May 19, 2025 • 21 mins
In this nostalgic and joy-filled episode of The Jermaine Plane, Jermaine D'Vauz is joined by British pop legends Take That—Gary Barlow, Mark Owen, and Howard Donald—as they celebrate the 30th anniversary of their iconic album Everything Changes. Broadcasting during their This Life world tour stop in Australia, the band reflects on the evolution of their sound from 90s club anthems to soulful ballads, the influence of New Jack Swing, and behind-the-scenes stories from music video shoots in Acapulco and the Ministry of Sound.
They also revisit early hits like Pray, Why Can’t I Wake Up With You, and deep cuts like Another Crack in My Heart and Girl, sharing rare stories about their creation. Each band member takes control of the show as co-pilots, choosing their ultimate Take That throwback—and it gets personal. From live show pride to their deep bond as a band, this conversation is a rare glimpse into the heart of one of the UK’s biggest pop groups.
Catch The Jermaine Plane every Friday night from 7pm on Nova Throwbacks, streaming via the Nova Player app.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Flying back in time.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
This is the Domain Plane. Oh yes, hello, it's Jamaine
here and welcome into another episode of The Jamain Plane.
I hope you're having a great day now. This episode
it's a very special one for me because I've worked
in radio for almost a decade and one of my
dreams was to have my own music radio show where
(00:25):
I get to play my favorite songs. And that's all
I kind of wanted for this show, The Jamain Plane,
and then it evolved and I got guests on the show,
local guests, national guests to play their favorite songs. But
never in my wildest dreams that I ever think that
I would have my idols on the show, and one
(00:46):
of them is the UK boy band Take That. If
you ask my friends, my family, kind of anyone in
my life, they can tell you just how huge of
a fan I am of that group, and especially Gary Barlow,
who I think is just a total package. So when
they came here for their This Life tour last year,
my show only just got greenlit. I was just playing
(01:09):
music and having just some guests on the show. That's it.
I wasn't expecting my first international guests to be them,
and that's exactly what happens. So a huge shout out
to Erin who works on the Drive show at Nova,
who made this happen for me. And you're going to
hear me very nervous and very excited, because I mean,
(01:29):
this was just a huge, huge day for me. Now
did my duty as a fan, and of course I
asked questions about unreleased material, about the iconic costumes, about
their music videos, iconic music videos, and after thirty years
of doing one of the most iconic albums, everything changes.
I wanted to know what it was like now with
(01:50):
them together. So that's what you're gonna hear on this chat.
And just take note that this interview was recorded when
the show was intended to just be a radio show,
so you're going to hear their requests, their favorite throwbacks,
and just take note that the song can't actually be
played anyways. Sit back, relax, enjoy my freaking out, enjoy
(02:11):
my nerves, Enjoy Gary Barlow, Howard Donald and Mark Owen
from Take That co pilots on the Germaine Point.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Oh guys, who's got his own show? Me buddy, who's
got his own show?
Speaker 4 (02:26):
Great mate?
Speaker 1 (02:27):
You doing.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Nice to meet you, to meet you welcome here in
front of me. I've got the one only Gary Barlow.
How would Donald Mark Owen take that? How are we guys? Hey, okay, guys,
just give me two seconds. I just need to do
my quick freak out two seconds. Oh I got hims
you take that?
Speaker 1 (02:47):
I can't believe that.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Okay, okay, sorry, I just need to get that out first,
because you guys understand I'm a massive, massive, massive fan.
So thank you so much and it's a pleasure, thank
you to have you guys here. I mean, houses are
going so far awesome.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
We've only been here a few days, but we did
a show in Perth and now we're really happy to
have landed in Sydney. We were off to Adelaide tomorrow,
aren't we. But we're here for two weeks. I mean
that's that's amazing and we've tied it well. The sun's out.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Tell me about your This Life tour. There's quite a
concept behind it which I really enjoy, like these infomercials,
and tell me about that. How did that concept come about?
Speaker 1 (03:27):
I mean, we love putting our shows together. If you've
ever seen our shows in the past, yeah, you know
a lot of the time it's when we're writing the record,
we start to think about what we can do, and
we've done some amazing shows in the past. Part I
think that for us on this record, with the record especially,
we felt like we were sort of giving a slightly
different impression of ourselves and it was a little bit
(03:50):
more intimate in some ways, and it just felt like
a really nice but to play with the song this Life,
which I think when I played it to my wife
the first time, she said, oh, it sounds quite seventy
like a TV show. We'll have that. So it was
actually my wife who inspired it. But yeah, we just
(04:12):
going down that color and trying to give a different
aesthetic to what we're doing was is always great fun, Yeah, wonderful.
The guy who directed those infomercials that you saw actually
also directed our back for Good video.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Oh really yeah, okay.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
From back in the day, so that it was really
nice to connect with him again and to be able
to do something like that. And we did two days
of shooting and as you know, Jamaine, in today's modern world,
everybody goes like we need content.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Absolutely, so we were like, well, we.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Will give content, We'll make that, and we wanted the
whole experience when people came to the show for it
to start straight away as soon as they watch Team
we could like make it this world that they could
be part of. It was really good fun.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
It's such a great concept. And look, I've got you
guys on the show as co pilots here on the
Jamain Plane. So soon I'm going to ask you guys
to really take over the show and to play your
favorite take that throwbacks of all time. So have a
think about that. But first, it's been thirty years since
your album Everything Changes, which is my favorite throwback take
(05:20):
that album? I mean, so many good songs, like we've
got obviously Everything Changes. Why Can't I Wake Up with You?
One of my faves. My most favorite is another Crack
in My Heart, A good little deep cut babe, pray,
all those types of things. Let's take you back to
that year, to nineteen ninety three. What was going on there?
Because the first album, Take That and Party was a
(05:42):
real party, dance club, underground kind of vibe, and then
we moved into this new New Jack swing kind of vibe.
Tell me about how that process happened, how that change happened.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
It was a really interesting decade. The nineties, and it's
interesting to hear people talk about it also to have
lived through it, because it's not necessarily the way people
remember it. When we were first signed as a band,
it was a very unfashionable thing to sign a band
with an image like ours, because at the time it
was a lot of faceless dance music acts that you
(06:16):
wouldn't even know what they looked like. But they had
these hit records with dance music, so we sort of
tried to do a mind meld of them both, where
we had an image and we had this sort of
Our manager always had a bit of a dance influence,
so he was always encouraging us to try and make
dance music and to make it part of our performance
and our show at that point. But of course from America,
(06:39):
which is where most of us are influenced, was coming
this new pop sound which was people like Boys to
Men and Babyface, and this swingy, mid tempo sort of
cross atlantic music was hitting the airwaves, and we jumped
(06:59):
on the back of that with Prey and an amazing
British producer called Steve Gervier. He wanted to be the
British version of New Jackswing. Okay, so we were sort
of riding a bit on his coattails. But we had
these pop songs that he was pairing with this sound,
and it was working great and people were enjoying it,
(07:20):
and we were having you know, with songs like Prey.
We were like four weeks at number one with that song.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
So it was a real time where we were finding
our sound after our first record, but music was changing
at the same time. So really very influential, a very
influential time in the nineties.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Absolutely, it's one of my favorite songs and one of
my favorite videos too. I mean, you've got it on
the screen here, a lot of a lot of posing,
a lot of fun stuff on the beach. Where was
this taken?
Speaker 4 (07:51):
Yeah, okay, which looks more glamorous than what it actually is.
It was when we were there. Yeah, it was great
when we got told we're going we're doing the video
in Acapulco, But when we got there, it wasn't as.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Great it looks it was. Was it the weather or
what was I think.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
They told from one of the first things he told
us was beware of the sea lice. Can you go
in the sea? I don't know.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Did you not catch any of those.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
You know, do you know making this video as well
was really for us. It was a step up from
where we'd been before. We started to work with this
new director who shot a few of our Greg Mazurak,
and he started to shoot a few of our music
videos and it felt like the whole Take that thing
(08:37):
was taking a step up. Producer wise, music wise, we
were growing up. You know, we're people, you know, in ourselves,
our characters were starting to come through. We were starting
to learn about who we were, you know, a little
bit more, and we were able to sort of put
that in pray and that time was a real for me.
It was a magical time for take that way where
(08:59):
the others, people and the music gelled together in a
way that we could really perform and embrace.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
It was like a glow up stage right stage.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
And also with the music came, our shows were getting bigger,
so we had more money to spend on the shows
and so, like Mark said, the music was progressing, but
so was the live performance, and so was the visuals.
All at the same time.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Brilliant and I do love There was a performance I
saw you guys do where it's all very church religious
with the robes and the stained glass and everything like that,
true glow up. Indeed, I'm going to get on one
of your other songs from Everything Changes really like my Fire,
because this is another video of mine that I really enjoy.
(09:48):
Let's talk about the fashion here for a bit, if
that's all right. That Johnson's baby shirt. Did that come
about the.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Crop Top the official beginning of Crop Tops? Yes, that
on the day. It never came like that. That was
a fashion move, do you know it was? I think
for us we were really excited because we shot this
video at the Ministry of Sound Oh Wow in London,
and that for us was like the club. So we
(10:17):
got to go there on the day and as a band,
we never really got to go out at this time
because we were busy and we're traveling places. So if
somebody said you had a day at the Ministry of Sound,
we were like, yes, this is gonna be.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Awesome, fabulous. I love that. Oh good, well, okay, well
that's Everything Changes And it's amazing that it's been thirty years.
I mean, how do you guys feel that an iconic
album like that has reached thirty years? I mean, for me,
like you know, I was very young when that album
came out, but you can see that it kind of
crosses so many generations and things like that. How does
that feel?
Speaker 4 (10:48):
It's amazing. I mean we we we for the very
first time on the tour that we've just done in Europe,
we did we celebrated the album in Malta. We did
like to take that weekend and for the very first
time ever, we did the old album of Everything Changing.
So we rehearsed that and we did every song in
song order or what it was on the album, and
(11:10):
that was a fantastic experience and it was great for
the audience as well.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Were there any songs you guys performed for the first time?
Speaker 1 (11:17):
We did another Crack in My Heart?
Speaker 4 (11:19):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Really, you would have been very happy.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
It was about six we hadn't done before Okay live,
so it was fun for us as well.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Yeah, brilliant Another Crack in my Heart. There there's a
sample in it. Sounds like you sampled a bit of
Michael Jackson in that song if you listen to it
again Human Nature. Yeah, so that's why I kind.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
Of like it. It's interesting that when you rewind it
to a year like that, of how much everybody was
influencing each other and not scared to take pieces of
each other's music as well. Yeah, it was. It was
a really good I think it was a good time
for music that was definitely pop music.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Absolutely. Well, everything changes thirty years, that's amazing. Let's get
into the co pilot bit of the chat. If that's
all right, you guys get to take over and you
get to play your favorite take that throwbacks of all time.
I think I might start first, if that's okay. So
I'm going to get on my favorite one. This one's
a bit left of field. It's a song called Girl. Now.
(12:20):
I know this one here is a bit of an
unreleased one, but I love the dance and the performance
was this that the hit men and her show there
it was Yeah, what was the fake? What happened to
the fate of that song? Because that's one thing I
know a lot of fans would like to see that
song get released.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
You know.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
You know what, So if I just go back to
that era, were coming into the nineties, We've had this
five year reign of stock Ache and and Waterman in
the eighties where they were at like thirty number ones
or something, and at that point, that's what I was
listening to that was I wanted to make pop music.
(12:56):
So between that and I can't actually remember what America
and stuff was coming around at that time, but nine so.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Jason Donna as well done.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
She was doing like Vogue and stuff around that time,
and so you know, pop music's really heightened, really poppy, fast,
and so songs like that Girl were a result of
what I was listening to and what I thought was
the sound of the charts. But of course the charts
had moved on by this point, so when we were
(13:31):
playing that song to labels, they were saying, well, we
get the band sort of, but the music's dated. So
we never ended up recording any of those songs, but
we did them at shows, didn't we? Those songs?
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Yes, I'd love to see in your performance.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
I think that might have been like the song that
we performed the first time on TV, wasn't it. I
think the Girl was. So that was very early on.
We were we were just so excited to be on
the Telly, you know, back then, you know it was
just that oh my god, well on the TV and
the compet re card at home, you could regard yourself.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
And a real throwback there.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
We go here at there we go, flying back in time.
Howard May let's start with you as coy pilot. Obviously
you've done Djane. You know what a crowd can respond
to you really well? What would be your ultimate take
that throwback of all time?
Speaker 4 (14:23):
I'm gonna say, why can't awake up with you? The
Jervier Brothers remixa and everything changes? Yeah, just simply because
of the memories, because of its funkiness, and I guess
the memory from the video that was shot, which was
in a French chateau. It was just the old thing
was like a great memory for me. I'm performing and
(14:45):
dancing to it as well.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
I love that. Okay, well let's get that on the
Germain plane right now. Mark, let's go with you when
it comes to your ultimate take, that throwback? What's your favorite?
Speaker 1 (14:55):
How I'll not throwback? Can we go? Can we do
little throws of the got to be really big throws.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Let's go on, it's your band.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
I'm going to go to progress if that's okay. So
it's like a medium throw to the flood, which for
me was just such a beautiful moment for us as
a band to get back in the studio as the
five of us. We went to Electric Ladies Studios in
New York, which was Jimi Hendrix's studio. We all turned
(15:28):
up in New York City and we started making a
new record and it was just the most exciting time.
And that song for me was it was the first
time that we had been together creatively as a band
and writing together and performing together as a five on
our own in our own way, just left there to
(15:50):
do it, and it was really really exciting and the
energy you could almost, you know, taste it. I would
play drums on it.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Oh really was it was? It a challenging experience.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
It was easy. It was for you. No, it is
an easy pattern, So it was That's why I played it. Yeah,
I wasn't getting too complicated.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Well, I think it's a very genius song. And let's
get it on right now here on the Germain plane.
All right, Gerry, Sorry, you're the songwriter. You've created all
these amazing songs with the band, and it would be
great to know what your ultimate take that throwback yers,
So go ahead.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
I'm going to go slightly off the beaten path too,
and I'm going to say this particular song because there's
been many songs which have been really important for us
in our sort of milestone thirty four year career. But
I believe that one song that made people just double
take a little bit on us was a song called
(16:52):
a Million Love Songs. And no one expected it from
this band that do dance routines, that were this the
clothes boy band, five Faces. No one expected that song
to come and it was at a time where people
were like, they're just a boy band. Whatever. And when
this song went on the radio, it actually spent about
(17:16):
eight weeks in the top ten. It kept going up
and down six, seven, back to five, back to six,
back up to four. But it moved around a lot
because people were playing it not really was isn't it
who it was? And I believe it was a really
important song for us. And of course nowadays we played
at a concert and it's like a standard. Now it's
one a song you can't leave out?
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Really, is it? Mike Stevens, is that is that you're sexofying?
Speaker 3 (17:42):
You know what? Bizarrely, not Mike is our he's been
our musical director since nineteen ninety three. But actually the
guy that played on that record was a guy called
Snake Davis. And he was just a session player who
was brought in because my demo had a keyboard sacks
on it and I always dreamed of a real one,
(18:02):
but I didn't know anyone who played sas. So when
the producer produced the song, I said, can we have
a real sax? And he was like, I know the
guy Snake Davis.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Fabulous. I love that and refresh my memory? Was this
also one of the first demos you ever made? That
that got you kind of that Spoders songwriter for the band?
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Well, you know what? It was on my the when
I first met on manager Nigel in nineteen ninety, I
took in a cassette and it had four songs on
it and Million Love Songs was one of the songs,
and it and it When he heard it, he kept going,
what about what about a million love songs? He'd say,
(18:44):
you know, what have you recorded this week? Well, what
about a million love songs? He kept coming back to
that song, and I don't think the label ever really
saw it as a single for us, and so when
the time was right he pushed it as we need
to go with that one there mixt and he was
right because it was it was a big record for
us brilliant.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Well, let's get that on right now, flying back in
time here on the Domain plane, a million love songs
by take that. Thank you guys so much for being
a co pilot on this show. I'm not gonna lie.
My heart is racing. This has been the most nerve
wrecking experience. But I'm so grateful. Thank you so much.
Before I let you guys go here at the Germain plane,
we fly back in time across genres, across decades, across countries,
(19:27):
across cities. From each of you, what's the one thing
that you'd want the world to know about? Take that.
Let's start with you.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Mark, Oh, good question. I think that for me, live
shows the thing that is always I know that we
take a lot of pride in the shows that we've
put together, and so I think that and I'm still
whenever we go on stage while I was really proud
(19:55):
of the shows that we do. So I think that
that is an important That's a thing that I'd like
us to be remembered for. He's doing these big live shows.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Okay, cool, fabulous, Thank you very much. Howard.
Speaker 4 (20:07):
Oh god, he's got me because he's just Nick. My answer, no,
I think i'd like everyone to know that since the
year two thousand and six, we all decided to write
all the stuff together, so we all share the writing
and we all love getting in the studio and writing
together as a band.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
Flos, thank you very much. And Gary, what's the one
thing you want the world to know about Take There? Well?
Speaker 3 (20:30):
We've been together for a long time, and I believe
that when anything lasts many years, there's usually a good
reason for it, and I think it's because we love
this band. We really do, and we love every piece
of it. They writing the music, there, making the music,
the performing the music, and also that beautiful audience that
(20:54):
have followed us for years and years. This is the
Take That world that we love and it's the reason
that we're still here. We're still friends, we're still colleagues,
were still ambitious, we're still trying to make things better
every year, and the reason for that is that this
world is It's a great place to be and we
love it.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Thank you very much. Take that for joining me coy
Pilot on the show This Life Well tour around Australia
right now and everything changes. Turning thirty years. Thank you
so much for your time congratulations. Oh, thank you, thank
you very much.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Playing back in time, this is the Jermaine plane.
Flying back in time.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
This is the Domain Plane. Oh yes, hello, it's Jamaine
here and welcome into another episode of The Jamain Plane.
I hope you're having a great day now. This episode
it's a very special one for me because I've worked
in radio for almost a decade and one of my
dreams was to have my own music radio show where
(00:25):
I get to play my favorite songs. And that's all
I kind of wanted for this show, The Jamain Plane,
and then it evolved and I got guests on the show,
local guests, national guests to play their favorite songs. But
never in my wildest dreams that I ever think that
I would have my idols on the show, and one
(00:46):
of them is the UK boy band Take That. If
you ask my friends, my family, kind of anyone in
my life, they can tell you just how huge of
a fan I am of that group, and especially Gary Barlow,
who I think is just a total package. So when
they came here for their This Life tour last year,
my show only just got greenlit. I was just playing
(01:09):
music and having just some guests on the show. That's it.
I wasn't expecting my first international guests to be them,
and that's exactly what happens. So a huge shout out
to Erin who works on the Drive show at Nova,
who made this happen for me. And you're going to
hear me very nervous and very excited, because I mean,
(01:29):
this was just a huge, huge day for me. Now
did my duty as a fan, and of course I
asked questions about unreleased material, about the iconic costumes, about
their music videos, iconic music videos, and after thirty years
of doing one of the most iconic albums, everything changes.
I wanted to know what it was like now with
(01:50):
them together. So that's what you're gonna hear on this chat.
And just take note that this interview was recorded when
the show was intended to just be a radio show,
so you're going to hear their requests, their favorite throwbacks,
and just take note that the song can't actually be
played anyways. Sit back, relax, enjoy my freaking out, enjoy
(02:11):
my nerves, Enjoy Gary Barlow, Howard Donald and Mark Owen
from Take That co pilots on the Germaine Point.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Oh guys, who's got his own show? Me buddy, who's
got his own show?
Speaker 4 (02:26):
Great mate?
Speaker 1 (02:27):
You doing.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Nice to meet you, to meet you welcome here in
front of me. I've got the one only Gary Barlow.
How would Donald Mark Owen take that? How are we guys? Hey, okay, guys,
just give me two seconds. I just need to do
my quick freak out two seconds. Oh I got hims
you take that?
Speaker 1 (02:47):
I can't believe that.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Okay, okay, sorry, I just need to get that out first,
because you guys understand I'm a massive, massive, massive fan.
So thank you so much and it's a pleasure, thank
you to have you guys here. I mean, houses are
going so far awesome.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
We've only been here a few days, but we did
a show in Perth and now we're really happy to
have landed in Sydney. We were off to Adelaide tomorrow,
aren't we. But we're here for two weeks. I mean
that's that's amazing and we've tied it well. The sun's out.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Tell me about your This Life tour. There's quite a
concept behind it which I really enjoy, like these infomercials,
and tell me about that. How did that concept come about?
Speaker 1 (03:27):
I mean, we love putting our shows together. If you've
ever seen our shows in the past, yeah, you know
a lot of the time it's when we're writing the record,
we start to think about what we can do, and
we've done some amazing shows in the past. Part I
think that for us on this record, with the record especially,
we felt like we were sort of giving a slightly
different impression of ourselves and it was a little bit
(03:50):
more intimate in some ways, and it just felt like
a really nice but to play with the song this Life,
which I think when I played it to my wife
the first time, she said, oh, it sounds quite seventy
like a TV show. We'll have that. So it was
actually my wife who inspired it. But yeah, we just
(04:12):
going down that color and trying to give a different
aesthetic to what we're doing was is always great fun, Yeah, wonderful.
The guy who directed those infomercials that you saw actually
also directed our back for Good video.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Oh really yeah, okay.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
From back in the day, so that it was really
nice to connect with him again and to be able
to do something like that. And we did two days
of shooting and as you know, Jamaine, in today's modern world,
everybody goes like we need content.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Absolutely, so we were like, well, we.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Will give content, We'll make that, and we wanted the
whole experience when people came to the show for it
to start straight away as soon as they watch Team
we could like make it this world that they could
be part of. It was really good fun.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
It's such a great concept. And look, I've got you
guys on the show as co pilots here on the
Jamain Plane. So soon I'm going to ask you guys
to really take over the show and to play your
favorite take that throwbacks of all time. So have a
think about that. But first, it's been thirty years since
your album Everything Changes, which is my favorite throwback take
(05:20):
that album? I mean, so many good songs, like we've
got obviously Everything Changes. Why Can't I Wake Up with You?
One of my faves. My most favorite is another Crack
in My Heart, A good little deep cut babe, pray,
all those types of things. Let's take you back to
that year, to nineteen ninety three. What was going on there?
Because the first album, Take That and Party was a
(05:42):
real party, dance club, underground kind of vibe, and then
we moved into this new New Jack swing kind of vibe.
Tell me about how that process happened, how that change happened.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
It was a really interesting decade. The nineties, and it's
interesting to hear people talk about it also to have
lived through it, because it's not necessarily the way people
remember it. When we were first signed as a band,
it was a very unfashionable thing to sign a band
with an image like ours, because at the time it
was a lot of faceless dance music acts that you
(06:16):
wouldn't even know what they looked like. But they had
these hit records with dance music, so we sort of
tried to do a mind meld of them both, where
we had an image and we had this sort of
Our manager always had a bit of a dance influence,
so he was always encouraging us to try and make
dance music and to make it part of our performance
and our show at that point. But of course from America,
(06:39):
which is where most of us are influenced, was coming
this new pop sound which was people like Boys to
Men and Babyface, and this swingy, mid tempo sort of
cross atlantic music was hitting the airwaves, and we jumped
(06:59):
on the back of that with Prey and an amazing
British producer called Steve Gervier. He wanted to be the
British version of New Jackswing. Okay, so we were sort
of riding a bit on his coattails. But we had
these pop songs that he was pairing with this sound,
and it was working great and people were enjoying it,
(07:20):
and we were having you know, with songs like Prey.
We were like four weeks at number one with that song.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
So it was a real time where we were finding
our sound after our first record, but music was changing
at the same time. So really very influential, a very
influential time in the nineties.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Absolutely, it's one of my favorite songs and one of
my favorite videos too. I mean, you've got it on
the screen here, a lot of a lot of posing,
a lot of fun stuff on the beach. Where was
this taken?
Speaker 4 (07:51):
Yeah, okay, which looks more glamorous than what it actually is.
It was when we were there. Yeah, it was great
when we got told we're going we're doing the video
in Acapulco, But when we got there, it wasn't as.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
Great it looks it was. Was it the weather or
what was I think.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
They told from one of the first things he told
us was beware of the sea lice. Can you go
in the sea? I don't know.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Did you not catch any of those.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
You know, do you know making this video as well
was really for us. It was a step up from
where we'd been before. We started to work with this
new director who shot a few of our Greg Mazurak,
and he started to shoot a few of our music
videos and it felt like the whole Take that thing
(08:37):
was taking a step up. Producer wise, music wise, we
were growing up. You know, we're people, you know, in ourselves,
our characters were starting to come through. We were starting
to learn about who we were, you know, a little
bit more, and we were able to sort of put
that in pray and that time was a real for me.
It was a magical time for take that way where
(08:59):
the others, people and the music gelled together in a
way that we could really perform and embrace.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
It was like a glow up stage right stage.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
And also with the music came, our shows were getting bigger,
so we had more money to spend on the shows
and so, like Mark said, the music was progressing, but
so was the live performance, and so was the visuals.
All at the same time.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Brilliant and I do love There was a performance I
saw you guys do where it's all very church religious
with the robes and the stained glass and everything like that,
true glow up. Indeed, I'm going to get on one
of your other songs from Everything Changes really like my Fire,
because this is another video of mine that I really enjoy.
(09:48):
Let's talk about the fashion here for a bit, if
that's all right. That Johnson's baby shirt. Did that come
about the.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Crop Top the official beginning of Crop Tops? Yes, that
on the day. It never came like that. That was
a fashion move, do you know it was? I think
for us we were really excited because we shot this
video at the Ministry of Sound Oh Wow in London,
and that for us was like the club. So we
(10:17):
got to go there on the day and as a band,
we never really got to go out at this time
because we were busy and we're traveling places. So if
somebody said you had a day at the Ministry of Sound,
we were like, yes, this is gonna be.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Awesome, fabulous. I love that. Oh good, well, okay, well
that's Everything Changes And it's amazing that it's been thirty years.
I mean, how do you guys feel that an iconic
album like that has reached thirty years? I mean, for me,
like you know, I was very young when that album
came out, but you can see that it kind of
crosses so many generations and things like that. How does
that feel?
Speaker 4 (10:48):
It's amazing. I mean we we we for the very
first time on the tour that we've just done in Europe,
we did we celebrated the album in Malta. We did
like to take that weekend and for the very first
time ever, we did the old album of Everything Changing.
So we rehearsed that and we did every song in
song order or what it was on the album, and
(11:10):
that was a fantastic experience and it was great for
the audience as well.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Were there any songs you guys performed for the first time?
Speaker 1 (11:17):
We did another Crack in My Heart?
Speaker 4 (11:19):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Really, you would have been very happy.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
It was about six we hadn't done before Okay live,
so it was fun for us as well.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Yeah, brilliant Another Crack in my Heart. There there's a
sample in it. Sounds like you sampled a bit of
Michael Jackson in that song if you listen to it
again Human Nature. Yeah, so that's why I kind.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
Of like it. It's interesting that when you rewind it
to a year like that, of how much everybody was
influencing each other and not scared to take pieces of
each other's music as well. Yeah, it was. It was
a really good I think it was a good time
for music that was definitely pop music.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Absolutely. Well, everything changes thirty years, that's amazing. Let's get
into the co pilot bit of the chat. If that's
all right, you guys get to take over and you
get to play your favorite take that throwbacks of all time.
I think I might start first, if that's okay. So
I'm going to get on my favorite one. This one's
a bit left of field. It's a song called Girl. Now.
(12:20):
I know this one here is a bit of an
unreleased one, but I love the dance and the performance
was this that the hit men and her show there
it was Yeah, what was the fake? What happened to
the fate of that song? Because that's one thing I
know a lot of fans would like to see that
song get released.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
You know.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
You know what, So if I just go back to
that era, were coming into the nineties, We've had this
five year reign of stock Ache and and Waterman in
the eighties where they were at like thirty number ones
or something, and at that point, that's what I was
listening to that was I wanted to make pop music.
(12:56):
So between that and I can't actually remember what America
and stuff was coming around at that time, but nine so.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Jason Donna as well done.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
She was doing like Vogue and stuff around that time,
and so you know, pop music's really heightened, really poppy, fast,
and so songs like that Girl were a result of
what I was listening to and what I thought was
the sound of the charts. But of course the charts
had moved on by this point, so when we were
(13:31):
playing that song to labels, they were saying, well, we
get the band sort of, but the music's dated. So
we never ended up recording any of those songs, but
we did them at shows, didn't we? Those songs?
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Yes, I'd love to see in your performance.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
I think that might have been like the song that
we performed the first time on TV, wasn't it. I
think the Girl was. So that was very early on.
We were we were just so excited to be on
the Telly, you know, back then, you know it was
just that oh my god, well on the TV and
the compet re card at home, you could regard yourself.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
And a real throwback there.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
We go here at there we go, flying back in time.
Howard May let's start with you as coy pilot. Obviously
you've done Djane. You know what a crowd can respond
to you really well? What would be your ultimate take
that throwback of all time?
Speaker 4 (14:23):
I'm gonna say, why can't awake up with you? The
Jervier Brothers remixa and everything changes? Yeah, just simply because
of the memories, because of its funkiness, and I guess
the memory from the video that was shot, which was
in a French chateau. It was just the old thing
was like a great memory for me. I'm performing and
(14:45):
dancing to it as well.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
I love that. Okay, well let's get that on the
Germain plane right now. Mark, let's go with you when
it comes to your ultimate take, that throwback? What's your favorite?
Speaker 1 (14:55):
How I'll not throwback? Can we go? Can we do
little throws of the got to be really big throws.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Let's go on, it's your band.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
I'm going to go to progress if that's okay. So
it's like a medium throw to the flood, which for
me was just such a beautiful moment for us as
a band to get back in the studio as the
five of us. We went to Electric Ladies Studios in
New York, which was Jimi Hendrix's studio. We all turned
(15:28):
up in New York City and we started making a
new record and it was just the most exciting time.
And that song for me was it was the first
time that we had been together creatively as a band
and writing together and performing together as a five on
our own in our own way, just left there to
(15:50):
do it, and it was really really exciting and the
energy you could almost, you know, taste it. I would
play drums on it.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Oh really was it was? It a challenging experience.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
It was easy. It was for you. No, it is
an easy pattern, So it was That's why I played it. Yeah,
I wasn't getting too complicated.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Well, I think it's a very genius song. And let's
get it on right now here on the Germain plane.
All right, Gerry, Sorry, you're the songwriter. You've created all
these amazing songs with the band, and it would be
great to know what your ultimate take that throwback yers,
So go ahead.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
I'm going to go slightly off the beaten path too,
and I'm going to say this particular song because there's
been many songs which have been really important for us
in our sort of milestone thirty four year career. But
I believe that one song that made people just double
take a little bit on us was a song called
(16:52):
a Million Love Songs. And no one expected it from
this band that do dance routines, that were this the
clothes boy band, five Faces. No one expected that song
to come and it was at a time where people
were like, they're just a boy band. Whatever. And when
this song went on the radio, it actually spent about
(17:16):
eight weeks in the top ten. It kept going up
and down six, seven, back to five, back to six,
back up to four. But it moved around a lot
because people were playing it not really was isn't it
who it was? And I believe it was a really
important song for us. And of course nowadays we played
at a concert and it's like a standard. Now it's
one a song you can't leave out?
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Really, is it? Mike Stevens, is that is that you're sexofying?
Speaker 3 (17:42):
You know what? Bizarrely, not Mike is our he's been
our musical director since nineteen ninety three. But actually the
guy that played on that record was a guy called
Snake Davis. And he was just a session player who
was brought in because my demo had a keyboard sacks
on it and I always dreamed of a real one,
(18:02):
but I didn't know anyone who played sas. So when
the producer produced the song, I said, can we have
a real sax? And he was like, I know the
guy Snake Davis.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Fabulous. I love that and refresh my memory? Was this
also one of the first demos you ever made? That
that got you kind of that Spoders songwriter for the band?
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Well, you know what? It was on my the when
I first met on manager Nigel in nineteen ninety, I
took in a cassette and it had four songs on
it and Million Love Songs was one of the songs,
and it and it When he heard it, he kept going,
what about what about a million love songs? He'd say,
(18:44):
you know, what have you recorded this week? Well, what
about a million love songs? He kept coming back to
that song, and I don't think the label ever really
saw it as a single for us, and so when
the time was right he pushed it as we need
to go with that one there mixt and he was
right because it was it was a big record for
us brilliant.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Well, let's get that on right now, flying back in
time here on the Domain plane, a million love songs
by take that. Thank you guys so much for being
a co pilot on this show. I'm not gonna lie.
My heart is racing. This has been the most nerve
wrecking experience. But I'm so grateful. Thank you so much.
Before I let you guys go here at the Germain plane,
we fly back in time across genres, across decades, across countries,
(19:27):
across cities. From each of you, what's the one thing
that you'd want the world to know about? Take that.
Let's start with you.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Mark, Oh, good question. I think that for me, live
shows the thing that is always I know that we
take a lot of pride in the shows that we've
put together, and so I think that and I'm still
whenever we go on stage while I was really proud
(19:55):
of the shows that we do. So I think that
that is an important That's a thing that I'd like
us to be remembered for. He's doing these big live shows.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Okay, cool, fabulous, Thank you very much. Howard.
Speaker 4 (20:07):
Oh god, he's got me because he's just Nick. My answer, no,
I think i'd like everyone to know that since the
year two thousand and six, we all decided to write
all the stuff together, so we all share the writing
and we all love getting in the studio and writing
together as a band.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
Flos, thank you very much. And Gary, what's the one
thing you want the world to know about Take There? Well?
Speaker 3 (20:30):
We've been together for a long time, and I believe
that when anything lasts many years, there's usually a good
reason for it, and I think it's because we love
this band. We really do, and we love every piece
of it. They writing the music, there, making the music,
the performing the music, and also that beautiful audience that
(20:54):
have followed us for years and years. This is the
Take That world that we love and it's the reason
that we're still here. We're still friends, we're still colleagues,
were still ambitious, we're still trying to make things better
every year, and the reason for that is that this
world is It's a great place to be and we
love it.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Thank you very much. Take that for joining me coy
Pilot on the show This Life Well tour around Australia
right now and everything changes. Turning thirty years. Thank you
so much for your time congratulations. Oh, thank you, thank
you very much.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Playing back in time, this is the Jermaine plane.
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