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Robbie Williams enjoys shaking things up — and he did it again when he surprised his legions of fans by dropping his latest album, BRITPOP, on 16 January. Now, the former Take That star is on course to achieve his 16th UK No1 album.

Here, Robbie, 51, who recently concluded the European leg of his BRITPOP tour and has UK dates lined up for his Long ’90s tour starting in February, talks about what fans can expect from his new songs and the lessons he has learnt to keep his demons at bay. He also reveals why he recently moved with his family — actress wife Ayda Field, 46, and their children Theodora, Charlton, Colette and Beau — to Miami.

Robbie’s latest 11-track offering is, he says, “The album I wanted to release after I left Take That in 1995. It was the peak of Britpop and a golden age for British music. I’ve worked with some of my heroes on this album; it’s raw, there are more guitars and it’s an album that’s even more upbeat and anthemic than usual.”

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When he set out to make it, Robbie tells us he just “imagined that it’s 1997” — when guitar-driven bands like Blur, Pulp and Oasis were the order of the day.

He explains: “With my albums, when commercial radio stopped playing me is the first time I looked back and went, ‘What was it that I did? I need to recreate that.’Now I’m just in a place where I want to make things that make me happy. And hopefully my audience will be happy, too, instead of s****ing myself trying to get a hit.”

Happily, the album sounds like it has a few surefire smashes already. The track All My Life has an Oasis-style flavour, and the singer admits that the Manchester legends mean a lot to him.

“Britpop was many bands, but only a few were successful,” he says. “You have gold-plated Britpop bands — Radiohead, Oasis, Blur. Pulp’s my favourite. But the three that were the most were Blur, Radiohead and Oasis.

“Now, what would I like to sing out of those three bands? I’d like to sing balls-to-the-wall Oasis songs. So, yeah, it sounds like an Oasis song because that’s what I was into when I left Take That.”

Robbie also co-wrote a song about Morrissey with his old Take That band mate Gary Barlow. The song includes the lyrics “I want to hold him for the rest of his life” and that he’s “lonely, lost and hurt”. So does Robbie feel sorry for the former Smiths frontman?

“Well, no, ‘I’m lost, I’m lonely, I’m hurt, I’m abused. I need love, Baby, just like you’ — that’s one of his big lyrics. I just thought that it would be funny for me to... I just think Morrissey is the best lyricist and probably the most important songwriter of the last 40 years.

“He’s Bob Dylan, Oscar Wilde. The song is basically a stalker singing about Morrissey. So, in this song, I am a stalker stalking Morrissey.”

Another potential hit is Pretty Face, a huge rock anthem which the singer says came about when his guitarist Tom brought him the melody one day. “I was like, ‘I want to sing on that.’ So I basically had very little to do with the writing of that song, but it was just too good to ignore.”

Robbie has performed Livin’ On A Prayer live before — and Pretty Face, he agrees, has a Bon Jovi-style feel to it. He explains, “I watched the Bon Jovi documentary and was reminded of how he [Jon Bon Jovi] is actually one of the greats. You know, the way that he performed, how he looked, his voice, his personality, his charisma. He’s f***ing magic. And also, you know, banger after banger after banger.”

One standout lyric in the new song is, ‘The biggest prize is what’s behind these eyes’. So is that particular line about Ayda? “Oh, I did write some of that song then,” laughs Robbie. “Yeah, that’s my line. Yeah, it is for my wife. When I sing it, I think about my wife. And I’m a big fan of marriage.

I understand why people do it now. I didn’t understand coming from a broken home. “I’ve seen so many people in relationships that just argue all the time. I just didn’t see the point. But marriage has actually made me the man that I am. So, you know, the lyrics in that song is, you know, it’s true. She’s turned a boy into a man.”

For Robbie, he regards marriage as “safety” from his own hedonistic tendencies. “I will wander out into the world and listen to what the devil on my shoulder tells me,” he says. “For me, when you are totally seeking pleasure, that’s when the wheels fall off.

“You can’t have a life of total pleasure or else you’re just not a well-rounded individual. I suppose that my marriage and my wife has brought me safety from my own desires.” A life of pleasure, he adds, “just made me fat. It made me fat, lonely and sad.”

He has taken his wife and kids on tour a few times, he says, but a lot of the time it’s been impossible, as there’s been a move to Miami and settling his kids into a new school. As he admits quietly, “This tour, in particular, I’ve been an absent parent.”

Explaining why he relocated his brood to Florida, he says, “I spent 24 years in California and I’m somebody that needs sun for my self-care and my mental health. I’ve just spent five years back in Europe and I can’t do it — because I know how it feels with the sun on my back. And I know that I feel better.

“And for me there’s anonymity in America. So, I get to be Bruce Wayne in Miami and Batman in the rest of the world or Batman in… either which way!”

Robbie is also looking great at the moment, with fans on his BRITPOP tour marvelling at his new ripped physique in tight vests, despite admitting he has never enjoyed the gym.

“People in entertainment started looking like athletes around about 2002, 2003,” he says. “And before that, not so much. You could have ‘dad bods’ in your teens.

“But I’ve never been a workout guy. I’ve managed to put together a schedule that I can keep up with. Whereas before, I’d be doing workouts based on hating myself. And now I do workouts based on staying alive.”

Needless to say, Robbie and his band mates never had “dad bods” when they were in Take That, but he explains, “It’s because we were dancing so much. But then I gave myself to hedonism and that just made me fat. So I’ve always been battling one way or another with my weight.

“But now I seem to be in a good place. And also those vests, they’re like Spanx. They hold me together. The vests are making me look better than I actually am.”

He’s lived many lives in his 51 years, but what would the Robbie of today tell his 17-year-old self? After a thoughtful pause, he says, “I wish I’d have known that confidence is not important. Bravery is important. And I can always be brave. But it’s very difficult to be confident.”