Guy Chambers

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Guy Chambers (born January 12, 1963 in London) is an English songwriter and record producer best known for his long partnership with Robbie Williams.

File:Guy mixing desk.jpg
Guy Chambers

Biography

Chambers wrote, performed and recorded his first demos at London's Cockpit Theatre Arts and Music Workshop along with other songwriter/producers such as Richard Daniel Roman in the early 80's. It was during this time that he also formed his first band The Burmoe Brothers which included Marc Almond in its line up for one track "Skin". After graduating from the London Guildhall School of Music where he studied composition, his teachers including George Benjamin, Chambers went on to tour as a musician with, among others, Julian Cope and The Waterboys before joining World Party in 1986 and co-writing with Karl Wallinger on Bang!, the band’s most successful album. He also appeared on the Mission's Carved in Sand, providing the arrangement and keyboards for the song 'Grapes of Wrath'. As a later musical director he would use much of the Mission's previous crew, among others guitar-tech Jez Webb.

In 1992 Chambers formed his own band ' The Lemon Trees ' and wrote, produced and performed with them until they disbanded in 1995. Though the band only released one album, a second one was completed but not released because the record company didn't like it. Following the end of The Lemon Trees, Chambers spent time writing successfully with Cathy Dennis, Bryan Adams and others until an opportune meeting with Robbie Williams in January 1997.

Work with Robbie Williams

Chambers collaborated as both songwriter and producer on Williams' first five solo albums, which all reached No.1 in the UK and have globally sold over 40 million. Chambers co-wrote many of the music on Williams' best known tracks, including "Rock DJ", "Feel", "Millennium", and "Let Me Entertain You" and "Angels".

After recording for Williams' fifth solo album “Escapology” was completed in mid 2002, Chambers and Williams acrimoniously split amidst demands from Robbie Williams's management that Chambers stop writing for other artists although it's also been stated that it was due to Williams demanding a higher percentage of royalties for songwriting. It was revealed in Williams's book Feel that Chambers was demanding a ludicrously high royalty hike, leading to the split. Chambers revealed in a 2005 interview that he and Williams were on speaking terms again and hinted at possible future collaborations. Chambers has claimed their songwriting partnership was 50.50, he wrote most of the music, while Williams' wrote the lyrics and melodies. However, in the music industry, their songwriting relationship is widely known as 'Change a word - Claim a third', meaning Chambers was responsible for nearly all the music, melodies and lyrics with little intervention from Williams. Williams subsequently started working with former Duran Duran member Stephen Duffy for his 2005 album “Intensive Care”. Chambers was not involved.

For his work with Williams, he won 3 BRITS, 3 Ivor Novello awards, a Q classic Songwriter award and an MMF best produced record award for “I’ve Been Expecting You”.

They re-united mid 2007 and are currently in LA together working on Robbie's upcoming album.

Recent Developments

In recent years Chambers has written and produced material for a number of different artists, Texas, Will Young, Rachel Stevens, Andrea Bocelli as well as working on a number of different film projects such as Bridget Jones's Diary, Finding Nemo and Love Actually soundtracks and a collaboration with Queen on their classic track "We Are the Champions" for the hit movie A Knight's Tale.

He co-wrote and produced four songs for Kylie Minogue's 2000 album Light Years, including the single "Kids" (a duet with Williams), Loveboat, I'm So High and the camp classic "Your Disco Needs You".

Chambers and American songwriter Kara DioGuardi co-wrote "Shine" for Hilary Duff's self-titled album, which charted at #2 in the Billboard 200 chart and reached over 1 million in sales. Other US album collaborations include Ryan Cabrera's Take It All Away, "2 Become 1" for Jewel's album 0304 which debuted at #2 in the Billboard 200 chart, and Diana Ross for whom Guy produced the track ‘Goin’ back for life and love’: The best of Diana Ross.

"Lemon Love", the debut album from Aslyn was co-produced by Chambers and Eric Valentine. 2004 saw the release of Brian McFadden's debut solo album “Irish Son” which Chambers heavily contributed to. First single “Real to Me” went straight in at #1 in the UK.

Other album releases that year included Natasha Bedingfield’s debut album Unwritten, Geri Halliwell's third solo album Passion, Delta Goodrem’s second album Mistaken Identity and Beverly Knight's “Affirmation”. Chambers and Beverley wrote 4 tracks for the album including the hit single ‘Come As You Are’. Beverley also performed her own accapella version of the Robbie Williams track ‘Angels’ at this year’s Live 8 at Murrayfield, Edinburgh where Chambers was Musical Director.

‘Tears And Rain’ was written by James Blunt and Chambers and features on Blunt's outstanding debut album ‘Back to Bedlam, one of 2005’s most successful albums which to date has sold over a million copies.

The Isis Project, a French language album featuring lyricist Keren Ann and vocalist Sophie Hunter is Chambers’s own personal project, written as an eighteenth birthday present for his daughter Isis while she was four at the time. Track ‘L’onde Amere’ also features on Keren Ann’s latest album ‘Nolita’. Released by Sleeper Music 13th June 2005 It is anticipated that EMI Records’/ Angel Music will be re-releasing the album internationally in Jan/Feb 2006.

Charlotte Church's debut album ‘Tissues and Issues’ features 3 co-written tracks: “Confessional Song”, “Let’s Be Alone” and ‘Casulty Of Love”. Chambers collaborated with Jamie Cullum's for his most recent album ‘Catching Tales’ on two tracks, “London Skies” and “Oh God”.

Guy Chambers collaborated with Enrique Iglesias to write the ballad "First Day Of My Life". It was translated into Italian and recorded by Andrea Bocelli as the lead single from his first pop album. The English version of the song was recorded by Melanie C and became a smash #1 hit throughout Europe. Chambers collaborated with Iglesias for many other songs but none have yet been recorded.

Chambers worked in LA with legendary band INXS for the first studio album after the death of Michael Hutchence ‘SWITCH’, released on 29th December 2005.

Chambers is currently collaborating with Big Brother 7 (UK) winner Pete Bennett on his forthcoming album.

He also worked with Tina Turner. There may be an album of new material in 2008.

Recently, Chambers worked with Darren Hayes to co-write "Who Would Have Thought?", a track that will be released on Hayes' forthcoming album This Delicate Thing We've Made, scheduled for release on 23rd August 2007. This song was released on Darren Hayes's Myspace, prior to the album release on the 9th April 2007 along with an associated animation clip for the song.

He is also working with Gareth Gates.

Chambers is currently in Los Angeles working with Robbie Williams on his future albums.

The Lemon Trees Discography

Album:

Singles include:

Writer's Discography

  • 30 Gold / Platinum certified albums
  • 19 Top 10 singles
  • 6 No.1 singles
  • 12 No. 1 albums

Albums

Tracks featured on the following albums:

Singles

  • "Afterglow" by INXS (2006)
  • "Pretty Vegas" by INXS (2005) #9 Australia
  • "First Day Of My Life" by Melanie C (2005) #1 Germany, #1 Switzerland, #1 Spain, #1 Portugal, #2 Austria
  • "Come As You Are" by Beverley Knight (2004) #9 UK
  • "Real To Me" by Brian McFadden (2004) #1 UK, #1 Ireland, #1 Denmark, #1 Norway, #2 Sweden, #4 Finland, #54 Australia
  • "Irish Son" by Brian McFadden (2004) #6 UK
  • "Out Of The Blue" by Delta Goodrem (2004) #9 UK, #1 Australia
  • "Together We Are One" by Delta Goodrem (2006) #2 Australia

Robbie Williams

  • "Sexed Up" (2003)
  • "Something Beautiful" (2003) #3 UK
  • "Come Undone" (2003)
  • "Feel" (2002) #1 UK
  • "Something Stupid" (1998)
  • "Eternity"/"The Road To Mandalay" (2001) #1 UK
  • "Let Love Be Your Energy" (2001) #10 UK
  • "Supreme" (2000) #4 UK
  • "Kids" (2000) #2 UK
  • "Rock DJ" (2000) #1 UK
  • "She's The One"/"It's Only Us" (1998)
  • "Strong" (1999) #4 UK
  • "No Regrets" (1998) #4 UK
  • "Millennium" (1998) #1 UK
  • "Let Me Entertain You" (1998) #3 UK
  • "Angels" (1997) #4 UK
  • "South Of The Border" (1997) #10 UK
  • "Lazy Days" (1997) #8 UK
  • "Old Before I Die" (1997) #2 UK

Films

Awards

  • 3 Ivor Novello Awards
  • 3 BRIT Awards
  • Q Classic Songwriter Award
  • MMF Best Produced Record Award

External links

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