Owen, Owen, gone!

WHEN Mark Owen launched his solo career, it looked like he had ditched his clean-cut heart-throb image for a touch of the hippy-dippy rock star.

Blond flashes streaked his long-ish floppy hair, he talked about finding inner peace through meditation, he stayed at an ashram and named his debut album after a folk myth.

It was all a long way from the all-singing, all-dancing hard-bodied sex symbol who had helped to propel Take That to chart domination.

Thankfully, a year on he is refreshingly down to earth, modest and humble, with no pretensions of I-am-weird whackiness.

"That was when the Green Man album was out and I was like peace to the world'," Owen laughs, smoothing a stray and now streak-free lock of his mousey hair behind one ear.

Even the meditation has been toned down in recent months: "I was heavily into it during the last year of Take That. I haven't done it so much recently, but I miss it.

"At the minute I like being quite fiery and a bit more on the edge. I like to experience different things.

"I've gone through a phase of thinking let's not be calm and relaxed, let's get a little bit tense, a little bit angry, see what happens - just bite my nails, smoke more fags."

Owen's now almost a year into his solo career - a late starter compared with the speed at which both Gary Barlow and Robbie Williams rushed out the first fruits of their post-Take That labour. But with three big hits and an album behind him, he is fairly pleased with the public response so far and looking forward to his first British tour.

His success has been particularly gratifying considering he had no idea what to do after the demise of the boy band.

"I kind of went home after we'd decided to split up. I was very proud of what we achieved, y'know. I thought great we did it, we did what we always wanted to do' and then people were starting to say what are you gonna do?'.

"I just kind of pussyfooted over it for a couple of weeks and then I thought actually, what am I going to do?'.

"I love being on stage, I love making songs or being a part of songs and I thought, well, now is as good a time as ever to try and do your own. I always thought when I was in Take That that I could write.

"Luckily I taught myself how to play the piano during those years and just started trying to put what I'd learned and the way I feel into the songs."

He tries not to dwell on the past in interviews but equally doesn't see any reason to cover up his years in Take That.

"I wouldn't bring it up in conversation," says Owen. I don't mind talking about it but I wouldn't bring it up because you know it would never get you anywhere. "I wanted in a way to get out of that mode of being from a band like Take That and selling my records on the back of that band."

Although he admits some Take That fans have followed him into his solo career, Owen feels he has got this far on his own merit.

"On the kind of journey that I feel like I'm on, with what I want to achieve, I'm well on course - if not ahead - of where I thought I'd be after a year. Everyone was expecting great things from Gary Barlow and Robbie - that's who everybody was looking at. So I was kind of just left alone a little bit in my own world to make the music that I wanted and to try and do a little self-searching and discovery and try things out.

"I'm not trying to be a credible artist or be indie or anything like

that. I just want to make music that can hopefully touch people in some way but in a positive way and be very powerful."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.