In Robbie Williams, the new Netflix documentary about the singer’s rise to fame and ensuing struggles, there’s but one constant in Robbie’s post-Take That life.
Surprisingly, it’s not a girlfriend, or a family member, but Guy Chambers, Williams’ musical director with whom he co-wrote “Angels”, “Let Me Entertain You”, “Rock DJ” and “Feel”. Early on in documentary – directed by Joe Pearlman – which features Williams rewatching and commenting on old footage of himself, he says of Chambers at those halcyon days: “I have a perfect scenario where I write songs with somebody who is one of, if not my best mate, and we write great songs together.”
But in 2002, the partnership shockingly split. So what went wrong and did the pair ever make up?
The backstory
Williams and Chambers worked together on five of Williams’ albums, which propelled the former boybander to global solo stardom, bagging him a multitude of Brit Awards and five solo UK number ones. Footage of that time shows a Elton John and Bernie Taupin-like musical relationship and highlights Chambers’ influence on Williams. Whether in the studio for Life Thru A Lens, in which Chambers can see Williams is struggling with addiction (the singer would later go to rehab) to the pair kicking back in Jamaica and working on their new tunes together, there’s a tight camaraderie and bond between the two men. Williams admits: “We’re definitely brothers in this moment.” The couple work together, perform together – Chambers played in Williams’ live band on tour – and even holiday together. In the summer of 2000, they decamped to the south of France with Chambers’ wife and newborn baby.
The fall-out
In the film, the cracks start to show when Williams writes the track “Come Undone”. He says: “I took it in to Guy and he said, ‘Hmm, it’s not very good.’ And I’m like ‘Oh, we’ve got a problem, this is problem.’”
There are more obvious tensions when Robbie asks to change the lyrics, but Chambers tells him that he can’t do it, as it would mean re-recording a choir “at great expense”. Williams adds: “If only we’d talked to each other a bit more.”
Williams then drops a bombshell, telling Chambers that it’s the last album he’d like him to work on, and offers him to join the tour, but he says that Chambers “melted”. “Now there’s a different Guy,” Williams says.
In Episode two, when being quizzed on camcorder by Halliwell, Chambers reveals that one of Williams’ band musicians appeared to have sowed the seeds for the fall out: “He said that, ‘Someone else was taking control of your album’… he stirred the pot and the next minute he [Robbie] was on the phone giving it to me.”
There may have been some truth to this as Williams later says: “I’m sure Guy consciously thought, ‘We are a band called Robbie Williams’… I needed full control.” Chambers declined to join Williams on tour.
The official story
When the news broke in 2002, there were conflicting reports on what actually caused the breakdown. Some press claimed it was Williams demanding that Chambers signed an exclusivity deal, amid rumours that Chambers may have been working alongside Robbie’s former Take That bandmate Gary Barlow. Chris Heath’s 2004 book, Feel: Robbie Williams, claims that Chambers asked for an unreasonable increase of the profits. At the time, Chambers released a statement to the press that said: “Guy has decided to work with other people and on other projects. He feels he cannot commit to working exclusively with Robbie. After six years and five albums he feels it is time to move on.”
The aftermath
Following the split, Williams released the critically-mixed album Rudebox in 2006 and 2009’s Reality Killed the Video Star. It took a decade before the pair worked together again, and in 2012, they went back into the studio to record Williams’s second swing album, 2013’s Swings Both Ways.
In an interview with the Daily Telegraph for the album launch, Chambers revealed that they had kept in contact, despite the partnership ending: “It never felt like the end. I stayed at his house with my family in 2008 and we did try to write then, but it just didn’t work. But I always hoped we would write together again; I thought, be patient, and when he asked me I was ready.”
Williams added in the same interview: “We have a certain chemistry and we churned out loads of songs that week and it was very easy and a lot of fun. Guy annoys me less and I annoy him less, and I think that’s maturity and experience on both our parts. I love him to bits.”
The duo then worked on the music for the stage adaptation of David Walliam’s The Boy In The Dress, and continued their successful music partnership on Williams’ albums, subsequent tours for The Heavy Entertainment Show Under the Radar Volume 1, 2 and 3. In 2019, they collaborated on festive album The Christmas Present. Most recently, Chambers revealed that he and Williams were working on another as-yet unnamed musical together.
‘Robbie Williams’ is available to watch on Netflix now
Sophie Anderson, a UK-based writer, is your guide to the latest trends, viral sensations, and internet phenomena. With a finger on the pulse of digital culture, she explores what’s trending across social media and pop culture, keeping readers in the know about the latest online sensations.
