So far we’ve discussed the making of Bowie’s landmark track “Heroes” — one of the most mythic songs in his cannon. Everything about its creation is loaded with drama. It was recorded in an old Nazi concert hall within sight of watchful East German snipers atop the Berlin Wall. And of course there was the famous kiss by the wall, which allegedly inspired one of the song’s best known verses. Jordan’s guest today not only worked at the legendary Hansa Studios (the so-called Hall by the Wall) when “Heroes” was recorded — he actually sang on it, nose to nose with Bowie himself. And that’s just one of his many incredible stories. His name is Peter Burgon, and he worked as an assistant engineer under our previous guest, Edu Meyer. When Herr Meyer was on vacation during the sessions for ‘Heroes’ in 1977, Peter stepped in and took over. Peter shared his stories, busted some tall tales, and provided fascinating insight into Bowie and his music.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Off the Record is a production of I Heart Radio.
Hello and welcome to another bonus episode of Off the Record.
My name's Jordan Runtug. Thanks so much for listening. We've
discussed the making of Bowie's landmark track Heroes, one of
the most mythic songs in his cannon. Everything about its
(00:22):
creation is loaded with drama. It was recorded in an
old Nazi concert hall, within sight of watchful East German
snipers atop the Berlin Wall, and of course there was
the famous Kiss by the Wall, which supposedly inspired one
of the songs best known verses. My guests today not
only worked at the legendary Hansa Studios, the so called
(00:43):
Hall by the Wall where Heroes was recorded, he actually
sang on it eye to eye with Bowie himself. And
that's just one of his many incredible stories. His name
is Peter Bergen, and he worked as an assistant engineer
under our previous guest du Meyer. When Harry Meyer was
on vacation for much of the sessions for Heroes in seven,
(01:05):
Peter stepped up and took over. He helped achieve the
epic expansive sound of the title track, and he also
helped get this gargantuan drum sounds on Lust for Life
by Iggy Pop, whom he still refers to by his
given name, Jimmy. Peter did all of this, and he
still found time to bring David's son to school on occasion.
(01:26):
Our conversation was a joy. Peter shared his memories, busted
some tall tales, and provided fascinating insight into the man
and his music. You know, basically the story of me
(01:49):
with David was I began as as assistant in around
the Hands and when when Low was done, um, but
because basically there wasn't a lot of work to be done,
because they basically just mixed it. They mastered the Low
(02:10):
because most of the recording was done. There was a
few bits and pieces done on top during Low. But
I wasn't around much. But I've met him sort of
rub shoulders with Wisconti. I don't think we jelled then.
Then obviously, in seventy seven, when David came back with
Jimmy for Lust for Life, we went to a different studio.
(02:34):
We were in Studio three. Then Studio three was completely
up and running because they had been completely rebuilt and
we weren't able to record in the Great Hall. Yes,
so we did hear Lust for Life in Studio three,
which was downstairs the hands up and was authoroughly modern studio.
(02:55):
I would have said for that time period, it was
probably stated meant to juice state of the art, you know,
they were they were looking at the other studios and thinking, okay,
how can we be probably the most polished studio to be.
I don't know if you've seen any photos of Studio three.
I saw with the old wood paneling and the and
(03:17):
the recess lights and everything. Yeah, it looks very it
was all that. Yeah, it was really really plush. Unfortunately,
I don't think the the ambiance was quite as good,
and it probably suited more more German pop at the
time than they suited anything else. So when we did
(03:37):
Last for Life, Ado and I had been experimenting with
trying to get more sound out of the studios. So
we we we might the drum kid out in the
big part of the studio instead of you know, having
it confined in the drum drum boost like most drums
were recorded back in those days. We were looking for
(03:58):
to get more of a booming sound from from drums,
which is what we like. So so I was sort
of feeding of Ado, and it was feeding of myself
the way we wanted because I did a lot of
live live work at the time, mixing live bands and
doing live work because I managed a few bands, which
(04:18):
is how I actually got into the music side and
got into the hands up. So we were looking looking
at that side of it, and of course David was
working there anywhere as producer on that on that album
with a lot of with a lot of artistic input,
and we had a guy called Colin Thurston. I don't
know how they've picked up on Colin in London. Colin
(04:39):
had been working in London at the time, so he
came across and I think he's actually listed as producer
on the album. Although ringing David did most of the production.
David and Jimmy handler most of the production side of it,
and Ado and myself handling engineering side of it, you know,
of course in the front seat, and I was just
sitting in the backseat putting in my input. And that
(05:01):
was really my first time of working together with David.
What what I did appreciate at that time with David
was I had a couple of ideas for the way
of doing some of the backing vocals and Philosopher Life.
You know this very high pitched Lust for Life. Yeah, yeah,
part of it, and that was part of my import
(05:21):
into that. And David said, yeah, well come on go
and record it. And David yeah, and so I sort
of laughed and I went, well, okay, yeah that was it.
And then Al said, yeah, go get in the studio.
We'll put the micup, and put the micup. And I
did this that Lust for Life and did a bit
of backing vocals on Lust for Life. I also sung
(05:42):
backing vocals together with David on Passenger. So if you
listen to the backing vocus on Passenger, that's staying myself
doing the backing vocal. Was that intimidating? Was that scary
to too this thing with him? Well, well it wasn't
really intimidating. What it was was I mean, you know,
we'll go back really in history now. I met Jimmy
(06:03):
Hendrix when I was fifteen in Berlin and a concert.
Yeah wow, that is it. You know for fifteen year
old that trips are like fantastic. And most most of
my my time after that was going to live concerts
and I met a lot of musicians live in the
(06:25):
Deutschtann Howe, because I used to work as a like
a age monitor and running around. Because I spoke German
and English, I was able to get into the live
venue as on a working basis, So you know, I
did things like just making sure that the band were
(06:46):
happy and the roadies had everything they wanted when they
were arriving. If anything were short, I made sure they
got it, and so things like that. So I saw
a lot of live music in Berlin and I got
involved in a lot of live side but I always
wanted to be an artist. My unfortunate situation is I'm
(07:07):
no good you know. You know, I can play a
three chord twelve bar but I wouldn't even be as
good as stay this quote, so oh you know, yes, yeah,
but that's what I'm saying. So you know, my limitations
were enormous. But I had a lot of influence on
a lot of the local musicians and a lot of
(07:29):
the local bands, and I got my put bands together.
I managed a lot of the bands on the live
scene in Berlin, which is how I ended up meeting Adam.
So so when David said, you know, let's do these
vocals for me, it was like, yeah, but why me,
you know, I can't see. But but David I found
always to be somebody he'd like to encourage people. Now,
(07:53):
I don't know what he was trying to encourage me for,
because I was never going to be be an artist,
you know, But but but he knew. I think I
wanted wanted to produce. I wanted to produce my own artists,
and I wanted to get things going. So I was
working very hard on that, and David seemed to encourage
me there. Um. But then when he came to Heroes
(08:16):
and Tony was we spent a week just David and
myself in the studio before anybody else arrived, while equipment
was arriving and bits and pieces like that which I
was looking after the whole issue, and David was in
the studio playing piano, playing a bit of guitar, trying
to work out what he wanted to put together at
that this new album before anybody arrived. And then when
(08:39):
was cont arrived, he was very very disappointed. But I think,
you know, in retrospect, I'm I'm thinking this, I think
he was very disappointed that Ada wasn't there, and I
think he was looking at me and going, well, you know,
why have we've been given the the the the amateur.
Why have we've been given this guy? You know that
(09:01):
who is he and what is he? He had this
arrogance about him that, you know, he was the guy
that knew everything, and I was probably not fit to
be there. But unfortunately because of the workings of the
studio and studio too was actually quite basic. Why we
had lots of problems with wiring. It was historically, you know,
trying to get everything sorted. You know, he needed somebody
(09:24):
to understood the studio because he wouldn't be able to
it was. It was back as if it wasn't straightforward,
and so I needed to be there, but I don't
think he wanted me to be there. And then subsequently,
when we got all the music down, on all the
music tracks and all that part of it, they started
working on the vocals. But once again I had to
(09:46):
be there to sort of make sure the studio was
operated and make sure that mikes were put in the
right place. And you know, just on the Heroes thing,
he talks about that the way he set the mics
up and set them up through gates. Well, you see,
my problem is we didn't have the gates he's talking
(10:07):
about back in Hansa and I have an email from
our technician, our studio technician, when I cleared him about
this quite a while ago, and I said, you know,
Teddy Tony was gone. He's talking about these microphone gates
that he set up to do the vocals of David
(10:27):
on Heroes that you know, the one microphone would cut
in after the next one and the next one close
up on the middle one and the further one. But
we didn't. We didn't have that. Now, my remembrance of it,
and I say, it's my remembrance of it the way
we did it. We did everything mangrly. We had different
mics set up. Now I can't recall it being three
(10:50):
mic set up, but I know there was two mics
set up, so he professes there were three. I don't
recall it being three, probably to remember we having to
cut from mike to mike going that way manually. Everything
had to be done. But but it all went down
on one track because that was all they had left. Yeah,
(11:12):
that's all we had left. And I mean, and you
have to look at it in this way. The only
people in the studio at the time with David Tony
and myself, So the only three people that know how
things were put together. Then those three people, those three
individuals um and in his interviews with the BBC, he
(11:33):
he uses Adamyer did this and Ado Meyer did that. Well,
Aidamyer was in the Caribbean on the beach um. But
so basically he just has never ever said Peter berg
And did this, or Peter did this, or Peter did anything.
So I was sorting to another journalist and he said
(11:54):
he's One of his opening statements was he said, I
don't understand any of this, Peter. You have been airbrushed
out of heroes. There is no mention anywhere of you
working on heroes. And I went, okay, but that's fine.
You know, it's not a big deal out of my
life because I other was there. I didn't get paid
(12:15):
in the extra. I was paid a pittance at the
time because I was on an assistant assistant retainer, which
was useless. I lived outside the studio in a in
a caravan, you know, in the trailer as you would
call them in the States, outside Pat Stammer plants. Yeah,
right outside the studio in because I couldn't have formed
(12:36):
an apartment. On the wages I was getting out of
the studio, I couldn't have formed an apartment. Wow, oh
yeah it is, you know, historically it's great. But I
loved working on heroes because we had a restaurant in
the studio called Studio Track, which was run by an
xboxer X German Champion boxing or world MM but he
(13:00):
was a German boxer. And of course our cea you
were footing the bill, so it would be we're going
to have dinner, so Peter got Peter got to eat
good good food. Well, well, David was doing heroes on
the bill of our our ce a good yeah, yeah,
so you know, and that was the same with lust
(13:23):
for life. You know, it was good when you had
a good and it was different artists as well. We
always so I mean I used to live eat quite well.
But you know I had a little gas chemistry in
in my in my trailer for the winter, it's just
to keep me warm. But that was basically what my
(13:43):
life was. What was that area of Berlin like that?
I mean I've seen pictures and it looks like something
from from a movie like Blade Runner or something. Can
you describe like what that part of West Berlin was
like at the time. Yeah, well, if you can imagine
the cur curtains rasa. All right, you turned off a
small it was like a like a mainly sort of
(14:06):
road that went from down near Checkpoint Charlie and it
would come up um just along the the let me
see which side of the oof that is. It would
come up one side of the UF up towards the
Deutsche Oba the Berlin Open House. But from hands A
(14:29):
student right across the Opera house, there was nothing. It
was just derelict. It was like clear clear bond sites.
So it was all just you know what used to
be rubbled. I'm sure you'd be able to see pictures
of it. And and then if you came out of
the studio of the out of the front door, if
you turned right down curt Strassa about two hundred yards
(14:52):
down the road, the road stopped because that was the
Berlin Wall. So you now had the Berlin Wall right
in front of you. Now on the curtains answer. Between
Handser and the Berlin Wall, there was one more building,
which is which is if you look at one of
the pictures there is from Handser, I can maybe sending you.
Sometimes you can see this one building out of studio
(15:13):
to a window. You virtually cannot see the boiling wall
out of the hands of studio window. So this story
that came about Wisconti kissing Antonio mass outside and you
know at the burling wall, and David had seen it
from the studio window, it's not possible. So I think
(15:40):
over the years of Heroes sort of being marked as
the work, it has been marked recently because initially it
didn't really make it. I think they also inherited a
little bit of artistic scope to where it was put together,
make it a little more poet absolutely. Now. The other
(16:03):
thing is when it came to the backing vocals of Heroes, Uh,
this is these are my facts. Now. I'm not sure
if you'll get anybody to ever agree to this, because
the only other person that is alive that was there
studied Wiscontin was Tony used to like to double David's
(16:25):
voice in backing vocals. So so basically, if you listen
to when he was doing choruses, he would overlay the
same track two or three times in David's voice. So
if you listen to some of his earlier stuff. You know,
most most of David's sort of choruses are doubled, so
(16:46):
you hear the boy. And I had the idea that
to to get this, you know, we could be heroes
because it's like you're you're talking to two people. So
as opposed to David doing the backing vocals, there would
be a reply and so you would have that secondary
(17:07):
statement afterwards. And if you listen to the vocals, obviously
you've got that. So we did. What we decided to
do was double it up together. Now, Tony Wisconti claims
that he went into the studio and ablud Meyer was
at the recording desk. The actual fact was I went
into the studio with David because we've done it on
(17:29):
on Lust for Life, out of a bit of fun,
and Tony operated the desk and we did the backing
googles once again. In the BBC interview from a few
years back, Tony said, if you listen carefully, you can
hear David with an English accent and you can also
hear a Boston accent. Well, if you actually listen to
(17:54):
those two vocals that are on the backing track, which
he actually separate did for the BBC interview. There isn't
there isn't a Boston accent because he's not Tony. I
can hear, I can hearly clear clearly here David, and
I can clearly hear myself, and so I just have
(18:14):
the pleasure of going, thanks Tony, you isolated my vocals,
so you know, and that's it. But hey, listen it.
I never got paid paid for any extra work. I
never got paid any extra money for being being the
(18:35):
engineer on Heroes. I never got any of the credit.
It made no difference to me in my latter life
because it was about a year after that I decided
to give it up. I was fell up. I spent
another winter in the in the trailer. I got together
with a girl that had an apartment and she said,
what are you doing. You need to earn money and
(18:59):
I ain't. Got a job in a bar which I
was being paid twice as much as I was being
paid in the studios, and then I also started doing
pirate pirate video cassettes to all the people used to
coming to the bar, and eventually I opened up five
video rental shops in Berlin. So it was a complete
(19:20):
contrast to what I've been doing. But you you sang
with David Bowie on here Is. I mean that's something
that you know, that's you take that with you wherever
you go. Just inside wow that I mean, well, yeah,
I don't know if you if you were aware of
the London Olympics. Hero has been played all the time
(19:43):
and I used to listen. I go great, So when
he comes on the radio and driving down the street
and he comes on the radio, I just yeah, okay,
here it is. I'm singing again, and and and a
few people that know me and know it it's me singing.
You know, Davi. There's so many text messages from time
to time he said, oh I just heard you singing
(20:03):
on the radio and I'm going, oh god, it sounds good. Yeah, hey, listen,
it's so simple, you know, we we can be here.
It's so easy. You know, it's it's a very easy line.
But I feel more I would like to have the
credit for the idea of putting that in in a
(20:25):
reply to the to the main vocal, because that was
my idea. It was me saying, well, rather than doing
it this way where you're actually singing the chorus as
a chorus, why didn't you like echo it, you're getting
an echo back from it, so it was different. So yeah,
you know that was my input into that. Also. My
(20:47):
other input was I was managing a band that Antonio
Mars Sang was the singer in UM and we were
doing a demo in one of the studios one morning
before we did Hear It, moved an in studio three
before David came in to go to work in studio too,
(21:08):
and I introduced Antonio master David and Tony Wisconsin. Wow,
so you kicked it all off. You kicked that whole
verse off. You introduced the two. Oh, I don't know
about that. I don't know about that because, like I said,
you know, the mystery of whether David ever did see
them kissing, I don't know, but he definitely from the studio.
(21:30):
Didn't see him kissing in front of the wall, but
maybe he saw him kiss somewhere else. Now as far
as I know from my my knowledge was Antonio mass
had a boyfriend at that time because he was he
was the road with the band that she was singing
with s and Tony had a wife. So did they
(21:52):
have this illicit thing? I don't know. I never saw
him kissed. I didn't even know there was anything going on.
But then you know, I was probably busy doing a
lot of other stuff to be and and the other
thing about that whole period with David and Jimmy, we
(22:12):
didn't socialize. So when the day was over in the studio,
that was it. They go their way. I went mine.
Because the other thing I've got to say about it
is I wasn't a fan of David Bowie. My my,
you know, led Zeppelin, Deep Purple Um ten years after
(22:33):
jet O Toll. That was more hardly seen. Yeah, hardest stuff.
I mean, you know, from fifteen. I mean at fifteen,
my brother taught me to this concert with Hendrix, ten
years after Canned Heat procol harm Oh, I can't remember
who were at this big concert in Berlin in September
of seventy uh And of course, me being a fifteen
(22:57):
year old wanting to find out everything, I talked my
way into getting into the backstage area and I got
to meet Hendrix. He what did he say? Well, if
I give you this background, Jordan's my father worked in Berlin,
(23:18):
all right, which is why we lived in Berlin. And
he worked for the British military and his job was
listening to Russian and East German radio because it was
the Cold War period and he worked in a place
called Teufelsberg, which is the devil Shill now Toeutfelisberg was
a listening station in Berlin for the for the Allied military,
(23:41):
and all he would do is listen to German and
East East German and Russian radio conversations. I'm writing down
in English and send off to intelligence. There were about
a thousand people working in Teufelisberg at the time, so
my father wasn't doing anything like James Bond. He wasn't
(24:02):
all right. But then Jimmy says, what are you doing
in Berlin? And I said, oh, well, I'm here with
my father. What's your father doing in Berlin? Well he's
just by because there was a fifteen year old I've
got Jimmie Henry's in front of me. You know, I
want to be impressive. Why you know, I probably would
have got battled by my father for telling anybody, but
(24:24):
that was it. And he answered me all these different questions.
So it was me wanting to find out how do
I play this and how do I turn into what
you are? And everything like that. You know, if you
want to know, what are you doing in Berlin? Why
are you in Berlin? Wow, it must be fantastic. So
that was it, and then unfortunately, my my brother then
found me and dragged me out of there. I think
(24:51):
we were probably there for another five ten minutes or something,
and then, you know, the next band was getting ready
to play, so we were gonna have going to go
out and watch the next band. So that was that,
But for for many many years it was my brother's.
His story is, oh, yeah, I took my brother to
see Hendrix and I had to pull him out of
the dressing room because he was he was he was
(25:13):
vending Jimmy Hendrix's ear. Yeah, so he loved the sword.
But you know, but he was He was absolutely nice guy.
You know, but most of most of the Archers I've met,
it doesn't matter how big they are, how special that are,
they are really genuinely nice people. And David was just
the same. David was a gentleman as far as I
(25:36):
was concerned. What was his relationship like with with with
Iggy Pop with Jimmy, Well that they were initially for
lust for life. I felt that they were joined at
the hip architecturally, but you know, like you know, yeah,
they just hung out together and they were together, they
(25:56):
were around and everything. They would leave the studio together,
they would arrive at the studio together. Oh yeah, yeah,
That's one of the things I have to say, because
you know, you have all these stories about the drug
problems they had in the States and before they came
to Berlin and they came to in the studio, the
(26:17):
studio was always clean. There were no drugs about the studio.
I think there might have been a little bit of
pop or something, you know, but but listened, there was
there was no drug sessions at the studio. What they
did as soon as they left the studio, I don't know,
you know. And and there are pictures of David and
Jimmy I think at a bar called Rommy Haggs, which
(26:40):
was back in those days was a transvestite and bar.
They used to do transvestite shows. It was one of
the in places to go. Rommy Harks. You know, the
zim been taught that Rommy harg has made a statement
actually had a relationship with David. I don't know about that,
(27:00):
but there's a lot of people anybody that sort of
shoulders with David. I think over the years, was trying
to make a story out of it. But yeah, but
I have some fond memories of the time I spent
with David because one at one stage his son was
in Berlin and he was actually going to a British
(27:22):
military school in Berlin, and I had I had to
drive him and the child minder to the school a
couple of times because we had a little Volkswagen buss too.
I took him to school a couple of times. And
I could see this interaction David had, you know, as
(27:44):
a as a father and also on Lost for Life.
I don't know what the issue was at the time,
but David spent a lot of time on the phone
from the studio because it would have been late night,
well obviously in California at that time, um, it would
have been sort of daytime in time, and he spent
(28:04):
a lot of time on the phone back and forwards.
And if I think you I don't actually know what
the conversations were about, but I think it was about,
you know, the part of the parting of the waves
and when when Duncan was going to be sort of
with David full time and all all those things. So yeah,
(28:26):
you know, I saw this emotional side of David just
by chance of being there that you know, he wasn't
just this superstar guy that you know, had this persona
that he wanted to put other people. You know, he
he was also a human being. He was also a
person that cared, you know, and I think the love
(28:49):
for his son shone through at that time as well.
You know, you know, he was he was a father
and those things make a difference. And I don't I
don't think those things ever really came came came to
before in his life because until later, of course, when
he married the model I can't think of my name,
(29:12):
but anyway, I think he kept his private life private
and then he put out this per persona for you know,
being the superside. And this is why he had these
different ultra egos that he had throughout his career. Yeah,
you only see what he wanted you to see, absolutely,
but if you actually had you know, if you were
(29:35):
there when when the curtains opened for a little while
and you saw behind the curtains, you could see this
was a real person. This is a person that cared passion.
I mean, he told me of a story about being
in Tokyo and in this hotel in Tokyo, and he said,
I think they were they were they were doing a
(29:58):
gig there or something. But was in this big hotel
in Tokyo and just by chance he opened the door
to walk out into the corridor, and who did he
bump into John Lennon and Yokna. And so he's just
telling the story about being in Tokyo and again bumped
into John Lennon and Yoko Hona and you know they
spent the evenit together or whatever. I can't remember the
(30:22):
exact details of what he told told me, but I'm
just going, wow, you know that must be mega, because
that would have been something very very uh dawned into me,
you know, being in the in the presence of John
Lennon or George Harrison, you know those those are people
that you know to me, would there my childhood? Who
(30:42):
were some other acts that you worked with at hands?
Were there any any heroes of yours? One of the
funny things, um that happened was after we've done Lust
for Life and we've done Heroes the back end of
that year, UM, there was a session booked the sex
person that booked a session, well here's the funny thing. Now,
(31:04):
we had six people working in the studio based basically
his recording engineers, meaning more than tumbler aid, and my
guy called Will Roper, a couple of a couple of others.
Nobody wanted to do the sex pissons. I was told
that the sex pisses are coming and I'm doing the
sex presson pess session. And I went, I wait, why
(31:29):
nobody wanted to do the six But I said why
and they said, well, nobody wants to do them, so
you're doing them. I went, Okay, brilliant, Great, I'll do
the sex pistons And that was it. What were they like?
They like, no, fortunately, fortunately or unfortunately I'm not sure which.
All right, they canceled and before that there was some
issue but they never arrived at hands but they had
(31:52):
booked a session but nobody wanted them. I can kind
of see that. I can understand. Yeah, that was it,
but yes, so there's a lot of stuff. But then
i'd like, I say, I was doing I've been a
German pop and getting sessions that really nobody else wanted.
So I always start at the bottom of the packing list. Um,
(32:14):
and I just shouldn't you know, I kind of thought
to do this anymore, and I gave it up, which
is a shame because I would look back and think
if I would have maybe put personally in another year,
two years, maybe I would have done it. So I've
done a lot of things since, and I have no regrets.
You know, I don't regret leaving music industry because it
(32:35):
didn't do anything for me. What was it that David
and Iggy or Jim. I guess I should say, what
do they like about Berlin at that time? And what
(32:55):
was it like for you as a Westerner being there?
But then was very raw at the time. Because um,
there's uh, there's a movie or a German series been
on I watched recently which I thought would give you
a sort of insight into what it was like over there,
(33:16):
um with East Germany. And it's called deutsch Land eighty three,
Deutschland nine and deutsch Light three eight six eighty nine.
The it's a it's a German produced thing, but it's
it's about the Cold War, and it's about the Berlin
(33:37):
War coming down and all the things that were involved
in that and the spies and all, you know a
lot of other stuff. But it gives you a great
insight into how Germany felt in itself. And of course
Berlin was an island in East Germany. So if you
sort of if you could imagine taking Berlin as an
(34:01):
island and lifting out into the middle of an ocean,
that's one way of saying it was an island. But
if you actually take Berlin and you can imagine putting
it into the center of Russia, okay, with complete Western
ideal idealism, okay, in this communist era, or put it
(34:21):
into the middle of China under today's era. You know,
it's just unfathomable, but that's what it was. You had
East Germany, which was, you know, part of the Soviet Union,
which was you know, the socialism um communism. Keep keep
an eye on your neighbor and inform on him if
you will, you know. And then you had West Germany,
(34:44):
which was a complete free state within this area. And
the only way you could get out of Berlin was
either drive through the Eastern Corridor, which was actually quite depressing,
or your frew you know, the are the only two
ways of getting in and out. There was sort of attention,
there was sort of a sparkle in the city, and Also,
(35:08):
one of the other things that a lot of people
haven't realized about Berlin and is if you were a
German teenager of eighteen in West Germany, you got conscripted
to the German Army. The only way to get out
of that was you moved to Berlin. Because of Berlin,
if you lived in Berlin, you weren't conscripted into the army.
(35:30):
So if you can imagine that seventeen and a half,
most West Germans that did not want to have to
go to conscription in the army moved to Berlin to
live in Berlin. Did you ever make it over to
East Berlin? Did you ever visit there? I visit there
quite often because my mother used to go to East
(35:54):
Germany to buy porcelain and crystal that was made in
East Germany. So Karl Heinz, you know, Carl Entz was
I think one of the big porcelain makers in East
Germany at the time, so she used to go over.
Then she used to buy portling in crystal um because
(36:15):
it was cheap, and because my father was connected to
the military, we used to go over in the military convoy,
so so so we used to go over like three
or four cars in the military conboy and they go
around to all these different places to buy this portion
and then this crystal. This is when I was about thirteen,
fourteen twelve, you know, to buy this crystal. And of
(36:40):
course you had these three or four military cars in
the convoy. But then following the ministry cars in the
convoy were like was probably I don't know if it
was a Russian car. But then in East German car
as well. You know, the police to keep an eye
on what these people doing. You know, why are they
coming to to East billion Now I didn't think much
(37:02):
older at the time. It was great, well we'll go
over here. But the contrast between what was in the
West and what was in the East was day and night.
You know, the buildings who were run down, they weren't,
they weren't weren't up to the specification that the West
was after the war. You know, these were still buildings
(37:24):
that had taken a beating during the war, and you
know it was showing. You could see it. It was very,
very different. And the thing that David and Jimmy used
to love was used to be able to travel on
the s Bahn, which and the s Bahn means Strawsonbahn,
which is it's sort of mainly above ground, but when
(37:48):
it went to go from the west to the east,
it went underground and it stopped at a place called Friedrichstrasser,
and then it continued after that and it came back
out in the west. Now as you drove, as you
came on the underground on the Sumn where it went
(38:08):
underground was around about the curtains Strasa, just just before
you got to the wall, so it would go underground
there and it went into the east. Well, as you
came into each part of the east, you would have
military guards underground in the tunnels with lights on, with
(38:30):
machine guns, guarding that nobody got onto the train. I
don't think they cared about anybody getting off it, but
they made sure that nobody was going to get into
the tunnel to get on the train to get out
of his Germany. So that was like a controlled area
and you went through and when you've got a free
re start, you could actually get off the train because
(38:50):
that was a border crossing, but you could actually get
off the train and not go through the border crossing.
But you could buy cigarettes and drink to ut free,
you know, tax free on the train train platform. So
everybody used to go through free restructed to buy cheap
booze and cheap cigarettes, like duty free at the airport. Yeah,
(39:13):
it's like juty free in the airport because it was
in East Germany, all right. And then you got back
on the train and hoped that by the time you
got off the train at the other end, there wasn't
West Berlin customs officer asking to look in your bag,
because they did that from time to time. It wasn't much.
(39:33):
I mean, most people could get away with a couple
of hundred cigarettes and the bottle of whiskey, but you
certainly couldn't have got away with four cases of whiskey.
They'll be watching help for things like that. Yes, So
this was it. So they would get on the Sman
and ride the SMA and there's there's a famous picture
of them riding the span, a picture of the two
of them on the SMA. I don't know if you've
(39:54):
seen it, just two guys, just anonymous. Yeah, I leve to. Yeah,
I love to dig out some of these things and
send them to you because you just smile at what
the whole thing was. So this was this was the
whole background to the inspiration they were getting in Berlin
and the ideas that were getting. I mean, Passenger was
written about traveling the spar There's the story that they
(40:16):
always tell. I don't know if it's true of of
Tony and David and Jimmy being in the control room
at Hanser and seeing the East German guards in the
gun turret across through the window. Is that could you
see that? Well? No, that that was on low. Now,
whether whether Jimmy was there at that time, I don't
know because I wasn't. I wasn't there on the day.
(40:38):
There is a photo of David Ado and Tony Wiscondi
behind the desk. I don't know if you've seen that
photo three of them behind the desk. That was taken
while they were doing low and while they were mixing low.
But if you looked out of the student the trol
(41:00):
rooms window, you could see just the top of the
wall in the distance. It was about two hundred yards
three hundred yards away maybe you know about about about
if you put yourself in in a one of your
football stadium, Yeah, and you know, like sat at one
(41:21):
end of the stadium and looked at the other end
of the stadium. It was about that far away. It
was quite a distance away, but just there there was
a tower which was a turret, and the guard the
East Germans will be sitting in that tower overlooking the
area which was between them and the wall, which was
(41:43):
the Nomen's area, which was where the mines were and
where you know, all the barred wire was, and if
and all the lights were, and if anybody tried to
run across there, they would shoot them or try to
shoot them. So you know, that was how people died,
trying to escape things. And of course it who wanted
to have a bit of fun with the guys, so
(42:04):
he told them about these East Germans and he said
they sit in that tower with guns and they could shoot.
And he's putting a little bit of emphasis on, you know,
trying to put the wind up them. And what we
used to have was lamps hanging down over the over
the desk to lighten up the de lighten the desk.
(42:25):
So as they're standing there and he's talking about it,
he said, yeah, yeah, he said yeah, but they can't
actually see us because they you know, we're too far
away and everything. They could only see you if you
if you shot shoe the torch at them like this,
and so was one of these lights and aims it
out of the window towards their tower. The story is
(42:49):
Tony and David dived under the desk. Now that's the story. Now,
whether it did happen that way, I don't know. Edre
said it did does and he loves telling that story,
or but that's basically what happened. Yeah, you can see it.
But that's how close you were to this, this this
differential between east and west. And then when David went
(43:10):
was it seven eight he did his concert in Berlin. Yeah,
he mollless, you know, set the stage up on the
west side to aim at the east, you know, and
he was like, listen, this is this is where we are,
this is who we are here to have some free music. Now.
I wasn't. I wasn't in Berlin at the time. I
(43:32):
didn't see the concert at the time. I don't really
have any background on that concert, but you know, that
was that was something else he did with Berlin. Now,
and of course after Heroes he went back to Berlin
to to record the other album with two three Bow. Yeah,
(43:53):
so I mean that would that's really the third album
in the trilogy to Berlin trilogy. I know they don't
put it that way. Below was the first one and
Low was only finished in Berlin. They they've done all
the most of the music, backing tracks and everything for
Low in What was the name of the yeah yeah, yeah,
(44:17):
yeah chateau somewhere in France. And why they moved to
Berlin at that time to do it, I don't know.
It might have been to do with Edgar Frozer, I'm
not I'm not party to that real insight to it,
because David met up with Eda Edgar Frozen at some
stage in seventy six seventy seventy six, and he went
(44:40):
to stay with Edgar Frozen in Berlin for a while,
so he stayed. He stayed with Edgar, of course, and
then David got the apartment on help Strassa, and Jimmy
stayed with David in David's apartment until he actually got
his own apartment in the back of the building. So
David's apartment was in the front of the building and
(45:00):
Jimmy's apartment was in the back. I never visited David.
I visited Jimmy's twice because he bought a piano and
he needed it reconditioning. He brought an upright piano and
he wanted reconditioning, so I went with him to have
(45:20):
a look at it. I can't really recall much about
the apartment, separate scene, this piano, and then I got
a piano guy to have a look at it and
recondition it, and took this piano guy to the apartment.
That's about it. But it's like I said to him,
I didn't really socialize with him. They were they weren't
my social sphere, if you get what I mean. I mean, well,
(45:45):
I had a lot of musician friends at the time,
and and it would have been very, very difficult because
if I had a socialist with Jimi and David, my
other friends would be on the short short side of it,
and I couldn't really include them because it's not like
you can sort of say, oh, David has invited me
to go such and such a place for drink, you
(46:07):
want to come with me? You know, that's not really
what you do, not not in a professional relationship. Yeah,
that makes a lot of sense. You can't really bring
your friends. Yeah, if you if I met him and
he was just a friend of mine and whatever. I
could say, oh yeah, I'll meet you for a beer,
but David's asked me to go for a beer. You
want to join us? You know, you could do that,
(46:28):
but not you know, I didn't feel in a professional
so so so maybe my state, my status are more professional.
And I wasn't a fan. You know, when when they
said David Bowie's coming to hands, it was like, okay, great.
But when I heard Brian, When I heard Brian Eno
(46:48):
is going to be there, you know, that's a different fish.
Oh yeah, what was that like? What was the like
working with them together? How was their relationship there? Relations brilliant?
I mean they just they just used off each other
and and well David really bust off Brian. You know,
Brian would come up with these these thought processes of
what to do and everything, and David we go, oh yeah, yeah,
(47:09):
you know that would You could see he was following
following that direction. Were they funny? I always hear these
stories about them doing like like Peter Cook and Dudley
more routines and stuff like that. Were they funny together?
I don't know about being funny? It was fun I
don't really remember things like that, you know, but maybe
that was more more, you know, to the side, like
(47:32):
when when they were doing other things together, you know
when when they left the studio and went and did
something else, they might have done stuff like that, because
obviously we were in the studio eight ten hours a day.
But then the rest of the time, which is a
lot of other stuff going on. Did David know the
sounds that he wanted or was there a lot of
experimentation going on and trying stuff out and then after
(47:55):
the words kind of refined a lot of experiments, a
lot of experimentation, and and this is the other thing
I would say, in fairness to aid, I think a
lot of the pre pre ideas for the way to
get the studio to sound when David was going to
do the album was worked at Ada and I put
together you know, we we we put the big boom room,
(48:18):
mike in there, we put all the other stuff around
because that was the ambience we were trying to create.
We were trying to get the sound of the room. Now,
you see, the main hall was divided in in a
quarter of it had this enormous um um curtain that
(48:41):
went right across the hall and for most of the
stuff that was done in studio to everybody used to
record within this curtain area, which was about a quarter
of the room. It's where the drum box was. There
was a drum box when you put the drummer in,
and then everything else had these barriers around them to
more full the sound, so sound was more muffled, and
(49:02):
then you had this enormous curtain blocking off the main
part of the hall. But what I did a lot
of with a do over the time was we would
do a lot of work with the Berlin Philharmonic and
their orchestra coming to do productions music productions for German TV.
So if there was music needed to be recorded orchestral
(49:26):
music for German TV, it would be done in hands
in the main hall and this way we would move
the curtain out the way and you would use the
whole of the hall for orchestral stuff. And you'll probably
be able to find some photos of orchestras in the
in the main hall recording. But until Heroes No Band,
(49:49):
no music was recorded in the studio in that way
where we put the drum drums up on the stage
because there was a state you know, the stage platform
and then the rest of the the instruments, the based,
the electric guitar, the piano, and everything was on the
whole side of this huge curtain because we basically almost
(50:12):
didn't use the other side. So everything was recorded in
the hall to get that huge ambient sound. That was
what we were looking for, and that was that was
more or less what Adio and I had spoken about
well before you know, Heroes was even started, because we
did some We did some great stuff in studio too,
in orchestral stuff. I think you could probably liken it
(50:36):
to abbey Road. I've never been in abbey Road, but
I've seen pictures of Abbey Road and Abbey Road is huge,
high ceiling and you know, everything is you can get
that orchestral sound in abbey Road and you could have
got back in those days the orchestral sound in hands
(50:57):
It too. So that was the sort of the move
that that Ado and I really buzzed on, was getting
this huge sound, you know, trying to get something sound
much bigger and then you get something like Heroes. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I think so. I'm hoping that I'm hoping that my
(51:19):
feedback with Aid and what I brought to the table
with Ado not being there, is it helped to create
some of that ambiance and create some of the sounds.
Do you have a favorite memory of those sessions of
your time together? The favorite memory of that, Yeah, I
(51:39):
think my favorite memory of it was doing the vocals
with David, because it's a good choice. We no, we did, Yeah,
well we did, we did. I set over a back
to back Mike. I set up to you ul seventy
nines facing each other, so David, you know, David and
I were facing each other doing it, and there was
(52:01):
the buzz feeling between that. So doing the backing vocals
was like, you know, I had I had my chance
to have my fifteen seconds of frame. You know, I'm
standing with David and we're seeing it, and there was
there was that buzz, and I had that same sort
of buzz doing that with Passenger, thinking this is the
closest I will ever get to being an artist, because
(52:25):
I'll never be an artist. I disagree. I think everything
that you're describing about how you added to to the
sounds of all all these songs, I think you have
absolutely proven yourself as an artist. At the time, it
was nothing special, and today it's nothing special. Unless I'm
actually talking to somebody that gets that buzz out of it.
(52:48):
You know, whether everybody on the planet knows about it
doesn't make any difference to me. Have you had any
contact with Duncan, with David's son, No, No, I mean,
to be honest with you, I haven't even tried to
(53:09):
reach out. I I sort of got the impression that
that he liked to keep those memories to himself, which
is totally understandable. One of the things I would love
to be able to do at some stage, probably before
I die, was find out off Duncan if he realized
how passionate his father was about him being his son
(53:29):
at that time in Berlion. Because Duncan mosting about six
seven eight, he was only a very young child. And
I mean, I don't know what you remember at the
time with your father when you were six seven or eight, um,
but your father probably had a lot more time for
you than David had for Duncan, or you know, was
able to make because he had some he was spending
(53:52):
so much time being this this uh persona that the
world wanted. Yeah, he belonged to everybody. Yeah, but but
I believe, I honestly believe this from the little that
you know, a couple of years of interaction I had
with David Duncan was a huge part of what his
(54:13):
feelings were, you know, he had he had that farther emotion. Now,
whether he ever showed it at the time, I don't know,
because you know, it's it's like a different thing. But
I believe he did because I believe. Now I don't
know how true the story is, but I believe when
he died, part of his will was to leave a
(54:35):
million dollars or a million euros to Duncan's nanny, the
girl in Berlin that looked after him. Now I have
I mean that's what I've been told, I think through
different conversations or every different people. But yeah, but he
still had that connection with with with the girl that
(54:57):
had looked after Duncan for him all that time in Berlin. Now,
when that stopped, when it started, and when that stopped,
and how that progressed, I don't know. But for me,
that would be a more interesting conversation that we don't
done anything to do with his father. You know, if
I ever do manage to get in touch, you know,
with him, I would let you. I'll tell him that
(55:18):
I spoke with you and that you know you would
love to to let him know. I mean, I I
have a parent who passed away when I was very young,
and I know I've had some some of there are
some of her friends get in touch with me years
later to kind of let me know what she was
really like, especially at that time when you're a kid
and you don't really know. And yeah, that's very special.
(55:38):
I know firsthand how special that can be. So I
you know what I for you, I will, I will.
I now have a reason to try to get in
touch with him. I will, I will do that and
I'll let you know if I succeed. Yeah, because Jordan's
is like this. I mean, they turned up at the
studio and obviously there's work to be going on and everything,
and it was like, wait a minute, we need to
(56:00):
it done into school and I said, well, I've got
a minibus there, I'll take the mini bus. I'll drive
into school. And I'm must have driven into school two
or three times. You know, I don't really I don't
really recalled because of me. It was just something, Oh,
let's get downe into school and get back to the
studios as quick as I can, you know, But yeah,
(56:24):
but those were little things and I just thought, and
of course that was hero. So that was after the
period David has spent all this time on the telephone
during Loss for Life. And I mean, I know how
much time you spent on the phone, and how much
it costs, because every night I would have to do
the studio breakdown for what expenses had to go onto
(56:45):
the bill for our c A and for LUs LUs
for Life. The telephone bill was huge because obviously he
was using the studio phone to phone California, and of
course he went on there and you know, whatever the
rate was, I'll see you were playing the bill. I'd
(57:08):
love to see a copy copy of some of those bills.
Oh yeah, I wonder if they have them in the
archives or something. Yeah, I doubt it. I doubt it.
I was lucky enough to visit Hanza last year and
it was amazing. It's such an incredible room. What a
beautiful room now, it's an actually beautiful room. Where he
were there, it was derelict, the windows wrell boarded up.
(57:31):
Back in those days, it looked nothing like it does now,
absolutely nothing like it's day and night difference. Did it
still seem like kind of a grand room or was
it really just like a big almost like a gymnasium,
but it was a big room. You could had the
feeling of what it had been set up for originally
and set up for originally was was done for for
(57:53):
the Nazi. It was done for the Nazi hierarchy to
go and listen to chamber music. It's a weird energy
in there, yeah, you know, if you just got to
think about it, you know, I don't know, I've never
seen any records of it, but I'm sure adults went
in there and listening to music with somebody playing live
(58:14):
music in there at some stage because it was one
of the you know, back in the in the thirties,
that's what it was done for. Wow, what is it?
What a strange, intense history for one building to have,
you know, I mean, going from just night and day,
from from the Nazis to Bonno and you too. Yeah. Yeah.
(58:39):
I've been going to Berlin now for Davi's birthday for
five years and every time somebody's there they say, well,
where did they kiss? And I'm now standing in the
window all right where they were meant to have kiss,
and they said where did they kiss? Well, you look
(59:00):
out the window. Now there's all these buildings there. Before that,
there were none of those buildings there. There was only one,
but that have structured your view of the actual wall,
and there were walls in between, so so you couldn't
actually see the wall. Um I said, I said, it
could have been possible that they were outside here because
(59:22):
just underneath the window of the of the the the
control room is a little yard, a little courtyard where
we used to part of the minibus. They might have
got into that yard. He might have seen them kissing there,
but I almost don't think so. I think it was
more an artistics impression of he felt so close to
(59:46):
the wall. There might have been a romantic connotation between
and Antonio Marson Tony. I don't know. I wasn't with
the seven, so you know, I'm not going to say
it wasn't U. You know, if I had to take
a point, I would say it wasn't. I don't lie,
you know, I'm not the person would like I said
(01:00:06):
I wasn't there, and that the story didn't come out
until fifteen years later. David's good at making up stories. Yeah,
well that's it. That's it. And on the same on
the same point, you know, he told me about being
in Tokyo in this hotel and walking out the hotel
room and meeting John Lennon and yokoh No and they
(01:00:28):
were doing this and they were doing that, and he
told me all these different things about it that could
well have been made up. Do you know what that
might have been his ans impression of wanted to tell
me a story that would interest me. You know, I
don't know. That's a really great point. Wow. Yeah, you
(01:00:49):
just don't know these things that be And I've spoken
to so many different people that's over years, years ago,
had brief encounters with David, and their stories seem to
be clouded in a mist You're going, really, do you
(01:01:11):
know what I mean? It's like they're all as if
you know, I have a story to tell, But this
is this is this is what it is again. It
gets back to what you were saying earlier. You saw
what he wanted you to see. And uh, and that's
why he was so many different things as so many
different people. Yeah. And and and the thing about me
(01:01:32):
with the vocals on lust for Life and on heroes,
I was there, I was there, I did those things.
I know it. Nobody else needs to know, you know,
unless somebody like yourself specifically says, oh, look, tell me
about that, tell me about that, tell me your story. Um,
And like I'm telling you now, Jordan, you know it
(01:01:53):
probably not going to assist you write a better article
or make a better podcast about it, but it might
just be of you a different insight into how you
look at all the information you're gathering. Oh absolutely, I
mean that that was part of the idea with this,
was that I was writing something to to then do
voiceovers for and record it and share that. But I thought,
(01:02:14):
you know what, that's just my point of view. I
want to get a bunch of people's point of view.
It was such a multi multifaceted person. I want to
talk to as many people as I can to to
do interviews with them and and and share that so
that it's kind of like, don't take my word for it,
here's everybody else's point of view, make your own. Try
to like figure out your own truth about who this
(01:02:35):
person is, who meant so much to so many people,
but seemed to be so many different things to so
many different people. Off the Record is a production of
I Heart Radio. If you liked what you heard, please subscribe,
and leave us a review. For more podcasts from my
heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
(01:02:56):
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Off the Record is a production of I Heart Radio.
Hello and welcome to another bonus episode of Off the Record.
My name's Jordan Runtug. Thanks so much for listening. We've
discussed the making of Bowie's landmark track Heroes, one of
the most mythic songs in his cannon. Everything about its
(00:22):
creation is loaded with drama. It was recorded in an
old Nazi concert hall, within sight of watchful East German
snipers atop the Berlin Wall, and of course there was
the famous Kiss by the Wall, which supposedly inspired one
of the songs best known verses. My guests today not
only worked at the legendary Hansa Studios, the so called
(00:43):
Hall by the Wall where Heroes was recorded, he actually
sang on it eye to eye with Bowie himself. And
that's just one of his many incredible stories. His name
is Peter Bergen, and he worked as an assistant engineer
under our previous guest du Meyer. When Harry Meyer was
on vacation for much of the sessions for Heroes in seven,
(01:05):
Peter stepped up and took over. He helped achieve the
epic expansive sound of the title track, and he also
helped get this gargantuan drum sounds on Lust for Life
by Iggy Pop, whom he still refers to by his
given name, Jimmy. Peter did all of this, and he
still found time to bring David's son to school on occasion.
(01:26):
Our conversation was a joy. Peter shared his memories, busted
some tall tales, and provided fascinating insight into the man
and his music. You know, basically the story of me
(01:49):
with David was I began as as assistant in around
the Hands and when when Low was done, um, but
because basically there wasn't a lot of work to be done,
because they basically just mixed it. They mastered the Low
(02:10):
because most of the recording was done. There was a
few bits and pieces done on top during Low. But
I wasn't around much. But I've met him sort of
rub shoulders with Wisconti. I don't think we jelled then.
Then obviously, in seventy seven, when David came back with
Jimmy for Lust for Life, we went to a different studio.
(02:34):
We were in Studio three. Then Studio three was completely
up and running because they had been completely rebuilt and
we weren't able to record in the Great Hall. Yes,
so we did hear Lust for Life in Studio three,
which was downstairs the hands up and was authoroughly modern studio.
(02:55):
I would have said for that time period, it was
probably stated meant to juice state of the art, you know,
they were they were looking at the other studios and thinking, okay,
how can we be probably the most polished studio to be.
I don't know if you've seen any photos of Studio three.
I saw with the old wood paneling and the and
(03:17):
the recess lights and everything. Yeah, it looks very it
was all that. Yeah, it was really really plush. Unfortunately,
I don't think the the ambiance was quite as good,
and it probably suited more more German pop at the
time than they suited anything else. So when we did
(03:37):
Last for Life, Ado and I had been experimenting with
trying to get more sound out of the studios. So
we we we might the drum kid out in the
big part of the studio instead of you know, having
it confined in the drum drum boost like most drums
were recorded back in those days. We were looking for
(03:58):
to get more of a booming sound from from drums,
which is what we like. So so I was sort
of feeding of Ado, and it was feeding of myself
the way we wanted because I did a lot of
live live work at the time, mixing live bands and
doing live work because I managed a few bands, which
(04:18):
is how I actually got into the music side and
got into the hands up. So we were looking looking
at that side of it, and of course David was
working there anywhere as producer on that on that album
with a lot of with a lot of artistic input,
and we had a guy called Colin Thurston. I don't
know how they've picked up on Colin in London. Colin
(04:39):
had been working in London at the time, so he
came across and I think he's actually listed as producer
on the album. Although ringing David did most of the production.
David and Jimmy handler most of the production side of it,
and Ado and myself handling engineering side of it, you know,
of course in the front seat, and I was just
sitting in the backseat putting in my input. And that
(05:01):
was really my first time of working together with David.
What what I did appreciate at that time with David
was I had a couple of ideas for the way
of doing some of the backing vocals and Philosopher Life.
You know this very high pitched Lust for Life. Yeah, yeah,
part of it, and that was part of my import
(05:21):
into that. And David said, yeah, well come on go
and record it. And David yeah, and so I sort
of laughed and I went, well, okay, yeah that was it.
And then Al said, yeah, go get in the studio.
We'll put the micup, and put the micup. And I
did this that Lust for Life and did a bit
of backing vocals on Lust for Life. I also sung
(05:42):
backing vocals together with David on Passenger. So if you
listen to the backing vocus on Passenger, that's staying myself
doing the backing vocal. Was that intimidating? Was that scary
to too this thing with him? Well, well it wasn't
really intimidating. What it was was I mean, you know,
we'll go back really in history now. I met Jimmy
(06:03):
Hendrix when I was fifteen in Berlin and a concert.
Yeah wow, that is it. You know for fifteen year
old that trips are like fantastic. And most most of
my my time after that was going to live concerts
and I met a lot of musicians live in the
(06:25):
Deutschtann Howe, because I used to work as a like
a age monitor and running around. Because I spoke German
and English, I was able to get into the live
venue as on a working basis, So you know, I
did things like just making sure that the band were
(06:46):
happy and the roadies had everything they wanted when they
were arriving. If anything were short, I made sure they
got it, and so things like that. So I saw
a lot of live music in Berlin and I got
involved in a lot of live side but I always
wanted to be an artist. My unfortunate situation is I'm
(07:07):
no good you know. You know, I can play a
three chord twelve bar but I wouldn't even be as
good as stay this quote, so oh you know, yes, yeah,
but that's what I'm saying. So you know, my limitations
were enormous. But I had a lot of influence on
a lot of the local musicians and a lot of
(07:29):
the local bands, and I got my put bands together.
I managed a lot of the bands on the live
scene in Berlin, which is how I ended up meeting Adam.
So so when David said, you know, let's do these
vocals for me, it was like, yeah, but why me,
you know, I can't see. But but David I found
always to be somebody he'd like to encourage people. Now,
(07:53):
I don't know what he was trying to encourage me for,
because I was never going to be be an artist,
you know, But but but he knew. I think I
wanted wanted to produce. I wanted to produce my own artists,
and I wanted to get things going. So I was
working very hard on that, and David seemed to encourage
me there. Um. But then when he came to Heroes
(08:16):
and Tony was we spent a week just David and
myself in the studio before anybody else arrived, while equipment
was arriving and bits and pieces like that which I
was looking after the whole issue, and David was in
the studio playing piano, playing a bit of guitar, trying
to work out what he wanted to put together at
that this new album before anybody arrived. And then when
(08:39):
was cont arrived, he was very very disappointed. But I think,
you know, in retrospect, I'm I'm thinking this, I think
he was very disappointed that Ada wasn't there, and I
think he was looking at me and going, well, you know,
why have we've been given the the the the amateur.
Why have we've been given this guy? You know that
(09:01):
who is he and what is he? He had this
arrogance about him that, you know, he was the guy
that knew everything, and I was probably not fit to
be there. But unfortunately because of the workings of the
studio and studio too was actually quite basic. Why we
had lots of problems with wiring. It was historically, you know,
trying to get everything sorted. You know, he needed somebody
(09:24):
to understood the studio because he wouldn't be able to
it was. It was back as if it wasn't straightforward,
and so I needed to be there, but I don't
think he wanted me to be there. And then subsequently,
when we got all the music down, on all the
music tracks and all that part of it, they started
working on the vocals. But once again I had to
(09:46):
be there to sort of make sure the studio was
operated and make sure that mikes were put in the
right place. And you know, just on the Heroes thing,
he talks about that the way he set the mics
up and set them up through gates. Well, you see,
my problem is we didn't have the gates he's talking
(10:07):
about back in Hansa and I have an email from
our technician, our studio technician, when I cleared him about
this quite a while ago, and I said, you know,
Teddy Tony was gone. He's talking about these microphone gates
that he set up to do the vocals of David
(10:27):
on Heroes that you know, the one microphone would cut
in after the next one and the next one close
up on the middle one and the further one. But
we didn't. We didn't have that. Now, my remembrance of it,
and I say, it's my remembrance of it the way
we did it. We did everything mangrly. We had different
mics set up. Now I can't recall it being three
(10:50):
mic set up, but I know there was two mics
set up, so he professes there were three. I don't
recall it being three, probably to remember we having to
cut from mike to mike going that way manually. Everything
had to be done. But but it all went down
on one track because that was all they had left. Yeah,
(11:12):
that's all we had left. And I mean, and you
have to look at it in this way. The only
people in the studio at the time with David Tony
and myself, So the only three people that know how
things were put together. Then those three people, those three
individuals um and in his interviews with the BBC, he
(11:33):
he uses Adamyer did this and Ado Meyer did that. Well,
Aidamyer was in the Caribbean on the beach um. But
so basically he just has never ever said Peter berg
And did this, or Peter did this, or Peter did anything.
So I was sorting to another journalist and he said
(11:54):
he's One of his opening statements was he said, I
don't understand any of this, Peter. You have been airbrushed
out of heroes. There is no mention anywhere of you
working on heroes. And I went, okay, but that's fine.
You know, it's not a big deal out of my
life because I other was there. I didn't get paid
(12:15):
in the extra. I was paid a pittance at the
time because I was on an assistant assistant retainer, which
was useless. I lived outside the studio in a in
a caravan, you know, in the trailer as you would
call them in the States, outside Pat Stammer plants. Yeah,
right outside the studio in because I couldn't have formed
(12:36):
an apartment. On the wages I was getting out of
the studio, I couldn't have formed an apartment. Wow, oh
yeah it is, you know, historically it's great. But I
loved working on heroes because we had a restaurant in
the studio called Studio Track, which was run by an
xboxer X German Champion boxing or world MM but he
(13:00):
was a German boxer. And of course our cea you
were footing the bill, so it would be we're going
to have dinner, so Peter got Peter got to eat
good good food. Well, well, David was doing heroes on
the bill of our our ce a good yeah, yeah,
so you know, and that was the same with lust
(13:23):
for life. You know, it was good when you had
a good and it was different artists as well. We
always so I mean I used to live eat quite well.
But you know I had a little gas chemistry in
in my in my trailer for the winter, it's just
to keep me warm. But that was basically what my
(13:43):
life was. What was that area of Berlin like that?
I mean I've seen pictures and it looks like something
from from a movie like Blade Runner or something. Can
you describe like what that part of West Berlin was
like at the time. Yeah, well, if you can imagine
the cur curtains rasa. All right, you turned off a
small it was like a like a mainly sort of
(14:06):
road that went from down near Checkpoint Charlie and it
would come up um just along the the let me
see which side of the oof that is. It would
come up one side of the UF up towards the
Deutsche Oba the Berlin Open House. But from hands A
(14:29):
student right across the Opera house, there was nothing. It
was just derelict. It was like clear clear bond sites.
So it was all just you know what used to
be rubbled. I'm sure you'd be able to see pictures
of it. And and then if you came out of
the studio of the out of the front door, if
you turned right down curt Strassa about two hundred yards
(14:52):
down the road, the road stopped because that was the
Berlin Wall. So you now had the Berlin Wall right
in front of you. Now on the curtains answer. Between
Handser and the Berlin Wall, there was one more building,
which is which is if you look at one of
the pictures there is from Handser, I can maybe sending you.
Sometimes you can see this one building out of studio
(15:13):
to a window. You virtually cannot see the boiling wall
out of the hands of studio window. So this story
that came about Wisconti kissing Antonio mass outside and you
know at the burling wall, and David had seen it
from the studio window, it's not possible. So I think
(15:40):
over the years of Heroes sort of being marked as
the work, it has been marked recently because initially it
didn't really make it. I think they also inherited a
little bit of artistic scope to where it was put together,
make it a little more poet absolutely. Now. The other
(16:03):
thing is when it came to the backing vocals of Heroes, Uh,
this is these are my facts. Now. I'm not sure
if you'll get anybody to ever agree to this, because
the only other person that is alive that was there
studied Wiscontin was Tony used to like to double David's
(16:25):
voice in backing vocals. So so basically, if you listen
to when he was doing choruses, he would overlay the
same track two or three times in David's voice. So
if you listen to some of his earlier stuff. You know,
most most of David's sort of choruses are doubled, so
(16:46):
you hear the boy. And I had the idea that
to to get this, you know, we could be heroes
because it's like you're you're talking to two people. So
as opposed to David doing the backing vocals, there would
be a reply and so you would have that secondary
(17:07):
statement afterwards. And if you listen to the vocals, obviously
you've got that. So we did. What we decided to
do was double it up together. Now, Tony Wisconti claims
that he went into the studio and ablud Meyer was
at the recording desk. The actual fact was I went
into the studio with David because we've done it on
(17:29):
on Lust for Life, out of a bit of fun,
and Tony operated the desk and we did the backing
googles once again. In the BBC interview from a few
years back, Tony said, if you listen carefully, you can
hear David with an English accent and you can also
hear a Boston accent. Well, if you actually listen to
(17:54):
those two vocals that are on the backing track, which
he actually separate did for the BBC interview. There isn't
there isn't a Boston accent because he's not Tony. I
can hear, I can hearly clear clearly here David, and
I can clearly hear myself, and so I just have
(18:14):
the pleasure of going, thanks Tony, you isolated my vocals,
so you know, and that's it. But hey, listen it.
I never got paid paid for any extra work. I
never got paid any extra money for being being the
(18:35):
engineer on Heroes. I never got any of the credit.
It made no difference to me in my latter life
because it was about a year after that I decided
to give it up. I was fell up. I spent
another winter in the in the trailer. I got together
with a girl that had an apartment and she said,
what are you doing. You need to earn money and
(18:59):
I ain't. Got a job in a bar which I
was being paid twice as much as I was being
paid in the studios, and then I also started doing
pirate pirate video cassettes to all the people used to
coming to the bar, and eventually I opened up five
video rental shops in Berlin. So it was a complete
(19:20):
contrast to what I've been doing. But you you sang
with David Bowie on here Is. I mean that's something
that you know, that's you take that with you wherever
you go. Just inside wow that I mean, well, yeah,
I don't know if you if you were aware of
the London Olympics. Hero has been played all the time
(19:43):
and I used to listen. I go great, So when
he comes on the radio and driving down the street
and he comes on the radio, I just yeah, okay,
here it is. I'm singing again, and and and a
few people that know me and know it it's me singing.
You know, Davi. There's so many text messages from time
to time he said, oh I just heard you singing
(20:03):
on the radio and I'm going, oh god, it sounds good. Yeah, hey, listen,
it's so simple, you know, we we can be here.
It's so easy. You know, it's it's a very easy line.
But I feel more I would like to have the
credit for the idea of putting that in in a
(20:25):
reply to the to the main vocal, because that was
my idea. It was me saying, well, rather than doing
it this way where you're actually singing the chorus as
a chorus, why didn't you like echo it, you're getting
an echo back from it, so it was different. So yeah,
you know that was my input into that. Also. My
(20:47):
other input was I was managing a band that Antonio
Mars Sang was the singer in UM and we were
doing a demo in one of the studios one morning
before we did Hear It, moved an in studio three
before David came in to go to work in studio too,
(21:08):
and I introduced Antonio master David and Tony Wisconsin. Wow,
so you kicked it all off. You kicked that whole
verse off. You introduced the two. Oh, I don't know
about that. I don't know about that because, like I said,
you know, the mystery of whether David ever did see
them kissing, I don't know, but he definitely from the studio.
(21:30):
Didn't see him kissing in front of the wall, but
maybe he saw him kiss somewhere else. Now as far
as I know from my my knowledge was Antonio mass
had a boyfriend at that time because he was he
was the road with the band that she was singing
with s and Tony had a wife. So did they
(21:52):
have this illicit thing? I don't know. I never saw
him kissed. I didn't even know there was anything going on.
But then you know, I was probably busy doing a
lot of other stuff to be and and the other
thing about that whole period with David and Jimmy, we
(22:12):
didn't socialize. So when the day was over in the studio,
that was it. They go their way. I went mine.
Because the other thing I've got to say about it
is I wasn't a fan of David Bowie. My my,
you know, led Zeppelin, Deep Purple Um ten years after
(22:33):
jet O Toll. That was more hardly seen. Yeah, hardest stuff.
I mean, you know, from fifteen. I mean at fifteen,
my brother taught me to this concert with Hendrix, ten
years after Canned Heat procol harm Oh, I can't remember
who were at this big concert in Berlin in September
of seventy uh And of course, me being a fifteen
(22:57):
year old wanting to find out everything, I talked my
way into getting into the backstage area and I got
to meet Hendrix. He what did he say? Well, if
I give you this background, Jordan's my father worked in Berlin,
(23:18):
all right, which is why we lived in Berlin. And
he worked for the British military and his job was
listening to Russian and East German radio because it was
the Cold War period and he worked in a place
called Teufelsberg, which is the devil Shill now Toeutfelisberg was
a listening station in Berlin for the for the Allied military,
(23:41):
and all he would do is listen to German and
East East German and Russian radio conversations. I'm writing down
in English and send off to intelligence. There were about
a thousand people working in Teufelisberg at the time, so
my father wasn't doing anything like James Bond. He wasn't
(24:02):
all right. But then Jimmy says, what are you doing
in Berlin? And I said, oh, well, I'm here with
my father. What's your father doing in Berlin? Well he's
just by because there was a fifteen year old I've
got Jimmie Henry's in front of me. You know, I
want to be impressive. Why you know, I probably would
have got battled by my father for telling anybody, but
(24:24):
that was it. And he answered me all these different questions.
So it was me wanting to find out how do
I play this and how do I turn into what
you are? And everything like that. You know, if you
want to know, what are you doing in Berlin? Why
are you in Berlin? Wow, it must be fantastic. So
that was it, and then unfortunately, my my brother then
found me and dragged me out of there. I think
(24:51):
we were probably there for another five ten minutes or something,
and then, you know, the next band was getting ready
to play, so we were gonna have going to go
out and watch the next band. So that was that,
But for for many many years it was my brother's.
His story is, oh, yeah, I took my brother to
see Hendrix and I had to pull him out of
the dressing room because he was he was he was
(25:13):
vending Jimmy Hendrix's ear. Yeah, so he loved the sword.
But you know, but he was He was absolutely nice guy.
You know, but most of most of the Archers I've met,
it doesn't matter how big they are, how special that are,
they are really genuinely nice people. And David was just
the same. David was a gentleman as far as I
(25:36):
was concerned. What was his relationship like with with with
Iggy Pop with Jimmy, Well that they were initially for
lust for life. I felt that they were joined at
the hip architecturally, but you know, like you know, yeah,
they just hung out together and they were together, they
(25:56):
were around and everything. They would leave the studio together,
they would arrive at the studio together. Oh yeah, yeah,
That's one of the things I have to say, because
you know, you have all these stories about the drug
problems they had in the States and before they came
to Berlin and they came to in the studio, the
(26:17):
studio was always clean. There were no drugs about the studio.
I think there might have been a little bit of
pop or something, you know, but but listened, there was
there was no drug sessions at the studio. What they
did as soon as they left the studio, I don't know,
you know. And and there are pictures of David and
Jimmy I think at a bar called Rommy Haggs, which
(26:40):
was back in those days was a transvestite and bar.
They used to do transvestite shows. It was one of
the in places to go. Rommy Harks. You know, the
zim been taught that Rommy harg has made a statement
actually had a relationship with David. I don't know about that,
(27:00):
but there's a lot of people anybody that sort of
shoulders with David. I think over the years, was trying
to make a story out of it. But yeah, but
I have some fond memories of the time I spent
with David because one at one stage his son was
in Berlin and he was actually going to a British
(27:22):
military school in Berlin, and I had I had to
drive him and the child minder to the school a
couple of times because we had a little Volkswagen buss too.
I took him to school a couple of times. And
I could see this interaction David had, you know, as
(27:44):
a as a father and also on Lost for Life.
I don't know what the issue was at the time,
but David spent a lot of time on the phone
from the studio because it would have been late night,
well obviously in California at that time, um, it would
have been sort of daytime in time, and he spent
(28:04):
a lot of time on the phone back and forwards.
And if I think you I don't actually know what
the conversations were about, but I think it was about,
you know, the part of the parting of the waves
and when when Duncan was going to be sort of
with David full time and all all those things. So yeah,
(28:26):
you know, I saw this emotional side of David just
by chance of being there that you know, he wasn't
just this superstar guy that you know, had this persona
that he wanted to put other people. You know, he
he was also a human being. He was also a
person that cared, you know, and I think the love
(28:49):
for his son shone through at that time as well.
You know, you know, he was he was a father
and those things make a difference. And I don't I
don't think those things ever really came came came to
before in his life because until later, of course, when
he married the model I can't think of my name,
(29:12):
but anyway, I think he kept his private life private
and then he put out this per persona for you know,
being the superside. And this is why he had these
different ultra egos that he had throughout his career. Yeah,
you only see what he wanted you to see, absolutely,
but if you actually had you know, if you were
(29:35):
there when when the curtains opened for a little while
and you saw behind the curtains, you could see this
was a real person. This is a person that cared passion.
I mean, he told me of a story about being
in Tokyo and in this hotel in Tokyo, and he said,
I think they were they were they were doing a
(29:58):
gig there or something. But was in this big hotel
in Tokyo and just by chance he opened the door
to walk out into the corridor, and who did he
bump into John Lennon and Yokna. And so he's just
telling the story about being in Tokyo and again bumped
into John Lennon and Yoko Hona and you know they
spent the evenit together or whatever. I can't remember the
(30:22):
exact details of what he told told me, but I'm
just going, wow, you know that must be mega, because
that would have been something very very uh dawned into me,
you know, being in the in the presence of John
Lennon or George Harrison, you know those those are people
that you know to me, would there my childhood? Who
(30:42):
were some other acts that you worked with at hands?
Were there any any heroes of yours? One of the
funny things, um that happened was after we've done Lust
for Life and we've done Heroes the back end of
that year, UM, there was a session booked the sex
person that booked a session, well here's the funny thing. Now,
(31:04):
we had six people working in the studio based basically
his recording engineers, meaning more than tumbler aid, and my
guy called Will Roper, a couple of a couple of others.
Nobody wanted to do the sex pissons. I was told
that the sex pisses are coming and I'm doing the
sex presson pess session. And I went, I wait, why
(31:29):
nobody wanted to do the six But I said why
and they said, well, nobody wants to do them, so
you're doing them. I went, Okay, brilliant, Great, I'll do
the sex pistons And that was it. What were they like?
They like, no, fortunately, fortunately or unfortunately I'm not sure which.
All right, they canceled and before that there was some
issue but they never arrived at hands but they had
(31:52):
booked a session but nobody wanted them. I can kind
of see that. I can understand. Yeah, that was it,
but yes, so there's a lot of stuff. But then
i'd like, I say, I was doing I've been a
German pop and getting sessions that really nobody else wanted.
So I always start at the bottom of the packing list. Um,
(32:14):
and I just shouldn't you know, I kind of thought
to do this anymore, and I gave it up, which
is a shame because I would look back and think
if I would have maybe put personally in another year,
two years, maybe I would have done it. So I've
done a lot of things since, and I have no regrets.
You know, I don't regret leaving music industry because it
(32:35):
didn't do anything for me. What was it that David
and Iggy or Jim. I guess I should say, what
do they like about Berlin at that time? And what
(32:55):
was it like for you as a Westerner being there?
But then was very raw at the time. Because um,
there's uh, there's a movie or a German series been
on I watched recently which I thought would give you
a sort of insight into what it was like over there,
(33:16):
um with East Germany. And it's called deutsch Land eighty three,
Deutschland nine and deutsch Light three eight six eighty nine.
The it's a it's a German produced thing, but it's
it's about the Cold War, and it's about the Berlin
(33:37):
War coming down and all the things that were involved
in that and the spies and all, you know a
lot of other stuff. But it gives you a great
insight into how Germany felt in itself. And of course
Berlin was an island in East Germany. So if you
sort of if you could imagine taking Berlin as an
(34:01):
island and lifting out into the middle of an ocean,
that's one way of saying it was an island. But
if you actually take Berlin and you can imagine putting
it into the center of Russia, okay, with complete Western
ideal idealism, okay, in this communist era, or put it
(34:21):
into the middle of China under today's era. You know,
it's just unfathomable, but that's what it was. You had
East Germany, which was, you know, part of the Soviet Union,
which was you know, the socialism um communism. Keep keep
an eye on your neighbor and inform on him if
you will, you know. And then you had West Germany,
(34:44):
which was a complete free state within this area. And
the only way you could get out of Berlin was
either drive through the Eastern Corridor, which was actually quite depressing,
or your frew you know, the are the only two
ways of getting in and out. There was sort of attention,
there was sort of a sparkle in the city, and Also,
(35:08):
one of the other things that a lot of people
haven't realized about Berlin and is if you were a
German teenager of eighteen in West Germany, you got conscripted
to the German Army. The only way to get out
of that was you moved to Berlin. Because of Berlin,
if you lived in Berlin, you weren't conscripted into the army.
(35:30):
So if you can imagine that seventeen and a half,
most West Germans that did not want to have to
go to conscription in the army moved to Berlin to
live in Berlin. Did you ever make it over to
East Berlin? Did you ever visit there? I visit there
quite often because my mother used to go to East
(35:54):
Germany to buy porcelain and crystal that was made in
East Germany. So Karl Heinz, you know, Carl Entz was
I think one of the big porcelain makers in East
Germany at the time, so she used to go over.
Then she used to buy portling in crystal um because
(36:15):
it was cheap, and because my father was connected to
the military, we used to go over in the military convoy,
so so so we used to go over like three
or four cars in the military conboy and they go
around to all these different places to buy this portion
and then this crystal. This is when I was about thirteen,
fourteen twelve, you know, to buy this crystal. And of
(36:40):
course you had these three or four military cars in
the convoy. But then following the ministry cars in the
convoy were like was probably I don't know if it
was a Russian car. But then in East German car
as well. You know, the police to keep an eye
on what these people doing. You know, why are they
coming to to East billion Now I didn't think much
(37:02):
older at the time. It was great, well we'll go
over here. But the contrast between what was in the
West and what was in the East was day and night.
You know, the buildings who were run down, they weren't,
they weren't weren't up to the specification that the West
was after the war. You know, these were still buildings
(37:24):
that had taken a beating during the war, and you
know it was showing. You could see it. It was very,
very different. And the thing that David and Jimmy used
to love was used to be able to travel on
the s Bahn, which and the s Bahn means Strawsonbahn,
which is it's sort of mainly above ground, but when
(37:48):
it went to go from the west to the east,
it went underground and it stopped at a place called Friedrichstrasser,
and then it continued after that and it came back
out in the west. Now as you drove, as you
came on the underground on the Sumn where it went
(38:08):
underground was around about the curtains Strasa, just just before
you got to the wall, so it would go underground
there and it went into the east. Well, as you
came into each part of the east, you would have
military guards underground in the tunnels with lights on, with
(38:30):
machine guns, guarding that nobody got onto the train. I
don't think they cared about anybody getting off it, but
they made sure that nobody was going to get into
the tunnel to get on the train to get out
of his Germany. So that was like a controlled area
and you went through and when you've got a free
re start, you could actually get off the train because
(38:50):
that was a border crossing, but you could actually get
off the train and not go through the border crossing.
But you could buy cigarettes and drink to ut free,
you know, tax free on the train train platform. So
everybody used to go through free restructed to buy cheap
booze and cheap cigarettes, like duty free at the airport. Yeah,
(39:13):
it's like juty free in the airport because it was
in East Germany, all right. And then you got back
on the train and hoped that by the time you
got off the train at the other end, there wasn't
West Berlin customs officer asking to look in your bag,
because they did that from time to time. It wasn't much.
(39:33):
I mean, most people could get away with a couple
of hundred cigarettes and the bottle of whiskey, but you
certainly couldn't have got away with four cases of whiskey.
They'll be watching help for things like that. Yes, So
this was it. So they would get on the Sman
and ride the SMA and there's there's a famous picture
of them riding the span, a picture of the two
of them on the SMA. I don't know if you've
(39:54):
seen it, just two guys, just anonymous. Yeah, I leve to. Yeah,
I love to dig out some of these things and
send them to you because you just smile at what
the whole thing was. So this was this was the
whole background to the inspiration they were getting in Berlin
and the ideas that were getting. I mean, Passenger was
written about traveling the spar There's the story that they
(40:16):
always tell. I don't know if it's true of of
Tony and David and Jimmy being in the control room
at Hanser and seeing the East German guards in the
gun turret across through the window. Is that could you
see that? Well? No, that that was on low. Now,
whether whether Jimmy was there at that time, I don't
know because I wasn't. I wasn't there on the day.
(40:38):
There is a photo of David Ado and Tony Wiscondi
behind the desk. I don't know if you've seen that
photo three of them behind the desk. That was taken
while they were doing low and while they were mixing low.
But if you looked out of the student the trol
(41:00):
rooms window, you could see just the top of the
wall in the distance. It was about two hundred yards
three hundred yards away maybe you know about about about
if you put yourself in in a one of your
football stadium, Yeah, and you know, like sat at one
(41:21):
end of the stadium and looked at the other end
of the stadium. It was about that far away. It
was quite a distance away, but just there there was
a tower which was a turret, and the guard the
East Germans will be sitting in that tower overlooking the
area which was between them and the wall, which was
(41:43):
the Nomen's area, which was where the mines were and
where you know, all the barred wire was, and if
and all the lights were, and if anybody tried to
run across there, they would shoot them or try to
shoot them. So you know, that was how people died,
trying to escape things. And of course it who wanted
to have a bit of fun with the guys, so
(42:04):
he told them about these East Germans and he said
they sit in that tower with guns and they could shoot.
And he's putting a little bit of emphasis on, you know,
trying to put the wind up them. And what we
used to have was lamps hanging down over the over
the desk to lighten up the de lighten the desk.
(42:25):
So as they're standing there and he's talking about it,
he said, yeah, yeah, he said yeah, but they can't
actually see us because they you know, we're too far
away and everything. They could only see you if you
if you shot shoe the torch at them like this,
and so was one of these lights and aims it
out of the window towards their tower. The story is
(42:49):
Tony and David dived under the desk. Now that's the story. Now,
whether it did happen that way, I don't know. Edre
said it did does and he loves telling that story,
or but that's basically what happened. Yeah, you can see it.
But that's how close you were to this, this this
differential between east and west. And then when David went
(43:10):
was it seven eight he did his concert in Berlin. Yeah,
he mollless, you know, set the stage up on the
west side to aim at the east, you know, and
he was like, listen, this is this is where we are,
this is who we are here to have some free music. Now.
I wasn't. I wasn't in Berlin at the time. I
(43:32):
didn't see the concert at the time. I don't really
have any background on that concert, but you know, that
was that was something else he did with Berlin. Now,
and of course after Heroes he went back to Berlin
to to record the other album with two three Bow. Yeah,
(43:53):
so I mean that would that's really the third album
in the trilogy to Berlin trilogy. I know they don't
put it that way. Below was the first one and
Low was only finished in Berlin. They they've done all
the most of the music, backing tracks and everything for
Low in What was the name of the yeah yeah, yeah,
(44:17):
yeah chateau somewhere in France. And why they moved to
Berlin at that time to do it, I don't know.
It might have been to do with Edgar Frozer, I'm
not I'm not party to that real insight to it,
because David met up with Eda Edgar Frozen at some
stage in seventy six seventy seventy six, and he went
(44:40):
to stay with Edgar Frozen in Berlin for a while,
so he stayed. He stayed with Edgar, of course, and
then David got the apartment on help Strassa, and Jimmy
stayed with David in David's apartment until he actually got
his own apartment in the back of the building. So
David's apartment was in the front of the building and
(45:00):
Jimmy's apartment was in the back. I never visited David.
I visited Jimmy's twice because he bought a piano and
he needed it reconditioning. He brought an upright piano and
he wanted reconditioning, so I went with him to have
(45:20):
a look at it. I can't really recall much about
the apartment, separate scene, this piano, and then I got
a piano guy to have a look at it and
recondition it, and took this piano guy to the apartment.
That's about it. But it's like I said to him,
I didn't really socialize with him. They were they weren't
my social sphere, if you get what I mean. I mean, well,
(45:45):
I had a lot of musician friends at the time,
and and it would have been very, very difficult because
if I had a socialist with Jimi and David, my
other friends would be on the short short side of it,
and I couldn't really include them because it's not like
you can sort of say, oh, David has invited me
to go such and such a place for drink, you
(46:07):
want to come with me? You know, that's not really
what you do, not not in a professional relationship. Yeah,
that makes a lot of sense. You can't really bring
your friends. Yeah, if you if I met him and
he was just a friend of mine and whatever. I
could say, oh yeah, I'll meet you for a beer,
but David's asked me to go for a beer. You
want to join us? You know, you could do that,
(46:28):
but not you know, I didn't feel in a professional
so so so maybe my state, my status are more professional.
And I wasn't a fan. You know, when when they
said David Bowie's coming to hands, it was like, okay, great.
But when I heard Brian, When I heard Brian Eno
(46:48):
is going to be there, you know, that's a different fish.
Oh yeah, what was that like? What was the like
working with them together? How was their relationship there? Relations brilliant?
I mean they just they just used off each other
and and well David really bust off Brian. You know,
Brian would come up with these these thought processes of
what to do and everything, and David we go, oh yeah, yeah,
(47:09):
you know that would You could see he was following
following that direction. Were they funny? I always hear these
stories about them doing like like Peter Cook and Dudley
more routines and stuff like that. Were they funny together?
I don't know about being funny? It was fun I
don't really remember things like that, you know, but maybe
that was more more, you know, to the side, like
(47:32):
when when they were doing other things together, you know
when when they left the studio and went and did
something else, they might have done stuff like that, because
obviously we were in the studio eight ten hours a day.
But then the rest of the time, which is a
lot of other stuff going on. Did David know the
sounds that he wanted or was there a lot of
experimentation going on and trying stuff out and then after
(47:55):
the words kind of refined a lot of experiments, a
lot of experimentation, and and this is the other thing
I would say, in fairness to aid, I think a
lot of the pre pre ideas for the way to
get the studio to sound when David was going to
do the album was worked at Ada and I put
together you know, we we we put the big boom room,
(48:18):
mike in there, we put all the other stuff around
because that was the ambience we were trying to create.
We were trying to get the sound of the room. Now,
you see, the main hall was divided in in a
quarter of it had this enormous um um curtain that
(48:41):
went right across the hall and for most of the
stuff that was done in studio to everybody used to
record within this curtain area, which was about a quarter
of the room. It's where the drum box was. There
was a drum box when you put the drummer in,
and then everything else had these barriers around them to
more full the sound, so sound was more muffled, and
(49:02):
then you had this enormous curtain blocking off the main
part of the hall. But what I did a lot
of with a do over the time was we would
do a lot of work with the Berlin Philharmonic and
their orchestra coming to do productions music productions for German TV.
So if there was music needed to be recorded orchestral
(49:26):
music for German TV, it would be done in hands
in the main hall and this way we would move
the curtain out the way and you would use the
whole of the hall for orchestral stuff. And you'll probably
be able to find some photos of orchestras in the
in the main hall recording. But until Heroes No Band,
(49:49):
no music was recorded in the studio in that way
where we put the drum drums up on the stage
because there was a state you know, the stage platform
and then the rest of the the instruments, the based,
the electric guitar, the piano, and everything was on the
whole side of this huge curtain because we basically almost
(50:12):
didn't use the other side. So everything was recorded in
the hall to get that huge ambient sound. That was
what we were looking for, and that was that was
more or less what Adio and I had spoken about
well before you know, Heroes was even started, because we
did some We did some great stuff in studio too,
in orchestral stuff. I think you could probably liken it
(50:36):
to abbey Road. I've never been in abbey Road, but
I've seen pictures of Abbey Road and Abbey Road is huge,
high ceiling and you know, everything is you can get
that orchestral sound in abbey Road and you could have
got back in those days the orchestral sound in hands
(50:57):
It too. So that was the sort of the move
that that Ado and I really buzzed on, was getting
this huge sound, you know, trying to get something sound
much bigger and then you get something like Heroes. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I think so. I'm hoping that I'm hoping that my
(51:19):
feedback with Aid and what I brought to the table
with Ado not being there, is it helped to create
some of that ambiance and create some of the sounds.
Do you have a favorite memory of those sessions of
your time together? The favorite memory of that, Yeah, I
(51:39):
think my favorite memory of it was doing the vocals
with David, because it's a good choice. We no, we did, Yeah,
well we did, we did. I set over a back
to back Mike. I set up to you ul seventy
nines facing each other, so David, you know, David and
I were facing each other doing it, and there was
(52:01):
the buzz feeling between that. So doing the backing vocals
was like, you know, I had I had my chance
to have my fifteen seconds of frame. You know, I'm
standing with David and we're seeing it, and there was
there was that buzz, and I had that same sort
of buzz doing that with Passenger, thinking this is the
closest I will ever get to being an artist, because
(52:25):
I'll never be an artist. I disagree. I think everything
that you're describing about how you added to to the
sounds of all all these songs, I think you have
absolutely proven yourself as an artist. At the time, it
was nothing special, and today it's nothing special. Unless I'm
actually talking to somebody that gets that buzz out of it.
(52:48):
You know, whether everybody on the planet knows about it
doesn't make any difference to me. Have you had any
contact with Duncan, with David's son, No, No, I mean,
to be honest with you, I haven't even tried to
(53:09):
reach out. I I sort of got the impression that
that he liked to keep those memories to himself, which
is totally understandable. One of the things I would love
to be able to do at some stage, probably before
I die, was find out off Duncan if he realized
how passionate his father was about him being his son
(53:29):
at that time in Berlion. Because Duncan mosting about six
seven eight, he was only a very young child. And
I mean, I don't know what you remember at the
time with your father when you were six seven or eight, um,
but your father probably had a lot more time for
you than David had for Duncan, or you know, was
able to make because he had some he was spending
(53:52):
so much time being this this uh persona that the
world wanted. Yeah, he belonged to everybody. Yeah, but but
I believe, I honestly believe this from the little that
you know, a couple of years of interaction I had
with David Duncan was a huge part of what his
(54:13):
feelings were, you know, he had he had that farther emotion. Now,
whether he ever showed it at the time, I don't know,
because you know, it's it's like a different thing. But
I believe he did because I believe. Now I don't
know how true the story is, but I believe when
he died, part of his will was to leave a
(54:35):
million dollars or a million euros to Duncan's nanny, the
girl in Berlin that looked after him. Now I have
I mean that's what I've been told, I think through
different conversations or every different people. But yeah, but he
still had that connection with with with the girl that
(54:57):
had looked after Duncan for him all that time in Berlin. Now,
when that stopped, when it started, and when that stopped,
and how that progressed, I don't know. But for me,
that would be a more interesting conversation that we don't
done anything to do with his father. You know, if
I ever do manage to get in touch, you know,
with him, I would let you. I'll tell him that
(55:18):
I spoke with you and that you know you would
love to to let him know. I mean, I I
have a parent who passed away when I was very young,
and I know I've had some some of there are
some of her friends get in touch with me years
later to kind of let me know what she was
really like, especially at that time when you're a kid
and you don't really know. And yeah, that's very special.
(55:38):
I know firsthand how special that can be. So I
you know what I for you, I will, I will.
I now have a reason to try to get in
touch with him. I will, I will do that and
I'll let you know if I succeed. Yeah, because Jordan's
is like this. I mean, they turned up at the
studio and obviously there's work to be going on and everything,
and it was like, wait a minute, we need to
(56:00):
it done into school and I said, well, I've got
a minibus there, I'll take the mini bus. I'll drive
into school. And I'm must have driven into school two
or three times. You know, I don't really I don't
really recalled because of me. It was just something, Oh,
let's get downe into school and get back to the
studios as quick as I can, you know, But yeah,
(56:24):
but those were little things and I just thought, and
of course that was hero. So that was after the
period David has spent all this time on the telephone
during Loss for Life. And I mean, I know how
much time you spent on the phone, and how much
it costs, because every night I would have to do
the studio breakdown for what expenses had to go onto
(56:45):
the bill for our c A and for LUs LUs
for Life. The telephone bill was huge because obviously he
was using the studio phone to phone California, and of
course he went on there and you know, whatever the
rate was, I'll see you were playing the bill. I'd
(57:08):
love to see a copy copy of some of those bills.
Oh yeah, I wonder if they have them in the
archives or something. Yeah, I doubt it. I doubt it.
I was lucky enough to visit Hanza last year and
it was amazing. It's such an incredible room. What a
beautiful room now, it's an actually beautiful room. Where he
were there, it was derelict, the windows wrell boarded up.
(57:31):
Back in those days, it looked nothing like it does now,
absolutely nothing like it's day and night difference. Did it
still seem like kind of a grand room or was
it really just like a big almost like a gymnasium,
but it was a big room. You could had the
feeling of what it had been set up for originally
and set up for originally was was done for for
(57:53):
the Nazi. It was done for the Nazi hierarchy to
go and listen to chamber music. It's a weird energy
in there, yeah, you know, if you just got to
think about it, you know, I don't know, I've never
seen any records of it, but I'm sure adults went
in there and listening to music with somebody playing live
(58:14):
music in there at some stage because it was one
of the you know, back in the in the thirties,
that's what it was done for. Wow, what is it?
What a strange, intense history for one building to have,
you know, I mean, going from just night and day,
from from the Nazis to Bonno and you too. Yeah. Yeah.
(58:39):
I've been going to Berlin now for Davi's birthday for
five years and every time somebody's there they say, well,
where did they kiss? And I'm now standing in the
window all right where they were meant to have kiss,
and they said where did they kiss? Well, you look
(59:00):
out the window. Now there's all these buildings there. Before that,
there were none of those buildings there. There was only one,
but that have structured your view of the actual wall,
and there were walls in between, so so you couldn't
actually see the wall. Um I said, I said, it
could have been possible that they were outside here because
(59:22):
just underneath the window of the of the the the
control room is a little yard, a little courtyard where
we used to part of the minibus. They might have
got into that yard. He might have seen them kissing there,
but I almost don't think so. I think it was
more an artistics impression of he felt so close to
(59:46):
the wall. There might have been a romantic connotation between
and Antonio Marson Tony. I don't know. I wasn't with
the seven, so you know, I'm not going to say
it wasn't U. You know, if I had to take
a point, I would say it wasn't. I don't lie,
you know, I'm not the person would like I said
(01:00:06):
I wasn't there, and that the story didn't come out
until fifteen years later. David's good at making up stories. Yeah,
well that's it. That's it. And on the same on
the same point, you know, he told me about being
in Tokyo in this hotel and walking out the hotel
room and meeting John Lennon and yokoh No and they
(01:00:28):
were doing this and they were doing that, and he
told me all these different things about it that could
well have been made up. Do you know what that
might have been his ans impression of wanted to tell
me a story that would interest me. You know, I
don't know. That's a really great point. Wow. Yeah, you
(01:00:49):
just don't know these things that be And I've spoken
to so many different people that's over years, years ago,
had brief encounters with David, and their stories seem to
be clouded in a mist You're going, really, do you
(01:01:11):
know what I mean? It's like they're all as if
you know, I have a story to tell, But this
is this is this is what it is again. It
gets back to what you were saying earlier. You saw
what he wanted you to see. And uh, and that's
why he was so many different things as so many
different people. Yeah. And and and the thing about me
(01:01:32):
with the vocals on lust for Life and on heroes,
I was there, I was there, I did those things.
I know it. Nobody else needs to know, you know,
unless somebody like yourself specifically says, oh, look, tell me
about that, tell me about that, tell me your story. Um,
And like I'm telling you now, Jordan, you know it
(01:01:53):
probably not going to assist you write a better article
or make a better podcast about it, but it might
just be of you a different insight into how you
look at all the information you're gathering. Oh absolutely, I
mean that that was part of the idea with this,
was that I was writing something to to then do
voiceovers for and record it and share that. But I thought,
(01:02:14):
you know what, that's just my point of view. I
want to get a bunch of people's point of view.
It was such a multi multifaceted person. I want to
talk to as many people as I can to to
do interviews with them and and and share that so
that it's kind of like, don't take my word for it,
here's everybody else's point of view, make your own. Try
to like figure out your own truth about who this
(01:02:35):
person is, who meant so much to so many people,
but seemed to be so many different things to so
many different people. Off the Record is a production of
I Heart Radio. If you liked what you heard, please subscribe,
and leave us a review. For more podcasts from my
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(01:02:56):
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