NO ONE KNOWS POP’S PITFALLS LIKE US
Mega stardom, bitter splits, dream comebacks – Gary Barlow and Martin Kemp have seen it all. Which makes them the perfect pair for picking a new boyband on a TV talent show
Take That singer Gary Barlow is trying to remember what it feels like to be 19, in a band, and about to take the leap into superstardom. So is Spandau Ballet bassist Martin Kemp. It’s rather surreal to hear these music legends swapping stories about what it feels like to be the poster boys of their generation. The parallels in their experience, though, are striking. Both were indeed 19 when they were hurled into the limelight. Both enjoyed global success and earned millions. But both also know what it feels like to have the dream collapse amid band splits and bitter acrimony – and both have enjoyed the sweet success of the comeback.
Now they’ve joined forces as judges in the BBC’s new entertainment juggernaut, Let It Shine, which kicked off last night. It’s a talent show with a difference, with the judges putting together a new boyband to star in an original musical, called The Band, which features the music of Take That.
Let It Shine is clearly designed to be the BBC’s new primetime extravaganza now The Voice has gone to ITV and the concept is an audacious one, and a direct challenge to Simon Cowell’s stable of talent shows. The first four episodes of eight will see more than 100 solo boys perform. Then, for the second stage, they’re put into carefully assembled groups of eight to see how they cope in a band. These first two parts have been pre-recorded. After the groups of eight have performed, they’re whittled down to five-piece bands for the final Battle Of The Bands, which will be shown live over the last
three episodes. The big guns have certainly been wheeled out. The presenters are Graham Norton and Great
British Bake Off host Mel Giedroyc, while Gary and Martin are joined on the judging panel by former X
Factor mentor Dannii Minogue and American Glee star Amber Riley.
The idea for the show – whose winners will tour in the musical for a year after it ends – was Gary’s. ‘This year it’s 25 years since Take That’s first album release, so I thought it would be great if we could try and get this together for that.’ But he’s at pains to stress that the judging panel aren’t searching for doubles of himself, Robbie & Co. ‘I don’t want a lookalike band. I don’t want a Robbie Williams and a Mark Owen. The five-piece band in the story is just five 19-year-old guys, like the 1992 version of us, all of a sudden in this crazy world, brimming with energy.’
It’s a curious move for Gary. With six Ivor Novello songwriting awards and endless pop music gongs and an OBE, no one can doubt his credentials in the music business. But his three-year stint as a judge on The X
Factor wasn’t a resounding success. Cowell publicly blamed him for the fall in ratings, and it’s widely felt that he thought Gary’s always-measured comments lacked the vitriolic punch needed for that show. Rumour has it that Cowell is piqued by Gary’s TV return, particularly in a show that is seen as a direct rival to his own Saturday night contest.
‘I’ve no idea about that. I really don’t care,’ says Gary honestly. ‘There isn’t any love lost between us. I haven’t really spoken to him since
The X Factor – I don’t need to, I’m not in business with him.’
Let It Shine’s search is more specific than The X Factor, so there is no place for timewasters. Slackers were promptly sent home in the
pre-recorded shows, says Gary. ‘This is for a proper job, working 12 months in theatre, touring all round the country in eight shows a week, so we need grafters... I want them to be 150% when they stand on that stage. It’s a big responsibility. So to any boys who were there just for the fame, we said, “Go home.”’
So far so sensible, but then Gary always was during his whole time in Take That – something he admits to regretting.
What of Martin? His smile suggests he partook of a little more in his heyday. ‘The Eighties were about excess, and we were no different to anyone. I’m glad I did all of that, because it was about growing up and finding your personality.’
Both of them remained pretty grounded though. Martin was prepared for fame at the Anna Scher Theatre School in London, with his brother Gary Kemp. As children they appeared in TV shows such as Dixon Of Dock Green before they formed Spandau Ballet with Gary on guitar, Tony Hadley as vocalist, Steve Norman as saxophonist and John Keeble on drums. ‘We were never a band that got drunk before performing, or anything like that. It’s also because we were working-class kids from working-class families, and all our parents had an incredible work ethic which rubbed off on us,’ he explains.
It’s interesting hearing both of them tell their respective stories about the flipside of the industry. For Gary, things started to slide when Robbie Williams left the band in 1995 after five years and just before a tour, leaving Take That as just Gary, Howard Donald, Mark Owen and Jason Orange. Then in 1996, Barlow decided he, too, wanted to go solo. He admits he was ill-prepared for what was to follow, with his star eclipsed by his one-time bandmate.
In March 2000, Gary – once tipped as the next Elton John – suffered the humiliation of being dropped from his record label and treated like a pariah by former friends and colleagues. His lyrical and musical genius deserted him, his confidence crashed, he sank into a depression and his weight ballooned to 17st as a result of comfort eating. ‘I try not to look back on those years,’ he says quietly. ‘I can count the people on one hand who stood by me in the late Nineties, and Elton John was one of them. He was still there when no one else was. He told me to carry on writing, carry on working.’
After three years in the pop wilderness, Gary realised what he had to do to get his groove back. ‘It was because I wrote songs, and I sang, and I thought, “That’s what I’ve got to do. I’ve got to get back to that. And not be good at it, be brilliant at it.” So I went back and sharpened all the tools in my toolbox – I went back to singing lessons and started to make everything better. I went from the performing and the hits to just writing songs for anyone who’d have them.’
He wrote for Atomic Kitten, Shirley Bassey, Delta Goodrem, Westlife and N-Dubz. It took nearly 10 years to claw back his mojo – and his waistline. In 2005, the wheel of fortune turned again. ‘Me, Howard, Mark and Jason had an offer from our old label, saying, “It’s 10 years since you split up. We want to put out an album of your greatest hits.” And I was like, “Who’s going to buy that?” We were all looking at each other thinking, “Who cares about us?” And some were saying, “Take That without Robbie? We don’t get it.” I mean, we didn’t even know him any more at that point.’
They were wrong, because the album was a massive and unexpected success, going multiplatinum. ‘Then the offers flooded in after that to go on tour,’ says Gary. ‘We ended up filling stadiums and arenas – we hadn’t even played stadiums in the Nineties. It was on another level.’
The band recorded two more highly successful albums,
Beautiful World and The Circus, and then in 2010 the unexpected happened – Robbie returned to the band. They released a new album, Progress, and toured again before taking a hiatus in 2011. Since then Gary has released a couple of solo albums, work that’s helped him deal with difficult personal issues, including the loss of his fourth child Poppy – a sister to Daniel, now 16, Emily, 14 and Daisy, seven – who was stillborn in 2012. Just eight days after the tragedy, he performed with Take That at the Olympics closing ceremony. ‘I don’t even remember that night, really,’ he says. ‘In a band you’re a team. You don’t want to let anyone down. That’s why I went out that night, because I knew I was safe in a band.’
It’s a feeling Martin Kemp understands. Since Spandau Ballet’s first hit when he was just 19 they’ve sold 25 million albums, but in 1990 they too imploded, partly because their style didn’t fit in with the new decade but mostly because of a bitter legal battle when Hadley, Norman and Keeble launched an unsuccessful court case against Martin’s brother Gary for a share of his songwriting royalties. ‘Bands split up over a few things – one’s women and one’s money – and we were no different,’ admits Martin. ‘But we’d reached our sell-by date by the Nineties. However, my biggest regret is not taking my brother’s side. Both camps asked me not to take sides, but if only I could turn back time, because I should have stuck with Gary.’
Spandau Ballet finally reunited in 2009 with a lucrative comeback tour. After the original break-up, Martin had won great acclaim by playing Reggie alongside his brother Gary as Ronnie in The Krays. Yet his film career was cut short when doctors found two benign brain tumours in 1995 and had to remove a section of his skull to save his life. The treatment sidelined him for three years, but Kemp bounced back as the murderous leading man Steve Owen in EastEnders and won multiple awards. ‘That role was a lifeline for me as I’d lost all my confidence,’ admits Martin.
So too was his wife Shirlie Holliman, a backing singer for Wham! and part of the duo Pepsi & Shirlie. They’ve been married since 1988 and have a daughter Harley, 27, who’s a photographer, and son Roman, 23, a radio DJ. The couple were introduced by George Michael, who was also godfather to Roman, and his death on Christmas Day was particularly hard for them. ‘Shirlie’s been my rock and best mate,’ says Martin. ‘And George not only supported me during my illness but was a huge support for Shirlie too. They went back a long way.’ On St Stephen’s Day, Martin tweeted that his whole family were ‘heartbroken’ by George’s death.
Barlow and Kemp may have different styles, and they certainly don’t always see eye to eye on the show, but they’re united in their common aim. ‘Gary and I might sometimes disagree about what’s right and wrong for the show,’ says Martin. ‘But at the end of the day we’re trying to find five guys for Gary’s musical.’
Whoever’s picked would do well to study Gary and Martin’s careers, because in terms of showbiz survivors you really don’t get much greater.
‘The role in EastEnders was a big lifeline. I’d lost all my confidence’