John Barrowman

John Barrowman

John Barrowman burst onto our television screens back in 2005 as the charismatic Captain Jack Harkness in the revamped Doctor Who series but before then had enjoyed a very successful theatre career.

Since his Doctor Who role he has seen his television career soar as his character of Captain Jack got his own show Torchwood. But after the success of his first album Another Side last year John is back with another collection of some of his favourite songs Music Music Music.

I caught up with John to talk about his new album, the rise of Captain Jack and the future of Torchwood and what the future holds for the actor himself.

your new album is Music Music Music can you tell me a little bit about it?

Well first of all the title was chosen because I have a habit of saying things in threes on television and we decided to pull in on that phrase and the thing that people recognise about me. But also because there is three styles of music that I cover and am really really passionate about: one I straight pop, the second is country music and the third is musical theatre music, and before everyone goes ewww musical theatre it’s not your Phantom of the Opera or Les Mis it’s songs like Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You, which is an Andy Williams pop song but it’s also in the musical Jersey Boys so I have sort of hit two birds with one stone. To me I listened to it again this morning and I loved it I really thing that it is a great balance.

It’s a collection of cover songs how did you decide what makes the record and what is left out?

Well it’s a collection of covers but there are two songs that the British public have never heard before the title track What About Us, which is written by Gary Barlow and Chris Braide, and the second has actually been sung by Keith Urban, Nicole Kidman’s husband and country singer, and I decided to do that one because no one had heard of it over here and it’s called You’ll Think of Me.

But the other tracks I go into the record company with a list of songs and then they give me a list of songs and I put them together, and I end up with about two hundred songs, and I narrow it down to about fifty. And when I’m narrowing it down I always go with what my heart says and what my feelings say than my head because if I had an emotional connection to the song and I can think of that then the song will mean more to me and I think I will sing it slightly better than if it was just a random song that I want to record.

And do you have a personal favourite?

At the moment I’m loving the title track What About Us because it’s original and it’s mine and on of the ones that I love, well I love all of them that’s why it’s so difficult to choose, but From A Distance I adore because it makes me weep because of what is going on in the world and the upset that we have and if we could look at things from a distance it makes it all a little bit better. What else I Am What I Am because it describes me so they are all personal favourites, if you buy this album you are really getting to know me a lot better.

You worked with veteran producer Simon Franglen what was it like working with him?

Yeah Simon was absolutely a hoot, for people who don’t know him he has produced people like Celine Dion and some Streisand stuff and Whitney, he is absolutely amazing and what I love about him he let me sing and perform the songs. A lot of them time when you are working with producers you will do it bit by bit, which I also like doing, but Simon was like ’ No John you go in and sing’ and I probably sang each song eight to ten times and then he took all the best bits and put it all together and he’s created some really wonderful stuff on there.

What did you decide to release another album so close to Another Side, which was only released about twelve months ago?

Yeah well because the public wanted it! The first one was such a success we didn’t expect it to go gold so quickly and we didn’t expect it to be heading towards going platinum and all my fans said that they wanted him to sing bigger and sing more so that’s why we decided to do this album, if things go well we are already planning what the next one’s gonna be. Totally fantastic

You also toured with the last album how did you find that?

I loved it and I love that when I’m on tour I can get out there and amongst everyone who appreciates what I am doing because I appreciate what they are doing for me and that’s why I do these tours, yeah I known that they pay to come and see me, but you ask anybody who came to see the tour they get a really special performance I don’t hold back at all in the performances I give myself over completely because I’m totally appreciative of their spending their hard earned money to come and see me or buy my album and I want them to know that.

You do come from a background of musical theatre and when you do those show you are supported by the rest of the cast so what was it like on tour standing up their all by yourself?

Awesome (laughs) I’m not going to lie to you. It’s great to be part of a company and I love being a company man in a show but to be centre stage all by myself, I still saw myself as being supported by my band, but it’s a very different feeling when you are out there by yourself and it’s all about you, in fact I was listening to a song the other day that I was thinking about putting in the new tour called Talk About Me (laughs).

What made you decide to move into music as most of us know you as an actor?

I didn’t really decide I was asked Sony, last year’s album was with Sony BMG I am now with Sony Epic, and Sony approached me to ask if I wanted a recording deal and who is going to say no to that? One of the biggest recording companies in the world asked me if I wanted a recording contract and all of the things that have happened to me over the last five or six years I haven’t planned they have just happened and as any human being who wants to work and loves to work if I think I’m going to have a good time I’ll do it.

You are obviously best known as Captain Jack Harkness what can we expect from the new series of Torchwood?

Here’s my official answer Torchwood will come back bigger and better and it will be a five part mini series over one week, so every night you will get a cliffhanger, hopefully airing in the spring and summer. There will be new faces, you will learn a lot more about Captain Jack’s past, his dark past, you will also learn a lot more about Gwen, there will also be some deaths but a lot of action and excitement.

And why has the series been cut down from its usual thirteen week run?

It’s been cut down specifically because we have been moved to BBC1 and we can’t take a full fledged series from BBC2 to BBC1 because a lot of BBC1 viewers have never seen it, which is yeas and no a lot have seen it and a lot haven’t. You have to make an impact on 1 because if we too the series over the rating that we got on 2 wouldn’t hold us steady to last on BBC1 so we have to make an impact and to make that impact we have to condense it down into five. But series four, if we come back, we will come back with more.

And how surprised were you that Torchwood has done so well as a stand alone series?

Overwhelmed I can’t believe it! We knew that we were doing a production that we had to, when we did it first on BBC3, we knew that we had to be loyal to the original brand of Doctor Who and when we got out ratings and we got the best ratings in the history, and we till hold that title on digital television, and they moved us to two and we got good ratings there, even in our repeats we beat some programmes on other channels, so the success I’m overwhelmed and I think that’s why I continue to do my variety of things because it’s my way of saying thank you to everybody. I figure that if I work harder and try to do other things that please people then they will see that I really appreciate what they have done for me.

when you singed on for the role back in 2004 did you imagine that Jack would become such a popular character?

Oh god no! If you had asked me back then I thought that Jack was only going to be in the show for five episodes and that was it and then lo and behold I get my own show it’s gone worldwide and Jack has become an iconic figure, not just in the UK but worldwide, and honest to God I’m speechless I’m absolutely, and excuse my French, f***ing thrilled (laughs) I’m speechless and when I’m in other countries, and I can’t do accents very well, people come up to me going (Chinese accent) ‘Captain Jack’ I’, like he’s everywhere.

The funny thing is my niece had a lecturer come to talk to them, she’s learning to be a public school teacher in the States, and they brought a guy in to talk to them about being gay and how to help your students deal with that and not to make an issue of it. So he asked if anyone had heard of a show called Torchwood (laughs) so my niece raised her hand and said ‘yeah’ and he was like ‘ You have? That’s such an obscure show I was going to get you guys to watch it’ and she was like ‘Well Captain Jack is my uncle’ and he just said ’Shut up! I’m gonna have to text my partner and tell him’ (laughs).

And he just looked at my niece and said ’ Your uncle is hot’ and all of her classmates, the ones who didn’t know about the show were like’ He’s hot? Get him up on line lets look him up on the computer’ and they were like ’Oh my God Claire your uncle is hot’. So it’s things like that that really make me chuffed when she rings me up and says ’Oh my God Uncle John it was supposed to be a lecture about understanding and it turned into a loves fest for you’ (laughs).

What do think of David Tennant’s decision to step down from the role as the Doctor?

Well I think he is making the right decision, and as much as I would like to see him stay, as an actor he needs to move on and as he said if he didn’t step down then he would be there forever he does love it. The only problem is finding someone to fill his shoes because he has done such a brilliant job.

Who’s it going to be and is there anyone that you would like to see take on the role?

I have no idea I’m not part of that process. You know what someone might have said that about Captain Jack in the beginning stages Billie, myself and Chris Eccleston were the first three cast and if the producers were going and asking everyone who they would have liked to see I would have liked to have thought that there was no one else, and there wasn’t they said that I was the only one who they thought could play this role. So from that aspect I wouldn’t like to say anyone because I wouldn’t want to kill anyone else’s chances,

Finally what’s next for you?

Oh you are just going to have to watch

That’s not fair

I have pantomime at Christmas, an album tour and I have a couple of television shows in the pipeline

Fantastic

No fantastic, fantastic fantastic (laughs).

John Barrowman’s new album Music Music Music is released 24th November

FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw

John Barrowman burst onto our television screens back in 2005 as the charismatic Captain Jack Harkness in the revamped Doctor Who series but before then had enjoyed a very successful theatre career.

Since his Doctor Who role he has seen his television career soar as his character of Captain Jack got his own show Torchwood. But after the success of his first album Another Side last year John is back with another collection of some of his favourite songs Music Music Music.

I caught up with John to talk about his new album, the rise of Captain Jack and the future of Torchwood and what the future holds for the actor himself.

your new album is Music Music Music can you tell me a little bit about it?

Well first of all the title was chosen because I have a habit of saying things in threes on television and we decided to pull in on that phrase and the thing that people recognise about me. But also because there is three styles of music that I cover and am really really passionate about: one I straight pop, the second is country music and the third is musical theatre music, and before everyone goes ewww musical theatre it’s not your Phantom of the Opera or Les Mis it’s songs like Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You, which is an Andy Williams pop song but it’s also in the musical Jersey Boys so I have sort of hit two birds with one stone. To me I listened to it again this morning and I loved it I really thing that it is a great balance.

It’s a collection of cover songs how did you decide what makes the record and what is left out?

Well it’s a collection of covers but there are two songs that the British public have never heard before the title track What About Us, which is written by Gary Barlow and Chris Braide, and the second has actually been sung by Keith Urban, Nicole Kidman’s husband and country singer, and I decided to do that one because no one had heard of it over here and it’s called You’ll Think of Me.

But the other tracks I go into the record company with a list of songs and then they give me a list of songs and I put them together, and I end up with about two hundred songs, and I narrow it down to about fifty. And when I’m narrowing it down I always go with what my heart says and what my feelings say than my head because if I had an emotional connection to the song and I can think of that then the song will mean more to me and I think I will sing it slightly better than if it was just a random song that I want to record.

And do you have a personal favourite?

At the moment I’m loving the title track What About Us because it’s original and it’s mine and on of the ones that I love, well I love all of them that’s why it’s so difficult to choose, but From A Distance I adore because it makes me weep because of what is going on in the world and the upset that we have and if we could look at things from a distance it makes it all a little bit better. What else I Am What I Am because it describes me so they are all personal favourites, if you buy this album you are really getting to know me a lot better.

You worked with veteran producer Simon Franglen what was it like working with him?

Yeah Simon was absolutely a hoot, for people who don’t know him he has produced people like Celine Dion and some Streisand stuff and Whitney, he is absolutely amazing and what I love about him he let me sing and perform the songs. A lot of them time when you are working with producers you will do it bit by bit, which I also like doing, but Simon was like ’ No John you go in and sing’ and I probably sang each song eight to ten times and then he took all the best bits and put it all together and he’s created some really wonderful stuff on there.

What did you decide to release another album so close to Another Side, which was only released about twelve months ago?

Yeah well because the public wanted it! The first one was such a success we didn’t expect it to go gold so quickly and we didn’t expect it to be heading towards going platinum and all my fans said that they wanted him to sing bigger and sing more so that’s why we decided to do this album, if things go well we are already planning what the next one’s gonna be. Totally fantastic

You also toured with the last album how did you find that?

I loved it and I love that when I’m on tour I can get out there and amongst everyone who appreciates what I am doing because I appreciate what they are doing for me and that’s why I do these tours, yeah I known that they pay to come and see me, but you ask anybody who came to see the tour they get a really special performance I don’t hold back at all in the performances I give myself over completely because I’m totally appreciative of their spending their hard earned money to come and see me or buy my album and I want them to know that.