Take That’s Howard Donald has admitted he saw bandmate Jason Orange as “unapproachable” when he first met him.
It might seem as if there’s nothing the 55-year-old hasn’t successfully tried his hand at, from singing and songwriting to drumming, piano playing, record producing and dancing – but now Howard has revealed that he was intimidated by Jason’s dancefloor prowess.
Talking on the new Take That: This Life podcast, he admitted that he’d watched him from afar a few times before formally meeting him.
“He was in Street Machine,” Howard began, referring to a once well-known Manchester breakdancing crew. “And where he used to practice on a Sunday, I used to go there with my mate.
“I already sort of knew him, but not really. I didn’t know him to talk to. I just knew him as a familiar face.”
Howard then shocked fans by admitting: “I never approached him because I thought he was such a good dancer, he was unapproachable.
“[I was] sort of looking up to him a little bit,” he exclaimed.
Meanwhile, he then quipped that the group’s head songwriter, Gary Barlow, wouldn’t queue for food like the rest of the band.
Mark had been reminiscing about their early days in Manchester, when time was spent at rehearsals or visiting their managers’ office, and he brought up their penchant for visiting the “jacket potato van”.
Howard agreed that the potatoes with tuna and sweetcorn were delicious but quipped that Gary “wouldn’t have been there”.
“I don’t think Gary was in the queue. He was the one saying, ‘Get me a jacket potato’ and we had to queue up, because ‘I’m the songwriter,'” he joked.
Howard also opened up during the podcast about his time signing up to a modelling agency.
As a male model, he didn’t gain the success he’d hoped for, recalling that he received just “five or six” jobs while on a local agency’s books.
He also participated in catwalk shows until the fateful day came for his Take That audition, and the rest was history.
Meanwhile, Mark also talked of his own early taste of fame, revealing that he’d been inspired by Maradona as a teen and became a competent footballer.
However, he didn’t quite fulfill professional standards.
“I had a few trials when I was maybe 15 or 16 years old at Sheffield United and some of the northern clubs, but in all honesty, I’d say that I was always injured when the trial was,” he explained.
“I probably wasn’t quite of the grade.”
Take That: This Life podcast episodes are available every week from Global Player, linked here.
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