Gary Barlow admits he’s not as confident in himself as he once was.
The Take That frontman tells the BBC it took him just 15 minutes to write Take That’s 1995 chart-topping hit Back for Good but, flash forward to 2020, he wouldn’t relish the pressure of working under such tight deadlines.
“You do it just because that’s what you’ve been told to do. You don’t think, ‘Wow, this is so much pressure, everyone. How can I do this?’ You just get on with it,” he shares.
“I was full of confidence at the time because we were having hits all over the world. And that is a good place to be as an artist.”
The Incredible singer goes on to explain: “I don’t think I’ve got that kind of confidence anymore. I’d have been 20 or 21 when those calls used to come in. And that’s a different person.
“I wouldn’t trust myself now to think I could do it in a week.”
However, when it comes to his new album, Music Played By Humans, it was Gary making the demands, rather than his record label.
The LP was recorded with an 80-piece orchestra and also features collaborations with Michael Bublé and Sebastián Yatra, Barry Manilow, Alesha Dixon and Beverley Knight, among others.
Of how the project came into fruition, he recalls: “I went to Universal, the record company, and I said, ‘Listen, I have got this idea but can I just record three songs? I don’t mean demos, I want to put the orchestra on, I want to mix it, I want to get right down the road with three songs’.
“And so I did: Big string sections, brass sections, the whole thing. I really wanted to know that it was right,” adds the Rule The World hitmaker. “Then I played it to them and they just said, ‘Listen, just go and finish the bloody thing. It’s fantastic.'”
Music Played By Humans dropped on November 27th and, in our review of the collection, Retro Pop noted that while “the vocals and musicianship are there, there’s nothing to pull focus”.
