March 15, 2021 • 55 mins
At the height of his fame in the mid-'70s, David Bowie battled his deepest demons in the City of Angels. After a costly split from his management company, he found himself adrift in Hollywood, driving himself to the brink of sanity with a diet of cocaine, milk and red peppers. Time passed in a breakneck blur as Bowie stayed up for three or four days at a stretch. The mix of sleep deprivation and drugs drove into a state almost indistinguishable from psychosis,. His grasp on reality slipping, he lost himself in paranoid delusions and obsessions with paranormal phenomena.. Bowie would remember few specifics of the period — just disturbing emotional impressions. Over the course of his days-long bouts of consciousness, his world would transform into “a bizarre nihilistic fantasy of oncoming doom, mythological characters and imminent totalitarianism.” It was the low point of his life, and nearly the end of it. Somehow, in the midst of this personal nadir, he pulled himself back from the edge of oblivion, filming his defining movie role, and recording an album that many consider a masterpiece: 'Station to Station.'
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Off the record is a production of I Heart Radio.
What was that? Was that? A falling body? David Bowie
was sure he'd seen a body fall from the sky,
sailing downwards past the picture window of his Hollywood home.
He went to look, and it was gone, vanished. But
it seems so real. So did the phantom voices that
(00:21):
called to him from the intercom at the front gate.
So too did the spirit that haunted a swimming pool,
which manifested as a swirling vortex of bubbles. He was
in touch with a practitioner of white magic, a so
called good witch, to exercise the demons. This good which
could probably handle a pool, but she was gonna need
some serious backup if she was going to exercise the
(00:42):
demons that plagued David's soul. He pulled the blind shut,
desperate to block out the bright sun and the dark
forces that lurked outside. Now his world was a dimly
lit living room, made all the more tomb like by
the unsettling Egyptian decor. Often the only light emanated from
the film projector running loops of Nazi newsreels with alarming frequency.
(01:05):
For extra spiritual protection, David drew pentagrams on the wall
and lip black candles, tricks he'd gleaned from his growing
library on the occult, He'd collected volumes of religious and
mystic texts, including works on Tero, Kabbala, numerology, and Egyptology.
His spirit was under assault, and this would help keep
(01:25):
the enemies at day. Another enemy was sleep, which he
ward it off with mounds of white powder. A few
sniffs kept him awake, productive, vigilant, and safe. It was
the spring of or maybe summer. Who's to tell really.
(01:46):
For David, time passed and a breakneck blur as he
stayed up for three or four days at a stretch.
He was in town to make his feature film debut,
or production delays left into his own devices. Often these
devices were stable. The mix of sleep, deprivation and drugs
drove him to a state that bordered on psychosis. He
(02:06):
would remember a few specifics of this period in later years,
just disturbing emotional impressions. Over the course of his day's
long bouts of consciousness, his world would transform into, in
his words, a bizarre nihilistic fantasy of oncoming doom, mythological characters,
and imminent totalitarianism. The line between dream and reality was
(02:28):
becoming impossible to define. Each hour he remained awake, a
new enemy seemed to come for him. There were witches
who were after his seamen, intent on using it to
create a baby to sacrifice to Satan. Bowie kept a
close watch on his bodily fluids, even storing bottles of
his urine in the fridge. The CIA was interfering with
(02:48):
his writings. The Manson family had proud these hills just
a few years earlier, and their energy was still palpable.
The perceived threats came even from his fellow musicians. Ever
since a n s the altercation with Jimmy Page, David
was sure that the led Zeppelin guitarists was conspiring with
his coterie of black magic women to wish him ill
the Rolling Stones. Meanwhile, we're taunting him with messages hidden
(03:11):
in their albums Nazis Manson Satan. David felt surrounded by
forces of evil, but to his friends, the real enemy
was cocaine. Sigmund Freud had called it his magical substance.
It pushed David further into the realms of magical thinking,
which is looking awful lot like madness, and his reputation
(03:31):
was taking a hit. One Music magazine described him in
print as old vacuum cleaner nos but it wasn't a
laughing matter. Cocaine had overtaken food as his most crucial sustenance.
Blow milk and red peppers kept them alive, though just barely.
His skeletal frame now weighed around ninety pounds. He'd overdosed
(03:53):
on several occasions, and by his own admission, he could
have easily died. Partiers like Keith Richards and Elton John
seemed to so. It was the most destructive period of
David Bowie's life, as he pushed himself far past the
point of no return. Secluded in his mansion populated by
a parade of dealers and parasites, he was beyond help,
(04:13):
estranged from his family and old friends, and completely unmoored
from everything that had kept him grounded. After years on
the brink, he'd finally split snapped. He was a cracked
actor lost in the long l a night. Hello, and
welcome to Off the Record, the show that goes beyond
(04:35):
the songs and into the hearts and minds of rock's
greatest legends. I'm your host Jordan Runtug. This season explores
the life or rather lives of David Bowie. Today's episode
looks at Bowie's l a years a time when he
battled as deepest Demons in the City of Angels. It
was the high point of his career to date, but
it was the low point of his life and nearly
(04:57):
the end of it. Somehow, in the midst of this
personal native, he pulled himself back from the edge and
made an album that many consider a masterpiece. In January,
David Bowie completed his very first number one single, and
he had a beatle for backup. It was a twist
(05:18):
of faith that even he couldn't have predicted. A decade earlier,
David had attempted a feeble John Lennon impression on his
first ever release, Liza Jane. Now he was in the
studio with the man himself, hanging out, playing together, and
even writing together. The resulting track was called, appropriately enough, Fame.
Their burgeoning friendship had allowed the two to compare notes
(05:41):
about their extraordinary lives. David was beginning to learn the
hard truth that Lennon had arrived at years earlier. Being
a rock star ain't all it cracked up to be.
It's fitting that this meditation on the shallowness of show business.
Notoriety would ultimately take David to the top of the
American charts, but the achievement only underscored is growing dissatisfaction,
(06:02):
outlined in the song. Carlos Alamar's relentless guitar riff endlessly
swirling around the single chord evoked the monotony and claustrophobia
of celebrity. The lyrics, which David wrote on the spot
in just twenty minutes, were a snapshot of his life
at his supposed peak of success, a litany of money,
(06:23):
worries and insecurities. Fame takes you there where things are hollow,
he sang, what you need, you have to borrow. This
all led to one big question, why didn't David ever
seem to have any money? Through his friendships with Mick Jagger,
Elizabeth Taylor and John Lennon, he'd witnessed the lifestyles of
(06:43):
the obscenely wealthy. These people had a states tax, shelters,
fleets of cars, jewelry collections. David had none of that.
He just sold out a residency at Radio City Music
Hall and debuted his new single on national television. Yeah,
he had the r O petty cash from his management
offices just to buy a few records. Something didn't add up.
(07:06):
He began to grow suspicious of his manager, Tony Defrees.
The partnership had launched his career, but he became increasingly
fearful that he had nothing monetary to show for it.
He confided in John Lennon, who was still dealing with
the legal quagmire of the Beatles split more than four
years before. Managerial mishaps had played a pivotal role in
(07:26):
driving the fab for apart, and it made John wise
to the world of contracts. John advised his younger friend
to take a closer look at what he got himself into.
At the dawn of the decade, David and DeFries reunited
by the shared goal of making David the biggest rock
star on the planet, and they had more or less
succeeded together from the start. De Frieze offered him a
(07:49):
creative cocoon, taking care of all business and finance concerns.
There is management company Maine Man. When David was effectively penniless,
it was a pretty good deal. He didn't have to
worry about rent or food. To Freeze made sure everything
was covered, leaving him free to focus on his music.
In a way, it was every artist's dream. But the
(08:09):
campaign to launch David had come at a high cost,
and to freeze intended to recoup his investment. He'd operated
under the theory that to be a star, one had
to look like a star, act like a star, and
generally live like a star, a classic case of fake
it till you make it. David was fine with this.
He knew you had to spend money to make money.
(08:31):
He just didn't realize that the money being spent was
his own. The lavish expense accounts, the on call limos,
the failings of bodyguards, the elegant offices, the hotel suites
and room service, the whole big budget diamond dogs tore debacle,
every gleeful, shameless excess of the whole manman managerial stable.
(08:51):
David put the bill for all of it. What he
didn't have on hand was taken as an advance against
future earnings. At the present rate, he'd have to work
the rest of his life just to break even. David
had no idea, or so he'd claim. Like most artists,
he had little interest in the fine print. Early in
his career, he let his father manage every aspect of
(09:12):
his finances, from bills to taxes and insurance. The Frieze
was just another father figure, and he trusted him blindly
for years. David just left him to it. De Freeze
once handed a stack of contracts to a secretary, saying,
take these to David. Don't worry, it won't take long.
He'll sign anything. And it was true. I had my
(09:35):
eyes on the Star Prize. David would later admit nothing
else mattered. As a result, he was blissfully ignorant of
his precarious financial situation. But by four he began the
wonder allowed where his money was going. Why did the
Freeze own multiple properties in Manhattan and a country estate
in Connecticut, while he, the alleged Star made do with
(09:57):
a single Crumby townhouse. It was rented. Just like everything
else in his life, he didn't own anything. Yes, his
reliance on cocaine had made him a little edgy, but
surely something was badly wrong. DeFreeze, for his part, didn't
appreciate the torrent of questions from his mercurial client. Besides,
(10:19):
he had his own gripes with Bowie. Some of it
could be chalked up to creative differences. David's ferret into
R and B on his new, yet to be released
album Young Americans had left the Frieze cold. Plus the
abrupt abandonment of a quarter million dollar diamond dog stage
set got under his skin. Even a big spender like
DeFreeze had a shutter at the waist of it all.
(10:41):
But the artistic disagreements were just the beginning. More than
anything else, he disapproved of David's drug use. De Frieze
barely even drank. By now Bowie was snorting lines in
the middle of main man meetings, making communication all but impossible.
De Frieze knew better than the talk to David when
his eyes had that pecure earlier glimmer. To him, David
(11:02):
was becoming increasingly unmanageable. To David, the Frieze was becoming
increasingly useless. A collision seemed imminent. It occurred in July,
as David was set to play a doubleheader at Madison
Square Garden. De Frieze had taken David's wife Angie to
task for spending too much on airfare in recent months.
(11:24):
David had his own problems with Angie these days, but
he didn't react well to this criticism of his spouse,
even if their open relationship was on the rocks. Moreover,
he was confused, while they had the penny pinch, surely
they were doing well enough to cover airline fees. Annoyed
and more than a little baffled, David Cold MainMan president
Tony zenetted to his hotel suite for an uncharacteristically blunt
(11:48):
discussion of company finances. It was the first time he'd
ever really asked what was being done in his name.
Sanetta's explanation left him shocked. From the start. David thought
he and Defrieze has split everything down the middle as
equal partners. He believed that he was a co owner
of Maine Man, the company that controlled his music, his management,
(12:10):
his life. The reality mapped out in his contracts was
heartbreaking lee different. He owned no part of Maine Man.
He was an employee of DeFreeze, entitled of the profits
after expenses, expenses like tours, offices, hotel suites, everything. In
(12:31):
an instant, David realized that the business empire he strove
the build didn't belong to him. It was a mirage.
After a few moments of denial, he gasped, did I
work this hard to have nothing. From then on it
was over between him and Defrieze. David had no interest
in changing the terms of his deal. He simply wanted out.
(12:56):
David's assistant and right hand woman, Coco Schwab, found the
a lawyer named Michael Lippman, and in January of nine
five he began proceedings to sever all ties with MainMan
and DeFreeze. Lawyers shuttle between rooms in an l A
hotel for forty eight continuous hours before a settlement was
reached to Freeze emerged the clear Victor may Man would
(13:18):
receive half of all profits on all albums David had
made under their management forever. This included classics like Hunky Dory,
Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin, Saying, and Diamond Dogs. Defriese would also
receive a sizeable percentage of David's income through throughout the
long shadowy history of music management deals, these terms were
(13:41):
unusually favorable for an ex manager. Their partnership had begun
with Bowie and Tears desperate to leave. As former manager
Ken Pitt now that was how their union ended. David
broke down at the meeting as millions of his future
earnings were surrendered. He was escorted from the room and
what some believed was a state of clinical shock. For
(14:03):
days after, anguished cries could be heard coming from the
direction of his bedroom. He tried to take a zen
approach to the whole man man a fair later, saying
I certainly wouldn't have achieved that degree of notoriety without
all that nonsense going on. I guess I'm thankful for
that period. In a way, he was free, but he
was alone. Some changes were made to preserve the trickle
(14:27):
of money he had coming through. He moved out of
the two bedroom suite at the Pierre Hotel, where he'd
run up twenty dollars worth the room service in a
single month, and into a rented brownstone in New York's
Chelsea neighborhood. David barely bothered to furnish the place, and
the spartan accommodations left visitors feeling claustrophobic and depressed. David's
(14:49):
difficult financial position forced him to cancel the small allowance
that he had been paying to his mother Peggy back
home in England. The relationship wasn't exactly warm at the
best of times, and now Peg he was furious that
her boyd cut her off. She took her complaints to
the press, calling David a terrible hypocrite. David Cooley informed
her that if she ever repeated the stunt, she would
(15:11):
never see him or his money ever again. He reinstated
her allowance and even sent her a gold records and awards.
She set up a virtual shrine to David in her apartment,
but she seldom saw her son in the flesh for
much of the decade. He'd maintained his distance. After touring
NonStop for almost three years, David was rarely seen for
(15:34):
most of nineteen That March, he made one of his
only major appearances, presenting the Best Female R and B
Award at the Grammys in New York. Clad in an
elegant white tie tucks, he looked amazing, every bit the
classy show business idol, yet he was gripped by nerves. Beforehand.
(15:54):
He confided in John Lennon, a fellow presenter and a
fellow Englishman abroad, that he misunderstood in America, Yanks, David
believed just didn't get him creatively. After addressing the Grammy's
crowd with a very bowie like ladies, gentlemen and others,
He handed the trophy to winner Aretha Franklin, who blurted out, Wow,
(16:17):
this is so good. I could kiss David Bowie. She
didn't mean it as a compliment, and David was deeply
mortified by the line. He slunk off stage and into
the arms of Lenin, who tried to cheer him up
by planting a theatrical kiss on his cheek. See Dave
Lennon teased, America loves you. The incident was indicative of
(16:38):
a minor backlash that had set in, at least among
his musical peers. He learned that Fay meant not only
rubbing shoulders with fellow superstars, but ruffling the feathers of
a few, and it hurt. At one party, David met
Bob Dylan, who sniped, glam ROCKI isn't music before turning
his back on him. The rejection stung. David responded by
(17:01):
disappearing into the private quarters of his downtown brownstone and
indulging in an increasingly vampiric existence. For most of the year,
he'd retreat from the public eye and into himself. By
(17:21):
the spring of nine, David Bowie was ingesting what a
friend would refer to as enough cocaine to kill a horse.
It had long since gone for being a tool to
being a necessity required to maintain his energy. On the
Diamond Dogs tour the prior year, he refused to go
on stage without it, and there was always a roady
groupier fan willing to keep him supplied. The gold topped
(17:45):
cane he twirled during the show wasn't merely a prop,
but sometimes necessary to hold up his frail frame. One
night in Detroit, he accidentally spilled a baggy of white
powder on his hotel room floor. Saying nothing, he dropped
to the ground a big and huffing the rug. Cocaine
was simply a part of his life. He thought nothing
of openly snorting lines during dinner in front of girlfriend
(18:08):
Avia Cherry's parents. At least on the road he had
performances to burn off as chemically enhanced stenergy. But when
the tour wrapped, he simply stowed in his house, foregoing
sleep with the aid of medical grade Merrick cocaine stronger
than anything he'd encountered in England. It was easily obtainable,
and it kept me working. He would recall, I wasn't
(18:30):
really an out on the town guy. I was much more. Okay,
let's write ten different projects this week and make four
or five sculptures. After several days awake, he started to hallucinate,
spotting angels floating outside his window. The delusions came hard
and fast. Even Mick Jagger, no stranger to elicit substances,
(18:50):
grew worried as David started rambling about enemies bugging his
phone or tailing his car. He spouted fears that the
freeze was Hitler incarnate and on again off again friend
lou Reid was inhabited by the spirit of a devil,
and together they were out to destroy him. He became
convinced that led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page, an enthusiastic student of
legendary Satanist Alistair Crowley, also intended to do him harm.
(19:16):
To ward them off, David embarked on what he would
later refer to as his wayward spiritual search. He developed
an all consuming interest in taro, astrology, numerology, and the Kabbalah,
not to mention more fringe theories like black magic, prehistoric
spacemen and the Third Reich's alleged search for the Holy Grail,
and pre war Britain. All manner of psychic phenomenon was explored,
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and even the mundane took on supernatural significance. He insisted
he possessed the power of telepathy, once urging a friend
to concentrate on a five figure number. Amazingly, after a
few minutes of focus, David guessed four of the five
numbers in the sequence. Maybe he was onto something, after all.
(20:00):
David was fairly open about his idiosyncratic interests. During an
interview with American chat show host Dick Cavitt the prior December,
he confused television viewers and Cavitt himself by discussing not
his new single, but something called black Noise, a sound
powerful enough to level buildings or even destroy an entire city.
(20:20):
After several minutes of painfully stilted, semi comprehensible rambling, Cabot
finally asked his guest, do you want to be understood?
David replied, there's absolutely nothing to understand. A more worrisome
profile appeared a month later in the form of a
BBC television documentary. Young producer Alan Yentub initially planned to
(20:41):
call his film The Collector, based on Bowie's description of
himself as a collector of faces. Gestures and presences. But
when they first met up to begin filming during the
Diamond Docs tour the prior September, yent ub saw the
troubling effects of the endlessly shifting personalities, not to mention
the copious cope can use. He ultimately called the documentary
(21:02):
Cracked Actor, after the Aladdin Sane song about the perils
of fame. It was an appropriate title. The film presents
Bowie as a man perpetually in motion, driven by a potent,
toxic blend of ambition and fear, criss crossing America in
search of an identity, having jettison Ziggy for Diamond Dogs
and now this New Guys. As the soul singer of
(21:25):
young Americans, Bowie seemed haunted and lost throughout the shoot.
He was barely sleeping or eating, and looked fragile, aching, lee, sad,
and at times scarcely human. Their late night interviews were
obtuse and difficult to follow, with Bowie often speaking in
riddles and referring to himself and the third person. He
(21:45):
made repeated references to schizophrenia and claimed not to know
quote whether I was writing the characters or the characters
were writing me. The most memorable scenes and Cracked Actor
take place in the back of Bowie's limousine. There is
a nocturnal cruise through l A. The sound of a
police siren in the distance sends Bowie into a paranoid panic.
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Is there anything behind us? He asks anxiously. Then he
sniffs a sniff all too familiar to anyone in the
entertainment scene of the seventies. There's an underlying unease here,
he tells you, trubs camera. You can feel it in
every avenue. It's very calm, and it's a kind of
superficial calmness that they've developed to underplay the fact that
(22:27):
there's a lot of high pressure here. Later, while driving
through the desert, yentabasques David how he's absorbed the American
culture that surrounds him. David responds by pointing to a
fly who had come to rest and his ever present
bottle of milk. He's a foreign body and he's getting
a lot of milk, David says of the insect. That's
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how I feel a foreign body. For all of David's success,
he still felt like the perpetual outsider. Cracked Actor was
the most thorough portrait of David to date. It also
offered David the unique experience of viewing himself from the outside,
just like his audience. Bowie later told Yenub that he
(23:08):
watched the film again and again because, in his words,
he told the truth. What he saw captivated him and
horrified him. His debilitating cocaine addiction is on full display
edging him towards a precipitous mental decline. He looked awful,
waxy and emaciated. Cracked Actor is the defining document of
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his most difficult period, and he would find it painful
to watch. But for a group of Hollywood film executives,
it was exactly what they were looking for. They were
casting for English director Nicholas rogues latest film, a sci
fi parable called The Man Who Fell to Earth. It's
an allegorical tale of an extraterrestrial soul destroyed by all
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too human vices and frailties, power, greed, corruption, alcohol, and media.
It's Senator Out, an alien visitor who had come to
Earth to save his planet and his family, shielding his
true identity with a human alter ego known as Thomas
Jerome Newton. The endeavor initially made him rich and influential,
(24:12):
then It left him spiritually depleted and addicted as he
fell in with those who sought to cash in and
take advantage. Any of this sounding familiar, the producers searched
for their leading man had so far been fruitless. They
kicked around established names like Peter O'Toole, but it didn't
quite feel right. No, said Nick Rogue. I want someone weak, slender,
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and pale. I want them to look as if they
have no bones. By chance, a casting agent caught a
screening of Cracked actor. The shots of Bowie in the
back of the limo, clinched it, gazing out the window,
totally disconnected from the world outside, alone, isolated an alien.
Bowie was initially wary when he was first approached for
(24:56):
The Man Who Fell to Earth. He had been pitched
piles of alien film gimmicky, ziggy stardus the movie type vehicles,
but this one had a little more substance. He invited
Rogue over to his apartment to discuss it further. The
director arrived at nine thirty that night. David arrived at
five thirty the next morning. After some brief apologies, David
(25:17):
said he'd do the film, then headed directly for his bed.
He admired rogues persistence. Moreover, he liked that Roguad directed
his friendly rival Mick Jagger in the nineteen seventy film Performance.
Bowie's sense of competition kicked in and he dove headlong
into the role. And what a perfect role. It was.
Estranged from reality on a daily basis, he could more
(25:40):
or less just be himself. I was definitely living in
two separate worlds at that time, he later admitted. My
state of mind was quite fractured and fragmented. It was
quite easy for me not to relate to well with
those around me. The production brought him to l A,
which remained his home base for the next year. He
(26:01):
initially crashed at the home of his friend Deep Purple Basis,
Glenn Hughes. It wasn't long until the pain and paranoia
that gripped him on the East returned. Part of it
was environmental then, as now, the city bore the psychic
weight of incalculable crushed dreams. The hard working, heartbroken were
taunted by the shameful excesses of the high flying few,
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who partied like the last days of Rome. Too much money,
too much power, too many drugs, and they'd stabb you
on the back to keep it. One wannabe singer turned
the tables in the most terrifying way imaginable. His name
is Charles Manson. In the summer of sixty he sent
his band of young followers into the Hollywood Hills. The
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slaughter innocence a vengeful act of rage against the community
who had shunned him. Pregnant actress Sharon Tate was murdered
along with her friends inside her exclusive Bendedict Canyon home.
The following day, they struck again, carving supermarket exit couldve
Lena la Bianca and his wife Rosemary with their own
kitchen forks and knives. From then on, whis Angelenos could
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never shake the sense that some vague, unnamed evil lurked
in the Bucolic Hills, and every beautiful flower child was
actually a brainwashed murderer. L A had always been a
two faced town, but never before had the duplicity been
so deadly or demonic. For David, the nightmare of six
years earlier struck even closer to home. The La Biancas
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had been killed just a few doors down from the
house where he stayed. For protection, he kept a stash
of knives under his bed. All this to say, the
vibes were bad, making matters worse. The production of the
Man Who Fell the Earth was delayed, leaving Bowie with
little ado for several months. So began with David would
later describe as quote one of the worst periods of
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my life. At loose ends, he carried on much as
he had in New York, holding up in Glen Hugh's
house and disappearing into a blizzard of cocaine. As one
friend would know, a common form of greeting around l
A in this period was for someone to simply say
hi and stick a silver spoon under your nose. Dealers,
hustlers and other hangers on quickly sussed out Bowie's address,
(28:11):
and they arrived with whole platefuls of the stuff. Despite
its reputation as a party favor, cocaine is fundamentally in
any social drug, and a cruel one at that. It
provides energy and confidence, but it also eliminates the innate
need to be liked. After a few tutes, you don't
care if you upset people. Cocaine severs any link you
(28:33):
have to another human being. David would later say, if
you really want to lose all your friends and all
your relationships that you ever held. Dear, that's the drug
to do it with. He would describe himself in this
era as numb and an ice man. Rather than go out,
everything was brought in food, drugs, art supplies. David busied
himself with new songs and other creative pursuits like paintings, sketches,
(28:57):
and sculptures. He'd work obsessively on the clock for literally
days on end. I hate sleep, he said at the time.
I much prefer staying up just working all the time.
It makes me so mad that we can't do anything
about sleep or the common cold. The neurological effects of
extreme sleep deprivation is almost indistinguishable from psychosis. After a
(29:18):
few days awake, auditory and visual hallucinations become commonplace. So
are paranoid delusions that others are plotting against you, and
narcissistic notions that you're the cause of worldly and supernatural events.
It's no exaggeration to say that David bo always spent
much of nine in a state of self induced insanity.
It had always been his greatest fear. He'd watch it
(29:41):
happened to his beloved half brother, Terry, A vibrant life
destroyed by mental illness. Now it had come for David,
just like he knew it would. He would remember these
days as quote the worst manic depression of my life.
My psyche just fractured into pieces. I was hallucinating twenty
four hours a day. I felt like I falling into
the bowels of the earth. His body began to give way,
(30:07):
or rather almost vanished completely. Always slender, he shrunked to
pounds through a diet of coffee, Marlborough cigarettes, finally chopped
red peppers, and cartons of milk. Coco Schwab tried desperately
to swap out two for whole milk, anything for a
little extra sustenance to balance out the pure pharmaceutical cocaine
(30:28):
in his system. It was Coco who bore the brunt
of his self abuse. Sometimes she'd find him lying on
the floor and she told one of his coke mirrors
under his nose the check if he was still breathing.
He overdosed on several occasions, once saved from death by
one quick thinking person to threw him in a bath
to lower his blood pressure. Friends like Elton John and
(30:48):
Keith Richard's, both in the throes of their own addictions.
At the time, grew seriously concerned that he was going
to die. Mick Ronson, David's one time musical soul brother
and confidante, watched helpless Lee from Afar, voicing his fear
and frustration in the press. I wish that Dave would
get himself sorted out, Ronson said, he's so very confused.
(31:09):
What he really needs is to have some good friends
around him. He needs one person who won't bow to him.
I could kick some sense into him. That's what he needs.
But that wasn't what he got. Instead, his grip on
reality became more and more tenuous as he drifted further
into the world of metaphysical mystics. He spent his days
(31:30):
and nights huddle up in a room, burning candles and
chanting spells. His music had included the odd reference to occultism,
dating back to Hunky Dory tracks like Oh You Pretty
Things in Quicksand. But now he was locked in a
battle for his very soul, which he believed was under siege.
He poured over arcane books on witchcraft and magic, both
(31:51):
the benign white and more sinister black varieties. The favorite
guide was Psychic self defense, which promised to be a
safeguard for protecting yourself against paranormal malevolence. The book's instructions
to several connections was suspected originators of psychic malice struck
a chord with the increasingly paranoid Bowie, who didn't need
much encouragement to keep former friends at arm's length. He
(32:14):
became convinced that his lawyer, Michael Lippman, was a mafioso
and another associate, a CIA agent, sent a spy on him.
He believed that Girlfriendnva Cherry was a vampire. She recalls
seeing him burn a bracelet that had been given to
him by another woman who we suspected of being a witch.
Before long, Ava retired from the sorry scene. To safeguard
(32:37):
his spirit, he began drawing protective pentagrams and other symbols
on the walls and windows of Glen Hugh's home. More
than mere security, some were gateways into different worlds and
other dimensions. The shades were kept permanently drawn because, as
David later recalled, he didn't want the l a sun
spoiling the vibe of the eternal. Now, he often seemed
(33:01):
to go into a trance becoming hyper focused on whatever
was at hand. He'd spent days working on a song,
only to realize that he had been endlessly rewriting the
first four bars. Glenn Hughes would go days without seeing David,
only to find him in the same place, wearing the
same clothes and the same intense expression, rerunning the same
silent German expressionist films or Nazi newsreels. His fascination with
(33:26):
the Third Reich had intensified since reading The Spear of Destiny.
The book explored Hitler's supposed obsession with occult powers in
his search for divine artifacts like the Holy Grail and
the lance that stabbed Jesus side. David found himself drawn
to this need to possess the mythological link to God.
He became interested in a form of astral photography called Killian,
(33:49):
designed to capture the spiritual aura in addition to the
physical body. While visiting the u c l A Department
of Parapsychology to learn more about Killian, he stopped in
to see his friend Iggy Pop, who was undergoing court
mandated psychiatric evaluation after pushing his mind and body to
the brink through drug abuse. David could have taken this
as a warning sign from the universe to take it
(34:10):
easy and clean up his act, but he didn't. Instead,
he showed up and immediately offered Iggy some coke. I
thought we should bring him some drugs because he probably
hadn't had any for days, David would remember. Clearly, David
wasn't getting the hint. Instead, he looked for patterns elsewhere,
desperate to find order and deeper meaning, or some sign
(34:32):
of preordained fate. He became convinced that the Rolling Stones
were sending secret messages to him through their album covers.
He began to study letters from friends, using small details
like the number of lines, repeated words, or even the
day it was sent to work out the date of
his own death. Journalists requesting an interview were required to
(34:52):
submit their zodiac sign an exact time of their birth.
Once Bowie consulted a tarot deck, he would be in
touch about whether or not the number is were right
for a meeting. One of the few interviews he gave
in this period was to Cameron Crow, Rolling Stones teenage
whiz kid. Many of the most unsettling Bowie myths and
(35:12):
snapshots from this erah, like the Black candles, falling phantom bodies,
and stockpiling jars of his own urine can be traced
to this profile. His uncomfortable preoccupation with Nazis is on
full display as he compares his own on stage charisma
ziggy start us to the fur. Everybody was convincing me
I was a messiah, especially on that first American tour,
(35:34):
he said, I got hopelessly lost in the fantasy. I
could have been Hitler in England. Wouldn't have been very hard.
I think I would have made a bloody good hitler.
I'd be an excellent dictator, very eccentric and quite mad.
That's summer. Bowie moved out of Glenn Hughes's path and
into the home of his new manager and lawyer, Michael Lippman.
(35:55):
If Lippmann thought he could rescue his client from the
depths of his personal abyss, he was sorely my steak,
and any suggestions threats are pleased for Bowie to lay
off the blow were met with an irate don't tell
me what to do. Before David beat a hasty retreat
to his bedroom, where he could snort in private and
chance spells to his heart's content. He was seldom seen
(36:15):
without the large gold crucifix that Littman had given him.
It came in handy for warding off the witches that
David believed were attempting to steal a seamen to make
a sacrificial child for the devil. A novel twist on
the film, Rosemary's baby Angie, who was still living at
their home in England with their son, Zoe, remembers receiving
a terrified phone call from her husband saying he'd been
(36:37):
kidnapped by a warlock and two witches. An alleged good
witch was duly summoned from New York in order to
remove the dreaded curse. The witch also succeeded in performing
an exorcism of the new house Bowie rented after he
wore out as welcome with the Littman's the Egyptian theme,
the bode was great, except for the fact that the
swimming pool was apparently haunted. He swore he'd seen bubbles
(36:59):
and whirlpools the obvious work of Satan so the which
did her thing healthfully, writing out a list of incantations
for David just in case the Lord of Darkness decided
to return and take a few cannonballs, Andie came to
join David, and they lived together as a family with
four year old Zoe. Despite sharing a roof, they mostly
(37:19):
led separate lives on separate schedules, with very separate interests.
Andrew recalls David sleeping until the afternoon and then spending
most nights entertaining. In her words, two types of guests
Rhodes delivering fat packages of the best Peruvian flake or
semi famous show biz co cores. One frequent visitor was
(37:40):
a costume designer named Ola Hudson, with whom he was
seriously involved for a time. This was far out news
to OLA's ten year old son, Saul, who once walked
in on his mom and her rockstar boyfriend naked. Saul
would achieve his own level of musical infamy by the
time he reached adulthood, when he was better known as
slash guitarists for the band Guns n Roses. He would
(38:01):
always have vivid memories of Bowie swinging by his mother's house,
often with Angie and Zoee and Toe. It was like
watching an alien land in your backyard, he would later say.
David would always have fond memories of putting the future
guitar god to bed. David also played a more active
role in his own son's life. Up until that point,
(38:22):
he'd largely been so focused on the business of being
David Bowie that he had been mostly absent in the
toddler's world, to his increasing regret. David would later admit,
I was around so unfrequently. I can't imagine when an
abyss that caused granted David's reintroduction into Zoey's life at
this particular moment brought with it a unique set of
(38:42):
hazards as David wrestled for some sense of control over
his life. My son see me through some of the
most awful, depressing times when I was really an absolute
abject agony over my emotional state, the heights of my
drinking and drug doing. He's seen a lot. What ultimately
saved David from himself was the production of The Man
(39:03):
Who Fell to Earth, which finally began shooting that June.
Ironically pretending to be an alien brought him back down
to the concrete reality of being a human on Earth.
He arrived on set so thin that the film's customers
dressed him in little boy's clothes, but the change of
pay seemed to suit him. He was only too eager
to trade the Hollywood high life for the more rugged
(39:25):
world of the ranch. The cowboys and their uncomplicated meat
and potatoes lifestyle had a stabilizing effect on them. They're fascinating,
David would say. They can look at a leaf and
tell you what kind of tree it's from and where
it grows. It's a different breed. When he wasn't required
on set, he explored the countryside, hunting the clear desert
(39:46):
skies for UFOs were descending into the bat infested Carl's
Bad caverns. He found New Mexico to be so clean
and pure. This is the way I like the rest
of America to be, he'd say. Filming was perhaps the
highlight of Bowie's pretty dismal n The shoot provided some
semblance of structure to his previously open ended existence. He
(40:09):
shunned cocaine in favor of no dos tablets, crushed up
and snorted old habits. After all, even without the aid
of Class A stimulants, he remained unusually productive creatively. In
between takes, he could often be found in his trailer
painting or reading one of the four hundred books that
he cartered with him for the eleven weeks shoot. He
(40:30):
also wrote prolifically, including pages for a proposed autobiography, provisionally
titled The Return of the Thin White Duke. The fragments
that have surface reveal a series of self mythologizing vignettes,
providing a portrait of his own fragmented mind rather than
a linear personal history. He also claimed to have written
nine film scripts, with words accompanied by elaborate storyboard sketches.
(40:54):
He told all who would listen that he wanted to
chuck his rock star life for a career as a filmmaker.
I've always been a screenwriter, he said at the time.
My songs have just been practiced for scripts to bowie.
The isolated themes of The Man Who Fell to Earth
cut scarily close to the bone. My one snapshot memory
of that film is not having to act. He later
(41:16):
admitted he remained Thomas Jerome Newton long after the filming
wrapped at the end of the summer. He left the
set still wearing his wardrobe for the movie, which would
become his permanent attire more or less over the next
few months. He also kept the striking center parted red
hair do Newton's air of loneliness and paranoia stuck with
him too. He settled back into l A and back
(41:38):
into his bad habits, and prepared to make a record
that would be the definitive document of his descent into hell.
When David Bowie completed filming for The Man Who Fell
to Earth in September of he returned from New Mexico
to l A, moving into the rented home him in
(42:00):
bel Air that Coco Schwab had found for him. For weeks,
it would service his creative laboratory as he composed music
intended for the film's soundtrack. Inspired by German electro pioneers
craft work, David's new music began to experiment with the
computerized sounds of a arp odyssey since and Japanese drum machines,
(42:20):
primitive by today's standards, but effective and highly evocative for
the instrumentals. It seemed to suit the disembodied and disengaged
mood of Bowie's character in the movie, and added an unsettling,
coldly clinical edge to the atonal pieces, which has showed
traditional song structure almost completely. It was unlike anything he'd
(42:41):
ever written for any of his David Bowie guys, but
ultimately his efforts weren't used for The Man Who Fell
to Earth. The precise reasons why I have been disputed.
Some reports claimed that Bowie demanded more money than the
producers could afford. Others say Bowie felt snubbed upon learning
that he was just one of several artists being considered
to write music for the film, and he pulled out
(43:01):
in a huff, But most likely director Nick Rogue simply
felt that Bowie's offerings were inappropriate, too unconventional for the
already pretty unconventional film. Instead, Rogue went with John Phillips
of The Mamas and the Papas, who assembled a folk
tinge soundtrack. Bowie was hurt by the whole debacle, but
he wasn't gonna let his daring new pieces go to waste.
(43:24):
The experience had reinvigorated his passion for songwriting, and he
prepared to enter the studio to begin work on his
first new album since completing Young Americans nine months earlier.
He assembled a new band with guitarist Carlos Alamar as
his trusty musical director, as well as a core crew
of Dennis Davis on drums George Murray on bass Roy
Bitten on piano and Earl Slick on guitar. Unable to
(43:48):
secure his friend and longtime collaborator Tony Visconti at such
short notice, David tapped Harry Maslin to co produce the
ad hoc sessions. The result would be the album Station,
the station they decided to record in l A, opting
to work at Hollywood's Cherokee Studios. The brand new facility
boasted a state of the art twenty four track tape machine,
(44:10):
which offered Bowie imprecedented freedom to experiment on record. In
addition to the top of the line equipment, Cherokee also
offered something equally important, a loose, laid back environment. At
a time when most recording studios still clung to a sterile,
almost hospital like vibe, Cherokee was homing, with burning incense
and Christmas lights constantly lit in the chill out lounge.
(44:32):
David liked it so much that he more or less
moved in. He worked for days at a stretch. At
one point he even installed a bed in the studio.
The room had no windows or clocks, and the concept
of time began. The melt away. Engineers and studio staff
would go home to sleep, only to return the next
day to find David and his players unmoved from the
(44:53):
night before, still working. Once after one marathon six hour session,
David was some four until they had to clear out
of the studio to make room for another band had
booked a session. Rather than break, it was now nine am,
after all, he simply steered his band across town to
another studio, where they carried on work until midnight. It's
(45:14):
worth noting that after the relative abstinence of the Man
Who Fell to Earth shoot, David was back on cocaine
in a big way. According to co producer Harry Maslin,
he had a habit of laying out piles of white
powder at various places in the studio, on the mixing console,
on the piano, and the vocal booth. That way, he
never had to go far to get another bump. Between
(45:36):
the blow and the lack of sleep, it's not surprising
that David claimed to remember almost nothing about the recording
of Station The Station. In later years, he'd say that
the only reason he knew was recorded in Los Angeles
was because that was what he'd read. David had only
one memory of the session, screaming the sound of guitar
feedback that he wanted for the opening of the title track.
(45:57):
Beyond that solitary glimpse, it was all blur. It was
some of the most unusual, though undeniably creative sessions that
he'd ever undertaken. In the four years since recording Ziggy Stardust,
his working methods had completely altered. Gone were the days
of arriving in the studio with the selection of pre written,
fully rehearsed compositions. Instead, the songs were born from rough
(46:20):
sketches that took shape in the studio. Now that he
built up sufficient star power and was rid of Tony
to freeze, he wasn't required to squeeze in recordings between
stretches of tour dates. Now he could take his time.
David could be more deliberate, considerate, and experimental. He could
follow the wise words he was famous for dolling out
(46:40):
to friends in this period. Do the contrary action, do
something you're not used to, He'd tell them. Let's not
make it comfortable, Let's make it uncomfortable. David was making
things uncomfortable for himself and his sleep deprived band, but
the results were astounding. As author Paul Trunko would observe.
This was not an exercise and songwriting, It was sculpture
(47:03):
carved out of sound. In the midst of his bold
sonic exploration, David became acquainted with the overlord of the
Old Guard, the chairman of the board himself, Frank Sinatra.
Old Blue Eyes, dropped in at Cherokee Studios in October
nine to record staff and other studio clients. Were prepped
as if it were a state visit. Bowie was briefed
(47:26):
to be on his best behavior, not to speak unless
spoken to, and only refer to Frank as Mr. Sinatra,
but there was no need for such fussiness. Hoboken's favorite
son was a delight personable and funny, telling old jokes
and road stories to the assorted staff and crew. He
supposedly had no idea who David was, but they quickly
hit it off, even getting dinner together at one of
(47:48):
Sinatra's favorite Italian hole in the walls. Bowie played him
a new song he'd recorded, a cover of the old
Johnny Mathis Chestnut wind is the Wild. His skillful sincere
take on the standards did Sinatra to a t. His
enthusiasm for the tracks cemented Bowie's decision to include the
offbeat choice on station to station. The first song David
(48:09):
completed for his new project was inspired in part by
another show business icon, Elvis Presley. It evolved early in
the sessions when David banged out a two chord vamp
on the piano. After he and the band fooled around
with it for a time, they realized that it sounded
a little too much like the early sixties R and
B track on Broadway by the Drifters, So Carlos Alamar
(48:32):
and Earl Slick worked their magic, weaving a funky, early
Philly soul styled drift that transformed the piece completely. David
went to the bathroom with a pad of paper and
emerged minutes later with the lyrics to Golden Years. He
reportedly first offered the song to Elvis himself, who was
getting near the end of his sad decade long personal
(48:52):
and professional slide, but the King rejected the song, so
Bowie gave it a go himself. He nailed the duop
flavored vocals and just one tape slipping in and Elvis
like voice quiver just for fun. Both Angie Bowie and
David's former girlfriend David Cherry have come Forward, saying that
they were the angel of David's irrepressively optimistic love song,
(49:14):
interesting considering the fact that both relationships were either dead
or dying when David recorded the song. Though the new
album was far from done, David's label r C A
was eager for a follow up to his chart topping
latest single, Fame. They rushed released Golden Years That Ball,
which crashed into the top ten almost immediately. Bowie promoted
(49:35):
the song with an appearance on Soul Train that November,
becoming just the second white act to ever perform on
the hit TV show Elton John's first Bowie's nerves got
the better of him and he hit the ball a
little too hard beforehand, leading the several flubbed takes. Host
Don Cornelius took Bowie aside and had a fatherly word,
(49:55):
reminding him how many other singers would give anything for
the opportunity that he was currently blowing. When sessions for
Station the Station wrapped in the last weeks of David
had completed just six songs, but it was the most
adventurous music he'd made to date. The centerpiece was the
title track, a ten minute epic that broke just about
(50:17):
every rule of conventional pop songcraft. The first minute consists
solely of the sound of a passing steam train panning
across the speaker, before the howl of Earl Slick's guitar
feedback emerges from the haze, the perfect welcome to the
sinister soundscape to come. The introduction is every childhood nightmare
rolled into one. From the moment you hear Roy Bitten's
(50:39):
ominous two note figure on a honky tonk piano, it's
pretty clear this place is definitely haunted. The howling guitar
shrieks pierced through like a maniacal laugh of an evil
clown and a dilapidated fun house. George Murray's tight bass
groove and Dennis Davis's drums barge in like the plotting
footsteps of a demented zombie. It's offset by delicately Gray's
(51:01):
guitar strings like individual hairs being raised on the back
of one's neck. A fair ground or We're gonna peers
out up nowhere and suddenly you're on a flaming carousel
from hades, round and round and round. It goes locked
and seemingly endless repetition. You want off, but there's no exit.
Just when you think you've adjusted to this new and
terrible reality, a pair of jarring, rapid fire time changes
(51:25):
knock you off your feet. Sonically, it's all very interesting.
The lockstep rhythm is indicative of David's growing interest in
the motoric industrial sounds of German bands like Craftwork and Noi,
blended with tricks glean from Philly soul and Detroit funk.
So you aren't having these thoughts when you're listening to it.
(51:46):
All you know is this music is coming to get you.
It's more than three minutes, the length of most songs
before David's voice can be heard. He's no longer Ziggy Stardust,
or David the Soul Man, or even Thomas Jerome Newton. Instead,
he's unveiling his latest persona, The Thin White Duke, a
(52:08):
monstrous physical embodiment of paranoia and megalomania wrapped in the
icy exterior that falls somewhere between a nineteen thirties European
cabaret star and a nineteen fifties rat packer. Dapper yet deadly,
the character has been alternately described as a mad aristocrat
and amoral zombie, or an emotionless aryan superman. He was,
(52:32):
Embowie's own words, a nasty character. Indeed, fans would get
to know him better soon enough. The precise meaning of
Station the Station is puzzled listeners for decades. Many have
commented on the songs quasi religious overtones, picking apart the
mishmash of references to Kabbala, occultism, and other esoteric philosophies
(52:54):
and faiths. David himself would say that the title Station
the Station refers not to the train sound effects, but
the Christian stations of the Cross. However, the travel metaphor
does seem to be an apt one, as David continued
on his wayward spiritual search. Contrary to the lyrics, this
does appear to be a side effect of the cocaine.
(53:15):
Freud's magical substance had sent David on an express train
to Hell. On some level, perhaps that was the intent.
During the same period, Bowie outlined his interest in quote
watching artists crack open a bit and seeing what they're
really like inside. Presumably for this reason. He'd admired people
like Iggy Pop, Lou Reid, Brian Wilson and Pink Floyd's
(53:38):
Sid Barrett, and even the ziggy inspiration, Vince Taylor, men
touched with fire, who had suffered for their music. Most
of David's work had to this point come from imagination
rather than a private torment. But during those long nights
in l A and the Fall, David Bowie knowingly or
(53:58):
unknowingly gamld his soul the probe for new artistic territory.
Within just a few years, he looked back on much
of what he said during the Station the Station era
as quote, the incredibly insane mutterings of a very hurt,
broken mentality. He cast his mind back to his half
brother Terry, locked away in an institution for his schizophrenic visions.
(54:21):
Now David was tortured by a similar horde of faces.
They were with him on stage, in the studio, and
in his home. I was definitely a fractured person, David
would say, confounding myself with images and characters that I found.
I was living with a combination of that in a
year and a half of fairly hard drugs. I was
(54:41):
being threatened by my own characters, feeling them coming in
on me and grinning at me, saying we're going to
take you over completely. I thought, this is it. Terry
I'm just about to join you. Off the Record is
a production of I Heart Radio. The executive producers are
(55:02):
Noel Brown and shan Ty Tone. The supervising producers are
Taylor chicogn and Tristan McNeil. The show is written and
hosted by me Jordan run Tug and edited, scored, and
sound designed by Tristan McNeil. 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,
(55:24):
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Off the record is a production of I Heart Radio.
What was that? Was that? A falling body? David Bowie
was sure he'd seen a body fall from the sky,
sailing downwards past the picture window of his Hollywood home.
He went to look, and it was gone, vanished. But
it seems so real. So did the phantom voices that
(00:21):
called to him from the intercom at the front gate.
So too did the spirit that haunted a swimming pool,
which manifested as a swirling vortex of bubbles. He was
in touch with a practitioner of white magic, a so
called good witch, to exercise the demons. This good which
could probably handle a pool, but she was gonna need
some serious backup if she was going to exercise the
(00:42):
demons that plagued David's soul. He pulled the blind shut,
desperate to block out the bright sun and the dark
forces that lurked outside. Now his world was a dimly
lit living room, made all the more tomb like by
the unsettling Egyptian decor. Often the only light emanated from
the film projector running loops of Nazi newsreels with alarming frequency.
(01:05):
For extra spiritual protection, David drew pentagrams on the wall
and lip black candles, tricks he'd gleaned from his growing
library on the occult, He'd collected volumes of religious and
mystic texts, including works on Tero, Kabbala, numerology, and Egyptology.
His spirit was under assault, and this would help keep
(01:25):
the enemies at day. Another enemy was sleep, which he
ward it off with mounds of white powder. A few
sniffs kept him awake, productive, vigilant, and safe. It was
the spring of or maybe summer. Who's to tell really.
(01:46):
For David, time passed and a breakneck blur as he
stayed up for three or four days at a stretch.
He was in town to make his feature film debut,
or production delays left into his own devices. Often these
devices were stable. The mix of sleep, deprivation and drugs
drove him to a state that bordered on psychosis. He
(02:06):
would remember a few specifics of this period in later years,
just disturbing emotional impressions. Over the course of his day's
long bouts of consciousness, his world would transform into, in
his words, a bizarre nihilistic fantasy of oncoming doom, mythological characters,
and imminent totalitarianism. The line between dream and reality was
(02:28):
becoming impossible to define. Each hour he remained awake, a
new enemy seemed to come for him. There were witches
who were after his seamen, intent on using it to
create a baby to sacrifice to Satan. Bowie kept a
close watch on his bodily fluids, even storing bottles of
his urine in the fridge. The CIA was interfering with
(02:48):
his writings. The Manson family had proud these hills just
a few years earlier, and their energy was still palpable.
The perceived threats came even from his fellow musicians. Ever
since a n s the altercation with Jimmy Page, David
was sure that the led Zeppelin guitarists was conspiring with
his coterie of black magic women to wish him ill
the Rolling Stones. Meanwhile, we're taunting him with messages hidden
(03:11):
in their albums Nazis Manson Satan. David felt surrounded by
forces of evil, but to his friends, the real enemy
was cocaine. Sigmund Freud had called it his magical substance.
It pushed David further into the realms of magical thinking,
which is looking awful lot like madness, and his reputation
(03:31):
was taking a hit. One Music magazine described him in
print as old vacuum cleaner nos but it wasn't a
laughing matter. Cocaine had overtaken food as his most crucial sustenance.
Blow milk and red peppers kept them alive, though just barely.
His skeletal frame now weighed around ninety pounds. He'd overdosed
(03:53):
on several occasions, and by his own admission, he could
have easily died. Partiers like Keith Richards and Elton John
seemed to so. It was the most destructive period of
David Bowie's life, as he pushed himself far past the
point of no return. Secluded in his mansion populated by
a parade of dealers and parasites, he was beyond help,
(04:13):
estranged from his family and old friends, and completely unmoored
from everything that had kept him grounded. After years on
the brink, he'd finally split snapped. He was a cracked
actor lost in the long l a night. Hello, and
welcome to Off the Record, the show that goes beyond
(04:35):
the songs and into the hearts and minds of rock's
greatest legends. I'm your host Jordan Runtug. This season explores
the life or rather lives of David Bowie. Today's episode
looks at Bowie's l a years a time when he
battled as deepest Demons in the City of Angels. It
was the high point of his career to date, but
it was the low point of his life and nearly
(04:57):
the end of it. Somehow, in the midst of this
personal native, he pulled himself back from the edge and
made an album that many consider a masterpiece. In January,
David Bowie completed his very first number one single, and
he had a beatle for backup. It was a twist
(05:18):
of faith that even he couldn't have predicted. A decade earlier,
David had attempted a feeble John Lennon impression on his
first ever release, Liza Jane. Now he was in the
studio with the man himself, hanging out, playing together, and
even writing together. The resulting track was called, appropriately enough, Fame.
Their burgeoning friendship had allowed the two to compare notes
(05:41):
about their extraordinary lives. David was beginning to learn the
hard truth that Lennon had arrived at years earlier. Being
a rock star ain't all it cracked up to be.
It's fitting that this meditation on the shallowness of show business.
Notoriety would ultimately take David to the top of the
American charts, but the achievement only underscored is growing dissatisfaction,
(06:02):
outlined in the song. Carlos Alamar's relentless guitar riff endlessly
swirling around the single chord evoked the monotony and claustrophobia
of celebrity. The lyrics, which David wrote on the spot
in just twenty minutes, were a snapshot of his life
at his supposed peak of success, a litany of money,
(06:23):
worries and insecurities. Fame takes you there where things are hollow,
he sang, what you need, you have to borrow. This
all led to one big question, why didn't David ever
seem to have any money? Through his friendships with Mick Jagger,
Elizabeth Taylor and John Lennon, he'd witnessed the lifestyles of
(06:43):
the obscenely wealthy. These people had a states tax, shelters,
fleets of cars, jewelry collections. David had none of that.
He just sold out a residency at Radio City Music
Hall and debuted his new single on national television. Yeah,
he had the r O petty cash from his management
offices just to buy a few records. Something didn't add up.
(07:06):
He began to grow suspicious of his manager, Tony Defrees.
The partnership had launched his career, but he became increasingly
fearful that he had nothing monetary to show for it.
He confided in John Lennon, who was still dealing with
the legal quagmire of the Beatles split more than four
years before. Managerial mishaps had played a pivotal role in
(07:26):
driving the fab for apart, and it made John wise
to the world of contracts. John advised his younger friend
to take a closer look at what he got himself into.
At the dawn of the decade, David and DeFries reunited
by the shared goal of making David the biggest rock
star on the planet, and they had more or less
succeeded together from the start. De Frieze offered him a
(07:49):
creative cocoon, taking care of all business and finance concerns.
There is management company Maine Man. When David was effectively penniless,
it was a pretty good deal. He didn't have to
worry about rent or food. To Freeze made sure everything
was covered, leaving him free to focus on his music.
In a way, it was every artist's dream. But the
(08:09):
campaign to launch David had come at a high cost,
and to freeze intended to recoup his investment. He'd operated
under the theory that to be a star, one had
to look like a star, act like a star, and
generally live like a star, a classic case of fake
it till you make it. David was fine with this.
He knew you had to spend money to make money.
(08:31):
He just didn't realize that the money being spent was
his own. The lavish expense accounts, the on call limos,
the failings of bodyguards, the elegant offices, the hotel suites
and room service, the whole big budget diamond dogs tore debacle,
every gleeful, shameless excess of the whole manman managerial stable.
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David put the bill for all of it. What he
didn't have on hand was taken as an advance against
future earnings. At the present rate, he'd have to work
the rest of his life just to break even. David
had no idea, or so he'd claim. Like most artists,
he had little interest in the fine print. Early in
his career, he let his father manage every aspect of
(09:12):
his finances, from bills to taxes and insurance. The Frieze
was just another father figure, and he trusted him blindly
for years. David just left him to it. De Freeze
once handed a stack of contracts to a secretary, saying,
take these to David. Don't worry, it won't take long.
He'll sign anything. And it was true. I had my
(09:35):
eyes on the Star Prize. David would later admit nothing
else mattered. As a result, he was blissfully ignorant of
his precarious financial situation. But by four he began the
wonder allowed where his money was going. Why did the
Freeze own multiple properties in Manhattan and a country estate
in Connecticut, while he, the alleged Star made do with
(09:57):
a single Crumby townhouse. It was rented. Just like everything
else in his life, he didn't own anything. Yes, his
reliance on cocaine had made him a little edgy, but
surely something was badly wrong. DeFreeze, for his part, didn't
appreciate the torrent of questions from his mercurial client. Besides,
(10:19):
he had his own gripes with Bowie. Some of it
could be chalked up to creative differences. David's ferret into
R and B on his new, yet to be released
album Young Americans had left the Frieze cold. Plus the
abrupt abandonment of a quarter million dollar diamond dog stage
set got under his skin. Even a big spender like
DeFreeze had a shutter at the waist of it all.
(10:41):
But the artistic disagreements were just the beginning. More than
anything else, he disapproved of David's drug use. De Frieze
barely even drank. By now Bowie was snorting lines in
the middle of main man meetings, making communication all but impossible.
De Frieze knew better than the talk to David when
his eyes had that pecure earlier glimmer. To him, David
(11:02):
was becoming increasingly unmanageable. To David, the Frieze was becoming
increasingly useless. A collision seemed imminent. It occurred in July,
as David was set to play a doubleheader at Madison
Square Garden. De Frieze had taken David's wife Angie to
task for spending too much on airfare in recent months.
(11:24):
David had his own problems with Angie these days, but
he didn't react well to this criticism of his spouse,
even if their open relationship was on the rocks. Moreover,
he was confused, while they had the penny pinch, surely
they were doing well enough to cover airline fees. Annoyed
and more than a little baffled, David Cold MainMan president
Tony zenetted to his hotel suite for an uncharacteristically blunt
(11:48):
discussion of company finances. It was the first time he'd
ever really asked what was being done in his name.
Sanetta's explanation left him shocked. From the start. David thought
he and Defrieze has split everything down the middle as
equal partners. He believed that he was a co owner
of Maine Man, the company that controlled his music, his management,
(12:10):
his life. The reality mapped out in his contracts was
heartbreaking lee different. He owned no part of Maine Man.
He was an employee of DeFreeze, entitled of the profits
after expenses, expenses like tours, offices, hotel suites, everything. In
(12:31):
an instant, David realized that the business empire he strove
the build didn't belong to him. It was a mirage.
After a few moments of denial, he gasped, did I
work this hard to have nothing. From then on it
was over between him and Defrieze. David had no interest
in changing the terms of his deal. He simply wanted out.
(12:56):
David's assistant and right hand woman, Coco Schwab, found the
a lawyer named Michael Lippman, and in January of nine
five he began proceedings to sever all ties with MainMan
and DeFreeze. Lawyers shuttle between rooms in an l A
hotel for forty eight continuous hours before a settlement was
reached to Freeze emerged the clear Victor may Man would
(13:18):
receive half of all profits on all albums David had
made under their management forever. This included classics like Hunky Dory,
Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin, Saying, and Diamond Dogs. Defriese would also
receive a sizeable percentage of David's income through throughout the
long shadowy history of music management deals, these terms were
(13:41):
unusually favorable for an ex manager. Their partnership had begun
with Bowie and Tears desperate to leave. As former manager
Ken Pitt now that was how their union ended. David
broke down at the meeting as millions of his future
earnings were surrendered. He was escorted from the room and
what some believed was a state of clinical shock. For
(14:03):
days after, anguished cries could be heard coming from the
direction of his bedroom. He tried to take a zen
approach to the whole man man a fair later, saying
I certainly wouldn't have achieved that degree of notoriety without
all that nonsense going on. I guess I'm thankful for
that period. In a way, he was free, but he
was alone. Some changes were made to preserve the trickle
(14:27):
of money he had coming through. He moved out of
the two bedroom suite at the Pierre Hotel, where he'd
run up twenty dollars worth the room service in a
single month, and into a rented brownstone in New York's
Chelsea neighborhood. David barely bothered to furnish the place, and
the spartan accommodations left visitors feeling claustrophobic and depressed. David's
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difficult financial position forced him to cancel the small allowance
that he had been paying to his mother Peggy back
home in England. The relationship wasn't exactly warm at the
best of times, and now Peg he was furious that
her boyd cut her off. She took her complaints to
the press, calling David a terrible hypocrite. David Cooley informed
her that if she ever repeated the stunt, she would
(15:11):
never see him or his money ever again. He reinstated
her allowance and even sent her a gold records and awards.
She set up a virtual shrine to David in her apartment,
but she seldom saw her son in the flesh for
much of the decade. He'd maintained his distance. After touring
NonStop for almost three years, David was rarely seen for
(15:34):
most of nineteen That March, he made one of his
only major appearances, presenting the Best Female R and B
Award at the Grammys in New York. Clad in an
elegant white tie tucks, he looked amazing, every bit the
classy show business idol, yet he was gripped by nerves. Beforehand.
(15:54):
He confided in John Lennon, a fellow presenter and a
fellow Englishman abroad, that he misunderstood in America, Yanks, David
believed just didn't get him creatively. After addressing the Grammy's
crowd with a very bowie like ladies, gentlemen and others,
He handed the trophy to winner Aretha Franklin, who blurted out, Wow,
(16:17):
this is so good. I could kiss David Bowie. She
didn't mean it as a compliment, and David was deeply
mortified by the line. He slunk off stage and into
the arms of Lenin, who tried to cheer him up
by planting a theatrical kiss on his cheek. See Dave
Lennon teased, America loves you. The incident was indicative of
(16:38):
a minor backlash that had set in, at least among
his musical peers. He learned that Fay meant not only
rubbing shoulders with fellow superstars, but ruffling the feathers of
a few, and it hurt. At one party, David met
Bob Dylan, who sniped, glam ROCKI isn't music before turning
his back on him. The rejection stung. David responded by
(17:01):
disappearing into the private quarters of his downtown brownstone and
indulging in an increasingly vampiric existence. For most of the year,
he'd retreat from the public eye and into himself. By
(17:21):
the spring of nine, David Bowie was ingesting what a
friend would refer to as enough cocaine to kill a horse.
It had long since gone for being a tool to
being a necessity required to maintain his energy. On the
Diamond Dogs tour the prior year, he refused to go
on stage without it, and there was always a roady
groupier fan willing to keep him supplied. The gold topped
(17:45):
cane he twirled during the show wasn't merely a prop,
but sometimes necessary to hold up his frail frame. One
night in Detroit, he accidentally spilled a baggy of white
powder on his hotel room floor. Saying nothing, he dropped
to the ground a big and huffing the rug. Cocaine
was simply a part of his life. He thought nothing
of openly snorting lines during dinner in front of girlfriend
(18:08):
Avia Cherry's parents. At least on the road he had
performances to burn off as chemically enhanced stenergy. But when
the tour wrapped, he simply stowed in his house, foregoing
sleep with the aid of medical grade Merrick cocaine stronger
than anything he'd encountered in England. It was easily obtainable,
and it kept me working. He would recall, I wasn't
(18:30):
really an out on the town guy. I was much more. Okay,
let's write ten different projects this week and make four
or five sculptures. After several days awake, he started to hallucinate,
spotting angels floating outside his window. The delusions came hard
and fast. Even Mick Jagger, no stranger to elicit substances,
(18:50):
grew worried as David started rambling about enemies bugging his
phone or tailing his car. He spouted fears that the
freeze was Hitler incarnate and on again off again friend
lou Reid was inhabited by the spirit of a devil,
and together they were out to destroy him. He became
convinced that led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page, an enthusiastic student of
legendary Satanist Alistair Crowley, also intended to do him harm.
(19:16):
To ward them off, David embarked on what he would
later refer to as his wayward spiritual search. He developed
an all consuming interest in taro, astrology, numerology, and the Kabbalah,
not to mention more fringe theories like black magic, prehistoric
spacemen and the Third Reich's alleged search for the Holy Grail,
and pre war Britain. All manner of psychic phenomenon was explored,
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and even the mundane took on supernatural significance. He insisted
he possessed the power of telepathy, once urging a friend
to concentrate on a five figure number. Amazingly, after a
few minutes of focus, David guessed four of the five
numbers in the sequence. Maybe he was onto something, after all.
(20:00):
David was fairly open about his idiosyncratic interests. During an
interview with American chat show host Dick Cavitt the prior December,
he confused television viewers and Cavitt himself by discussing not
his new single, but something called black Noise, a sound
powerful enough to level buildings or even destroy an entire city.
(20:20):
After several minutes of painfully stilted, semi comprehensible rambling, Cabot
finally asked his guest, do you want to be understood?
David replied, there's absolutely nothing to understand. A more worrisome
profile appeared a month later in the form of a
BBC television documentary. Young producer Alan Yentub initially planned to
(20:41):
call his film The Collector, based on Bowie's description of
himself as a collector of faces. Gestures and presences. But
when they first met up to begin filming during the
Diamond Docs tour the prior September, yent ub saw the
troubling effects of the endlessly shifting personalities, not to mention
the copious cope can use. He ultimately called the documentary
(21:02):
Cracked Actor, after the Aladdin Sane song about the perils
of fame. It was an appropriate title. The film presents
Bowie as a man perpetually in motion, driven by a potent,
toxic blend of ambition and fear, criss crossing America in
search of an identity, having jettison Ziggy for Diamond Dogs
and now this New Guys. As the soul singer of
(21:25):
young Americans, Bowie seemed haunted and lost throughout the shoot.
He was barely sleeping or eating, and looked fragile, aching, lee, sad,
and at times scarcely human. Their late night interviews were
obtuse and difficult to follow, with Bowie often speaking in
riddles and referring to himself and the third person. He
(21:45):
made repeated references to schizophrenia and claimed not to know
quote whether I was writing the characters or the characters
were writing me. The most memorable scenes and Cracked Actor
take place in the back of Bowie's limousine. There is
a nocturnal cruise through l A. The sound of a
police siren in the distance sends Bowie into a paranoid panic.
(22:07):
Is there anything behind us? He asks anxiously. Then he
sniffs a sniff all too familiar to anyone in the
entertainment scene of the seventies. There's an underlying unease here,
he tells you, trubs camera. You can feel it in
every avenue. It's very calm, and it's a kind of
superficial calmness that they've developed to underplay the fact that
(22:27):
there's a lot of high pressure here. Later, while driving
through the desert, yentabasques David how he's absorbed the American
culture that surrounds him. David responds by pointing to a
fly who had come to rest and his ever present
bottle of milk. He's a foreign body and he's getting
a lot of milk, David says of the insect. That's
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how I feel a foreign body. For all of David's success,
he still felt like the perpetual outsider. Cracked Actor was
the most thorough portrait of David to date. It also
offered David the unique experience of viewing himself from the outside,
just like his audience. Bowie later told Yenub that he
(23:08):
watched the film again and again because, in his words,
he told the truth. What he saw captivated him and
horrified him. His debilitating cocaine addiction is on full display
edging him towards a precipitous mental decline. He looked awful,
waxy and emaciated. Cracked Actor is the defining document of
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his most difficult period, and he would find it painful
to watch. But for a group of Hollywood film executives,
it was exactly what they were looking for. They were
casting for English director Nicholas rogues latest film, a sci
fi parable called The Man Who Fell to Earth. It's
an allegorical tale of an extraterrestrial soul destroyed by all
(23:51):
too human vices and frailties, power, greed, corruption, alcohol, and media.
It's Senator Out, an alien visitor who had come to
Earth to save his planet and his family, shielding his
true identity with a human alter ego known as Thomas
Jerome Newton. The endeavor initially made him rich and influential,
(24:12):
then It left him spiritually depleted and addicted as he
fell in with those who sought to cash in and
take advantage. Any of this sounding familiar, the producers searched
for their leading man had so far been fruitless. They
kicked around established names like Peter O'Toole, but it didn't
quite feel right. No, said Nick Rogue. I want someone weak, slender,
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and pale. I want them to look as if they
have no bones. By chance, a casting agent caught a
screening of Cracked actor. The shots of Bowie in the
back of the limo, clinched it, gazing out the window,
totally disconnected from the world outside, alone, isolated an alien.
Bowie was initially wary when he was first approached for
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The Man Who Fell to Earth. He had been pitched
piles of alien film gimmicky, ziggy stardus the movie type vehicles,
but this one had a little more substance. He invited
Rogue over to his apartment to discuss it further. The
director arrived at nine thirty that night. David arrived at
five thirty the next morning. After some brief apologies, David
(25:17):
said he'd do the film, then headed directly for his bed.
He admired rogues persistence. Moreover, he liked that Roguad directed
his friendly rival Mick Jagger in the nineteen seventy film Performance.
Bowie's sense of competition kicked in and he dove headlong
into the role. And what a perfect role. It was.
Estranged from reality on a daily basis, he could more
(25:40):
or less just be himself. I was definitely living in
two separate worlds at that time, he later admitted. My
state of mind was quite fractured and fragmented. It was
quite easy for me not to relate to well with
those around me. The production brought him to l A,
which remained his home base for the next year. He
(26:01):
initially crashed at the home of his friend Deep Purple Basis,
Glenn Hughes. It wasn't long until the pain and paranoia
that gripped him on the East returned. Part of it
was environmental then, as now, the city bore the psychic
weight of incalculable crushed dreams. The hard working, heartbroken were
taunted by the shameful excesses of the high flying few,
(26:22):
who partied like the last days of Rome. Too much money,
too much power, too many drugs, and they'd stabb you
on the back to keep it. One wannabe singer turned
the tables in the most terrifying way imaginable. His name
is Charles Manson. In the summer of sixty he sent
his band of young followers into the Hollywood Hills. The
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slaughter innocence a vengeful act of rage against the community
who had shunned him. Pregnant actress Sharon Tate was murdered
along with her friends inside her exclusive Bendedict Canyon home.
The following day, they struck again, carving supermarket exit couldve
Lena la Bianca and his wife Rosemary with their own
kitchen forks and knives. From then on, whis Angelenos could
(27:07):
never shake the sense that some vague, unnamed evil lurked
in the Bucolic Hills, and every beautiful flower child was
actually a brainwashed murderer. L A had always been a
two faced town, but never before had the duplicity been
so deadly or demonic. For David, the nightmare of six
years earlier struck even closer to home. The La Biancas
(27:27):
had been killed just a few doors down from the
house where he stayed. For protection, he kept a stash
of knives under his bed. All this to say, the
vibes were bad, making matters worse. The production of the
Man Who Fell the Earth was delayed, leaving Bowie with
little ado for several months. So began with David would
later describe as quote one of the worst periods of
(27:49):
my life. At loose ends, he carried on much as
he had in New York, holding up in Glen Hugh's
house and disappearing into a blizzard of cocaine. As one
friend would know, a common form of greeting around l
A in this period was for someone to simply say
hi and stick a silver spoon under your nose. Dealers,
hustlers and other hangers on quickly sussed out Bowie's address,
(28:11):
and they arrived with whole platefuls of the stuff. Despite
its reputation as a party favor, cocaine is fundamentally in
any social drug, and a cruel one at that. It
provides energy and confidence, but it also eliminates the innate
need to be liked. After a few tutes, you don't
care if you upset people. Cocaine severs any link you
(28:33):
have to another human being. David would later say, if
you really want to lose all your friends and all
your relationships that you ever held. Dear, that's the drug
to do it with. He would describe himself in this
era as numb and an ice man. Rather than go out,
everything was brought in food, drugs, art supplies. David busied
himself with new songs and other creative pursuits like paintings, sketches,
(28:57):
and sculptures. He'd work obsessively on the clock for literally
days on end. I hate sleep, he said at the time.
I much prefer staying up just working all the time.
It makes me so mad that we can't do anything
about sleep or the common cold. The neurological effects of
extreme sleep deprivation is almost indistinguishable from psychosis. After a
(29:18):
few days awake, auditory and visual hallucinations become commonplace. So
are paranoid delusions that others are plotting against you, and
narcissistic notions that you're the cause of worldly and supernatural events.
It's no exaggeration to say that David bo always spent
much of nine in a state of self induced insanity.
It had always been his greatest fear. He'd watch it
(29:41):
happened to his beloved half brother, Terry, A vibrant life
destroyed by mental illness. Now it had come for David,
just like he knew it would. He would remember these
days as quote the worst manic depression of my life.
My psyche just fractured into pieces. I was hallucinating twenty
four hours a day. I felt like I falling into
the bowels of the earth. His body began to give way,
(30:07):
or rather almost vanished completely. Always slender, he shrunked to
pounds through a diet of coffee, Marlborough cigarettes, finally chopped
red peppers, and cartons of milk. Coco Schwab tried desperately
to swap out two for whole milk, anything for a
little extra sustenance to balance out the pure pharmaceutical cocaine
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in his system. It was Coco who bore the brunt
of his self abuse. Sometimes she'd find him lying on
the floor and she told one of his coke mirrors
under his nose the check if he was still breathing.
He overdosed on several occasions, once saved from death by
one quick thinking person to threw him in a bath
to lower his blood pressure. Friends like Elton John and
(30:48):
Keith Richard's, both in the throes of their own addictions.
At the time, grew seriously concerned that he was going
to die. Mick Ronson, David's one time musical soul brother
and confidante, watched helpless Lee from Afar, voicing his fear
and frustration in the press. I wish that Dave would
get himself sorted out, Ronson said, he's so very confused.
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What he really needs is to have some good friends
around him. He needs one person who won't bow to him.
I could kick some sense into him. That's what he needs.
But that wasn't what he got. Instead, his grip on
reality became more and more tenuous as he drifted further
into the world of metaphysical mystics. He spent his days
(31:30):
and nights huddle up in a room, burning candles and
chanting spells. His music had included the odd reference to occultism,
dating back to Hunky Dory tracks like Oh You Pretty
Things in Quicksand. But now he was locked in a
battle for his very soul, which he believed was under siege.
He poured over arcane books on witchcraft and magic, both
(31:51):
the benign white and more sinister black varieties. The favorite
guide was Psychic self defense, which promised to be a
safeguard for protecting yourself against paranormal malevolence. The book's instructions
to several connections was suspected originators of psychic malice struck
a chord with the increasingly paranoid Bowie, who didn't need
much encouragement to keep former friends at arm's length. He
(32:14):
became convinced that his lawyer, Michael Lippman, was a mafioso
and another associate, a CIA agent, sent a spy on him.
He believed that Girlfriendnva Cherry was a vampire. She recalls
seeing him burn a bracelet that had been given to
him by another woman who we suspected of being a witch.
Before long, Ava retired from the sorry scene. To safeguard
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his spirit, he began drawing protective pentagrams and other symbols
on the walls and windows of Glen Hugh's home. More
than mere security, some were gateways into different worlds and
other dimensions. The shades were kept permanently drawn because, as
David later recalled, he didn't want the l a sun
spoiling the vibe of the eternal. Now, he often seemed
(33:01):
to go into a trance becoming hyper focused on whatever
was at hand. He'd spent days working on a song,
only to realize that he had been endlessly rewriting the
first four bars. Glenn Hughes would go days without seeing David,
only to find him in the same place, wearing the
same clothes and the same intense expression, rerunning the same
silent German expressionist films or Nazi newsreels. His fascination with
(33:26):
the Third Reich had intensified since reading The Spear of Destiny.
The book explored Hitler's supposed obsession with occult powers in
his search for divine artifacts like the Holy Grail and
the lance that stabbed Jesus side. David found himself drawn
to this need to possess the mythological link to God.
He became interested in a form of astral photography called Killian,
(33:49):
designed to capture the spiritual aura in addition to the
physical body. While visiting the u c l A Department
of Parapsychology to learn more about Killian, he stopped in
to see his friend Iggy Pop, who was undergoing court
mandated psychiatric evaluation after pushing his mind and body to
the brink through drug abuse. David could have taken this
as a warning sign from the universe to take it
(34:10):
easy and clean up his act, but he didn't. Instead,
he showed up and immediately offered Iggy some coke. I
thought we should bring him some drugs because he probably
hadn't had any for days, David would remember. Clearly, David
wasn't getting the hint. Instead, he looked for patterns elsewhere,
desperate to find order and deeper meaning, or some sign
(34:32):
of preordained fate. He became convinced that the Rolling Stones
were sending secret messages to him through their album covers.
He began to study letters from friends, using small details
like the number of lines, repeated words, or even the
day it was sent to work out the date of
his own death. Journalists requesting an interview were required to
(34:52):
submit their zodiac sign an exact time of their birth.
Once Bowie consulted a tarot deck, he would be in
touch about whether or not the number is were right
for a meeting. One of the few interviews he gave
in this period was to Cameron Crow, Rolling Stones teenage
whiz kid. Many of the most unsettling Bowie myths and
(35:12):
snapshots from this erah, like the Black candles, falling phantom bodies,
and stockpiling jars of his own urine can be traced
to this profile. His uncomfortable preoccupation with Nazis is on
full display as he compares his own on stage charisma
ziggy start us to the fur. Everybody was convincing me
I was a messiah, especially on that first American tour,
(35:34):
he said, I got hopelessly lost in the fantasy. I
could have been Hitler in England. Wouldn't have been very hard.
I think I would have made a bloody good hitler.
I'd be an excellent dictator, very eccentric and quite mad.
That's summer. Bowie moved out of Glenn Hughes's path and
into the home of his new manager and lawyer, Michael Lippman.
(35:55):
If Lippmann thought he could rescue his client from the
depths of his personal abyss, he was sorely my steak,
and any suggestions threats are pleased for Bowie to lay
off the blow were met with an irate don't tell
me what to do. Before David beat a hasty retreat
to his bedroom, where he could snort in private and
chance spells to his heart's content. He was seldom seen
(36:15):
without the large gold crucifix that Littman had given him.
It came in handy for warding off the witches that
David believed were attempting to steal a seamen to make
a sacrificial child for the devil. A novel twist on
the film, Rosemary's baby Angie, who was still living at
their home in England with their son, Zoe, remembers receiving
a terrified phone call from her husband saying he'd been
(36:37):
kidnapped by a warlock and two witches. An alleged good
witch was duly summoned from New York in order to
remove the dreaded curse. The witch also succeeded in performing
an exorcism of the new house Bowie rented after he
wore out as welcome with the Littman's the Egyptian theme,
the bode was great, except for the fact that the
swimming pool was apparently haunted. He swore he'd seen bubbles
(36:59):
and whirlpools the obvious work of Satan so the which
did her thing healthfully, writing out a list of incantations
for David just in case the Lord of Darkness decided
to return and take a few cannonballs, Andie came to
join David, and they lived together as a family with
four year old Zoe. Despite sharing a roof, they mostly
(37:19):
led separate lives on separate schedules, with very separate interests.
Andrew recalls David sleeping until the afternoon and then spending
most nights entertaining. In her words, two types of guests
Rhodes delivering fat packages of the best Peruvian flake or
semi famous show biz co cores. One frequent visitor was
(37:40):
a costume designer named Ola Hudson, with whom he was
seriously involved for a time. This was far out news
to OLA's ten year old son, Saul, who once walked
in on his mom and her rockstar boyfriend naked. Saul
would achieve his own level of musical infamy by the
time he reached adulthood, when he was better known as
slash guitarists for the band Guns n Roses. He would
(38:01):
always have vivid memories of Bowie swinging by his mother's house,
often with Angie and Zoee and Toe. It was like
watching an alien land in your backyard, he would later say.
David would always have fond memories of putting the future
guitar god to bed. David also played a more active
role in his own son's life. Up until that point,
(38:22):
he'd largely been so focused on the business of being
David Bowie that he had been mostly absent in the
toddler's world, to his increasing regret. David would later admit,
I was around so unfrequently. I can't imagine when an
abyss that caused granted David's reintroduction into Zoey's life at
this particular moment brought with it a unique set of
(38:42):
hazards as David wrestled for some sense of control over
his life. My son see me through some of the
most awful, depressing times when I was really an absolute
abject agony over my emotional state, the heights of my
drinking and drug doing. He's seen a lot. What ultimately
saved David from himself was the production of The Man
(39:03):
Who Fell to Earth, which finally began shooting that June.
Ironically pretending to be an alien brought him back down
to the concrete reality of being a human on Earth.
He arrived on set so thin that the film's customers
dressed him in little boy's clothes, but the change of
pay seemed to suit him. He was only too eager
to trade the Hollywood high life for the more rugged
(39:25):
world of the ranch. The cowboys and their uncomplicated meat
and potatoes lifestyle had a stabilizing effect on them. They're fascinating,
David would say. They can look at a leaf and
tell you what kind of tree it's from and where
it grows. It's a different breed. When he wasn't required
on set, he explored the countryside, hunting the clear desert
(39:46):
skies for UFOs were descending into the bat infested Carl's
Bad caverns. He found New Mexico to be so clean
and pure. This is the way I like the rest
of America to be, he'd say. Filming was perhaps the
highlight of Bowie's pretty dismal n The shoot provided some
semblance of structure to his previously open ended existence. He
(40:09):
shunned cocaine in favor of no dos tablets, crushed up
and snorted old habits. After all, even without the aid
of Class A stimulants, he remained unusually productive creatively. In
between takes, he could often be found in his trailer
painting or reading one of the four hundred books that
he cartered with him for the eleven weeks shoot. He
(40:30):
also wrote prolifically, including pages for a proposed autobiography, provisionally
titled The Return of the Thin White Duke. The fragments
that have surface reveal a series of self mythologizing vignettes,
providing a portrait of his own fragmented mind rather than
a linear personal history. He also claimed to have written
nine film scripts, with words accompanied by elaborate storyboard sketches.
(40:54):
He told all who would listen that he wanted to
chuck his rock star life for a career as a filmmaker.
I've always been a screenwriter, he said at the time.
My songs have just been practiced for scripts to bowie.
The isolated themes of The Man Who Fell to Earth
cut scarily close to the bone. My one snapshot memory
of that film is not having to act. He later
(41:16):
admitted he remained Thomas Jerome Newton long after the filming
wrapped at the end of the summer. He left the
set still wearing his wardrobe for the movie, which would
become his permanent attire more or less over the next
few months. He also kept the striking center parted red
hair do Newton's air of loneliness and paranoia stuck with
him too. He settled back into l A and back
(41:38):
into his bad habits, and prepared to make a record
that would be the definitive document of his descent into hell.
When David Bowie completed filming for The Man Who Fell
to Earth in September of he returned from New Mexico
to l A, moving into the rented home him in
(42:00):
bel Air that Coco Schwab had found for him. For weeks,
it would service his creative laboratory as he composed music
intended for the film's soundtrack. Inspired by German electro pioneers
craft work, David's new music began to experiment with the
computerized sounds of a arp odyssey since and Japanese drum machines,
(42:20):
primitive by today's standards, but effective and highly evocative for
the instrumentals. It seemed to suit the disembodied and disengaged
mood of Bowie's character in the movie, and added an unsettling,
coldly clinical edge to the atonal pieces, which has showed
traditional song structure almost completely. It was unlike anything he'd
(42:41):
ever written for any of his David Bowie guys, but
ultimately his efforts weren't used for The Man Who Fell
to Earth. The precise reasons why I have been disputed.
Some reports claimed that Bowie demanded more money than the
producers could afford. Others say Bowie felt snubbed upon learning
that he was just one of several artists being considered
to write music for the film, and he pulled out
(43:01):
in a huff, But most likely director Nick Rogue simply
felt that Bowie's offerings were inappropriate, too unconventional for the
already pretty unconventional film. Instead, Rogue went with John Phillips
of The Mamas and the Papas, who assembled a folk
tinge soundtrack. Bowie was hurt by the whole debacle, but
he wasn't gonna let his daring new pieces go to waste.
(43:24):
The experience had reinvigorated his passion for songwriting, and he
prepared to enter the studio to begin work on his
first new album since completing Young Americans nine months earlier.
He assembled a new band with guitarist Carlos Alamar as
his trusty musical director, as well as a core crew
of Dennis Davis on drums George Murray on bass Roy
Bitten on piano and Earl Slick on guitar. Unable to
(43:48):
secure his friend and longtime collaborator Tony Visconti at such
short notice, David tapped Harry Maslin to co produce the
ad hoc sessions. The result would be the album Station,
the station they decided to record in l A, opting
to work at Hollywood's Cherokee Studios. The brand new facility
boasted a state of the art twenty four track tape machine,
(44:10):
which offered Bowie imprecedented freedom to experiment on record. In
addition to the top of the line equipment, Cherokee also
offered something equally important, a loose, laid back environment. At
a time when most recording studios still clung to a sterile,
almost hospital like vibe, Cherokee was homing, with burning incense
and Christmas lights constantly lit in the chill out lounge.
(44:32):
David liked it so much that he more or less
moved in. He worked for days at a stretch. At
one point he even installed a bed in the studio.
The room had no windows or clocks, and the concept
of time began. The melt away. Engineers and studio staff
would go home to sleep, only to return the next
day to find David and his players unmoved from the
(44:53):
night before, still working. Once after one marathon six hour session,
David was some four until they had to clear out
of the studio to make room for another band had
booked a session. Rather than break, it was now nine am,
after all, he simply steered his band across town to
another studio, where they carried on work until midnight. It's
(45:14):
worth noting that after the relative abstinence of the Man
Who Fell to Earth shoot, David was back on cocaine
in a big way. According to co producer Harry Maslin,
he had a habit of laying out piles of white
powder at various places in the studio, on the mixing console,
on the piano, and the vocal booth. That way, he
never had to go far to get another bump. Between
(45:36):
the blow and the lack of sleep, it's not surprising
that David claimed to remember almost nothing about the recording
of Station The Station. In later years, he'd say that
the only reason he knew was recorded in Los Angeles
was because that was what he'd read. David had only
one memory of the session, screaming the sound of guitar
feedback that he wanted for the opening of the title track.
(45:57):
Beyond that solitary glimpse, it was all blur. It was
some of the most unusual, though undeniably creative sessions that
he'd ever undertaken. In the four years since recording Ziggy Stardust,
his working methods had completely altered. Gone were the days
of arriving in the studio with the selection of pre written,
fully rehearsed compositions. Instead, the songs were born from rough
(46:20):
sketches that took shape in the studio. Now that he
built up sufficient star power and was rid of Tony
to freeze, he wasn't required to squeeze in recordings between
stretches of tour dates. Now he could take his time.
David could be more deliberate, considerate, and experimental. He could
follow the wise words he was famous for dolling out
(46:40):
to friends in this period. Do the contrary action, do
something you're not used to, He'd tell them. Let's not
make it comfortable, Let's make it uncomfortable. David was making
things uncomfortable for himself and his sleep deprived band, but
the results were astounding. As author Paul Trunko would observe.
This was not an exercise and songwriting, It was sculpture
(47:03):
carved out of sound. In the midst of his bold
sonic exploration, David became acquainted with the overlord of the
Old Guard, the chairman of the board himself, Frank Sinatra.
Old Blue Eyes, dropped in at Cherokee Studios in October
nine to record staff and other studio clients. Were prepped
as if it were a state visit. Bowie was briefed
(47:26):
to be on his best behavior, not to speak unless
spoken to, and only refer to Frank as Mr. Sinatra,
but there was no need for such fussiness. Hoboken's favorite
son was a delight personable and funny, telling old jokes
and road stories to the assorted staff and crew. He
supposedly had no idea who David was, but they quickly
hit it off, even getting dinner together at one of
(47:48):
Sinatra's favorite Italian hole in the walls. Bowie played him
a new song he'd recorded, a cover of the old
Johnny Mathis Chestnut wind is the Wild. His skillful sincere
take on the standards did Sinatra to a t. His
enthusiasm for the tracks cemented Bowie's decision to include the
offbeat choice on station to station. The first song David
(48:09):
completed for his new project was inspired in part by
another show business icon, Elvis Presley. It evolved early in
the sessions when David banged out a two chord vamp
on the piano. After he and the band fooled around
with it for a time, they realized that it sounded
a little too much like the early sixties R and
B track on Broadway by the Drifters, So Carlos Alamar
(48:32):
and Earl Slick worked their magic, weaving a funky, early
Philly soul styled drift that transformed the piece completely. David
went to the bathroom with a pad of paper and
emerged minutes later with the lyrics to Golden Years. He
reportedly first offered the song to Elvis himself, who was
getting near the end of his sad decade long personal
(48:52):
and professional slide, but the King rejected the song, so
Bowie gave it a go himself. He nailed the duop
flavored vocals and just one tape slipping in and Elvis
like voice quiver just for fun. Both Angie Bowie and
David's former girlfriend David Cherry have come Forward, saying that
they were the angel of David's irrepressively optimistic love song,
(49:14):
interesting considering the fact that both relationships were either dead
or dying when David recorded the song. Though the new
album was far from done, David's label r C A
was eager for a follow up to his chart topping
latest single, Fame. They rushed released Golden Years That Ball,
which crashed into the top ten almost immediately. Bowie promoted
(49:35):
the song with an appearance on Soul Train that November,
becoming just the second white act to ever perform on
the hit TV show Elton John's first Bowie's nerves got
the better of him and he hit the ball a
little too hard beforehand, leading the several flubbed takes. Host
Don Cornelius took Bowie aside and had a fatherly word,
(49:55):
reminding him how many other singers would give anything for
the opportunity that he was currently blowing. When sessions for
Station the Station wrapped in the last weeks of David
had completed just six songs, but it was the most
adventurous music he'd made to date. The centerpiece was the
title track, a ten minute epic that broke just about
(50:17):
every rule of conventional pop songcraft. The first minute consists
solely of the sound of a passing steam train panning
across the speaker, before the howl of Earl Slick's guitar
feedback emerges from the haze, the perfect welcome to the
sinister soundscape to come. The introduction is every childhood nightmare
rolled into one. From the moment you hear Roy Bitten's
(50:39):
ominous two note figure on a honky tonk piano, it's
pretty clear this place is definitely haunted. The howling guitar
shrieks pierced through like a maniacal laugh of an evil
clown and a dilapidated fun house. George Murray's tight bass
groove and Dennis Davis's drums barge in like the plotting
footsteps of a demented zombie. It's offset by delicately Gray's
(51:01):
guitar strings like individual hairs being raised on the back
of one's neck. A fair ground or We're gonna peers
out up nowhere and suddenly you're on a flaming carousel
from hades, round and round and round. It goes locked
and seemingly endless repetition. You want off, but there's no exit.
Just when you think you've adjusted to this new and
terrible reality, a pair of jarring, rapid fire time changes
(51:25):
knock you off your feet. Sonically, it's all very interesting.
The lockstep rhythm is indicative of David's growing interest in
the motoric industrial sounds of German bands like Craftwork and Noi,
blended with tricks glean from Philly soul and Detroit funk.
So you aren't having these thoughts when you're listening to it.
(51:46):
All you know is this music is coming to get you.
It's more than three minutes, the length of most songs
before David's voice can be heard. He's no longer Ziggy Stardust,
or David the Soul Man, or even Thomas Jerome Newton. Instead,
he's unveiling his latest persona, The Thin White Duke, a
(52:08):
monstrous physical embodiment of paranoia and megalomania wrapped in the
icy exterior that falls somewhere between a nineteen thirties European
cabaret star and a nineteen fifties rat packer. Dapper yet deadly,
the character has been alternately described as a mad aristocrat
and amoral zombie, or an emotionless aryan superman. He was,
(52:32):
Embowie's own words, a nasty character. Indeed, fans would get
to know him better soon enough. The precise meaning of
Station the Station is puzzled listeners for decades. Many have
commented on the songs quasi religious overtones, picking apart the
mishmash of references to Kabbala, occultism, and other esoteric philosophies
(52:54):
and faiths. David himself would say that the title Station
the Station refers not to the train sound effects, but
the Christian stations of the Cross. However, the travel metaphor
does seem to be an apt one, as David continued
on his wayward spiritual search. Contrary to the lyrics, this
does appear to be a side effect of the cocaine.
(53:15):
Freud's magical substance had sent David on an express train
to Hell. On some level, perhaps that was the intent.
During the same period, Bowie outlined his interest in quote
watching artists crack open a bit and seeing what they're
really like inside. Presumably for this reason. He'd admired people
like Iggy Pop, Lou Reid, Brian Wilson and Pink Floyd's
(53:38):
Sid Barrett, and even the ziggy inspiration, Vince Taylor, men
touched with fire, who had suffered for their music. Most
of David's work had to this point come from imagination
rather than a private torment. But during those long nights
in l A and the Fall, David Bowie knowingly or
(53:58):
unknowingly gamld his soul the probe for new artistic territory.
Within just a few years, he looked back on much
of what he said during the Station the Station era
as quote, the incredibly insane mutterings of a very hurt,
broken mentality. He cast his mind back to his half
brother Terry, locked away in an institution for his schizophrenic visions.
(54:21):
Now David was tortured by a similar horde of faces.
They were with him on stage, in the studio, and
in his home. I was definitely a fractured person, David
would say, confounding myself with images and characters that I found.
I was living with a combination of that in a
year and a half of fairly hard drugs. I was
(54:41):
being threatened by my own characters, feeling them coming in
on me and grinning at me, saying we're going to
take you over completely. I thought, this is it. Terry
I'm just about to join you. Off the Record is
a production of I Heart Radio. The executive producers are
(55:02):
Noel Brown and shan Ty Tone. The supervising producers are
Taylor chicogn and Tristan McNeil. The show is written and
hosted by me Jordan run Tug and edited, scored, and
sound designed by Tristan McNeil. 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,
(55:24):
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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