Howard believes he never been cool.

For more than 30 years, he’s been known to millions of fans as Take That’s adorable and cheeky “little one” – as well as having one of pop’s most unique voices.

However, after recently celebrating his 50th birthday — a celebration he believes would last the entire year — Mark Owen joked that he finally wants to be the “cool one” by releasing a solo LP after years of “wanting to be as cool as Jason and Howard.”

“I try and play it cool, but I’m not cool, there’s no coolness in me,” he adds, with a gleam in his eye, as he opens up about his first record outside the band in a decade.

“Even after being in Take That for so long, I still don’t think there is, but that’s fine.” Howard (Donald) always believes he’s cool, while Jason (Orange) is just cool.

“At the very least, I’ll be the coolest man on the album!”

Mark unveiled the vibrant lead single, You Only Want Me, this week ahead of the album’s release later this year — and said he can’t wait for the entire project to be released, even pushing to “leak it if you want!”

However, despite the continuous success of the long-running man band, he assured the side project has the OK of bandmates Howard and Gary Barlow – not withstanding their jibes about it.

“I emailed the song to Howard and Gaz,” he laughs. No, they were really complimentary afterwards.” We were aware that we would be taking a few years off. I knew Gaz had a few projects he wanted to work on, and Howard basically plays golf all the time, which is my notion of hell.