Robbie Williams to Provide Vocal for Rock Supergroup?

Fri, 20 July 2007 12:00:00 ET

Robbie Williams to Provide Vocal for Rock Supergroup?
Robbie Williams wants to record a song with former The Smiths bassist Andy Rourke. The 'Angels' singer has contacted Manchester supergroup Freebass which comprises of Andy, New Order bass guitarist Peter Hook and Mani, who has played bass for The Stone Roses and Primal Scream - and offered to lend his vocals to a track.

Speaking at the London launch of the new documentary 'Inside The Smiths' yesterday (19.07.07), Andy said: "We've never been able to find a singer, and to be honest they are pretty big shoes to fill. We've got about 18 tracks and after a few conversations decided to get in touch with some of the singers we know. Ian Brown has done a song, Bobby Gillespie from Primal Scream, Tim Burgess from The Charlatans is on one, and recently we got a call from Robbie Williams, believe it or not, saying he wanted to do a track with us. It's a bit bizarre but we'll see how that goes."

Andy - who appears with his former Smiths bandmate drummer Mike Joyce in the documentary - revealed the band plan to release an album next year and then hit the road. He said: "We haven't played a show yet, but the plan is to go out on tour next summer and hopefully have something out by the spring."

Andy also revealed the trio's initial attempts to find a vocalist involved a search for a missing person. He explained: "We auditioned quite a few people and they either looked great but sounded s**t or vice-versa. We did find a singer who lived in Wigan and we got him in the studio but then he went missing and we had to put out a missing person's notice for him on the news and in the papers saying, 'Have you seen this man?' When we finally found him we discovered he'd had a nervous breakdown. At that point we thought, 'It's not really working!' "