Madonna’s “marine corps” muscle machines, booze benders with Bjork and Blur, and Robbie Williams’ Rudebox... it’s all in a wild life’s work for music producer William Orbit.
During his six decade career the Grammy award winning producer, who has sold over 200 million records, has experienced A Listers at their most creative - and most creatively difficult.
Holed up in Burbank, LA for several months with Madonna in 1997, the pair recorded her critically acclaimed album Ray of Light, and got to know one another pretty intimately - he even once walked in on her using the toilet.
“I first met her round at her apartment in New York,” he recalls, describing her humble abode as resembling “a very well-appointed gym”.
With the highest grade exercise equipment at her permanent disposal, it’s no surprise Madonna’s “physique was very, very toned” - “she could be in the marine corp,” he laughs.
Surprisingly, the recording studio - where they made stunning tracks including Frozen and the Power of Goodbye - was well catered, thanks to several local restaurants who served healthy food.
“We’d all eat together in the kitchen - they’d make crudites every day,” he says, adding, diplomatically, of the famed macrobiotic diet fanatic: “I think she became a little bit more fussy.”
Likewise, her gym obsession was fleeting. “She subsequently got into Ashtanga yoga and gave all her gym equipment away,” he chuckles. “She dives into everything with such gusto.”
Like her gym kit, Madonna and William’s relationship hasn’t survived the test of time.
Reuniting to record together for the singer’s 2012 MDNA album proved difficult when the pair had a falling out over “technical issues”.
“I was drinking too much and I said stupid things,” admits William, candidly, who went on to undergo a psychotic breakdown he is equally as candid about. “I don’t know where we stand.”
William wasn’t called to take part in her remix album Finally Enough Love, released last week. But he expects to hear from her - as soon as she wants something.
“Her sister Melanie, who I adore, told me: ‘If you know anything about M, she doesn’t have a sense of sentimentality.
“‘Nobody hears from her for yonks. Family members don’t hear for yonks. Then, of course, she wants something from you or she’s working with you, you’re hearing from her every 10 minutes.’
“She’s not really somebody that looks back. I could get a call tomorrow, you know?
“I might just say, ‘Do you know what, M? You’re quite stressful. I mean that with kindness and respect. But you don’t half push.
“‘You’re really funny to work with. You have a good laugh. I like your expeditiousness. But it would seem that I’m never doing it fast enough for you. If I were to work for you, could you cut me an inch of slack?’
“And she’d say, ‘No. On your bike,’ and I’d be like, ‘You know what? I’ll just take it because the result is good.’”
His working relationship with Blur saw the group create another masterpiece, 13, during a lengthy recording stint in Reykjavík, Iceland in 1998.
Songs including Tender and Coffee and TV were produced under a blanket of the Northern Lights, where Damon Albarn became “the local girl magnet”.
During their sessions, William and the producers went out for a boozy night out with Bjork, who outstayed even the “hard drinking, tough engineer guy”, who “fell asleep on a bus stop bench” and had to be carried home. “Bjork, meanwhile is just like, ‘Come on! Bring it on!’” he remembers, impressed at her stamina.
“This tiny figure is just out drinking us. That’s what they do over there, they go nuts at the weekend. They just don’t show any sign of wear, because they’re Vikings.”
He also worked on Robbie’s Rudebox - an album that was a commercial flop, which Robbie blames on its title single, a track not produced by William.
“It’s funny because obviously he’s one of these guys that’s ex-boy band, has a larger than life pop persona, but he’s incredible in the studio,” remarks William. “He lays on the floor to sing and out comes beauty, you know? He’s a really talented guy.”
Of course, it helps that William is adept at managing big egos. But even he got slightly star struck DJing for the Queen at her Christmas staff party.
“She just popped up nine o’clock and she goes up to bed,” he says, amazed. “She’s not really going to get into dancing. I should imagine her preferred dancing would be more ballroom or something.” He frets he should possibly have played a bit of Vera Lynne.
But that wouldn’t be his only encounter with the palace.
Born William Wainwright to teacher parents in 1956, he was brought up in East London - his mum could recall the area being run by the Krays.
He dabbled in drugs as a teenager, but veered off them aged 17 - around the same time, he spent a brief spell in Paris, sleeping rough behind the Notre Dame Cathedral while busking.
In the late 70s, while squatting in a Victorian school, he created a makeshift studio and started making music.
By 1997, that was with the Queen of Pop.
But after years at the top, he fell out of love with the music he was making. It was then he started to paint - after stumbling upon an art class titled “vino and Van Gogh” in Nevada, where he was at a retreat to quit smoking.
A newfound passion for oil painting on canvas lead to the title of his latest album, The Painter - an ethereal, ambient electronic record featuring a host of his favourite artists including Katie Melua, Mercury Prize nominated Georgia and Beth Orten.
But prior to recording, William had a psychotic breakdown.
He decided to dabble with drugs again as he approached his 60s.
“Thank the stars that it wasn’t the addictive ones,” he notes, stipulating he avoided: “Heroin, crack cocaine, crystal meth, and the pills, like Oxycontin.
“It was more of a psychedelics, so I’d be on ketamine and acid, and mushrooms, and a lot of cocaine, and those kind of things, and weed.
“It’s great when the grass is singing songs at you, but it comes a point when it’s all getting a bit dark.”
“It precipitated itself into a proper crisis, when I was put in hospital,” he says, of a low point that coincided with the start of the pandemic in March 2020. “I was delusional, I was running round thinking I was on a mission to save the royal family, and nutty stuff that you do, that literally happened simultaneously to the pandemic.”
He was taken to a Pimlico hospital, close to Buckingham Palace, and recounts: “There were some people there who gave me quite a hard time, I got beaten a couple of times. It was a bit like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”
The experience lead to him focusing back on music, and finally pulling together his album.
“My first release in over 8 years and filled with my best magic,” he proudly declares, before cringing: “I might dial that back a bit.”
William Orbit’s new album The Painter is out now.
