THE NEW BUBLE?

Why Robbie thinks he’s the king of the crooners

Robbie Williams, once the undisputed bad boy of pop, has gone all jolly on us. The singer has just released his first Christmas album. But is Williams, known for stripping down to his undies and picking fights with Liam Gallagher, really a Christmassy kinda guy? That’s what I’m keen to find out when I’m offered a middle-of-the-night, 15-minute phone interview with him, ahead of the album’s release. He has already spent the past month promoting it, and it’s clear he’s bored with the subject. In any case, he claims to have become a yulephile over the past decade, largely due to the influence of his wife of nine years, American actress Ayda Field. ‘‘She’s like a professional memory-maker. ‘‘She invests her heart and her soul into creating memories for me and our family,’’ he says, referring to their children Theodora , 7, Charlton, 5, and Colette, 1. ‘‘You can’t help but get washed away in this tidal wave of seasonal stuff that she does. So yeah, I love Christmas.’’ It’s not exactly the answer I expected. When I was told I would be interviewing Williams about his festive turn, Bill Nighy’s character from the 2003 film Love Actually came to mind: the irreverent rocker who admits to a radio presenter his Christmas single is ‘‘crap’’, but ‘‘wouldn’t it be great if No 1 this Christmas wasn’t some smug teenager, but an old ex-heroin addict searching for a comeback at any price?’’ It’s the sort of thing I could imagine the notoriously candid singer – who has been open about his own substance abuse – saying. Heck, it’s the sort of thing I was hoping he would say. So I timidly inquire as to whether he’s ever seen the movie, in an attempt to draw out the parallel. ‘‘Yeah, I saw it once. But I think it was the 90s and I was ‘not around’, let’s put it that way.’’

Williams, now 45, burst on to the music scene as a member of the boy band Take That, when he was just 16. The lad from Stoke-on-Trent left the band in the mid-1990s to forge a hugely successful solo career, with hits such as Angels and Feel.

This Christmas offering will be his 12th studio album. So, why now?

‘‘It just so happens that I’m at the beginning of middle age and thought I should grasp the opportunity and walk towards it with open arms, and greet it with the affection that it deserves,’’ he deadpans. ‘‘People have been asking me, ‘why now?’

‘‘I just fancied it.’’

It’s quite hard to tell when Robbie’s being genuine. His ‘‘cheeky chappy’’ persona still offers up the soundbites fluently, although it does sound rather like he’s on autopilot – let me entertain you.

At one point in our conversation, I feel compelled to tell him that his 2000 hit Rock DJ remains one of my all-time favourite karaoke anthems. He obliges by rapping the first two lines of the song back at me:

‘‘Ah, so it’s you with the floorshow kickin’ with your torso.’’

But back to the Christmas tunes.

Titled The Christmas Present, it’s a double album of 28 tracks, half of them covers and half originals.

‘‘The covers are there as a mechanism to get everybody to listen to the new ones,’’ he says.

‘‘I wrote 35 songs for this album and it took three years. Then I was hearing from bigwigs, ‘oh, you know, people don’t want to listen to new Christmas songs’, which scared me.

‘‘So then I got out my favourite Christmas songs and thought, I know what I’ll do, I’ll do a double-disc.’’

Williams has enlisted some big names for the record, including collaborations with Rod Stewart, Bryan Adams and British boxing champion Tyson

Fury (who features on Bad Sharon, a song about a ‘‘very boozy office Christmas party’’).

He artfully hit headlines when he told a media outlet early in the press tour that the one thing that was missing from the album was a duet with Britney Spears of The Pogues’ hit Fairytale of New York (he claimed she turned him down because she’s not working right now).

Was he being serious?

‘‘It’s a fantastic idea, I think. Lots of people would think it wouldn’t be – it would be sacrilege, because the song is incredible,’’ he says (and I’m still none the wiser as to the authenticity of his answer).

Britney or no Britney, bookies have Williams as one of the favourites for the coveted Christmas No 1 in the United Kingdom.

It’s a feat he has achieved before, with his 2001 Nicole Kidman duet,

Somethin’ Stupid. This year, he’s up against an eclectic and intimidating bunch – grime artist Stormzy, girl band Little Mix, James Blunt, and Coldplay are all contenders. He doesn’t really fancy his chances.

‘‘It would actually be a Christmas miracle if I was No 1,’’ he says.

‘‘My audience don’t stream, and the [singles] charts are for streaming now. It makes it virtually impossible for me to break into the Top 20. So I hold no want or need for the single to be No 1.

‘‘But I can achieve a No 1 album, and that’s what

I’m aiming for.’’

Agin shop in York might have made the news when it banned Christmas songs recently, but Williams says there are no festive tunes he is sick of hearing.

‘‘I’m not one of those people who thinks Christmas songs come on the radio too early. They can’t come on early enough for me.

‘‘But then again, my wife takes care of all the Christmas hassle. So the Christmas songs coming on the radio don’t herald a reminder of all the stuff that I haven’t done, because there’s nothing that I have to do other than buy her a Christmas present.’’

Can he say what he’ll be getting her this year? Go on, we’re in New Zealand, she probably won’t read this.

I can hear his publicist hissing on the other end of the line, ‘‘no, no’’.

‘‘No, can’t say, it’s a secret,’’ Williams says obediently.

A pause, and then a tongue-in-cheek response: ‘‘OK, no, I’m buying her a facelift for Christmas.’’

But he becomes unexpectedly sincere when I ask how it feels to be providing the soundtrack to people’s Christmas.

‘‘My sort of raison d’etre for the last three years has been to write songs that remain in the fabric of people’s lives at Christmas for the rest of time,’’ he says.

‘‘I’ve been thinking all the way through about playing this album at my Christmas lunch, imagining other people playing this album at their

Christmas lunch. It gives me a good feeling.’’

So where will Williams, who divides his time between London and Los Angeles, have his Christmas lunch on December 25?

‘‘I’ll be in England.’’

Who does the cooking?

‘‘I do, yeah. No, that was a lie.’’

What will be on the Christmas table?

‘‘Everything. Too much of everything. But I’m not eating meat. I’ll have a try, but I’ve been picturing it in my head and I’m kind of like, ‘I’m not interested in meat any more. But I’ll eat fish’.’’

‘I find it vitally important for me to dangle the carrot in front of myself and walk towards it so there’s always something happening that I’m excited about, that scares me, that I need to go and attack and do.’ ROBBIE WILLIAMS

After a minute or so of awkward back-and-forth, we move on to his New Year’s resolutions. Last year’s resolution was to give up smoking and lose weight, both of which he has managed.

But the singer, who has spoken about his struggle with dysmorphia, still wants to lose almost another 5kg. That’s this year’s resolution.

The past decade, though, has been one of learning to become comfortable in his own skin.

‘‘I just think it’s sort of been the decade of finding a bit of peace in my head, and in my mind, and in my being. It’s the first decade that I’ve actually enjoyed my job.’’

He’s keen to keep performing, having just signed on for another Las Vegas residency next year, after selling out 16 shows there this year.

‘‘I’m inventing new doors to walk through, different areas in the avenues of show business to go and ply my wares,’’ he says.

‘‘I find it vitally important for me to dangle the carrot in front of myself and walk towards it so there’s always something happening that I’m excited about, that scares me, that I need to go and attack and do.’’

First things first, does he really plan to take on Michael Buble as the next King of Christmas?

‘‘I veer into Michael Buble’s lane every now and again, but I’m only a visitor there,’’ he says.

‘‘He does own the Christmas lane, he owns the swing lane, and I’m a big fan of his. But for this Christmas, I’m here to take over, and then I shall bow down and move out of the way for him to reclaim his title.’’

So does that mean this will be the one and only Robbie Williams Christmas album?

‘‘We shall see. If it does really well, I’ll be here to bother people again next Christmas.’’ Robbie Williams’ The Christmas Present is out now.