Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Off the Record is a production of I Heart Radio.
Hello and welcome to another bonus episode of Off the Record.
I'm your host, Jordan Runtuck. Thanks so much for listening.
Our latest chapter covered David Bowie's creative renaissance in the
nineties and early two thousands. It was a fascinating period
for David as he turned his back on the mainstream
(00:21):
commercial success he had earned with this nineteen three smash
Let's Dance, an album that made him a mainstay on
corporate music television. By veering away from the middle of
the road, he freed himself of the expectations and demands
of mass appeal and got back to doing what he wanted.
The records that he made in this period are often overlooked,
but rank among the most experimental of his career. He
(00:44):
rejoined formative seventies collaborators like Brian Eno and Tony Visconti.
Together they'd create some of the most daring music David
ever made. But one crucial collaborator during this period was
new to Bowie's circle. Her name is Gail Ann Dorsey
and she's one of my all time bass playing idols.
If you've ever heard her duet with Bowie on under Pressure,
(01:05):
then you'll know exactly why. Born and raised in Philadelphia,
Gail studied film at cal Arts before returning to her
first love of music. She moved to London in the
early eighties, where she pursued her dream. Over the years,
she's worked with everyone from Lenny Kravitz, Gang of Four
and Olivia Newton, John two Boy, George, Tears for Fears,
and the Indigo Girls, not to mention her own incredible
(01:27):
solo work. Definitely check out her debut LP called The
Corporate World. Her partnership with Bowie began with a call
out of the Blue something of a theme with David,
it was, and he was looking for a basis to
join the tour to promote one outside. David had seen
Gail performing on British television seven years earlier, and he'd
(01:49):
never forgotten her. He just had a feeling, and that
feeling was right on the money. She accompanied him on
every tour for the rest of his life and played
on the album's Earthling Reality and most thrillingly, his secret
comeback record. The next day, my conversation with Gail was
a joy. I hope you enjoyed as much as I did.
(02:17):
I just taking it all the way back to the beginning.
Was there a moment when you knew music was what
you wanted to do with your life or did it
happen slowly? I knew it from the very beginning. I
just I just innately knew it. I don't know why
or how, but I knew that was when I heard music.
It just made perfect sense to me. Basically from the
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earliest of ages I was singing or wanting an instrument.
Now I knew it, and I just knew that I
couldn't really conceive of doing anything else in the world
like the older I got, even through like you know,
my teenage years, or even before that. I just felt
when I you know, when I'm a grown up, I
have to play music like all the people I listened
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to see on TV and go to the concerts and
like that. That's that's where I belong. And I don't
know how I'm going to make it, but I have
to because there's no I just knew there was no alternative,
I really did. You grew up in Philadelphia in the
early seventies, and it's hard to think of a better
place for a music lever to be at that place,
at that time. Absolutely absolutely. I I'm very very I'm
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very proud Philadelphia and and I really have a great
memory of the city of my time growing up in
that city. I couldn't. I just think it was such
a rich musical environment at that time. When I think
back on it now and just go, Wow, what an
oasis that you know, just the way it was kind
of permeating. And I mean music still is a integral
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part of culture in our life. We can't survive it.
It's like it's like water and air. We need it
to live, we really do. Um. But that was just
the time when music was just still growing and it
was just it was more kind of organic and in
the sense that it wasn't so technologically driven. We were
talking about technology earlier, and I think that there was
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something to be said for lack of finding ways to
do things. So music was so innovative at that time,
I think. So it was a great, great education and
great exciting time for music. And you were the youngest
in your family. Did your older siblings turn you on
the stuff from a little before your time? I know
you mentioned cream and Grand Funk Railroad, who else did
(04:30):
they really get you into? Yeah, Well, that's where. Yeah,
that's they, that's where it started. I mean they they
were the ones that had the record player before I
got there, you know, and they had they were bringing
records into the house. And everybody's playing music in the neighborhood.
But in our house, it was all the hand me
down albums for my sister and brothers. And my one
(04:50):
of my older brothers, uh was was a real he
you know, dabbled in music. He played conga's, he played
the upright bassed for a minute, he dabbled will get
to He loved music, so he he and he had
a tape recorder with the little wheels on it, like
the mission impossible that the tiny little cassette reels when
the microphone that plugs in and you know, a little
(05:11):
plastic microphone, and he would let me sing in it.
And that was like this once that happened, that was
really another's like a big episphany. It was like, oh,
for sure, I've got to do this. I heard my
voice come back on the machine. I was like, oh
my god, this is it. This is what I have
to do this um But they brought a lot of
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different music that that was the beauty at that time,
the music was very different UM's son. You know, they
were listening to things from bands like Cold Blood, which
were kind of these kind of white bands that were
kind of so full, like like like blood, sweat and tears,
you know, those type of bands, rare Earth, that kind
of stuff. And then there was Earth from the Fire,
of course, and then their early days they were kind
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of jazzy. They weren't so pop, so there was all
these different, you know, elements, and then you know, I
would always say, I don't know when my brother's something
must have fallen off the back of a truck, Peter.
They'd come home with some weird album, That's how we
used to put it. I was like, where did you
get that? You know, said the first drumsticks I got?
My brother came hosted here here's the music. So there
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was like these drumsticks and I ended up beating on
everything was but I was like, where did they come from?
Off the back of the truck? But this is the saying,
But I remember my first Partridge Family was one of
those albums from off the back of a truck, which
actually the TV show was on, which I was loved watching.
But when I put on that first Partridge Traumiling album.
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It was like, Wow, the Wrecking Crew, all that that music.
That was the music I really, really really loved because
it was on the radio. My mother listened to a
m radio all the time. It's always on in the kitchen.
And they had all that music. Partridge Family, Carpenters, Um,
you know, Carol King, like all the sort of early
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singer songwriters. So music was handed down to me and
I just absorbed it all, including you know Clean. There
was a Clean My brothers listened to the Depline and
listened to you know, Jenny Hendrix. It was across the board.
It wasn't sort of polarized into this now there's a
lot of mixture stuff. What kind of impact did the
band Heart have on you? Huge? Because I was at
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that by the time they came out in seventy five
issuely Magic Man seventy five six, I had my first
electric guitar and I had started a little band with
a couple of boys that lived across the street based
in John So we were like a grand funk trio.
And I don't know why. I don't know where the
grand Funk albums came from, but they were one of
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my favorite that in fact, that was the guitar, Mark
Farner's guitar. He was one of my first guitar heroes.
I was like, that guy could play guitar and nobody's business.
It was so soulful and funky and just and it
just was. I listened to those so I was kind
of trying to imitate that. I never got never come close,
but on guitar anyway. But um, you know, I had
(08:03):
I had a band with these guys and then but
you know that there weren't many role models for me,
you know, certainly not in the black community anyway, black artists.
What you know, there was Taste of Honey came out
with Boogie Ugie. You know, it was two black women
with a bass and the guitar. But it wasn't really
what what I was hoping to do in the future.
So all of a sudden Heart comes out and I
(08:24):
see Nancy Wilson. She's playing a Christie but she was
also playing electrics sometimes and they were rocking out like
like Zeppelin, but to me in better I just I
don't know, I like led Zeppelin, but they're kind of
more of a macho boy band to me. And Heart
and heart was a good sort of in between. They weren't.
(08:45):
They were no pussies put it and even put it that,
you know, but they weren't like you know, they had
they had a female touch and it was so soul
fun and Wilson to this day, to me it's the
greatest female rocks and ever. But I've ever heard and
put it that way. Um, So they had a huge impact.
They're like my second favorite band of all time. I
(09:05):
wore their records out all the way through the eighties
and still listen to them and got to meet them
and just just love them. So that was a big
because it just made me feel like I could do
it when I saw Nancy Wilson up there, like kick
it out, you know all those great stuff, little queen. Yeah,
I can do that. Women are allowed to do this.
(09:26):
You know you mentioned playing guitar. How did you make
the jump to basse just to get work? I think
if you talk to a lot of bass players, they
say the same thing that they stumbled onto the base
because people needed somebody to play the bass because it
wasn't really cool. It wasn't well, it wasn't as cool
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as it is now in terms of an instrument that people.
You know, everybody played the guitar and it was about
being a guitar guide or maybe a drummer. But bass
was always this thing that people used to say when
I remember when I was young, they were like, well,
you can't I don't even know what the base is doing.
I can't hear it. You know. It's like, really, you
(10:07):
know what I mean. It's like they perceived that it
was this thing in the background that just kind of
was there, like mumbling away while everything else was upfront.
Because usually in a band, unless unless it was spin
Lozzy or or Um with the motor head or or
staying when he came along Um, which was a little
later on in the game, but in the early days,
(10:27):
it was like the bass was kind of in the background.
Now and at this point in my life as being
known as a bass player, in all the years I've
played the bass, it is the most important. It is
really the most important instrument I think in an ensemble
what the base represents, whether it's coming from the guitar
or the left hand or the keyboard or sins or whatever,
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or to whatever's assuming that role is in charge. It's
in charge of like harmonically and emotionally, and just the
direction of where a piece of music goes. It really changed.
Once the base comes in. You might think you don't
hear it, but you certainly feel, you feel, and you
know when it's not there, I feel like that's like, well,
(11:12):
that's exactly exactly. The whole earth changes. It's like a shift.
It's like pretty fall, and then when it comes back,
it's grounded and it's taking you in whatever the next
direction is, whether it's playing the root note or some
kind of substitution. If it and it, you know, if
it screws up on something, you know immediately you know
(11:34):
when you start making those mistakes on stage, you are
like it was most that's that's like you know, getting
an electric jolt, like oh oh dear warning, so you
you know and you start it's like your biggest feet.
For me still, it really is always my biggest series
because I'm still not always like it. You know, I'm
(11:56):
no Nathan East or whatever who can really just ran
and we play a song from top to bottom and
never not gonna hit a wrong though. You know, I'm
gonna have to figure it out first, so I usually
take some time. Let's It's something very simple. What was
what was your first base that you that you ever
had or you ever played? You remember it was an epiphone,
(12:17):
which I no longer have, but I have pictures of it,
and I can't I don't even know. I should actually
send it to someone an epiphone if they could tell
me what that model is. I've never ever seen it again,
but I recently when my mother passed away about ten
years ago. Now, UM an old friend's interestingly enough, who
(12:37):
had something to do with me becoming a bass player.
She was the best friend of my sister. My sister
was seven years older than me when I went from
my So I'm going to go to the story, you're quick.
But when I went from my first bass audition to
get a job in a top forty band, which which
was to find work, which is why I decided, I
borrowed a bass, And it was from her boyfriend that
(12:59):
I borrowed a base to go to this audition. And
then I said to my mother, if I get the job,
I was fifteen, I think fourteen and fifteen, So if
I get the job, when you buy me a base?
And she said yeah, sure, She didn't think I got
the job. So I got the job in the summer,
like in between school with a guy who was old,
who's eighteen and nineteen at the time, who became a
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lifelong friend. Funny enough, and uh, and I used her
boyfriend's rick and backer, and then and then after her
my mother. Yeah, and then my my mother had to
buy me a base, and she brought me that eple
phone basse. And then my friend who uh, whose boyfriend's
bass I borrowed when she came to my mother's shoe
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these many years later, she brought me a little stack
of photographs she took of me with that epi phone
base because I didn't know they existed. I don't remember.
I posed like I was a rock star on the car.
I think that you can see that on Facebook. You know,
my little asslow and my little quarterboy pants, you know,
seventies and I'm standing in the middle of the street
like I'm somebody, you know with my bass or leaning
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on a grand arena or something or yeah, I was
posing with my my epiphone days and so it was
so funny how that's how she was the one that
had that and it came around. But that many years later,
she said, I think you're gonna want these pictures? Oh
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they all faded and everything. Yeah, so that my first
base was an epiphone, and I when I went away
to college to do screenwriting and make movies, I just
gave it to something. I don't even know where it went,
you know, when you're young. So okay, now I'm doing this.
But not that I wanted to give up music, But
I definitely had a strong interest in film. I still
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I still love film. I don't have a lot of
time to spend on it anymore, but i'd like to.
I'd like to get watch more films. But with all
the streaming and everything now, it's it's too overwhelming. You know,
I missed the days with okay, waiting for the next film,
go to the theater, pace yourself. What brought back? What
(15:12):
brought you back to music after going to CalArts to
study screenwriting? What what made you to return after sort
of it seems like you were on such a path
in Philadelphia and these bands and things. What what sort
of brought you back after going off to the school. Well, well,
I mean, you know, I think I um, it was
(15:35):
the industry of film that I discovered just through school.
I mean obviously it never worked in the movies or anything, um,
but it was the experience of the men in film
school at that time. It completely I was like, I'm
not going to survive in this business because I don't.
I can't put up with that. I can't put up
(15:57):
with being disrespected or ignore been mistreated in that way.
And it was nothing sexual, but it was not. I
was the only female in my freshman class in nineteen eighty.
This is n eight. Um. Now it would be all
a different story, I'm sure, as women all into the place,
which it should have been. But at that time it
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wasn't that. That didn't dawn on me because I'm just
this my first time away from home. On seventeen or eighteen,
never been on a plane. I go from Philadelphia to
Van Eys Airport and you know, a little bust picks
me up and takes me to Calis. I'm in college
all of a sudden. And then I go to my
class and a lot of the guys because Calais was
not a traditional university, but you could still get a bachelor's,
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you know, a degree. It didn't do math and science
and all that, had like these critical studies, and then
it was art five days a week. It's just all
about whatever school you were in. So you know, the
basic production classes which you start with in the film
live action is just sort of one one semester of
like this thing where you learned like the basics of
the film filming itself. So you do each job boom
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up rate, or you learn how to load the six
team liver their camera. You have your little editing suite,
like you learn the basics of everything lighting and magra
found just so you have to work amongst yourselves and
and and a lot of the guys. Also, it wasn't
structured that the people were just coming out of high school.
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They were some of the guys in the class had
worked already on the TV station in in Puerto Rico,
or somebody was from from Germany, or and they already
had they were twenty or twenty five, you know, they weren't.
It wasn't so it was a mixture of people in
the class. And I think there was only one other
black guy. I would call and um, they were they
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just I would I didn't know they were Like I
didn't exist, Like no one would want to work with me.
They wouldn't want were supposed to be on each other's
film shoots. No one would hire me. I was just ignored,
it was. And then I saw what they were doing,
and like they were making They were going down to
Hollywood and stuff and trying to make little movies, and
you know, they were really ambitious. And when I saw
(18:10):
the level of what they would do to get something
done and what they would do to someone or some
of what they would it's like they would sell their
grandmother to the you know, it's like I thought, you
know what, I was like, this is not the industry
for If this is I didn't imagine it to be
this way, you know, And as a kid dreaming in
West Philly, and I was like, if it's gonna be
(18:31):
like this, I have not got time for this. And
I dropped out. I remember going to the Dean and tears.
So they won't hire me. They won't. And then something happened,
which was so funny, is that at the very end
of the year when people there, some guy would shoot.
One of the guys were shooting a film down in Hollywood,
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like not in the school grounds, but he had some
friends and they were going to shoot some kind of
crime scene or something and somebody flattened in Hollywood, and
he knocked on my editing door, one of the directors,
one of the snotty guys, you know, and he said,
and he said, um, you know, um, I'm I'm shooting
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the stone down in the city in the weekend, and
with the person who was going to do continuity basically
script girl. You know that kind of job. Um has
has but bailed on me and I, you know, I
guess you're free. You know, they knew I was free,
of course, you know. Everybody else was working on everybody
else's things, and I was trying to find somebody who
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would work with me. So I was hanging out with
the theater students and playing music in the cafe. Anyway,
so I took the job. I said, yeah, I'll come
and do it. And I happen to have four moons
and four houses in Virgo. I'm a Scorpio, but I'm
so anal. I'm very precise. I can't help it. I'm
really little O c D. So I go down and
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I get my I know what the job is because
I've studied it, and I'm like, okay, this is what
you do. And you make a log from the from
the film to the nag that the sound person you
got a little the clappes, you gotta take the Polaros.
I had my camera take pictures of the actors, make
sure the cigarettes in the right hand, and you know
all that ship. So I do it, and I write
all my notes down. I know how to do the charts.
(20:18):
I had the forms and everything, give it to the
director at the end of the shoot, and then they
go off and they edit and they use my notes
so they know. They like take seven, but they like
Take three. Yar that one, and they're like, et cetera.
A week later, I'm flooded with people who want me
to be continuity on this ship. The director knock something
(20:40):
I do because I used to hang out in my
editing room down in the sub level, we called it.
They we all had those rooms with the Steinbeck wy
you know, and the little film that I did make.
You know, I would just sort of roll it around
and around or just sit down there and smoke some
weed or something. I don't know what I was doing anyway,
so they know thy not on the door instead, though, um,
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you know, this is the best film notes, editing notes
I've ever had. It's the easiest time for me to
edit my filf. This is amazing, it's so it's so precise.
So then I was suddenly good girl, you know for everybody,
which was funny. They all liked me then, and then
it's too late, because I was like, I'm out of here.
(21:24):
Not the industry for me, not that level anyway, I
don't I'm sure I would love to have a great
idea and great write a good script that gets made
one of these days. But that was another thing, was
like screenwriting. I enjoyed writing when I was a kid,
and I still like to write a bit. And I
just felt like I need for me as a person
and as an artist, I need more feedback. And I
(21:46):
found film to be a lonely thing in a sense
that um, you were especially especially screenwriting, because you write
this piece that you're working for a year or however
long or maybe shorter or longer, and then it takes
it was for someone to make it. It's possible that
it will take years, many years before it's made and
it gets resized and it's like this, and then then
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it gets made and then they want to change it,
and like so there's all this, I thought, I need
more I can't wait that long to get some kind
of affirmation of something from someone experiencing my work. You
know what I mean. When you give the script away,
it's as somebody else's vision too when you see it
up on the screen too, so that that's got to
feel I can't feel good. Well, that's what I meant.
(22:30):
I mean. And I would love to have directed. I
would like to be the double barrel, you know, the
writer director kind of thing. But you know, it was
I just thought I just need that that the way
that what I felt of the industry that I could
experience through my experience with film school at cards at
that time. I'm sure it's really different now, In fact,
I know it is. It was just not I just
(22:53):
didn't want to work in it. I just couldn't exist
in that way. And then of course it would be
a matter of time before that that sort of it's
you know, attitude towards me turns into other things, the
sexual thing and all that. It's like I just couldn't
deal with it. And it's been and so music I
was like, I'm gonna go back and play music. And
then and there was at least with music, you stand
(23:14):
on the stage and you play, and you you get
immediate you know, feedback and respond from from what you're
giving and that and once that happens, I mean, that's
the magic for me of life. Those are the moments
I am most comfortable being in my skin as a
human being on this Planet's when I can walk on
the stage big or small, you know, ten people, ten
(23:36):
million people or whatever, you know, however many and just
have that connection. It's like, um, it's like my meditation.
It's the only time my brain is empty of empty
of all the things that are destroying me at other times,
you know. So it's it's been so in that respect.
This year has been really difficult. The past year has
(23:58):
been super hard, not just for me, but a lot
of my peers and I'm sure the people who want
to experience what we what we can offer, what we
have to offer that, I mean, it's all what we give.
I feel, like music and artists in general, it is
just we're we're giving the thing that's that's missing the
most in the world, and that's love. You know. What
we give is this sort of what I would describe
(24:21):
as a large love, you know, like not love being
in love, but just like positivity, you know, and and
we need to get that back very soon. We need
to get that exchange going pumped out into the world again,
very very soon. But we're in big danger, you know,
(24:42):
and not and not through a screen, and not through
a screen. We can't live like this through these screens.
We can't. That's going to destroy us as well, I
believe eventually. So we've got to get out there and
connect with the people again with music and dance and
things that bring the at level of good vibration up
in people's spirits. Oh my gosh, I know, it's just
(25:06):
so fascinating me to think that. You know, when we
see remnants of early human civilizations, from times when we're
still just struggling to to eat and survive, you see
traces of musical instruments. So clearly this is a base
human need from you know, and we don't know why.
I love that. I just love that, the mystery of music,
(25:26):
like we don't know where it came from her. I know,
I was saying that that was watched a little bit
of the friend label with so are you feeling say
that the writers But that's that's some Netflix or Hulu
were one of those to I don't know which one.
At the moment, she's doing a thing with Scorsese where
she's just kind of ranting about New York City, which
she does so brilliantly. I love her. But she says
(25:50):
that she said a thing about music on one of
the episodes, and I was just sobbing because she really
hid it. She's like, there's no other art form that
can touch a person and change them instantly in a
matter of seconds, from one that can take you and
transport you, and you don't know why. And she was
and it's true, and I was just thought, oh my god,
(26:11):
it is. It really is a special, magical thing. And
I personally feel so incredibly like that's what's so weird,
just like knowing as a kid that I was I
needed to be a vessel for that. I don't know why,
but you know, and I still feel like I'm just like,
that's what. That is what I'm here to do. I
don't have anything else, really, I mean, I have things
(26:33):
to offer, but you know what I mean, that's the
best I can offer. But it that way that is
the best of me, is to keep allowing the gift
I've been given to channel that energy into the earth
and two people into the world as best I can.
You know, I love that line from the frame we
(26:54):
were with the documentary. It's it's, it's it's such a
unique art form for that reason. I mean, I I
learned music as a kid because I loved it, and
I wanted to see if maybe if I learned how
to make those sounds myself, I would understand why it
made me feel that way. And it never, it never
happened to me. It's just I still don't understand why
I could. I put my hand here and it's an
F major seventh chord and it makes me feel warm
(27:17):
or something, and I just still don't. It's vibrational. It's vibrational.
It's the best thing. And vibration is everything. It really is.
It's vibration is everywhere. It's it's it's important, very important.
We can't see it, but it's it's. It's it's a
huge force. It's very present. Yeah, I did. I mean,
(27:57):
just thinking about the convert urgents of different kinds of
art forms. Did did studying film with with the narrative
and the visual elements and the costuming and everything that entails,
including music. Perhaps prepare you in some ways for for
going on tour with with David Bowie, because obviously that
was such a huge um element for him. Yeah. Yeah,
(28:20):
we talked about that a lot because he knew that
I had gone to film school and at one point,
I know he used to call me, I'm the little
documentary and you know, I shot a lot of film,
a lot of video stuff, but he would just allow
me to kind of film a bunch of stuff sometimes.
And there's one thing that he Um we were on
Rosie o'donald um uh for the Earth Thing album. I
(28:43):
think you can find it somewhere, maybe on YouTube. I
don't know where. I've seen it once or twice um
where she she always asked him to sing China Girl
to him to her and he would never do And
they were good friends. He was really good friends at
Rosie o'donald him and on both and Uh. He wanted
me to film a high eight because at the time
(29:06):
it was like high eight tape video tape. He wanted
me to film him singing China Girl in the chair
on her talking to Rosie on the guitar. He was
going to surprise her and then take the tape out
of the machine and give it to her as a gift,
and I do it. I'm on the screen. He and
she's like wondering where I've come from, and I'm all
(29:26):
of a sudden, I'm up on the understand, you know,
filming him. And then he starts singing China Girl, and
then then he's he's just give me the tape, and
I give him the tape and me because it's a Rosie.
But the whole film thing was, Yeah, we talked like
he knew I liked films, so it was a nice
subject that we had to talk about sometimes. And he um,
(29:46):
he always you know, encouraged me to make movies and
take pictures and he thought that was very cool. He
liked anybody who was kind of into loads of things
like that, especially I'm not an avid read. You, I'm
not as big a reader as he is. He's a
huge reader, but you know, like leaves school Brels for example,
was on his level and with that kind of thing,
(30:07):
and they would go on and on about books all
day and have all these great references. So I mean, yeah,
I think I think some school did help in someone
certainly see that like being around the seat, you'ter school
helped me a lot um, which was another um facet
of CalArts. They have five different schools of art, so
they're all kind of intertwined. But I hung around with
(30:30):
a lot of actors and just the whole kind of
stage presence thing has helped me a little bit with
getting it getting irritated. But I feel like with David,
he he really was another university. I mean, he was
another level of me of like a mentor for for
many aspects, for my visual aspects, like you know, what
(30:52):
to wear, how to be on stage, just you know,
and not even by saying much, but just by he
knew I was watching, you know what I mean. He
was kind of demonstrating without words in some ways, and
he would guide me in more of a physical sense,
not you know, like just or not in physical and
(31:13):
kind of kind of cosmic kind of you know. He
would be like like watch this, kind of like this
is what this is where we're gonna go, you know,
because check this out. And I was just absorbing it
all like a sponge. It was really, you know, he
was kind of very much another level of of of
learning to be a professional and or whatever that means.
I guess in that sense, you know, being be a
(31:36):
good a performer. It's hard to think of a less
inhibited artist. I mean that must have been incredible to
to see and and for you to grow as well,
to have that example in front of you. Oh my god,
I I don't you know that was and it was
came out of left field, it wasn't you know. I
was a Bowie fan. I would love to have been
in one of his bands. But I used to think,
(31:58):
because I think I said to my fan Louise Goffin,
I was like, man, I would love to play for
David Bowie or somebody like that, because to me, there's
like I was saying this to another journalist the other
day about David and and someone like um, what's his name,
Frank Zappa or those kind of people like when you're
(32:20):
in one of those bands, like you're like the ship
Like that's like like and you know, like it's one
of those bands that you you come out of this someone'
was like, oh he played for or she played for
so and so that's like to reach that. I used
to think I would never reach that, you know, I thought, Okay,
I can play with other people, I'm never going to
(32:40):
reach that level where I'm like Steve or something. You know.
It's like so that was like to be invited to
that out of nowhere. It was like, oh my god,
what's happened. I had no idea what was happening. Um
I really I was just like, I can't believe this
is happening. So I, you know, I dropped everything I
(33:02):
was doing and went for it. And it was the
best decision I've ever made, I guess into certainly in
terms of my career so far. And it really was
out of the blue. It was just it was a
phone call, a phone call out of the boo. He
said he saw me on a television show in the
late eighties. He can call me till But knowing him,
(33:24):
I know why he won't forget his photographic memory, even
with all those drugs and alcohol. He can remember absolutely everything.
I can't remember last week. That's crazy. It's like, you know,
and he could remember every little detail. So if something
spoked him, it's something he liked, he won't He's not
going to forget it or something he thinks he can
(33:46):
use later on. Because that's what I was. He said,
I saw you on a TV show. Uh. He was
in London, slipping channels and I came on Thank God
Wow stopped on a music program and I was on
a music pre program. With my first album on a
major label. I was on Warner Brothers on w e
(34:06):
A in the UK and Fire in the US UM
and I did the Corporate World and I was doing
all the TV shows in London for the to promote
the album, and I was on He said, you you
spoke to the post and then you went and you
played a song with ther band or on my own.
I don't know. It's a lot of times it was
just me and my guitarist and then I'd go and
(34:28):
he said, I just thought that woman is really interesting.
When I'm doing the right project, I would love to
work with her. That was what he said. He thought
to himself in nineteen. It had to have been eighty nine,
no later than ninety, because I was already like left
and going to Ireland and taking a year off, and
(34:49):
so it would have been then. And then he calls
me for the outside tour. Why he would have thought
that was the right time, I have no idea, but
not only was the right time. I managed to work
there until until two thousand thirteen or whatever, until the
next day. I stayed, I've remained the base fire. How amazing.
(35:15):
How did David in the flesh compared to the the
image you must have had of him in your head beforehand? Um,
that's an interesting question. Well much more, Um, I guess
a lot of people might say this about well maybe
(35:36):
I don't know what they said about it. Artists, to
be honest in that way, much more normal, you know,
I imagine, would be a bit more freaky. But also
I think I feel like I got him at a
particular age where he wasn't going to be like a
total freak, Like he wouldn't a you know, like like
you imagine he was when he's the thin, white duke
and ziggy, you know, with all the skinny and the
(35:57):
pale face and the hair and the lipstick or whatever,
you don't. I knew he wasn't gonna be like that
every day, whereas I have to say, I wouldn't know
that about Prince. I don't never work for Prince, but
I imagine he might look like he looks every day.
I don't know, you know, But David was like just
a normal guy. Really, he was a normal British guy.
(36:17):
Attractive man, but especially when I first started working with him.
He was um. He had a lot of energy. He
always did have energy, didn't didn't wane until the very
didn't wayne ever, but he was more. He was um.
I think I marveled at his um uh maybe not
(36:38):
his physical energy I'm speaking of, but he I marveled
at his his ability to be just thinking of new
ideas like everything, Like all the time he was on
his his whole brain was on autopilot all the time,
just with all these great ideas. Everything he saw, he
saw it. He saw a million possibilities in it. You
(37:00):
see it in his eyes. You know. He would look
at one thing and you'd know that five thousand things
that flashed through his mind what he could do with
that thing, you know, And then he turned his head
over that way and you could just see it. He
had this uncanny That was something that was amazing about
him in the flash. But I couldn't have know. You
couldn't know from watching on a maybe a little bit,
(37:22):
but you know, seeing him on the Chat show or something,
or on stage. I was lucky enough to speak to
to one of his producers, Ken Scott, who worked with
him on Ziggy Start Us on the Laddin saying, and
he mentioned how Bowie was just so incredibly gifted at
putting groups together and getting this sort of creative alchemy
where he could choose just the right people. That's it.
(37:45):
That was his greatest gift. And it's an under it,
like people don't even realize how important that gift is.
That is his greatest gift. That's what makes it even
more amazing to be chosen as one of the colors
on his palate. Mm hm. You know, it's like because
it's he is, he knows exactly how to put the
(38:05):
right nature together and that has been his gifts from
day one. Because it's not if you you know, he's
not he's the most amazing frontman in the world, but
he's not. Um. You know, it's not like he's a
musical virtuoso or you know, he's an incredible songwriter. That's
that's what iut question. Um. But it's like as a
(38:25):
as a sort of instrumentalist or whatever, that's you know,
he's to me, it's it's the voice, which you can't
you know, deny. To me, he's one of the greatest
things I've ever heard. Um. Right up there was like
Sinatra somebody but an incredible singing. Uh. But um, you know,
he put together the right things around him to always
(38:48):
elevate his idea of what he wanted to put some
five for himself. And that is really difficult. People. You
can't imagine how difficult that that can be. Um, you
know for a lot of artists, and you've you've toured
with with Lenny Kravitz, and I know he was very
particular about your bass sound, saying, okay, I want a
(39:10):
vintage p bass to give it that that funk attitude
was David. That's specific about what he wanted musically or
did he he leave did he leave you to it
to do what you do best? Not at all. I
never be even mentioned. He never ever said a single
word And I don't know fifteen years or whatever how
many years about what instrument I was playing or not playing. Never,
(39:34):
not once, as long as you, as long as you,
as long as you played what he wanted to do,
as long as he was enjoying singing. And it wasn't
even like he was listening, you know, unlike Lenny would
be or some other arts, not just many would be
listening to what you're playing, Like what everybody's playing to
go oh no, no that but John d does not right. Well,
(39:55):
you don't play that a little bit too hard? Or
or can you um, you know, can you know do
a fill there? Or can you do a fill there?
Or you know like that like some people are listening
to all of those elements, you know, all the guitars.
You know too strummy, you should do it more with
the pick. So he he would come in and listen
and sing. And if you didn't feel good, like you
(40:17):
could tell if you were doing as an ensemble, if
you were doing the right thing, because you would see
him smiling and enjoying himself singing. And if he and
if he wasn't enjoying smiling and enjoying himself singing, you
knew you you weren't quite doing the right thing. And
he wouldn't tell you what the right thing was. You
would just find it. But after a while you know
(40:40):
exactly what he's going to enjoy. You just learn. You
learn it, and because you know what you would like
you you you you you discover, like he chooses all
these different people and amongst each other, you discover the
beauty that you you discover your own beauty that you
make with these people as a band, not just with
(41:03):
him singing, but just what what you do musically, So
you're learning that as well, like you're learning how to
fit into this configuration that he's made. And and then
when you start seeing how beautiful it is or what blossoms,
and you don't even and again you don't know why
even I've never played with earl stick or I might
have never played with during or I never you know,
(41:25):
heard of you know so and so over. I walk
in and I'm and I'm like, wow, this sounds incredible.
How is that possible? And easily too, not so difficultly,
like everybody seems to know, and what it is is
that everybody is just doing what they do. So then
it goes back to his choice, like no one's trying
(41:47):
to do anything except do the best thing they can
do because they're in David Bowie's freaking bands. So you're
doing whatever you can do. You're doing at the height
of yours like you are, like what on hyper drive
to do the best you can do at what you
do because you don't because he's not telling you what
he wants Jane saying, he's not telling you, He's telling
you what song to play, and he might say, I
(42:09):
don't want to do it like we used to do it.
I don't want to do it like the record, like
maybe change the beat or something. And he will let
you figure out what you might how you might interpret it.
Especially on the first tour when he wasn't doing the hits,
he wanted to do things that would do. And if
he did the hits, like Man who Saw the World,
he want to do a drum and bass version. Won't
you better figure it out? And he wants you know,
(42:35):
um not not all the time. Sometimes in the beginning. Yeah,
in the beginning, I was terrified. In the beginning, I
was terrified. But then I learned to trust that he
trusted me. He believed in me more than I believed
in myself. I don't know how other the other musicians felt,
but I know that he did, and he really pushed
me sometimes and and then he then I surprised myself.
(42:57):
I will be forever indebted to him of that. I
am so grateful to him for that. This is the
greatest thing, the greatest gift you could give to another
musician or an artist. You know, he always said, you know,
like you've seen it and introduced maybe like stay out
of you. When you're out of your comfort zone, you're
in the right spot the moment, the moment you're comfortable,
(43:18):
you're you know you, Vince will not even be bothering
And and he was a living proof of that. He
always stretched himself like each time it was some news,
like he was going out on a limb. And he
loved it. He loved the vibe. It was like a
roller coaster for him. And he was laughing all the
way people might have been like people might have been
(43:39):
criticizing or whatever. He didn't give a ship he was having.
He wanted to enjoy what he was doing. He and
he made sure that happened and then and he brought
that joy to all of us. And I'm an incredible job,
incredible experience in my life. Priceless. I mean, for me,
the best example of of getting out of you, of
(44:01):
your comfort zone. Personally, I love your version of under pressure,
especially the one at Glastonbury. It's in in two thousand.
Thank you. Can you tell me how that came together? No, Queen,
were you mentioned Heartbeating your second favorite band? Queen? Were
your number one? Are your number one? Right? That's right still, Yeah,
then that was that was freaky. I mean, I just
(44:23):
that I never even imagined because I just thought we
would never do that song when I got you know,
it never occurred to me when I got the job
with Bollie that we would even never do that song
because I thought we would never do under pressure because
Freddie Mercy is dead and he would he does some
sing with other you know who was going to do
that song with him in the show because we didn't
ever we didn't have singers like that, you know, in
(44:43):
the show. And then sure enough, like coming through the
early weeks, I was still on the nine inch nails too.
I remember that because we started doing it way back
early in the early day. Um. I remember him coming
into my dressing room. Um, I think was before a
show would have been and he came in and he
(45:05):
had a cassette tape of um, the version he did
with Any Lennox a Saidie's memorial concident when the stadium,
and which was stunning. I have a photograph of them
on my wong like little Visiom Studio. I just love
that was such a special moment and I love Anie
Lennox too. UM, And I didn't know him yet and
(45:28):
he gave me. He said to me, do you if
I remembered that time? And I said, of course I do.
And he said, well, I was thinking about doing that
song in the show, like you know, like I did.
It was Annie, and I said, well, who who's gonna
Who's gonna play? So he was like, would you think
about singing it? And I said, well, yeah, my goodness,
but I said who was going to play the bass?
(45:50):
Because I didn't. I thought we'd do it like any
Lenox as well. And and you know, I would actually
perform it with him, you know, in his arms or
whatever however they did it, or I would be performing
it and somebody else would be playing the bass. And
he said, no, you're going to play the bass. I said,
I'm singing at the same time, you know. And then
he looked for me and he just put a very
(46:11):
cheeky look and he just went, I'll give you two
weeks and he put the cassette. They put the cassette down,
and he walked out of the room. No pressure, No pressure,
talk about under pressure. So I just drilled it for
two weeks until I figured it out. They'll see, that's
the perfect example. It was the biggest and most important example.
(46:32):
It was like the earliest exam I passed. It was
like exam number one. If you get through this one,
you know you're you're good for good ten years. So
I was like, oh my god, I got the hardest
s a T in the first round. Whatever. So so
he gave me that job, and I went to my
(46:52):
hotel room every day and I put him in my
cassette player and whatever I had, and I studied it
and put a metro him down, and they did it slow,
and I did it fast and until I figured it out,
and he asked me one day, you think you're ready
to try it and sound check, and I was like, yep,
let's go, let's do it. Let's try it. You know
I can't. I can't put it already longer. And the
(47:17):
rest of history changed my life doing that. So and
then the association with Freddy, because I used to ask him,
I know, they were friends, and I used to ask
him to police tell me stories about Freddy. And the
only one he would tell me is that he was like,
he was very fine, and he was said he said,
you would have loved him, and he said you. He
said you every time you turn up at his house.
He would always open the door and he'd be in
(47:39):
full drag and he'd have opera blaring out really by
all around. And it's funny when he said that. When
I saw the film, I was like this, just like
David said. He said, he turned out and to say hi,
you know, to hang out with Freddy. He opened the
front door and he's just like a woman in the
(48:00):
The opera is so loud that it takes your head off.
That's everything I ever wanted to be. I'm I'm so
glad that that is true. M h yeah, And so
I was, And I told him how much I love Freddie.
So he was like, Freddie would be really proud when
he told me Freddie. I mean, everybody tells me Freddie
(48:21):
would be proud. And really, that is the only thing
I was the most important thing I wanted to do.
I obviously didn't want to like suck in front of David,
but I did not one of that Freddie's legacy down,
because that was the good. He really was the greatest
performer I've ever seen in my life to this day,
that the whole band in their original form in the
late seventies, early eighties. I've never seen anything like it
(48:43):
out of four human beings ever. That music drives me mad.
It's so incredible and the power and the force that
came from those four guys was just unimaginable. What were
(49:14):
sessions like for for the next day, because I know
not only were they top secret, but you were in
the midst of dates with I think Lenny Kravitz and
Olivia Newton John. What was that experience was? Yeah, I
was busy. Well, it was hard initially, you know, I was.
I just went in to do the early tracks, the
bass tracks. Yes, it was a secret. Um he caught again.
(49:37):
There was a long period of time after the Reality tour,
of course, where he had his health issues and he
just went home to be be home and get healthy
and be with his family. I know he was really
missing his daughter was really little then he was missing her.
I could tell because it was all you know, just
skyping every day or whatever. It's not the same as
we know so so as we've come to know and
(50:02):
he um so, you know, I kept in touch with
him a little bit regularly by email, just you know,
he asked, asked without seen the movie. I remember we
we emailed when m Alexander McQueen left us and stuff
like that. So because he'd done a lot of our
clothes in the nineties. Um, So he called me again
(50:24):
out of the blue. I think it was like in
two thousand nine or ten, because yeah, I was in
two thousand ten, two dozens and maybe two dozen eleven
either and I was really busy. Um. But he was like,
I'm gonna do this album. You know, what are you
up to? Like, so I thought, okay, he's been thinking
of something. I didn't look. I never knew he was
(50:45):
going to come back, you know, I never know. I mean,
I mean he was. I knew he'd do something, but
I didn't know what because I know he couldn't stop
that that automatic thing that was going and there's no
way in the world that's gonna stop. No way. Um.
So he just asked me. He told me what it was,
just explained the project again because he's very good, Like
(51:06):
like he called me with the first tour, He explained
what it was, who was with, he was in the band,
how it was gonna you know, he gives me the details.
So he did the same with this. It's gonna be quiet,
it's gonna be like, um secret. If you don't think
you can handle that, then let me know. Um. He
he was looking for a place, he's looking for the
(51:27):
right studio because you know, he didn't want to so
he didn't want it to be leaked no matter what.
And his reasoning for that was because he was fed
up with the Internet, which we all are now being
being u being um, this place where you can't do
anything in privacy anymore in terms of especially in terms
(51:51):
of releasing music, because at that time there was eason
more pirrating and stuff like there seemed to be if
I recall a little bit more of I think, you know,
somebody was doing a record and suddenly it got out,
and then it once it's out, it's out. You can't
release it and sell it because it's out, and it
spreads around like wildfire, you know, instantly, it's just out.
And and people were losing songs apparently. Um. Like you know,
(52:15):
people that worked in a studio I guess would get
a fun you know, a zip drive or whatever. They
get a file or some nail or where I don't
know whatever, and they would leak it. You know, it
could be a tape off or I don't know, I
don't use tape, but I don't know what you call
them now, um you know, computer up, um stealing, so
you know, who knows, But things would get out. So
(52:37):
he said, I don't want people to get this music
until like like in the old days, you go and
make a record, nobody you know, knows you in the
studio really making a record unless you want to talk
about it. And but most artists and the seventies and
stuff didn't. They just do the album and all of
a sudden there was like there's vad new single by
the Eagles, you know, and then it's out, you know,
(52:58):
and you weren't wondering what the Eagles were doing or
with you know what I mean. So he wanted he
wanted to recreate he want He just didn't want any
preconceived especially because he had taken a long time and
he had been sick beforehand, and he wasn't going to
talk about that like he wasn't. He didn't come out
(53:18):
of his whatever his medical thing was and do a
whole press thing and do a reality show or whatever.
You know, he didn't do all that. He wasn't into
all that. So he was into his privacy and he
wanted the record, the music to be received in that way.
He didn't want people to. If they knew he was
making a record, they would already start writing about it.
(53:41):
Somebody would have an opinion about what kind of record
it was. Someone would say what they think he should do.
Someone would say what they think he shouldn't do. Someone
would have you know, you know what I mean. It's
like and everybody be talking about this record and waiting
for this record, and then they'd be waiting for him
to leak a little bit of the record, and then
they'd be people at this studio, and then they would
be asking people, are you on the record? They'd probably
(54:03):
be calling me, you know, because all these things would
have happened, and he was right, they wouldn't and he
didn't want it, and that was the reason. And he
was adamant about it, and he uh and so he
if you weren't on board, and I think we did
have to sign something because if we if we leaked
it out, we were screwed. It was big and I
(54:24):
appreciated it because I'm like him. I like my privacy.
I'm having a really hard time in the world right
now without it. But because it's taking I feel like
it's being taken away in every aspect of my life
in so many ways. So I get it, you know,
it's difficult. And he praised that if more than anything
he wanted he wanted to just be normal in that way,
like have his own thing that wasn't a public thing
(54:48):
at all times, like a lot of people enjoy. So um,
that was how that started. And then I complied, I said, yes,
I will be. I didn't tell any You couldn't tell
your mother, partner, your love her or whoever, nobody, your dog.
Nobody could know. And so that I had one friend,
he lived one friend, and I said, I'm gonna ask you,
(55:10):
can I tell one friend? And I probably I know
she's not going to say a downward And he knew
her because he had invited it. She used to hang
out with us in the early days. And that's my
best friend, Sarah Lee, who's also a bass player with
the bfifty twos and Gang of Four. She's on Love
Shack and Indigo Girls, Galileo or that she lives up here.
We've been friends for like thairty almost forty years. So
(55:32):
Sarah new because and he liked her. He loved when
she came around because I think it's because she's a
brit so they would get all British, you know, together,
and he was very kind to her. So I said,
you know, I'm gonna need somebody to bring me down
to the studio and I don't want to use the
cross service. They can't know either like I used to
use the class anither. He didn't want nobody had to
(55:54):
know where I was going or what I was doing.
So I made up a story that I was in
the city for two weeks working. It's an artist that
didn't exist, and nobody was and I knew nobody was
going to look them up because I said, it's this
new it's some new artists in Sweden. I don't know.
They got some money, you know. I made up as
as I said, they have some money, and you know
they can put me up for two weeks and I'm
(56:16):
going down to sitting and work on this record and
I'll be back. Nobody blinked an eyelash. No one looked
it up. Okay, it really so it was perfect. I
was holding my breath. You don't ask think what it um.
So Sarah knew and I said, Sarah, will you drive
me down? So I can take my basis and my
(56:37):
pedals and all the things I needed for the work.
For the session. I had to take a few different
basis because I never knew what was coming. I had
no idea what I was going to play. So I
had to take a threatness and the five string and
the four string, and you know, flat wounds and noun wounds.
And I had you know, six basis or whatever with
me and a bunch of pedals and and everything. I
knew they had ants there, so I went down and
(56:59):
she dropped me off, so she knew where I was,
and she was cool, and she picked up when it
was over, and um, that's it. In that time, and
every day he came in he had charts. They had
been working on stuff. So for me, I usually come
in with things are pretty much together. I'm just going
to add the bass part this one. This time there
were some parts that were like Tony because he was
(57:21):
a bass player. Normally he's the one playing on the
records of somebody else. Um, but Tony had written out
some things I don't leave very well, but I could
once I learned what they were, I could just play them.
I could kind of see what was happening on the page.
But it was only certain little films that that made
sense in the music. I can't tell you what they
are now, I don't remember, But otherwise I was it
(57:43):
was again up to interpretation. He had a basic set up.
There was from chords. He had a little piano and
a little like a little set up at a piano
where he was playing his demos for us so you
could hear what he had been doing at home. And
then we take it away and re rehash it and
read and said how and we embellish. I see where
you're going. Okay, let's see, let's see what we work out.
(58:03):
It's like like we normally would work with him. He'd
bring in a really rough idea, but he knew what
he wanted, he knew what he knew what we were
going to give him, I guess, you know. And we
did that. We made him he was he was. He
had that happy look on his face that you like
to see when you look through the thing. You're like, oh,
good god, he's smiling and he's dancing. Oh he's dancing, sofa,
(58:27):
Oh my god, I really hit it. It's true. Those
are the definite moments I remember him that I could
see him in his bedroom slippers. He'd come in and
he put on his little slippers and get normal for
his glasses on. Totally normal person, just creating music, just working,
loving it, enjoying it, happy, smiling, joking, drinking lots of
(58:48):
coffee and used to be smoking. And I was right
with him, but we could driving around the same time
when his daughter was born. I've been smoked for you
in a sense, thank god, m Um. But uh so
that was how that came about. And then I'm not
on the whole album only because when I left um
(59:12):
there were more songs to do, but I couldn't get
back because I couldn't tell anybody where I was going,
and I was busy until he called Tony Leathern. He
called Tony Leavin, which is fine. He's my neighbor and
I love Tony, but he was He lived across the
street from me until a couple of years ago, so um,
that was great. And he used to bring in the ideas,
(59:33):
like he had some sheet music that he had brought out,
maybe with words. I can't remember what was on it,
because what happened was he'd come in with a little
briefcase and at the beginning of the day and his
little apple cap as a baseball cap or whatever. And
he come in and he opened up this little briefcase
and he put the music on the stands where we
were all stations. They all had our little stations. And
(59:55):
then and then at the end of the day he'd
come and ripped it off. But he'd do it, he dramatically,
like funny. He come, he come around and he put
snapped the paper off, and he put in his you know,
his his little duffier like you'll never get them, you know,
it's funny. And that was the ritual. Every day. He
took everything home, everything hard drives everything. At the end
(01:00:17):
of that day, he was adamant that nobody was going
to screw him with this and he he and then
it was done and I heard nothing because I was like,
I wondered if he would ever put it out. This
was two years between when I did all that, and
I was like, I and I never mentioned it again.
I never mentioned it to anybody into you and there's
(01:00:39):
no way in the world. I was like, it was
a Swedish artist. Remember his name? He didn't. He didn't
do very well. Right when I got paid, so and
then all of a sudden, I can remember it like
clockwork was. It's usually I was listening to W dst
(01:00:59):
rating him, so what stock and the clock radio goes
off the nine or whatever time it was going off
for me more than I listened to Gregatine and the
radio went off, and then um, you know, I lay
there for a minute, and all of a sudden, I
hear them say there's a new Bowie single has just
come out, and it's just come out this minute, and
and I was like, you know, my heart stopped. I
(01:01:21):
was like, oh my god, and it was where are
we now with Tony? And I was like, oh, because
that was one song I didn't know because I didn't
get to do that one. There were a few, but
I played on the good amount of those songs I
can't remember now. And then it was they did a
deluxe version after the first original version, and then there
was another batch of like three or four songs I
(01:01:42):
was on that are on that like, um, the one
with the UFO Let's get risk calls uh and and
there's a UM I can't remember the names now, God,
I gotta put that record out. Yeah. So that's that's
how that kind of came about and what happened with that?
From me anyway? And I didn't know about black, so
(01:02:03):
I had no idea. He did it again, and I
had no idea. I knew I had a little bit
of an idea because somebody knew something that he was
working on something and and and I think someone mentioned
the word jazz or something. And then I just thought, well,
that makes sense because we used to talk about Stan
Kenton and stuff. He used to love stand Kent. In fact,
(01:02:23):
he introduced me to him. I hadn't really didn't I
like jazz, but I didn't know his music that much.
So he listened to that Tropicana album and stuff and
just really love it. And I knew that he said,
one day I want to do something like this. And
when he says one day I want to and he's
just gonna fucking as unlike some people like myself. So
(01:02:44):
I'm trying to learn how that magic works. I'm trying to,
you know, make it like one day I'm gonna hey,
is anybody listening anyway? So he says, one day I'm
gonna make a jazz record. I really want to do that,
you know. And and a long time ago we talked
about mingus is one of he's like my favorite bass
time and that's that's his favorite jazz on We discovered that.
(01:03:06):
So we would just ningus out sometimes and have like
ningus days and to go and visit him sometimes and
listen to records. He had a little stace where he
had vinyl and stuff was great and m so he
made Black Star, which was involved Donnie mccassman and a
jazz or more jazzy thing that made sense. It's kind
(01:03:28):
of like Stan Kenton, but everything he did he always
put the BOWI spin on it from earth thing to
you know, to the black start life. If he's doing
jazz or if he's doing funk or like Lad's dance
or whatever, it's it's still got a thing from him
that that's what makes us that I don't know, and
that's undescribable to me as well. You know what, what
how how does he take these genres that he loves
(01:03:51):
and twist them just ever so slightly that it becomes
him And you're not thinking, oh, it's just it's some
and making a jazz right. You know, it's different, do
you know what I mean? Something someone has tried like
you know I'm trying. I'm trying to bridge that myself
with some new work that I'm trying to work on,
you know, you know, trying to pull together. It's like
(01:04:14):
I want to do something from a particular genre, but
I don't want it to be retro. It's not like
I'm making a record of that genre. I'm making a
record of now because now is now. But that is
a huge influence of something from that energy I want
to incorporate with my own energy. And how that meshes
together is is is sometimes a mystery. Sometimes it just
(01:04:35):
falls together and other times. But for him, I feel
like it was something that was just it's always worked.
He knew just how to turn that turnd, that tap,
you know, how to just what mixtures of you know,
to put in the bowl and stir it up. And
it was always the perfect mixture. You know, it always
tastes perfect. It would take and it tastes like him.
(01:04:55):
You know. It was Bowie's. Bowie's pancake makes nobody else's,
you know. So yeah, so I was very surprised when
he passed away. It was awful. It was awful. That
was an awful year. I thought that, Yeah, this year's
that she was pretty awful, But that was awful toy
(01:05:20):
bad omen of something I felt in some way. No,
not not not one for the books, No, not at all.
We lost so many incredible at people, and him especially
was such a surprise. Mhm. Yeah. I hadn't seen him
that that year, and I had an email from him
that was kind of strange close to the time that
(01:05:41):
he passed away. Now it makes sense, but it didn't.
It's not that it didn't make sense, but I was like, oh,
that's a nice email. I don't know where I appreciate that.
And I was kind of like that just a hello,
I love you kind of email, like kind of just
so it's not a usual thing. He's not a sentimental
kind of guy in that way that I think. I
don't know. He's a sweet man and very kind and
(01:06:05):
one of the most respectful people I've ever met, especially
someone in his position that could but sometimes can we
thinks they can afford to not be the respect I
should put it that way, you know. But he was
just so kind and sweet. But he wasn't a mushy guy,
you know. He didn't want you to get mushy. He didn't.
(01:06:26):
That's the British thing, I guess, you know. Oh, come on,
it's just up a it make a cup of tea.
You know. It's like, I don't want to go there.
Let's not get too sentimental about things. So I had
a little bit of a sentimental email from him before
he passed, which was interesting. That must be really nice
to have now just as a oh yeah, absolutely absolutely.
(01:06:51):
You know, it has been such a tremendous honor speaking you.
Thank you so much for taking the time. But before
I let you go, I I'm trying to see you
play live, but we're speaking in in late winter. The
live music industry is obviously shut down. How can people
see the work that you're doing at the moment when
they can't see you on the stage. Oh, I would
(01:07:12):
love people to check out my Patreon page if possible.
It's it's brand new now pretty well. I've just gone
through our first month in February and I'm just gearing
up for the second month. So I'm still finding my footing.
It's obviously this is such a new adjustment for for
everybody in the world, trying to remain creative in the
digital world and the virtual world or I'm not sure
(01:07:36):
what it's really called at this point, but I'm doing
some you know, really I don't I'm not quite sure
what how to describe it, but but we all know
what I'm talking about, I think, and I'm so I'm
doing this Patreon thing, which is a subscriber service, and
right now I'm not doing my own music on it,
but I will be eventually. I'm just trying to set
(01:07:56):
up a system to give some people some um stories,
some exclusives, some photographs, share some of my photographs and
videos that I've made that you won't see anywhere else
other than Patreon if you subscribe um Um. I'm also
offering I'm giving myself a challenge, which is part of
my regiment of rebuilding myself as a solo artist. Is
(01:08:17):
that once a month on Patreon, I'm giving um a
a cover tune. I'm announcing an artist at the end
of the month, and then for the following month, I'm
going to record a song by that artist, So you
get to vote on which song you'd like to hear
me cover. And I'm doing and just sort of doing
it all on my own at my home studio, so
it's not like a professional recording. Maybe it might be
(01:08:39):
one day. Um, but I've just delivered the first song,
which was Paul Williams was the first artist, one of
my favorite songwriters, and I did I wrote last to
Day without You, so um. That's where you can find me,
and also on Instagram Gara Endorsey Music and on Facebook,
which I also have a music fan page under Gala
Endorsey Music. And I think Twitter as well. I don't
(01:09:02):
use Twitter so much. I don't quite understand it. I'm
going to be honest, it's gonna sound like an old
fogie here, but on Twitter I don't get. But I'm
going on Instagram and Facebook kind of. But Instagram I
enjoy and I'm there occasionally. I'm trying to be there
a little more. But now most of my attention is Patreon,
so I would hope people would check it out if
they're interested in saying what I'm doing in the future,
(01:09:24):
because I am working on some new music from I'm
solo venture Patreon dot com. We will check it out
there and we hopefully, very very soon we will see
you on the stage in front of us no screens, Yes, yes, absolutely.
(01:09:46):
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