Take That – Now and Then: Inside the Biggest Comeback in British Pop History. Martin Roach
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‘I’d met the actual band on the night of the Limelight gig and then they came into the office and we chatted and talked. It was really evident that they were really good at gripping-and-grinning [meeting and greeting the general public], which, in a pop sense, is really important. At the Limelight and in our offices you could watch them working a room, chatting with women; they were great with women and they were really good with the media and they’d shake hands, they’d be interested and they’d turn up on time. I know it sounds silly but the ability for them to turn up at a TV studio at half six in the morning, looking bright, fresh, ready to go and cracking jokes when everyone else is blotchy-eyed, it was a hefty potential asset…in walk these five young kids and you could-n’t not look at them. You could see them being so attractive to women, which is an obvious bonus. Plus they were really respectful with their p’s and q’s. They were nice kids, well brought up, good characters. And, contrary to many reports, at that point they were certainly a gang, the five of them were together all that time, laughing constantly, mucking about. It was all new and fresh. They were a gang.
‘At this point we started to take them seriously. Nigel took us seriously and we finally agreed a record contract—it wasn’t a huge deal at all. It was in the region of about £70,000, which effectively committed RCA to a further investment of around £300,000 to £400,000 in terms of launching Take That. It was a pretty standard deal to be honest.’
Nigel and the boys’ hard work had finally paid off and they had secured themselves a major-label record contract. Take That joined a very ‘unique’ roster that boasted such diverse artists as Rick Astley, The Primitives, The Wedding Present and Pop Will Eat Itself. ‘I actually had several occasions where the paths of these polar opposites on our roster would cross,’ Korda told me.
‘High-profile new bands are usually signed in something of a fanfare, to start the PR machine rolling early. I remember the signing party for Take That very clearly. It was at the Hard Rock CafÉ. We all had a long chat and I started talking to Robbie. The rest of the band were all drinking Coca Cola and Robbie was like, “Can you shove a scotch in there please?” We had to look around to see where his manager and everyone else was before we gave him this sneaky drink. Bless them, they were under the thumb of Nigel in quite a big way, but in a positive sense; Nigel did a lot of good things for them and that was because he was very strong in knowing what he wanted to do and where he wanted to take it. He controlled the boys and I think their frustrations would later come through, but from a record label’s perspective, Nigel’s approach was a very positive aspect, because there was someone in charge, sailing the ship and knowing what to do.’
Take That’s first major-label single was ‘Promises’ in September 1991, exactly seven days before Nirvana’s seminal ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’. One record changed the face of modern music, arts, TV, radio, music-industry strategies and pretty much every facet of popular culture; the other one didn’t. No prizes for guessing which one was Take That’s.
Nick Raymonde recalls that first major-label release: ‘I thought Gary was a great songwriter, but being honest, “Promises” was an all right song, but it wasn’t a great record. On top of that, we hadn’t worked out how to get all of these fans that existed everywhere alerted to the fact a record was coming out. There was so much hype around the group that the record company was almost wanting it to succeed too soon. This song was done with Duncan Bridgman at his own studio in Uxbridge Road: he produced it, played on it, but unfortunately I didn’t like it—to be fair to Duncan, though, I didn’t really know what record it was we were trying to make.’
Having said that, the single did mark the start of something big, not least their first ever chart entry. Robbie later remarked that the moment they all heard the single had charted at No. 38—their first chart hit—was the most excited he has ever been about any single, including during his own illustrious solo career. Apparently, the band jumped on his hotel bed so much it broke.
Nick Raymonde was equally pleased. ‘I thought when that first record had gone in at No. 38 that was a genuine hit, because at that time the Top Forty was regarded as success—actually, the fact that it only sold about 8,000 copies and probably hadn’t even washed its hands on the cost of the photograph on the sleeve was a more worrying reality.’
The video was low budget but did give an interesting insight into the band’s life on the road, featuring as it did footage of their club PAs and school shows, as well as a ‘live’ performance re-enacted at Hollywoods nightclub in Romford, one of their regular haunts. During the promotional campaign for ‘Promises’, they also made their first appearance on Wogan, which was Britain’s biggest chat show at the time, with viewing figures of twelve million a night. As part of his intro, Sir Terence called them—not for the first or last time—‘Britain’s answer to New Kids on the Block’.
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Nigel Hassler of Helter Skelter Agency was, at the time, working for Primary Talent booking agents, and he became involved in some of Take That’s very earliest shows. Even at that early stage, there was a growing buzz within the music industry about these newcomers, as he explained to me: ‘I am always researching magazines, gig listings, seeing who keeps cropping up, who I need to keep an eye out for, and Take That seemed to catch my eye every now and then. So I went to the record label and Nick Raymonde put me in contact with Nigel Martin-Smith. The buzz was building already so I phoned him and said I’d love to get involved.
‘I was employed by Nigel Martin-Smith to try to get them on any kind of club show, mainly under-18s discos, the odd gay club and a schools tour. There was a combination of markets there from way back then. Basically, though, at that stage it was like pulling teeth trying to get them booked, and it was always for very low fees. We were almost giving the band away to give them exposure: I think it was about £200 a night on average.’ Given that this money had to cover fuel, food, any accommodation if it was needed and so on, it is easy to see that everyone involved was, at this point, just investing their efforts in the future.
Their innovative manager was very keen to gig the band as hard as possible—at the time this was a relatively forward-thinking strategy, one of hard road-work normally reserved for more rock-oriented acts. ‘Everybody was working very hard to break the band,’ explains their former agent Nigel Hassler, ‘yet it was actually quite difficult to fill up a date sheet; gigs were not easy to come by. Nigel Martin-Smith would take anything, so they ended up travelling all over the country; Ipswich then up north, then way back south, miles and miles and miles, wherever they could play in front of people.’
Far from concentrating on almost exclusively gay clubs, Nigel Hassler saw a much more focussed attention on school tours. ‘In my opinion,’ continues Hassler, ‘it was the first time this school touring schedule had been done so strategically. Occasionally the odd band may have done one or two school shows, but none had actually gone and done a deliberate schools’ tour. That’s what we were putting together for them. The typical day would involve playing a school in the afternoon, perhaps with a meet-and-greet afterwards and a quick signing session, then off to a club show and very often back in the car for a drive to a late-night club, not always in the same towns. Weekends were always two shows a night. It was relentless. They really put in the time.’
Having seen literally thousands of gigs in his career, Nigel Hassler was impressed by the band’s show even when they were playing tiny venues for next-to-no money: ‘They were great; they looked good, the choreography was fantastic, the costumes were well thought out, they looked like the “real deal”. You often get rock bands who can’t perform too well and they need a couple of years to actually develop and grow to become an accomplished live band, but from what I remember, Take That were doing very well indeed so early on. I actually went to one of their earliest London shows at the Brixton Fridge for a gay club night. They would usually play about five songs, playback with a live vocal. They were very, very good.’
Despite the paltry financial returns, Nigel recalls that their record label was firmly behind them: ‘BMG were giving them major push-ups to make some connection with the public. We had a few problems with show dates clashing with some booked by Nigel Martin-Smith’s office, and when I spoke to him about a few concerns, it was taken as me ducking