Barlow, Mark Owen and Howard Donald invested in tax avoidance scheme
Manager Jonathan Wild also poured money into Icebreaker Management
Barlow believes fans are more interested in 'records and tours' than scandal
Band set to release new single These Days and new album later in the year
Take That frontman Gary Barlow does not believe the band's £20million tax scandal will affect their popularity because fans are simply 'not interested'.
Barlow, 43, who invested in a tax avoidance scheme along with fellow bandmates Mark Owen and Howard Donald, as well as manager Jonathan Wild, said fans are more interested in 'records and tours'.
It comes as the band prepared to launch their new single as a trio after Jason Orange – the only member of the group not to have invested in the controversial scheme – quit last month.
Speaking for the first time since news of the tax avoidance scandal broke in May, Barlow said 'it's something we've got to get to the bottom of'.
He told The Sun: 'Our fans, they want to buy our records and watch our tours. They're not interested.'
Bandmate Owen, 42, added: 'It has been a bit tricky what's gone on – it's not the easiest.
'Hopefully by this time next year, the tax thing will be sorted out, we'll be doing live shows and it will be a positive time for us.'
Earlier this year it was revealed that Barlow, Owen, Donald, 46, and Mr Wild faced a multimillion-pound tax bill for attempting to shelter £66million in a tax-avoidance scheme called Icebreaker Management.
While Icebreaker styled itself as a music-industry investment scheme, a judge ruled in May that it was 'known and understood by all concerned to be a tax avoidance scheme'.
It allegedly allowed the Take That members to avoid tax on around £63million made through world tours and CD sales.
In 2012, lawyers representing the four men confirmed they were investors in the partnerships, but believed they were legitimate enterprises and not tax-avoidance schemes. They added that their clients paid significant amounts of tax.
There has never been any suggestion that the former Take That band members, Jason Orange and Robbie Williams, invested in the Icebreaker scheme.
Orange, 44, left the group after 23 years last month after apparently becoming 'disillusioned' with the music industry.
Despite his exit being linked to the tax scandal, his bandmates have continually insisted it had 'absolutely nothing' to do with his reasons for leaving.
The trio, who started work on their new album earlier this year with Orange's 'blessing', today prepared to launch the first single from the new record.
The new song, These Days, is to be played for the first time on the radio today ahead of its official release in November.
All three of the group share vocal duties on the song, which is described as 'a nod to the sound that defined their early years' and 'out-and-out feelgood pop'.
It is the first single of the band's new album, called III, which will be released on December 1.
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