Latest / GARAGE TO STADIUMS Music History Podcast / The Story of David Bowie: The brave chameleon of rock

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The Story of David Bowie: The brave chameleon of rock · GARAGE TO STADIUMS Music History Podcast

• Garage to Stadiums Episode 14 Guest: Paolo Hewitt, Bowie: Album to Album Host: Dave Anthony Dave Anthony 0:01 Dave, Hi there. I'm Dave Anthony, and this is the garage to stadiums podcast rated as one of the top 5% of podcasts globally. On each episode, we tell you the story of how one of our music legends rose from obscurity to fame and play some of the songs that mark that journey. Welcome to garage, to stadiums. Today's episode is the story of David Bowie. David Bowie was born David Jones on January 8, 1947 also Elvis Presley's birthday. He changed his name at 18 to avoid confusion with Davy Jones of the monkeys in this story is a tale of early failure, as Bowie struggled through various bands and musical genres without much success. But it's also a story of persistence. Bowie eventually embraced his quirky background in mime, musical theater and visual arts, merging them into groundbreaking performances that set him apart from other 1970s artists. His ever evolving personas, androgyny and avant garde music redefined the era, making Bowie synonymous with innovation and rebellion. He became a cultural icon for young fans seeking a challenge to societal norms, influencing everyone from Madonna to Lady Gaga to Taylor Swift and genres from glam to new wave to punk. Bowie's constant reinvention never stopped with over 200 million albums sold. Bowie's legacy continues to shape music today, even though he passed away in 2016 on today's show, try to listen to the clues that slowly led to his unique sound and approach. We'll unpack those clues with author and music commentator Paolo Hewitt, who joined us for our rollicking Oasis episode. Paulo has written extensively on Bowie and is the author of Bowie album by album. Welcome back to garage, to stadiums. Paulo. Paolo 2:04 Well, thank you very much. I'm very honored to be to be called back, Dave Anthony 2:10 very well, back off Paolo 2:11 the bench of life and into the garage. It's fantastic. Dave Anthony 2:16 Yes, that's right back into the garage. We're going to start by talking about one of the most innovative characters ever to enter the music arena. And I want to go back in time so that we understand the evolution of this man, and talk a little bit about David Jones, or David Bowie's childhood and the effect it had on him. Right? Paolo 2:40 His mother was Irish, and his father worked for he was a promotions officer for a charity for orphanages called Dr Bernardo. There was a guy called Dr Bernardo in Victorian times who started an orphanage for kids who had no parents, and then he is still going now to huge concern and bow. His father was worked for Dr Bernardo. He also had a half brother, Terry, who had schizophrenia. And he, I think he had an aunt who also had schizophrenia. So I think that, you know, that idea must have been quite to know, frightening in a sense that it might be in the family genes, you know, bad mental health, like that. You grew up in a place called, basically down south. I was thinking about this today. He was sort of on the fringes of London, so he was a bit of an outsider a place called Bromley in Kent. It's just on the outskirts of London. I kind of grew up in a similar place, so I kind of understood it, because London then becomes this, this golden city that you have to get to. You can see on the horizon, it's like, that's if I want to be what I want to be, that's where I've got to go. Dave Anthony 4:02 He talks about the tyranny of suburbia. Yeah, Paolo 4:06 suburbia was kind of like for, it was for, it's, it's, it's houses, it's mainly road streets and streets of houses. So there's not a lot of life going on there, you know. And the English being the English, they will kind of keep to themselves, so it's all very quiet. And you know that there's not a club down the road where you can go and dance to amazing music. You know? That's why London becomes such a mythological place. Tell Dave Anthony 4:35 us about his relationship with his mother and father. It sounds like it was rather cold. Paolo 4:40 You have to remember as well. He grew up in the time when expressing a desire to be a pop star was not particularly something that everybody in school did. And there's Bowie saying, I want to be a pop star. And pop wasn't, you know, the Beatles had come along, but pop. Wasn't a legitimate Avenue. Dave Anthony 5:01 Yeah, Bowie was born in 47 Yeah, he's coming of age in the early 60s as a teenager. Yeah, Paolo 5:06 exactly when, when pop is still developing. Pops a completely new phenomenon, even though you had rock and roll in in the mid 50s, Elvis and and Little Richard, etc, etc, that that that had faded out. Most people thought rock and roll was just too sad. It's like, oh, that's finished now. Now we're into cruisers. Dave Anthony 5:27 You know, Bowie starts to join a succession of bands. I mean, there's so many bands here, it's unbelievable. How many ones he's in, yeah, through the 60s here. I think Paolo 5:36 he attests to his his restless nature. I think it gets bored quite easily. And you gotta remember, a lot of those bands were just doing covers. They weren't doing original songs. They were doing covers. By this time, American R and B music was huge in this country, so Motown stacks in particular had really taken over England and the blues. The blues were really important as well. So American black music was absolutely huge here. Therefore Mick Jagger wants to be James Brown, you know, David Bowie would want to be moody, but Sam Cook, maybe, well, Rod Stewart wanted to be Sam Cook, you know, David Ruffin, Little Richard, yeah, I mean that Bowie said, didn't he? He said, When he had two fruit. He said he was like hearing a record from God. You know, the impact of American black music in this country was absolutely huge. And so all those bands he were in, we're kind of doing cover versions of Bobby bland records, I think the mannish boys, the Conrads. And he's learned saxophone as well, which is quite a, a quite prevalent instrument within American black music, isn't it, saxophone. And then Dave Anthony 6:47 after that sort of blues period with a variety of cover bands, as you said, he starts to dabble in almost a musical characterization of strange child, like songs. It's like songs like the laughing GNOME, the Speaker 1 7:00 said the laughing. What was Paolo 7:09 the influence for that? Well, I think that by that time, there was so much creativity. I mean, you're talking about 6667 you're talking about revolver by The Beatles, The Big Swinging London. Yeah, the Beach Boys. You know, pop at that time had a completely different attitude to what pop is now, because pop at that time said the Beatles have just used the sitar, the America the Indian sitar on one of their tracks. What can we use? I know, why don't we use the Greek Slither? You know? Let's get that in there. You know, it was a creative time. These days they go, Oh, they've just used so and so, let's just nick it. You just nick it. But any, any, if you look now, any groundbreaking record comes along immediately followed by 50 sound the lights. But back then, it was about creativity. I think Bowie's creativity. I mean, there was a guy here called Anthony Newley who was kind of Actor, a Musician, a singer, who would sing not rock and roll, but kind of big ballads and and kind of quite strange songs I'll go on my Unknown Speaker 8:29 way. And after the day, Paolo 8:35 I think bow is very influenced by him, and I think Bo's creativity meant that when everybody was doing the kind of psychedelic pop of Sergeant peppers, Bowie went completely the other way. There's a thing in England which is very specific to England, and particularly to London, which is called the music hall. And the music hall was a working class theater where people would come on do acts. They would sing songs, quite rude songs, maybe, maybe women would maybe do a kind of saucy little dance. You know, there would be comedians telling really filthy jokes. And I think both, and I think Bowie was very influenced by that. I think that's what he's trying to do. I think he's trying to, he kind of figured, Well, everybody's doing this. No one's doing this. So, so that first album is very hit and miss, but there's some good songs on there, I think. But, you know the I think the idea in 67 to put an album out, which is Anthony muly esque musical, was quite a statement, really, when you turned the TV on, you didn't get rebellious youth, you got mainstream. You know, very polite music, very you know, everyone look, look at the Beatles, when, when, after every look at the early concerts, after every song, they bow. You know. So we can imagine it now. We're already bowing. You know, it's that kind of so when he talks about the Trinity of suburbia, that he's also talking about the lack of innovation on the on the on the on the mainstream. If light, it was called light entertainment. It was designed for the masses. It wouldn't upset, it wouldn't do anything except kind of put you to sleep, really, right? Yeah, the Dave Anthony 10:30 the he starts to, I mean, there's something that he's kind of takes forward is kind of that musical, theatrical, kind of well Paolo 10:40 character. Funny enough. Before the interview, I was just checking out some things. When he was nine, he was actually commended by his school for his dance moves. They said. He said that his his singing voice was okay, but his dance moves were were ahead of their time for a nine year old. Ah, so. And then there's a guy called Lindsay Kemp, who is a mime artist, who Bowie was absolutely transfigured by. Well, that's Dave Anthony 11:10 where I was going to go next Lindsey Canton miming, like, sort of in the Marcel Marceau mold, yeah. And Paolo 11:16 I think Bowie was always looking to bring that into the music. I need you know at this point, of course, he's no one knows who he is, so all these ideas he's having, even though they're not succeeding at the time, what they're doing is they're putting into place something that he can later develop, which he grabs, obviously, with huge, Dave Anthony 11:38 Yeah, huge. His albums are not selling well, even to the early break he has with, I mean, that initial album doesn't sell well, but then he has Space Oddity, which produces the hit Space Oddity, which many know as major bomb. Yeah. Can Yeah, now he's evolving into more of a, what folk rock kind of feel, Paolo 12:07 sing a songwriter, you know, we're very wordy song. Look at that. That album, very wordy songs, very, you know, very looking all the time for, you know, different kind of chord changes, quite acoustic. He's when he was doing the R and B stuff, he was dressed as a mod, you know, sharp suit ties. You know, bouffant hair. Now it's long hair. This the hippie look, really, and Dave Anthony 12:44 but that album didn't sell well, other than the hit that Space Oddity, right? Yeah, absolutely. He was influenced Paulo by the movie Space Odyssey. 2001 I guess, yeah. And the Apollo stuff that was going on, yeah, exactly, Paolo 12:57 exactly, right? And it just, it was one of those songs which just fell in with the times, yeah, Kubrick's film, which was huge, and then you had the moon landing. So, you know, it just all came together. This Dave Anthony 13:11 is where it gets interesting, because now he moves on, uh, Bowie does to a another kind of sound. He's got the album, man who sold the world, yeah. The title cut was eventually covered by Nirvana. Many people would know it from them, but many people don't know it's a bowie song. So this album is more. I mean, this is starting to get into what Led Zeppelin Black Sabbath guitar type riffs. There's some heavy duty songs on there, like I was listening to. She shook me cold, yeah, the man who sold the world, of course, and a few others that just man, the riffs are heavy duty. Nine, one. On. Paolo 14:09 Well, what had happened in music was that there'd been a shift away from pop towards rock. There's a big difference. This is 1970 Yeah, but, but by this time, the album has now become the number one element in the 60s, the single was it you wanted? You know, bands wanted hit singles. Singles were huge. Loads of singles on albums. Albums were kind of hastily put together. You wanted a big single, but Sergeant Pepper blew that apart. Sergeant Pepper went, No, the albums were born actually. Let's go back and give credit where it's due. Bob Dylan, Blonde on Blonde. You know, a double album in 1966 you know which, which was just saying the album is now the within the culture. The album is Dave Anthony 14:57 interesting. So you think that's the transition. Point pepper, and also without Paolo 15:02 doubt, without doubt. And that leads to the formation of heavy rock, the Led Zeppelin free people using the Blues as a kind of template. Lot of bands are coming blues being very heavy, very heavy rock guitars. And I think Bowie's responding to that. I have all of his albums, and, you know, I can it's cut the songs. Maybe it's not really for me, it's too dark. The really interesting thing about the man who sold the world was the back of the cover where he's wearing a dress. So to be wearing a dress which signifies femininity, but to be playing music which is quite masculine and macho, because a lot of that heavy rock was showed his his kind of the way that he was trying to fuse a new kind of thing where, you know, where femininity and this heavy rock could coexist together. Dave Anthony 15:59 Think of how brave that is in 1970 huge, this macho, heavy rock, yeah, and a man wearing a dress. It was so, I think, brave that to go to the US with it, they had to change the cover, did they not? Paolo 16:11 Yeah, that's right, yeah, yeah, yeah. You guys couldn't. You guys couldn't handle it for that particular time, Dave Anthony 16:18 there was a cowboy, sort of cartoon figure, uh, walking in front of a mansion or something on the American cover, not the what it was, yeah. Okay, that was very strange. I guess this is 1970 so this album doesn't sell well. I mean, this man is is fearless, relative to he keeps experimenting, but nothing's hitting Paolo 16:40 but, you know that within the culture, because the culture is still all about creativity, the culture is still waiting on Bob Dylan. What's Dylan going to do next? The culture is still waiting on, you know, other what are the beat What have the Beatles come up with? You know, it that you know you're, you're encouraged to be creative, yeah, and also record companies, you know, are much, much, much more patient. They, they will wait. They, they will say, Okay, that one didn't work. Let's make another one. Right? These days, you make one, your single doesn't hit, and you, you, you're on the dole queue. You know, it's, it was a completely different time. Bowie couldn't have done what he did now, because he wouldn't have been given the time and the space or the money. Yeah, Dave Anthony 17:27 that's a really interesting point. You raised that Dylan and and the Beatles were ever shifting and evolving, and Bowie kind of probably got inspiration from that. Paolo 17:37 I'm sure he did. You know, that's what I mean, that's what the culture was. He was like, well, he's gone and done this. She's gone and done this. You know, where can I go? Right? Dave Anthony 17:47 So then we moved to 1971 Yeah. And he's composing on piano now, and it's kind of the start of the real David Bowie sound. He's opted for a warmer, more melodic piano based pop rock art, pop style on hunky dory with songs like changes Yeah. Life on Mars her face. I Paolo 18:30 suppose, huge, huge album, but didn't really so well. I mean it in terms of of his where it stands in his legacy. Dory is like, wow, you see that hunky dory. To me, I remember playing it all the time and just thinking, this guy is so talented because he'd evolved his own sound. He'd evolved his own style, you know, especially with the lyrics. I mean, a lot of those lyrics don't make sense, but it doesn't matter because of the drama of the music or the melody of the music. Yeah? And there's a confidence. There's a sure confidence about it all. Dave Anthony 19:11 Yeah, it's the beginning of, kind of the classic David Bowie that we Yes, remember, oh, Paolo 19:16 without a doubt. And again, it doesn't sell, does it? It Dave Anthony 19:20 doesn't sell, and we'll get to that. We'll get to that in a minute. But I wanted to touch on something that you talked about there, because I think it's important you talked about these fantastical lyrics that often don't make sense. Which you think of Bob Dylan. Some of his don't either. But the Did he really? I mean, there's a documentaries of him cutting up lines and mixing them. Is that how he wrote? Do you think, or is that just kind of a no, I Paolo 19:44 think that's later on, but I think that, I think that was more playing around with words, playing around with images, because the images fit. You know, they're great images, yeah, you know. But, Dave Anthony 19:58 and he's very he. Is a very visual image guy based on his background, yeah, absolutely. Paolo 20:03 You know, life on miles in particular, just although Mercury mouse has grown up a clown. What great line that is Mickey Mouse, you know? Yeah, the lyrics are just pop. Had started with, I love you. You love me. Let's all get together and give each other roses. I want you. I you know, I want to hold your hand. She loves you. You know, it was all that and this And now and now. It was like, we don't anything to do with that. We want to we're serious artists now, and we're going to throw, you know, we're going to be pro Dylan had brought this to bear. You know, with what Dylan did lyrically, had opened up the floodgates for people like David. He does song for Bob Dylan on this. Speaker 1 20:52 Robert Zimmerman, I wrote a song for you strange young man called Dylan with Dave Anthony 21:02 a voice like Sam. Yeah, song for Bob Dylan on there. The interesting thing about the sort of I'll call it, when fame starts hitting Bowie, it's the rise and fall of Ziggy. Stardust spiders from Mars 1972 Yeah. Unknown Speaker 21:16 Ziggy played guitar, Unknown Speaker 21:20 chiming good with and the Unknown Speaker 21:24 spiders from us, Dave Anthony 21:29 all of experiences Paulo seem to come together here, quirky stories, space, makeup, characters, it's all coming to fruition all those Paolo 21:39 exact experiences. Yeah, exactly. So what I was saying earlier about all these things, kind of, he's doing a bit Lindsay Kemp here, and a bit of rock and roll there, and a bit of this over here, and a bit of that. It all, as you say, it all coalesces. The impact of his look was absolutely huge. And what was really interesting, I think, is that the boys went with it. Bowie always tells his story about his band, the band of spiders from Mars. Well, the spiders from Mars were very working class. They were all working class guys from very kind of working hard northern working class towns and those kind of guys don't take shit, do you know? I mean, they're very Yeah, and Dave Anthony 22:28 they're not people who you would associate with androgyny and these kind of things. And Paolo 22:33 Bowie said he managed to get them, he managed to get them to to wear makeup, to wear glitter, to wear these boots. And they were all moaning about, this is the first gig that they play, and they're all moaning about. And then he said, and they all, we all came off stage, and I was thinking, God, what are they going to say? And the next thing I knew, the door had flown open, and all these girls rushed in and started kissing them and grabbed grappling with them, and they all died. And he said, within a week, they were like, Can I get some more makeup, please, David, have you got any more can we get some more on that glitter, please? Because Bowie had, Bowie was, you know, Bowie was, you know, he was bisexual. So for him, it was absolutely perfect, because, you know, he was attracting boys and girls, but the but, you know, the boys, the boys kind of, why did we take for it? Because the songs were good, and because you have seen anything like it before. You know, I remember he did Top of the Pops, and he did Star Man. He put his arm around Mick Bronson, the guitarist, and the next day at school, up and down the country, everybody was talking about, did you see him? He put his arm around Mick Fonta, why? Yeah. He put his arm around the guitarist like we'd never seen anything like it, yeah. But he also, he also managed to capture the teenage angst. He managed to, you know, the idea as a teenager, you're an alien, you're an outsider, you you're a stranger to your parents, you're the only people you make sense to are your friends at school, you know. And he tapped into that, you know. He tapped into that idea of, you know, being quite alone, and that, that last song, rock and roll suicide, where he sings, you're not alone, that was a rallying call. Him for teenagers, you know, and everybody was just fascinated by him. The pace at which he goes now, at which he lived, is unbelievable. He does a six month tour as Ziggy, Stardust and spider miles, and by the end of it, he is a na he's a national phenomenon, without a doubt. Dave Anthony 25:16 That star man performance that you mentioned, I've heard you two's Bono say that changed his life by watching that pop. Paolo 25:24 There you go. There you go. Yeah, without, Dave Anthony 25:27 I mean the bravery again, I'll cite bravery and sort of just the grabbing on to something. Now, what role did Angela Bowie? Because he was married by this time to Angela, I've heard that she helped conceptualize the Ziggy character. Is that true? Yeah, I Paolo 25:42 think so. He was living down at this place called hadden Hall, which is no longer there again, on the outskirts of London. He had an open marriage with Angie. He was sleeping with boys. He was sleeping with girls. There was a lot of sex going on. Lot of it, orgies, drugs as well. Here's Dave Anthony 26:00 a question for you. Was hang on to yourself the first punk song. Paolo 26:15 That's not a bad shout. I mean, he'd been very influenced by America. By this point, the Stooges were huge for him, and he produced his produces, raw power. Velvet Underground were massive for him, because the Velvet Underground Music was so out there and so inventive and so otherworldly. You know, you would no one had heard music like that. Dave Anthony 26:38 Yeah, there's no there's no question that Iggy Pop, who ultimately becomes a good friend of Bowie's, Bowie admires him, and kind of is sad for him that his albums never really did that well or sold that well. Yeah? And then Velvet Underground, I guess is the other influence, as you said, Yeah, Paolo 26:55 who he works with, doesn't he produces transformers? Yeah, Dave Anthony 26:59 good point. Paulo Bowie goes on to produce both Lou Reed of the Velvet Underground and Iggy Pop of the Stooges. The glam phase continues. He's got kind of Aladdin Sane and Diamond Dogs. Yeah, those two albums they, I guess the Aladdin Sane character, because he's now ditched Ziggy, yeah, much which, which is a brave thing again, to do. I mean, here's Paolo 27:25 ground. No, no one's done this before. You know, no one's great these characters and put them on stage and then kill them, and then brought another one on Aladdin, Dave Anthony 27:33 saying, for those listening, is, is a take on a lad insane. Yeah, three words, which, Paolo 27:39 again, relates to his brother, because he was thinking about his brother, who suffered from Terry, yeah, suffered from schizophrenia and Dave Anthony 27:48 he was in a he was in an institution, correct? Yeah, that's right, yeah. Paulo had mentioned earlier in the interview that David Bowie's older stepbrother Terry suffered from schizophrenia and was ultimately institutionalized. Terry was a pivotal figure in David's life, both inspiring and haunting. 10 years older, Terry was the one who introduced the young Bowie to all types of music and ideas fueling his creativity. But Terry's brilliance was marred by his schizophrenia diagnosis, as Bowie himself said, quote, my work is my refuge. UNQUOTE, Terry's influence, both light and dark shape Bowie's art reflecting Love, Loss and the fragility of the human mind. For Bowie, Terry's fate was a warning. And isn't it true, Paulo that fearing hereditary mental illness, Bowie channeled his anxieties into, you know, keeping busy with relentless creativity. Paolo 28:42 But what's incredible Dave, to me, is the pace he's working at, because he's just, he's touring and then making an album, then touring and trying to break America and, you know, playing Europe back again make an album. I mean, it's just relentless, but his quality doesn't stop, although I would, I would argue, and this is probably heresy, so I might never I might not be alive by next time you talk to me. I might I might be strung up somewhere. But I think, I think the really good album is that you take the best of a land saying and the best of Ziggy, and then you put those two together. Because I don't think I think Ziggy is an album holds together and Aladdin Sane does, but I think there's a lot of fillers on there as well. And I think the Ziggy album and the Aladdin train album and the Diamond Dogs one as well. Dave Anthony 29:45 Yeah, the pace, the pace is incredible. Because, as we've been describing these albums, the audience is probably thinking 7172 and then 70 Paolo 29:56 these two, with 10 albums in that decade. It's, it's phenomenal. It's. Unbelievable. And the thing is, yeah, and also you've got pin ups the covers album he does, Dave Anthony 30:07 right? Which was probably a result of the pace he had to put out another album. And he decides to Paolo 30:14 RCA were on his tail. Come on, we want another album. It's like cover Dave Anthony 30:18 tunes of bands that he admired from kind of the mod, is Paolo 30:22 the guy who was kind of blazing a similar path, and maybe some would argue a much more stylish path was Brian ferry in Roxy Music. And Bowie had heard that Brian was doing a covers album called these foolish things, and that's why he did pin ups. He thought, okay, I can, I can fulfill my contract with RCA with a covers album. You know, it'll take two, two weeks. I can get that done. I don't have to write any songs. And so ferry was really the one who gave him the Get out clause, Dave Anthony 30:57 and it was probably a result of the pace. He needed a break at some levels, just to get an album. Paolo 31:02 Was he big in America at this point? I'm always quite fascinated by him. In America. Dave Anthony 31:07 Well, they did well because of the halo effect of Ziggy, right, right? And he was still sort of that rebellious character, lad, insane and so forth. It did. They did do well here, and of course, They had the hits gene, Genie, diamond, dog, you. It, rebel, rebel, yeah. The pin UPS thing is interesting because he goes back to his own history, which he admired, The Who, yeah, the mod phase, you know, all that I can't explain. Paolo 32:17 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's written all the young dudes for Motley. I remember hearing it thinking he gave that away. That's an amazing song. Dave Anthony 32:40 It's funny, because when I think of that song, I don't even think of Martha Hoople. I think of Bowie. And Paolo 32:45 of course, it's just, it's just an incredible song. I love that song. Paulo Dave Anthony 32:50 raised the specter of America in his comment there, and this is where Bowie basically becomes a part of America. He really with the next album, 7576 young Americans, and station to station, he is in in in the US, in California, etc. This is where some cracks start to appear. Is this not where the drugs start to take effect? Paolo 33:16 Well, good on the drugs, because they're two of his best albums that to me, station, the station is his masterpiece. I absolutely, I think that album, I remember hearing station, the station the title tank, there's a great quote he talks about because he was good friends with Lennon, wasn't he around this time? And he said to Lennon, what do you think? What do you think about what I'm doing? And Lennon went, Oh, you're just doing what we did, but with lipstick. It's rock and roll with lipstick. Bowie Dave Anthony 33:58 actually recorded a song on the young Americans album in 1976 that featured John Lennon doing some vocals, and that song was a hit called fame. Paolo 34:16 And I think by then, his creative influence had kicked in. He couldn't do that anymore. He couldn't do the Ziggy and lad insane. I'm half man, so he he's in America, and I think it was Ava cherry, who he, who he was kind of dating, took him up to Harlem to see some of the soul shows, and reignited his love of of black music, American black music. Yeah. And so halfway through that tour, the diamonds dog tour, he actually starts incorporating soul music into it. He stays writing songs. He's writing young Americans. Now he found a new niche, and now he's gonna really go to town on it. And of course, his clothes change, his haircuts change. He becomes much more well, very stylized, but the makeup is gone. He's not doing Ziggy. He's not doing that, yeah, but you know, he's got that look which was influenced by street fashion in in in in London, in England. On Dave Anthony 35:32 those albums, you got hits like fame, young American, yeah, golden years. Old. Which is a great tune, yeah. But, I mean, if you look at, if we look at, we're gonna post videos of interviews during this phase. I mean, this, this is a gaunt looking David Bowie. Paolo 35:56 He looks, yeah, he, he looks cold. You don't, you don't want to approach him. He looks very I mean, it's brilliant what he's doing. I mean, it's probably some of his best work. It's amazing. But he, you don't want to him. There's a kind of iciness about him, a kind of Wow. But then, you know, they said that on the station, the station album, he was just living on cocaine and milk. He was drinking glasses with milk and and Ava cherry saying he was just, he was a nightmare. She said, We, I think she her family were in Chicago. So she said, after the gig, I took David Hutt back to my family home, you know, to get him some saying to eat, because he just looks so thing. And she said, it's really not the best way to impress somebody's mother that this is your boyfriend when he's just eaten and he's now cutting out a line of cocaine on the kitchen table. My lord, exactly. So I think by then you've gone and and, but then those tours in America were huge, right? He's playing 20, 30,000 40,000 people. I mean, it was phenomenal. People Dave Anthony 37:09 have really latched on to Bowie as this ever evolving character, and I think that the loyalty starts to build with the fan base. Yeah, the red pepper and milk diet. Yeah, that's a strange Paolo 37:19 one. Red peppers. Let's not forget the red peppers. You've got to get some vitamins in there. Dave Anthony 37:24 Yeah, you will not, probably, you'll not. Probably see a book about the red pepper and milk diet. No masses. I don't think Paolo 37:30 we'll have down the chef's cookbooks. Dave Anthony 37:34 Okay, so we talked about Iggy Pop, because we've talked about Iggy on this show before. How influential he was, the kind of godfather of punk, yeah. Bowie and Iggy. Now we go into the Berlin years, which is interesting. This is what 77 Paolo 38:02 Bowie gets. Bowie puts it. Bowie has Iggy on the station to station tour, and he puts him into rehab. He gets him into rehab because Iggy's just strung out and can't string his sentence together. And then also what's in and this is again. This is this again, I kind of wanted to meet this guy and ask him so many questions. One question would be this, you're strung out on cocaine, which is an upper right. Cocaine gives you, you're up, you're you're buzzing right. What's his favorite album? Brian Nino's discrete music, which is an ambient Oh, it's meditation, yeah, and he had all this kind of filmic music, and he wanted to, and he recorded that album in France, place called the Chateau de horovi in somewhere outside in Paris. That's where the album was recorded. It wasn't recorded in Berlin. People talk about the Berlin trilogy, low heroes and the larger. It wasn't the first album he recorded Berlin is when he Iggy's now out of rehab, so him and Iggy, he takes Iggy to Berlin, and the the first album that they Do there is the passenger album. That's the first, that's the first one in the Berlin trilogy. But Dave Anthony 39:44 that's Iggy sale. Paolo 39:45 Yeah, yeah. It's Iggy because he writes, he writes a lot of it. Yeah, Dave Anthony 39:50 right. What's interesting, what I find about the Berlin years, obviously, they go there to do what you said, and to rid themselves of these horrible drug habits. Get Brian Eno as a producer, the influence of Kraftwerk, the German synth band, yeah, I think it is, is that I think Bowie pioneers the way for new wave with this kind of era, does he? Not? I for example, the speed of life song on the low album, you're definitely getting a preview of what new wave will sound like five years from that 1977 date of this album. Yeah, Paolo 40:33 absolutely, yeah. I mean, he again. He said, Well, look at the low album. Have you ever heard an album that sounds like that? No, the first track, the first I'm not a big fan of the second side, because I think Eno did that stuff better, but that first side. One, the songs are just great. And two, I've never heard of an album like it. It's just, yeah, astonishing. Think Dave Anthony 40:57 of where he's come from in the audience, if you're listening here to the the the journey we've gone from the heavy rock in the early 1970s through to the glam, through to the soul and R and B, yeah, and now we're into synthesizer, New Wave type music, yeah, which, which no one, which no one was doing. I mean, this is 1977 for God's Exactly, Paolo 41:20 exactly. The pun. Thing was still, was still raging. People were just frustrated. Away guitars. It was the pistols, the clash. And he just, he just came with this album, which, you know, like it was, you know, like, with somebody's best, it's other worldly. It's like, it's out there. It's like, wow, where's the, you know, his his antenna is just incredible to create these sounds. A lot of it's to do with his is to do with as a reaction to the life he'd been living. I've been seeing, you know, blue, blue, electric blue, that's the color of my room where I will live. Electric Speaker 1 42:02 blue, that's the color blue, where I will live. Paolo 42:06 He was, you know, he was living in LA, and he was, he was really getting into Aleister Crowley, which shows up a lot, and stationed the station, right? That's Dave Anthony 42:14 the cult. That's the occultist, yeah, the magic, the guy Paolo 42:17 who said section magic with the way forward, you know, and it's just, you know, so low was a kind of, it was a come down, I think, but just in, it just a new way of expressing himself, but very elliptical lyrics, you know, songs that only lasted two and a half minutes, three minutes, bang. Dave Anthony 42:36 How talented do you have to be to go to another country in a drug induced haze, and come out with this new sound, somebody so fresh, yeah, and then, I mean powerful, he emerges with an album after the Berlin trilogy, with an album called scary monsters, which was recorded in Switzerland and contains, I mean, ashes to ashes to ashes. Strong fashion. Paolo 43:22 I unbelievable tunes. Yeah, I love ashes to Ashley loving that was great. But when there's something else happening here, I'm going to talk about Tony DeFries, his manager. And the reason I'm going to talk about him is because on that American tour, the station to station tour, it's the guy on the dogs, basically, which then turns into the young American thing, yeah, he that he was doing things it was very theatrical, right? He finds out that Tony DeFries, his manager, who he has a 5050, deal with, but DeFries has has done this contract, which he hasn't spotted, because he's probably off his kids, where he pays, where Bowie pays for all the theatrical stuff. So Bowie pays the tours expenses, and when the tour money comes in deferred, takes 50% of it, none of the expenses. So there is a big, big theory that Bowie, coming off huge hits like golden years, young Americans fame, deliberately sets out to create a career which keeps him a in the spotlight, but B doesn't. Is nowhere near as big, doesn't, doesn't sell. The records do not sell in the quantities they did, so that the freeze doesn't get as much money. So therefore, that's why he's doing the experimentation. That's why he's on the side is low and heroes and everything scary money. Is included. They all have big hit singles, which keeps in there. Heroes is a unbelievable song. Boys, keep swinging Ashes to ashes. He keeps up his shark present, but the albums and he doesn't tour as much. He's had enough of touring, and the albums do not sell in the quantities that young Americans did. And then the contract runs out, and the first thing he does is he gets on the phone to now Rogers, and he goes, I want you to give me a worldwide here. And that's that's when Let's dance was born, right? Dave Anthony 45:49 Less dance becomes the mass commercial. Bowie, to the masses. I Paolo 46:12 and the 80s, for me are really not that interesting. In Bowie's thing, there's good stuff, there's, you know, without a doubt, He's a talented guy, but he's brought he's he's raking it in. He's playing he just becomes a rock star, not innovative, he's not creative. He's not in the way that he was in the 70s. And there's part of these things. Well, how could he be? Because, you know, he'd been so influential, so creative in assemblies, he probably thought, I'm gonna chip I'm gonna cash in my chips. Now I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna get the millions that I've you know that I deserve. Dave Anthony 46:50 It's not unlike a Bruce Springsteen or others who did the same thing. What's David Bowie's place in music history? What will he be remembered for? Paolo 46:58 He will be remembered. He will be remembered for huge innovations in that he, he did things in the 70s which people like Madonna picked up when he, you know, the idea of constant reinvention was Bowie's and was aligned with with incredible music. So he's, he's, he is one of one of the innovative, one of the most innovative and creative artists ever to have graced our record our record collections. Dave Anthony 47:29 Usually we ask the guests to pick three songs, but in this case, we're going to ask you to pick three albums, because this journey is absolutely incredible and vast. What three albums Do you think the the audience should have a look at and go, Oh, now I can see, Paolo 47:45 definitely, station to station, definitely young Americans. And I'm gonna have to go low, the first side of low. In fact, no, three days they follow each other, didn't they? Young American station, station, and Dave Anthony 48:05 that's interesting. Because I thought you were gonna pick Ziggy Stardust. I thought you might pick interesting, Paolo 48:12 actually, okay, actually, you know what? Can I just go back? All right, we're gonna see this one. This is what did Bowie does. He does so much great stuff, but you gotta throw hunky dory in there. A little bone. You gotta throw hunky dory a little something, just for sheer craft of songwriting. It's, it's beautiful album. Dave Anthony 48:30 Paulo, it's always a pleasure to have you on, and we thank you for your time. Today. You've been brilliant as usual. Paolo 48:37 Thank you. Bucha. Well, you know you, you, you, you ask good questions. And you, you know how to, you know how to to trigger me, Dave, you trigger me. I'll take that into this stuff. Dave Anthony 48:58 Some closing notes on David Bowie. Bowie was not only a music pioneer, he was a financial pioneer in 1997 Bowie revolutionized music finance by creating Bowie bonds, raising 55 million for himself by promising royalties from his back catalog that would provide a return to investors. He used some of these raised funds to buy back some of his earlier songs owned by record companies. Though initially lucrative, the bonds struggled in value as file sharing eroded, album sales earning, the bonds a downgrade in 2004 to junk bond status. However, with the advent of online musical, streaming music became hot again. The Bowie bonds matured as planned in 2007 and the ownership of the royalty stream reverted back to Bowie. Bowie's first wife, Angela Bowie, helped shape his Ziggy Stardust persona. Their son Duncan Jones, born Zoe Bowie, is now a renowned filmmaker the. Bowie's second marriage to Somali supermodel Iman in 1992 brought enduring love and a daughter, Lexi Bowie passed away from liver cancer on January 10, 2016 at the age of 69 keeping his illness private in line with his will, his ashes were scattered in Bali, following Buddhist rituals, Bowie's iconic mismatched eyes resulted from a teenage fight leaving one pupil permanently dilated, a striking feature often mistaken for two different eye colors, as we said in the episode. He was born David Robert Jones, but chose Bowie to avoid confusion with the monkeys. Davy Jones, why the last name Bowie? Though. Well, it was inspired by American frontiersman Jim Bowie and his famous knights the Bowie knife. At just 15, Bowie formed a band called The Conrads, playing rock and roll classics at weddings and youth events, making the start of his musical journey. Here's an interesting tidbit that you can discuss with friends at cocktail parties in 1968 Bowie wrote English lyrics for a French hit come a David. The lyrics that Bowie wrote were rejected and the song went to Paul Anka, who reworked it into Frank Sinatra's legendary my way. Bowie was an avid art collector, owning works by Basquiat, Damien, Hirst and Auerbach. After his death, his collection fetched over $40 million at auction. Bowie's famous song, Space Oddity, which some know as Major Tom, was released in July 1969 to coincide with the first moon landing by Apollo 11, always ahead of the curve. Bowie launched Bowie net in 1998 an internet service offering exclusive content, where he occasionally surprised fans in chat rooms. Thanks to you. Our listeners, garage to stadiums is now in the top 5% of podcasts worldwide. Be sure to follow us for updates on new episodes and share your thoughts at info, at garage to stadiums.com. For more on David Bowie's incredible journey, visit garage to stadiums.com. For bonus content, including career spanning, video clips, Episode notes, transcripts and curated playlists for every artist we feature, like today's David Bowie playlist on Apple and Spotify. A special thanks to our guests, Paulo Hewitt, author of Bowie album, to album, and to our amazing team producers Amina faux bear and Connor Sampson and program director, Scott Campbell, I'm Dave Anthony. You've been listening to garage to stadiums and other blast furnace labs production. See you next time for another garage to stadium story.