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Interview
by SashaS
19-9-2003
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| David Bowie on 'Reality' journey of ... |
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Cracked icon
The man who saved...
Hero, icon, model, avant-garde artist, risqué showman, actor, legend, star who has influenced and inspired an army of imitators over a decade... The burden of David Bowie’s achievements is hugely impressive and he’s been continually adding to the list with turning a businessman – floating his back catalogue via ‘Bowie-bonds’ that realised him reported £33 million against his future earnings – and the first artist to become ISP owner. Oh yes, and he paints a bit...
For the first decade the man could do no wrong but the next twenty years witnessed him failing to near the milestone albums of his best days… Or, brutally, he coasted until… ‘Heathen’; it was even recognized by the Mercury Music Prize panel and the man became the oldest nominee. Out of the bluest blues he turned a corker of an album that was appreciated by his peers and media… The same with the new platter, ‘Reality’, solidly climbing near the paramount harbouring greatness in every track and being optimistic in spite of its general theme of degenerating and dying but will probably fail to conquer new fans…
La Bowie has patented many a thing but past counts for next to nought nowadays. He is in the same boat as friend Mick Jagger’s band: they are big live draws because the masses always want to see the Great Gladiators delivering their best moves and ‘kills’, or to fail doing so. But the new converts need their own lumpen-idols and find it hard to relate to the vision offered by Bowie, however near-brill it may be. It’s not that he’s less important but consumers need no more such great stars but something more tangible, more common, more instant and, ultimately, disposable.
“Over the years I’ve always tried to marry, “Bowie speaks fast, with vigour and a certain sense of self-mocking humour that often makes him sound flippant, “music and technology, and it was time to see what happens when you write songs the way I used to. It turned out to be a very satisfying project.”
To put it politely the critics got divided in evaluating the new album, which is his 26th release. It does not put him off because he’s had it all throughout his career the same way we view The Beatles legacy, through the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia: they never had all great reviews as not all of their singles were sure-fire Number One hits.
“I’ve had it all my life, some people liked it some didn’t. The criticism doesn’t matter to me anymore because I only read the good reviews!”
Robert Fripp of King Crimson once remarked to this reporter that “Reality is a subjective experience, art is tapping into objectivity.” Bowie’s ‘Reality’ is very subjective.
“I’d agree that this could be my most autobiographical album to date. And the reason for it could be that this was the first time in years that we went into a studio with songs written. I’d actually taken the trouble to write the songs before we went into the studio. I spent a lot of time crafting them in the old-fashioned, traditional way. The songs were proper, the lyric became more personal and I tried to keep everything very simple.”
Bizz vs. art
Sometime in the early 1980s Bowie appeared to lose sight of his musical direction and started to wonder all over the place, trying out genres and styles that were puzzling to his audience. He then appeared to turn all his energies into business ventures to the total detriment of his art and happy he looked to churn out patchy albums. (And we don’t even want to consider Tin Machine.)
Rightfully among the all-time top cadre of rock talent, he’d spoken of ‘tyranny of mainstream’ but seems to have re-embraced it lately.
“Successfully avoided the ‘tyranny of mainstream’, I may add,” the man states with irony the size of New York pizza. “Of course my experimental stuff wouldn’t have been possible without my mainstream success. My chief interest has always been the avant-garde, the offbeat, before I had any success. What I used to purchase and went to see was from the fringe, the cutting-edge; I’ve always been interested in the periphery of the life’s matters. Rather than what was in the centre of things because it had a simple vocabulary and didn’t catch my imagination.”
Still, Bowie has an impeccable taste and turned down offers to record theme song to a couple of ‘James Bond’ movie series.
Looking for a spot
This musical baron’s gone a long way from the days of learning to play saxophone in London’s quarter of Brixton, working as a commercial artist and admiring his all-time hero, Little Richard; when he finally met him he realised that Richard had the same eye, in other words – of a different colour. The then plain David Jones, the name change occurred in the late 1960s to avoid mix-up with The Monkees’ member, got hit in the eye at the age of 12 by a school-mate and needed two operations to save the sight.
Bowie, who claims not to be a nostalgic person, still preserves a photo of the rock pioneer he ordered via a music paper back in 1957. Since then the ‘Chameleon man moved in the stellar circles and portraying Andy Warhol in the flick ‘Basquiat’ was an easy-peasy undertaking. Souvenirs and nuggets…
“If there was a memento I’d like to have kept from the shooting was to keep one of the wigs. But, the museum insisted on everything being returned; he had hundreds of wigs, it was incredible. And they were all made by this dodgy character on Broadway, near the then New York’s Red Light district (now cleaned-up and Dysney-fied)... They were not posh ones but he had about 2 or 3 hundred wigs!”
“Somebody, who knew him rather well, told me that Andy would phone a hairdresser and order a trim. It was never talked of them as being wigs and the guy would come in and pretend to be taking bits off the top and the back!?”
Bowie, who recently remarked that “We are arriving and departing at the same time”, is happy to share this moment because he knows that he is, in the words of Keith Richards, just like The Rolling Stones, is “Fighting people’s misconceptions about what Rock’n’Roll is supposed to be.”
‘Reality’ is a message from the man who saved… his creative dignity.
SashaS
19-9-2003
David Bowie’s album ’Reality’ is released 15 September 2003 on ISO/Columbia
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