraculously suspended from the criss-crossed girders in the roof high above. On the stage itself the instruments are laid out and ready: the drums central on their platform,the groups of keyboards to left and right, the guitars in racks beyond. On the fringes a mighty confusion of wires and plugs connect to a mass of chunky black cabinets and monitors. Smoke drifts across from two stage-side smoke machines and hangs thinly in the air, giving substance to the beams of the continually changing coloured lights in the half-darkness.

The seven members of the band have arrived, greeted each other and various black T-shirted members of the crew with elaborate hugs, wandered backstage to catering for coffee or lunch and eventually taken their places on the set. Curly-haired Guy Chambers, Rob's songwriting collaborator and the band's musical director, has settled down behind his keyboard stack and started the rehearsal. 'Is everyone ready?' he asks. Languid black bass guitarist Yolanda Charles unties her hair and they swing into it. But still the tall central microphone waits redundant on its stand, as it did throughout the long day of studio rehearsals yesterday.

Suddenly there's a cry away to the right. 'Robbie! 'It is the star himself, at last, striding through the gloom in a posse of three or four, his dark-bobbed personal assistant Josie Cliff keeping in step beside him. It's quite chilly, this early February day, and he' swrapped up: in thick coat, grey woolly hat, dark glasses, a scarf wrapped tight round his neck. As he marches straight to the centre of the stage, a shiver of excitement comes over the band.

'Hello, hello, hello. Nice to see everyone,' he says, nodding round, smiling, smoking as he talks. 'What's with the hair, Gary?' he asks the pudding-bowled, sideburned guitarist on the left.

'Wish I could say it was me own,' Gary Nuttall replies, with a sheepish grin.

Rob moves now to kiss Yolanda, who smiles hugely as she embraces him. He hugs Fil Eisler, the other guitarist, tall, lean and slightly scary in a fur-collared trenchcoat, shakes hands with Guy, thenwaves at keyboard player Claire Worrall and drummer Chris Sharrock. He blows kisses to his two backing singers, Tessa Niles and Katie Kissoon. He'sstill smoking, with stylish casualness; his walk is not so much a swagger, but more the confident stride of a man surveying his domain.

'Shall we do "Wimmin"?' asks Guy, up at his key-boardset, keeping things gently moving along.'D'you want to do "Wimmin", Rob?'

'Let's do "Wimmin",' Rob replies. 'I'm sick of blokes.'

There's a ripple of laughter across the band, crew and other hangers-on who fringe the brightly lit stage area.

As the band launch into Rob's new song, the energy is completely different. With Rob there, holding that microphone, his voice at the centre of the music, everything suddenly coheres. 'Even before he sings a note,' says Tessa later, 'his presence is enough to kick-start the thing into hyperspace.''Stop!' calls Rob suddenly, halfway through the song. There is silence. 'On the answer lines,' he continues commandingly, 'can they be really shouty and can everyone do 'em.' As the band listens attentively, he demonstrates: 'Nice tits, nice arse, no class or conversation.'

The band try it out, yelling back his chorus. Rob does a little thrust on the final 'Whoa!' and throws his fist up in the air. Then he's gone - off to join the tall figure of tour manager Andy 'Franksy' Franks at the far side of the stage, dressed, as always, in his habitual black. Rob wasn't on stage for long. The band are left electrified by his presence, laughing like kids.

As star follows tour manager through the little door to backstage and catering, MD Guy is quietly back in charge. The band rehearse 'Singing For The Lonely' and 'Perfect Day', but it's all a bit lacklustre again. Behind them, a wiry, bald crew member pumps up one of the two giant inflatable Brit awards that flank the back of the stage. Then, just as the band are flagging badly, Rob has sprung on from nowhere, grabbed the mike, and kicked the act back into life. 'It's such a perfect day,' he growls in a powerful, deliberately non-singing voice. 'I'm glad I spent it with you.'

He's slowly disrobing now. His coat's off (though not the woolly hat and scarf), revealing an untucked cream shirt, criss-crossed with dark lines. Below, his baggy jeans crumple over trainers.

'I'm so sick of people's expectations, leaves me tired all the time...'

Even in this empty stadium, Rob sings with such intense passion, his high forehead furrowed into a frown as he clutches the mike stand with both hands. His voice rings up to where the multicoloured lights flicker across the shadowed spaces of the roof. 'I was watching that Popstars thing on Saturday night,' he tells his ragtag audience during a break a little later. 'And I was thinking, if I auditioned for that now, I wouldn't get it.' There is laughter. 'And then, 'he continues, in a spooky voice, 'I remembered...'

Halfway through 'No Regrets' he breaks off. 'We know all of these,' he says. 'So we don't need to do the rest of them.' --This text refers to the Paperback edition.