washed and clean

from a 8/10/11 interview with gary barlow by simon hattenstone 

we’d always got along fine with the other guys. and this last five years with the four of us has been amazing. on the road with your mates, no stress, no pressure, lovely. really beautiful. Some bands are in that position and they just fight. we’ve never done that, so having rob back was a pretty big move, there’s a lot of stuff that’s gone on. a lot of stuff.” 


did they talk that out? “yes that was the first job.” is the tension because two alpha male pop egos are clashing? “yeah, it would be unfair for me to say he’s the one with the ego because I’ve got a pretty big ego as well. and especially in those younger days when i was 24 and he was 20, but then you come back – i was 38 and he was 34 – and it’s like, ‘let’s talk this through.’ 


all those years I’d just imagined this moment to actually be sat there opposite this person who’d said so much worse than anybody else had ever in my life. done so much damage and said so much bad stuff.” to your face? “no, that was the thing. not to my face. in records and in print.” what hurt him most? “nothing hurt me most, it was the way it was being done I didn’t like. and to eventually be sat there opposite the person was liberating. 


and you know what? a lot of people don’t get that chance; they spend their whole lives as enemies and don’t talk. so for me that was a victorious day. and we came back to it a couple of days later and did some more and then we were washed and we were clean.” 


found via opinionated vicar