Robbie Williams's career is a tale of two Glastonburys: at the 1995 mudfest he broke the boyband omerta by arriving backstage swigging from a bottle of champagne, smoking an "aromatic" cigarette and loudly complaining about his monk-like existence in Take That. As a member of the clean-living, perma-smiling band he was supposed to observe strict rules of behaviour even outside of band hours and pictures of the clearly inebriated Williams (in the company of "bad boys" like Liam Gallagher) made all the tabloids and helped get Williams removed from the band that had brought him fame and fortune.
Three years later and he's back at Glastonbury again, this time as a solo artist who co-writes his own songs, and he's peering out across the fields as a chorus of 50,000 fans sing along to his hit Angels, taken from his commercially and critically acclaimed debut album. The transition from boy band refusnik to rock star was complete. Days after his triumphant Glastonbury appearance he was to learn that his album, Life Thru A Lens was nominated for the prestigious Mercury Music Prize. After years of prancing around a stage in a pair of shorts singing Barry Manilow songs, credibility had finally come Robbie Williams' way. It was however, a long three years for Williams: in true rock 'n' roll fashion he pressed the self-destruct button and with his penchant for alcohol and drug binges followed by spells in various rehab clinics, he was perfect tabloid front cover fodder. Always the most gregarious and popular member of Take That, he pointed out he was only making up for lost time, given that the biggest indulgence afforded to him in his Take That days was a can of coca cola. Now 24, Williams was born in Stoke on Trent and was known to his childhood friends as "Swellhead" because he was always entertaining/showing off. "In my head I've always been famous," he once said. "Anything that involves me showing off, I've wanted to do. I'm very good at it, I've got that special thing that people are somehow drawn to. So the idea of showing off to the whole world was great. I really liked the sound of it. It was always going to be my destiny."
He joined Take That when he was just 16 after hearing manager Nigel Martin-Smith talking on radio about how he was looking for some English singer/dancer types to form a boy band that would rival America's New Kids On The Block. At the audition he sang a Jason Donovan song, danced like MC Hammer and was his characteristic cheeky and ebullient self. He got the job. "I ran upstairs at home, threw the window and shouted out across the pub next door `I'm going to be famous!'. Then I just had thoughts about owning 911s and Ferraris for about three months. Thinking that you join a band then you get a big deal, then you get loads of money and then you get loads of cars and big houses. Of course you do - you believe that when you're 16," he says. The reality was Take That slogged their way to the top and once there had eight number one singles, sold 15 million copies and was on the receiving end of tidal waves of attention from their delirious teenage girl fan base. As the most popular member of the band, he says the four others (who were all from Manchester) resented him and made no attempt to disguise their jealousy. Because of the band's image as clean-living, next-door types, they were never allowed appear in public with a drink or a cigarette in their hand. Williams soon tired of such restrictions and soon tired of Take That's ephemeral pop music sound. Latching on to bands like Oasis and The Manic Street Preachers, Williams made public his defiance at Glastonbury and shortly afterwards he left the band. Such was the popularity of Take That at the time that Williams' defection made it onto News At Ten and there were helplines set up to counsel distressed fans.
He spent the next while "finding out who I really was because I'd spent all my growing up years in the band". In between some hectic rounds of partying, he landed a solo deal and released his first single - a cover of George Michael's Freedom. Although the single went top 10, it was clear Williams would have problems sustaining his solo career on the back of cover versions. He soon linked up with Guy Chambers, now his co-writer and co-producer and the two of them set about writing a fresh set of songs for the Life Thru A Lens album.
With Gary Barlow and Mark Owen from Take That also pursuing solo careers, it was thought Williams would come in third in the solo stakes, but last year his album went quadruple platinum and has spent every week of 1998 inside the top 10 - easily outselling both Barlow's and Owen's efforts. "Boy becomes Man" ran the music press headlines as Williams proved his rock worth.
"I'm glad I've come through it," he said recently, "because I was scared that this could fail and that I could fail. I couldn't take the responsibility of working, of controlling things by myself. When I left Take That I could barely carry a song. It took me a long time to get my head around the fact that I could actually sing, because my confidence was completely shot when I left the band to go solo." Now with one of the biggest selling albums of the year, a Mercury nomination and a new album out in October, to be called I Was Expecting You, Williams is on top of his game and hoping to do in Slane what he did at this year's Glastonbury: steal the show.
