David Bowie: Full Interview (1995) | MTV News

big trend toward shops in in London recently selling art you know especially people who make editions of things that there be little little bit just like a little supermarket of art there's been three or four over the last two or three years they've done really very well a new really new approach to sort of obviously Schneider onic kind of stance behind it but it's kind of interesting that people are starting to see it doesn't have to be this place called a gallery that you go to to get art you know wouldn't it be cool if you could buy his sprouts and the Jeff Koons in the same place which may not be too far away by his prices and I'll give two it's wanted to start out asking about the whole sort of you know glam rock gender-bending you know what do you think with some of the sort of sources of that and you perhaps could describe the reaction that you got at that time I think for me it was very simply a question of automatically falling into areas that I had not experienced and were virtually kind of taboo areas for the majority of the society in that particular time and I think I found the go world really attractive and as much at people were totally into unknown things in London like soul music there wasn't any other club playing soul music in 1969-1970 part from gay clubs the music was always so much better everybody looked great there was a sense of festivity because it was still virtually it was still virtually a clandestine underground world a community that really hadn't come out I mean today so completely different well from when I was a young male yes Brian I really said that and I think there was a feeling of excitement and titillation about the whole idea of moving in areas which were forbidden to the rest of society and like any young person I think I was really inclined to experiment sexually and philosophically I mean I was a Buddhist on Tuesday and I was into Nietzsche by Friday you know I think most of my life is being like that room and I think it was this declaration of interest in things other than those contained by the regular parameters of such society is always interested me kind of I know supermarket and I know Cliff Richard in I know my mother what's new when elsif he dad you know it was that sort of thing so it was sort of an endless search to expand I don't know what I thought I was expanding but I guess I just wanted to experience everything I think I was aesthetically promiscuous there's a sense of the kind of outrage that it generated you know there was even as you know people think of the 60s as you know that's great for I even put the red hair on hahaha absolute in perspective well the sense that you know that they're you know even as people think of the 60s it was this great ton of liberation there seem to be this incredible sort of sense of earnestness about it that you you just exploded yeah and the kind of introducing elements of artifice and theatricality just drove people crazy you know because you could talk a little bit about you know some of what you know that that response it creasing Lee becomes difficult for me to remember back to what exactly were all the influences that went into the creation of that poor soul and his coterie it had a lot to do with fascinations outside of rock-and-roll yet again the idea of things outside of whatever genre I was in or my lifestyle of my society it wasn't whatever I was close to was never enough I wanted to know what the next thing was after that what's on the outside of all this and in rock music or in theater the outside at that particular time because it was still a very secretive kind of thing was Kabuki theater in Japan it was something we didn't really know anything about in the West and I remember the colors and the presentation the ritual that it all seemed so magical and replaced I think all the time those rituals have replaced my very very strong spiritual leanings I don't think I'm not a religious person but I'm I am a spiritual person and I think not knowing what church to go to because none of them made sense to me in any real way my strivings to have some kind of spiritual base were really really strong all my life I've had a need for that and I think I tried to amalgamate my own bedrock of spirituality something I could pin a reason for life on - by going outside - looking at ritual and so kabuki came into a drag came into it Jack Kerouac's on the road came into it for some obscure reason I remember seeing a film about high priests in Indonesia who were also in drag and then found out that most high priests outside of the judeo-christian ethic adopt some kind of female attire or so female or at least and Raja has kind of made and that that was almost traditionally part of other cultures religions and I found that fascinating so in my mind there was something of the high priest to the Ziggy character as well I try to cram in every bloody piece of information that I had at my fingertips at that particular time to create this little religious base for myself probably that's what it was about Hannah or in other words I haven't got a clue you went also from you know inventor I know but I know what went into it but I think that applies to any any any art form I think most artists for a lot happier discussing the process of what they do rather than what the hell it means well you know you went oh I know so many I'm sorry I got I know so many painters who title their works after they've done which is a real giveaway there's a you went from sort of inventing these characters obviously so you start us a lot in saying you know and almost like transformed yourself and then you know from these super white figures isn't it then becoming kind of an R&B hero you know what was what was about what was that transformation about what's particularly you know young Americans it had an awful lot to do with not wanting to be I felt that I wasn't wrapping myself it was always very important to me and it's always been something that I've had a real push-pull relationship with my life is it the idea of being trapped and pinned down and categorized I always felt would be like prison to me if I wanted to move and change as a writer and a performer that if I got put into a pocket if I got said oh well he's that it would sort of really it would rip my guts out as a writer that it would because my my writing is based on the idea of transience my writing is a very clear understanding nothing in this world is a real reality it's not something that you can hold on to it can be something you can enjoy briefly tentatively for the moment that it's their love or a sunset or whatever but like a sunset and unfortunately in so many cases like that it's a transitory thing and I didn't want to get locked into being this one thing and not being able to flit like a butterfly from flower to flower pollinating my intellect something like that had an awful lot to do with not wanting to be pinned down not wanting to be like a pinned butterfly or moth probably my case I think it came as a surprise to a lot of vegetable that I could I can sit just briefly control my what well so so rather than be pinned down my my momentum worked in wanting to hit and run very fast and one side one side done something and said it the way I felt it should be said drop it and move on that was kind of my that was my mo really I think it came as a surprise to a lot of people to hear you draw on a lot of sort of you know sources and black music when you when you're when you did the young Americans record you know you talk about some of the things that you were listening to and that interested you or that that you're drawn to yeah I think it will be extremely pompous for any rock artist to say that black music probably wasn't the mattress where all other forms of popular music spring from and I I indeed felt the effervescence of American black music was something that always one of the few things that musically really cheered me up and I was really caught up with the James Brown sold explosion in the clubs in the late sixties and early seventies and even though I was working in a very sort of white area with Ziggy and his variation of rock it never left me and my interest in black music never dying and once I got to being in America an awful lot which happened around I guess the end of 73 into 74 I just I just found that I was just more and more in black music areas I was in Philadelphia a lot we were recording in there a lot of my friends when I came over firstly to America were black or Hispanic and I was going the first place that I went to when I came to New York place like a cheetah and leopard Club and the Apollo which for me was kind of such a gas it is so it was so cool because I have a sort of this red headed clown alien and most outrageous suits and generally one of the few white guys in the audience of the Apollo and it was almost that it was my pastor being sort of allowed to be there which was very presumptuous on my part of course I was very young very nice and everybody was so friendly and I knew what I look like and I thought one earth could they think was interesting about me I'm sitting here watching The Spinners and I'm going out of my mind because this is like ah I've only heard it on record and they're kind of I asked me where my suits were made I thought well this is cool this is reciprocal yeah I dig this this is great and I such a great time well it almost seemed like there was a kind of you know when you started doing you know he's very theatrical things and then you know some there's George Clinton doing what he was doing and that there was you know a sense in which these cultures were feeding off each other in some way yeah there was he took each lane checked you also George Clinton yeah I was very flattered more than flattered yeah they did that there was a period where there was a real sort of coming together between I remember when I first saw Patti LaBelle's LaBelle and and I couldn't believe how influenced they'd been by glam rock I mean the first time they came out on stage it was like wow this is unbelievable an American black trio in Klan rock it was like it was so bizarre you know I got incredibly nationalistic Valentine yeah I see English women what about temporarily forgetting New York Dolls it's always wise to know when to edit exactly um what about collaborating with John Lennon yeah how did that come about gee you know it's really hard to remember when I actually met John it was a must have been sort of somewhere in middle middle 74 ish is my guess I spent there's a book that can tell me but we kind of started knocking around with each other and he had his eye I think at the time gave me which I thought one of the better Lennon quotes which I've said a number of times but when I asked him when he thought what I was doing glam rock he said yes graded sir but it's just rock and roll will lipstick on and I was impressed as I was at virtually everything he said he was probably one of the brightest quickest witted earnestly socialist men I've ever met my life socialist in true definition not in a fabricated political sense but at a real humanist and a really spiteful sense of humor which of course being English I adored I just thought we'd be buddies forever and get on better and better and all that you know fantasy I know be I know the beetle that I always liked everybody had their favorite beetle I never really realized that why did realize that always knew that but one wouldn't have declared it in the early seventies because that would have been most uncool to actually say that you actually like the Beatles in any way shape or form but they made such a great impact on they gave the British the illusion that they meant something again you know we love hearing that oh boy do we love hearing them a couple of things began rising at around the same time this to say disco and punk yeah I'm curious to see what would you know how you recall your reactions to those things so what was your sense about that well I guess I mean I I've made a detour all around that unwittingly because around 75 76 having imbibed the more finer products of Swiss pharmaceutical company I found that I really needed to sojourn in another country in another time another place for brief one so I made off for Berlin virtually to sort of clean myself up my lack of course in my typical typically my character I picked a heroin center of Europe but it sort of didn't occur to me at the time and what was happening in Britain didn't have quite the same thing in Germany because equally as strong in Germany at that time was the advent of electronic music in a major way the Germans had found their forte and it was called craft work and craft work and that school that approach to music was virtually all I was listening to that time and sold music and the two of course came together I remember Brian Eno running into my haha he's gonna hate me for this running into my room with a single in his hand he said I've heard the future I said oh well you better put it on then and it was Giorgio moroder's recording of Donna Summer I feel that O'Brien oh that was so funny I said are you serious and he said yes listen that teutonic drumming that black voice this is fantastic has more of an aside that anything else but I just it was the one of the funniest things I've ever heard anybody say I just heard the future um as it happens he was right but Brian inevitably is that's another story I'm jumping ahead here but the music from that late seventies period for me definitely are a landmark in in what I've done for me there's something that I'm always either embarassingly or exuberant ly measure my new work by exuberantly am um yeah we interviewed or here in the robbery yesterday yeah it was great talking about that and everything I have a funny story about him Oh can you tell him and also just if you can mention some thing because he said he spent his whole career since trying to get that vocal grate down at the end well I'll send I'll send his record sign hahaha if he sends mine see you have a story I can't use it not just though no no no it's no I can't do that there is one fun funny story about I wonder Giorgio I guys suppose you can sue me if this isn't true I've got to tell it just because I think it's so sweet a friend of mine who knew Giorgio very well worked on a film called American Gigolo which starred Richard Gere Giorgio Moroder apparently saw the film and said to my friend ah who designed that room it is fantastic and he said well I'll get you his portfolio you know if you want to sit yeah I want my house done by this man so they sent in the portfolio of the beautiful that fantastically beautiful minimalistic room that gear had is the jiggler sure she'll send it back sir no not this one the pimps room I don't know if that is true Giorgio but I've always held on to that story is so lovely I know this nice is there a frame oh god what could I say that would be possibly interesting about it became you know people who became famous for being famous this idea of okay alright I suppose one thing that is interesting that came out of writing I'll be cutter that that Fame came into being because of it was that John and I spent so many hours talking about managers we both loved managers with a vengeance I'd recently had totally disastrous ending and a great awakening to what management could mean and John of course it had years of it one way or another and I think a lot of what we felt about management came through in Fame even though ostensibly it was sort of about famous famous War I was Fame sort of thing but I think again that might have been subject matter but again content was really a great hostility towards what Fame actually what the reality of becoming famous means well if you can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen that's what I say quite rightly too towards our for me no because I did when did Rock become institutionalized as such should I say when the first brick of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was put down yes I will say that has something to do with that when it started getting its own award shows when we're going through a new period now where I think there's a real sort of exciting atmosphere young among young musicians again but there was a period which went right through the eight is well into the early nineties where young guys that I'd meet really were more about career opportunities than then about what music they should be making why they should be making it and it suddenly dawned on me that the devices had changed they're they're they're on the priorities were very different it was what kind of music will make me famous not I have this great music and I maybe can become famous through it it's a very strange thing and became more and more like that during the 80s my worst period I felt so out of sync in the 80s I can't tell you I just wanted the world to open up and swallow me I felt so out of tune and out of tunes as it happened what pops that what mister this is the seventies in one word personality rushan

Channel: MTV News

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Rating: 4.9578166 out of 5

Keywords: mtv news, celebrity news, entertainment news, pop culture, David Bowie, Full Interview, David Bowie Interview, 1995, 1995 interview, artistic process, creative evolution, creative, spirituality, John Lennon, Brian Eno, Giorgio Moroder, RIP David Bowie, RIP, performer, musician, artist, singer, sing, song, music, experience

Id: zri74q3HDDY

Length: 23min 15sec (1395 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 13 2016

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[u/JackBullet]

Smashing.