In a revealing new documentary about the band, which will be available on Netflix this month, Take That’s full, unrefined story has revealed some dark truths.
Watch the Netflix documentary about the popular boy band Take That.
A defining boy band and a huge pop act of their generation, Take That have enjoyed staggering success since forming in 1990 with 12 Number 1 singles and nine Number 1 albums so far in the UK alone. Now a three piece led by song-writing chief Gary Barlow, Howard Donald and Mark Owen the band also originally contained Jason Orange, and of course, huge solo star Robbie Williams.
A new Netflix documentary out next week will chart the highs of the band but also the lows, with each member of the band enjoying some surprising struggles which in some cases have not been fully expressed before. The three part series features 35 years of rare archive material, never-before-seen footage, and personal material. There are also new interviews with Gary, Howard and Mark and archive interviews with Jason and Robbie to tell the story.
Gary admitted: “Some of it was hard to watch – especially that middle hour, which covers the period after the band broke up. It was just a hard, hard time. I have a good habit of letting things go. I’m not a regretful person, and I was happy to leave it behind. So it was odd to see those memories again being portrayed on television.
* Take That is released by Netflix on Tuesday January 27.
‘ Wasted ‘ Robbie’s vodka binges
The doc begins with the five piece band working hard to gain success with Gary’s songwriting and non stop gigs, sometimes three a day at schools, Under 18 shows, radio roadshows and late night gay clubs. By 1992 it eventually pays off and a cover version of Tavares 1975 hit It Only Takes A Minute goes into the charts at number 16 and they get a Top of The Pops appearance and are now mobbed everywhere they go.
Before manager Nigel Martin Smith makes a ton of money and touring, two enormous albums are released in two years.
“We were a carefree bunch of guys traveling around the world, having fun, not taking anything too seriously,” Gary recalls of the good times. But he also admits things had also changed as they grew bigger. We’re a business now, a really big, important money making machine for a lot of people.”
As things went on, Robbie became frustrated at his lack of songs and the continuing focus on Gary. Robbie left the band in July, shortly after his notorious Glastonbury performance, when his third album Nobody Else was released in May 1995, with a significant tour schedule planned that year.
Looking back he says aside from his differences with management and Gary he was also behaving like an alcoholic, drinking neat bottles of vodka each day in his hotel room. Rob returned from Glastonbury and was completely wasted, according to Mark, who went upstairs and had a minor kip. I think the lack of interest was obvious, and I think that Gaz and Jay got pretty pissed off about that. “
Robbie says:” I’d go into these rehearsals the next day that I wasn’t fit to do because my body would be full of crap, and my head had hurt and I couldn’t take in information at the best of times. You see, something just happened inside of my head? And I went, ‘ well, then I’ll leave’.
“I walked across the room, got to the door, and looked back at them, and I think we’re thinking, “This is it,” I said. And they looked at me, and then I walked through the door”.
Gary says he thought “he’ll be back tomorrow”, but Robbie would not return to the band in any form for decades and went solo.
admission of suicide is heartbreaking
The remaining foursome announced they were splitting in February 1996, and that the band would no longer exist, a year after Robbie left. Gary had suggested the move and was hoping for a big solo career, but some of the other guys were less prepared, especially Howard.
Howard tells the doc: “It hit me the hardest, simply because of the fact that I’m thinking ‘ well, what am I going to do now? ‘ I’ve only been trained to spray some paint and become a pop star. So it hit me quite hard.
You leave and you start to doubt,” you say. I feel like I was the only one that didn’t grow up, and everyone else did, even though I was the oldest. Everybody watched what was happening and prepared themselves for the end, whereas I was in this dream.
“It was almost a depressive state, and I then made the decision to visit the Thames. The state of my mind at that time, I was seriously thinking of jumping in the Thames, thinking I wanted to kill myself, but I’m just too much of a s**tbag to do it”.
In an interview where Howard discussed the footage and the second episode, Howard said, “Episode two was a difficult episode to watch and it did raise the question of why I felt so angry when the band broke up. We were never the sort of people to talk about mental health. I think I’ve processed the emotions I felt around that time, and although those memories came flooding back, I was able to watch it all in one sitting. I was grateful that I had a long-term partner at the time who could help me when I needed him the most.
Howard tried a solo career but did not enjoy it saying he “didn’t have the confidence” in what he was doing. Howard became a father for the first time in June 1999, giving birth to Grace, and he credits this time with allowing him to move on.
Crippling jealousy
Gary immediately began a solo career after Take That, but as they both promoted their singles, their relationship turned quite ugly. On Gary’s single, Robbie said: “I’d love to say it’s not my cup of tea, but in fact, it’s awful”.
Regarding Gary, Gary said, “That was the first bit of serious negativity that went in the brain.” Gary responded to Robbie by picking up on his first single being a cover version, saying: “Let’s hear these songs that are easy to write. I’m dying to hear them”.
Unfortunately for Gary, Robbie released the song Angels just as his career was in flux, and their fortunes suddenly changed. Gary says: “It’s a great song, a great song. That song was it when he had it.
” He was just untouchable from that moment. I remember sat there thinking, ‘ Well, that’s it. That’s not what I can catch. The only way I could see was me going to America, I’ve got to leave the country. And I did that as well. I did a nine month radio tour.
“It started to dawn on me that nothing’s happening here, and all this is happening at home, because the news comes across. Rob is currently an album in the multi platinum format of “this, that, and the others” Gary did eventually return home to the UK, but to the news he was being dropped by his record label RCA. He reflects on his exasperation by saying, “I was incredibly competitive, so I think I was jealous, yes.”
National laughing stock
When Gary returned from his failed America tour, he decided to stay a lot and avoid being seen. This was due to the Robbie effect. He says he felt prepared for everything in the band but afterwards felt lost.
He claims, “That was the part I didn’t expect.” Oh, is that it for the rest of your life? Because that’s it for music now. I don’t want to do that anymore because I can’t even walk down the street right now without someone shouting something at me about Robbie.
He says he watched “all” the TV shows which mocked him including comedy versions of himself played by Matt Lucas, combined with Robbie’s success.
Robbie once famously said, “Sorry, Gary, but I was always the talented member of the band.”
Looking back Gary says: “It was just so excruciating I just wanted to crawl into a hole. And there was a period of about 13 months where I didn’t leave the house once. Additionally, I would start putting on weight, and people would start to reject me more. I thought, ‘ well, this is good’. Living a normal life is what I had been hoping for. And so I went on this mission. If the food passed me, I’d just eat it, and I’d killed the pop star”.
Gary would continue to write music despite having an eating disorder at the time he was trying to write it.
“You get out of bed and you’ve got to go, ‘ Hey everyone, I’m going into the studio now’. And then my father would leave for his day’s work, and I would literally be sitting there listening to the piano thinking, “I used to write big hits on that thing.” Now, the piano was the enemy. I’d sit in there and I’d look at the clock, and I’d come out at four and go ‘ that was a good day’. And I would act like a complete moron while I was in the studio today, pretending to be doing nothing. It is awful and it went on for years”.
dropped by record company
Quiet band member Mark felt the loss of Robbie the most when it happened. Looking back he says: “It was kind of strange, really, because for me, Rob was like a brother. Without him, I had no idea what the band would like, but we already had three weeks to play together.
But after the shows and another year he had enough of the band. He claims he thought “thank God” when Gary suggested they split. But he wasn’t totally prepared for the coming years.
“I just pretty much started writing straight away. At home, I had songs I had written for myself and on my piano. Rob lived in St John’s Wood, and I was recording at Abbey Road. So he stopped by and came back a few times, which was lovely. And Howard came and sang on Clementine and Jason came to the studio, and I remember I was so much wanting to impress Jay that I forgot to eat all day and then fainted. So emotionally, we probably all a little bit, we didn’t have a plan”.
His 1996 solo album Green Man did OK but nothing compared to the highs of the big number one Take That albums. He then stepped out of the limelight for a while but bounced back to win Celebrity Big Brother in 2002 and brought out second album In Your Own Time in November 2003, but further success did not follow. “Eventually I got dropped. You started to feel very negative about yourself,” he admits.
Desperate attempt to get Jason to stay
When the band reformed one of the things Jason Orange insisted on was that Nigel was no longer their manager so they could do things on their own terms having been hurt before.
He probably figured out why it wouldn’t work if we got too big for our boots. So he made us all feel insecure. I didn’t want to feel like that anymore”, Jason recalls.
“I was really proud of Jay,” Mark continues. I remember feeling like, go on, Jason. And I must have been proud, I suppose”?
The band had all changed by this point and were less selfish it seems, thinking of each other and clearly more mature than the boys who began in the band.
Gary says: “I wanted to walk out on stage again. I longed to recite the song. I wanted that audience again. I wanted it all desperately, but we all wanted it to be right. I wanted it to be, to feel good for everyone. And I suppose that was new, because I didn’t really care about anybody else in the 90s, I just wanted it to be all right for me”.
Following their comeback tour, the band released new material, including the smash-hit song Patience. Jason insisted the band got split royalties for tracks, which was not the case before when Gary got all the songwriting cash. He claims that Gary had previously refused to take it into account. Gary says: “When we came back…everyone wanted to write, and I realised this takes pressure off me. Now everybody’s sharing the burden of being creative in a band”.
Although the band had a hugely successful tour under the name Circus, Gary could tell Jason wouldn’t stay forever.
“I knew this was enough for him. Jason was departing, I was aware. I think he’d found it hard coming back. I feel like he’d enjoyed the success, but he didn’t want it forever. We need to get Rob, so I wished I could keep Jason.
Howard adds: “Oh, Jason promoted it quite heavily. the fact that Robbie and he wanted to do this. He worked together, five of us back together, making everything hunky dory”.
The band meet Robbie in America and after a few false starts work on some music together and he joins them on tour. Jason leaves the band at the conclusion of this tour, forming a three-piece.
Howard recalls: “After that last show, Jason sat us all down and said, Listen, I don’t want to be in the band anymore. And I believe I’ve finished. But it was really sad, because Jason felt like one of my best friends. I felt like we had so much in common”.
Mark continues, “We had a big, big moment because we’ve now gone from having five on stage to three.” We’ve lost two members”.
happier times …
Take That reform kick-starts with ‘ tipsy ‘ dance to Pray
Take That manager Nigel Martin-Smith threw the band an unlikely lifeline when he called up Gary in 2005 and told him that Sony wanted to make a film about them.
For Gary it was the encouragement for change he needed. Mark Owen had just done Celebrity Big Brother so was back in the spotlight and Howard hints in the film his money had begun to dry up by this point.
You begin to worry about money. All of a sudden, my money’s dwindling. I’ve got to look after it. He recalled that he had to move to a smaller home.
The four members meet and discuss the band and Robbie and Take That: For The Record centred on a final reunion where Robbie was also invited but didn’t show up. “I got stoned before I went in there because I didn’t know how he was going to handle it,” Howard says.
There was a premiere for the show launched at the end of the year, and the four members posed outside for the first time in around 10 years together to help create a buzz. Despite the documentary being quite staged and awkward in places, it was a huge hit on TV and led to the foursome being offered the chance to reform and go back on stage.
“We didn’t really know what kind of reaction it would have,” Mark admits. After a night drinking together, and even performing the dance to Pray whilst tipsy to see if they could still do it, they agreed to say yes to concert promoter Simon Moran and arena dates sold out in one morning. The band was back, and it would someday take some form of permanent residence.
Trio continue – and are Back For Good
Gary, Howard, and Mark, the trio, made the decision to continue performing on and off going forward, with more live dates coming up in 2026.
Gary says: “These days, that gorgeous audience, I want to go around and kiss one by one, because they’ve loved us and they’ve made us part of their lives for years and years, and they still keep coming”.
Mark also praises Howard and his importance in the band, despite not singing many songs. “Howard for me is like the backbone of the band. The band is in the song Never forget, which is the most appropriate for him to sing, because it is their first encounter with other lads, slightly nervous and shy, and every outfit, award, take that, every high, every low, Rob leaving, Jay, leaving, has a special resonance in my mind. And when you throw your arms up in the air and you’re never going to forget you are reaching for the freaking sky”.
* Take That is released by Netflix on Tuesday January 27.
