Gary Barlow - A Better Me

Published by Blink Publishing

The Plaza,

535 Kings Road,

Chelsea Harbour,

London, SW10 0SZ

www.blinkpublishing.co.uk

facebook.com/blinkpublishing

twitter.com/blinkpublishing

This book was first published in the UK by Blink Publishing in 2018

Paperback 978-1-911600-57-2

eBook 978-1-911600-99-2

All rights reserved. No part of the publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted or circulated in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission in writing of the publisher.

A CIP catalogue of this book is available from the British Library.

Designed and set by seagulls.net

Work copyright 2018, Gary Barlow

Gary Barlow has asserted his moral right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Every reasonable effort has been made to trace copyright holders of material reproduced in this book, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publishers would be glad to hear from them.

Blink Publishing is an imprint of Bonnier Books UK

www.bonnierbooks.co.uk

I dedicate this book to
Colin Barlow, my amazing dad,
and to Poppy, our beautiful daughter.

I ve got a recording studio at the back of the house. Its got a bathroom in its farthest corner and thats where I go to be sick. Dawn goes to bed early, so if I get back from a big dinner, I go there because it is the farthest place from our bedroom that I can go. I lay a towel down to kneel on. Just the thought of laying that towel down now makes me feel sick. The first time I did it, it took me fifteen minutes to get the job done. By now it takes me thirty seconds. Fingers go down my throat and I press down. I hate being sick but its such a relief when Ive done it.

This isnt a daily thing, but its happening more and more frequently. Im weeks away from it becoming a real problem. Its starting to scare me because I am relying on it. My logic goes, Im on this diet and were going out on Thursday but its all right, I can chuck it up afterwards. It is physically traumatic, kneeling down there and making myself sick. It shakes me up. I go back to bed and lie awake next to my beautiful wife, my heart racing, throat sore, worrying and overstimulated. I can never sleep after Ive done it.

How had it come to this? I was a pin-up once, a teen idol. Lead singer in a band called Take That. Gary, Howard, Jason, Mark and Robbie. You may have heard of us. From 1990 to 1996 I was never more than a few hundred metres away from screaming girls. We were Britains first manufactured boy band and I wrote and sang pretty much every one of their hits. Robbie Williams, the youngest band member, left in 1995. A year later the rest of us went our separate ways. I was 25. It was on the news; there were helplines for the fans. Yeah, that band.

I went solo. I was told and I believed Id be a big solo star. My first album went to number one. The fame train kept running; the goodies it brings kept coming.

The second album was a different story. It bombed. I was humiliated in a very public way. The headline Take Thats Gary Dumped by Record Label was in stark contrast with what was happening for my former bandmate. Robbie Williams star was in stratospheric ascendance and he was riding a wave of credibility. He hung out with all the Cool Britannia types like Kate Moss and Oasis, while I was holed up in my massive pop star mansion, chain-smoking, getting stoned and eating huge bowls of cereal.

I can count on my fingers the people who remained in my life once Id been dropped. It was a few rock-solid mates and my family: Dawn, Mum, Dad, my brother Ian and his wife Lisa. Everyone else legged it. Id made a lot of money by then, and if Id wanted I could have retired on the royalties of all my hits.

That wasnt an option. Hard graft and routine is all I know. Music is all I can do. When the label dumped me, everything I had ever known was gone and all the routine and discipline and usefulness that went with it. A record deal was the one thing Id held so high as a teenager when I was working the North West working mens clubs. They throw them out now. You win The X Factor or The Voice and you get a record deal. A record deal was a big thing back then. Now its gone.

Suddenly, I was sitting on my arse all day with nothing to do.

Sometimes back in the Take That days, old Nigel Martin-Smith, our manager, would say, Youre overweight. The worst I felt when he said that was mildly annoyed, not hurt. I could pack in an extra run and go back to looking like Jean-Claude Van Damme. Mostly, we were on stage every night and didnt have to think about food. Lulu used to tour with us and always complained she needed to go on a diet afterwards because wed go for an Indian every night after the show. She never bothered ordering. She just watched, aghast, taking the odd mouthful as we went in like a swarm of locusts. Youve just spent two hours on stage doing the sparkly shirt equivalent of running a marathon. Touring life is great: youre getting exercise, you come off stage sweating; psychologically, youre being adored every night. What an artificial and totally brilliant place. Youre being looked after, anything you want you can have. Well, thats gone.

Then there was nothing. For nearly a year absolutely nothing came. The house started to feel like a prison then, the studio its torture chamber. This was a time when studios were still dark, windowless places. I sat in there, day after day, doing nothing. I can remember every detail, the grey walls and that one particular piece of the skirting board in my studio that never joined properly at the floor. Id just stare at the walls struggling to find a chord, let alone a song. The magic, the muse, all gone. That fucking crack in the skirting board, I can see it now. All right, okay, come on Gaz, lets update the software or put a new wire on something. A simple thing that normally takes me five minutes could eat up an entire day. Id go to the piano, sit at it, Id lie underneath it. Nothing would come.

The work dried up. One day there was a glimmer of hope: the fax woke up and started to grind out a work offer. I stood over the machine, daring to be hopeful. Did I want to play the Child Catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang at the Liverpool Empire? No, I did not. What a waste of paper.

In the fairground of showbiz, now I am the coconut. Piers Morgan told me at the start of our career, way back when nothing could possibly go wrong, Gary, people like newspapers because they love to read about the misfortune of others. Remember that.

Remember it? I am living it. Everyone lines up to have a shot.

Where once people said, Love your new record! now they just come up in my face, put their heads on one side, pityingly, and say nothing. Taking the car to the garage for a service, Robbies Angels comes on and they turn it up to 11. Rummaging through the CD racks in HMV Amazon is a distant dream at this point they start playing Robbies new album. People spot me across the road and shout, Hows Robbie? Remember that thing kids used to do at school, cough out a word behind their hands? Well, now Im in my early thirties and Im still getting it. Cough Robbie! Its got to the point where my mum shoots across the room like a bullet from a gun if one of his songs comes on. We all feel haunted by him.