You're never supposed to interview people you fancy. It's asking for bother. It compromises you as a journalist, it makes you blush and stutter; it's not cool. But I fancy Take That far too much to turn down the opportunity when I was asked to interview them for this Sunday's Observer Music Monthly.
Of all the men in all the world, I haven't fancied anyone for as long, and as consistently, as I've fancied Take That. I started fancying them 17 years ago, when they first became famous, and have fancied them - pretty much without reprieve - ever since. It's actually been a bit exhausting, but they've got that combination of northern working-class rawness, glamour and back-flips going for them – and oh, it works for me. (I also adore their music; I've never known which came first, or even if you can separate the lust from the love.) This doesn't make me special. Take That were hand-picked by their original manager, Nigel Martin-Smith, to make magnificent pop music, but also to inspire lust in pretty much the entire world, which they promptly did.
And why not?
When they first reformed, nearly three years ago, Take That were in their mid- to late-30s; their public wondered if they'd still be able to cut it as pop icons and sex symbols. It transpired that they could – the pop was definitely still there, and if the dewy, glowing youth has been replaced by something rather more craggy and manly, well, that was OK; as an added bonus, they'd kept their hair and their abs. Take That are annoyingly humble, they wear sex icon status lightly; they don't really like talking about it. But I asked them anyway.
"Ah," said Mark Owen, who was the most adored of the group, on account of his prettiness. "It was all a bit chaotic really.
"
"I just never understood why they were all ... always ... screaming," said Howard Donald, looking genuinely confused. "And they were so young ... 14, 13, 12 ... and ... just ... screaming. I thought it was ... stupid, really. And Mark had the most fans, and that really didn't make any sense, didn't understand that one ..."
I put it to Mark, that they were selling sex. He didn't like the question.
"Yeah. Or, erm ... I didn't ... see it, in that way, then. We were sexual. We had a lot of energy, and it was a great feeling. I didn't look at it as ... what's the word? As calculated. As cynical. As 'selling sex'. Now, though, when you look at it ..." He tails off. I think of the 1991 video for Do What U Like, in which they had jelly eaten off their semi-naked bodies by Lycra-clad models. "At the time, I thought we were just having a laugh.
"
Read the whole Sneak Peak of the Interview in our blog:
http://www. takethatblogforgood. com/" target="_self">www.blogforgood.com/ DIRECT LINK TO THE SNEAK PEEK
Or visit :
http://www. guardian. co. uk/music/musicblog/2008/nov/07/take-that-sex-symbols" target="_self">The Guardian.co.uk