Our last two episodes followed David Bowie in the late ’70s as he recorded ‘Low’ and ‘Heroes,’ the twin pillars of his so-called Berlin Trilogy. (Sorry, ‘Lodger’ fans.) These records are an artistic triumph on nearly ever level, and contain the most innovative music Bowie ever made. In addition to co-producer Tony Visconti and mad musical scientist Brian Eno, another crucial collaborator during the German sessions was Edu Meyer. Edu was an engineer at Hansa Studios — the famous Hall by the Wall that served as David’s creative home during his time in Berlin. Edu helped David put the finishing touches on ‘Low,’ and even played the mournful cello part on “Weeping Wall” — inspired by the symbol of division and oppression looming just outside the studio windows. He also assisted on the album’s David produced for Iggy Pop, ‘The Idiot’ and ‘Lust for Life.’ Their working relationship stretched into the ‘80s, when David would return to Berlin to record the soundtrack to the Bertolt Brecht play ‘Baal’ in 1981, and perform his legendary 1987 concert at the Reichstag. They’d remain friends until the end of David’s life. Edu spoke to Jordan about his memories working alongside Bowie during his most creatively daring period.
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Episode Transcript
Hello, and welcome to another bonus episode of Off the Record.
My name's Jordan Runtug. Thanks so much for listening. Our
last two episodes followed David in the late seventies as
he recorded Low and Heroes, the Twin Pillars of a
so called Berlin trilogy. Sorry Lodger fans, These records contain
the most innovative music Bowie ever made and are an
(00:27):
artistic triumph on almost every level. This is surprising because
on paper, none of this should have ever worked. Who
gets an R and B rhythm section to play lockstep,
crowd rock electro jams? Who loads an entire side of
what's obstensively a pop album with wordless ambient soundscapes. Who
makes an album mere steps from the Berlin Wall one
(00:49):
of the most notorious geopolitical hotspots on the globe. Even
David's compositional process had changed, adopting avant garde techniques gleaned
from renegades like iggy Pop, Brian Eno, William Burrows, John Cage,
and Steve Reich. As is so often the case, David
fused this collection of disparate ideas and influences into something
(01:10):
completely new, a sound that's indefinable and sometimes indescribable. What
would you call say sound and vision At best, it's
a freakish multi hypha native genres. If you forced me
to pick a single word, I just have to go
with awesome. In addition the co producer Tony Visconti and
arrant Mad musical scientist Brian Eno. Another crucial collaborator on
(01:34):
the German sessions was Du Meyer. U was an engineer
at Hansa Studios, the famous Hall by the Wall that
served as David's creative home during his time in Berlin.
When he wasn't working on Schlager or schlocky German pop
that ruled the airwaves at the time, Ido helped David
put the finishing touches on low. David even enlicted him
(01:55):
to play the mournful cello part on Weeping Wall, inspired
by the sim of division and oppression looming just outside
the studio windows. Du also assisted on the album's David
produced for Iggy Pop, The Idiot and Lust for Life.
They're Working. Relationships stretched into the eighties, when David would
return to Berlin to record the soundtrack to the Berthold
(02:16):
Brect play Ball and Players legendary seven concert at the Reichstag.
They'd remained friends until the end of David's life. Du
occasionally gives speaking engagements in conjunction with Berlin Music Tours,
the only company that actually takes you inside the famous
hall by the Wall. I've taken the trip myself and
being there in the room where Bowie actually belted out
(02:39):
heroes as truly all inspiring. Edu was giving a talk
as part of the release celebration for Black Star and
when he heard the news about David's passing, I'm so
grateful you do agree to speak with me and share
his memories of being alongside Bowie as it recorded the
groundbreaking music of Low. I just start to tell a
(03:03):
little bit about my turn to Berlin, and actually I
was I was born as somebody who wanted uh not
to be a musician and not to be a technical guide,
but to do both together. So that what that means
uh I had to had sound engineering course lecture at
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high school in dessert Off. I did this in dessert
Off in UH nineteen sixty nine to nineteen seventy two
and made my final final exam in nineteen seventy two
and started my career as a recording engineer at Cornege
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Studio in Cologne, and from there I got the jump
in nineteen seventy five to Berlin, and very soon I
came across the Hansa studio manager who whom I asked
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for a job, and who said where you can start
next Monday. Yeah, that was in February nine seventy six.
So I came across David Poe. Yet this year nine
seventy six, in summer he had to contact to Eca
(04:35):
Fusa from Tantiling Dream uh in a while, and Edgar
recommended him Answer Studio right to the edge of the
Berlin Wall. We had the Berlin Wall a few steps
far from the studio, and so he came across Answer
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and looked at it and said, wow, a big hall.
And he named it the Big Hall by the wall,
which was originally the Masters are the house for the
Masters of building houses. And so we had a new
(05:18):
name for international name for Answer Studio too, um, which
was Studio Too, because we had one studio at another
location in Berlin. Uh. This was, by the way, the
studio where we started to listen to David's tapes. Because
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Answer Studio Too the Big Hole was busy with our
Schlager producer Jack White in Germany who produced all these
uh Lager people um from morning till night, and uh
so the studio was busy day and night, and yet
(06:05):
to move where to direct him to the Nestor stars
of the studio One, which was a very good studio
and meanwhile very famous studio as well for for the
Berlin music scene. So we started as well with Iggy Pop.
(06:30):
He was present at the time as well at the
very beginning of David's work in Berlin and did some
of his finished some of his plans to uh bring
out some music, some new music the Idiot for example,
And so we worked on on the baking tracks of
(06:54):
Low who were produced in in France before. And David
was a bit fed up with the studio in France,
and so he came to Berlin by recommendation as well
of Edgar Fursa, and and I knew Edgar Fursa as
(07:16):
well a little bit before. So when when we started
at Hansa One in Nestor, starters came closer to each other.
First of all, I was the one the guy who
directed Tony Visconti to the specialties of the studio and
(07:37):
of the plug ins and or or the equipment which
was available to do something with the tapes, and they
got cassettes to rehearse and to listen to it in
their hotel UH rooms. And so then I decided to
(08:01):
do some work on it. And later we had another
session in Uh Answer too in the big Hall by
the war and so we were worked on the album Low,
and he added some small vocal parts and the saxophone part,
(08:26):
and we did two new tracks as well with the
equipment in the studio where there was was a maremba
phone and David played on this marimba phone in the
Big Hall and he said, okay, can can we use it?
I said, of course, we can use everything here in
(08:48):
the studio. And then he started to record one of
the tracks of the B side of the album Low,
which was the Weeping Wall, and he did a count
on tape on one track from one two hundred and
eighty and UH. Every time he was overdubbing his counting,
(09:12):
he said, okay, dropped me in at six, dropped me
in at ninety, dropped me in anywhere you want. And
so he used this marima phone to do UH certain
kind of musical carpet on on on this tape, which
(09:39):
was the basis for the Weeping Wall, and then he
added some other things to it as well. As when
he find out found out that I was trained musician
on my cello, he had the idea, uh, and Tony
(10:02):
Visconti as well, to do some overdubbing with my shadow.
So I brought my shadow into the studio and so
we did eight tracks on her art decade and uh
so UM got some bow scratching from my cello to
(10:25):
this track, which made it much more alive than it
was when I listened to it. And Tony Visconti wrote
a little score for me because I'm a classical musician
and I'm used to play music from scores, and so
(10:47):
it worked. It worked, very funny. What did you think
of the music David was playing as you were working
on it? Was it apparent early on that this wasn't
just an ordinary pop album. Well, it was something very
new for me because the way we did recordings at
(11:11):
Ansa and as well in Cologne before was like somebody
who was organizing this on scores and writing scores for
the single musicians and uh, they used to play from
from this course, and this was a sort of completely
(11:33):
different stuff that there were no scores at all. There
was no written music except maybe for some lyrics of
David and Um as well with Iggy Poppy. He wrote
very much lyrics on a piece of paper. He had
had a role from the kitchen and he sat in
(11:54):
the side room where he could look to the console
and watch Um watch the movements on the recording session.
And he had a role and he wrote lyrics and
the role was hanging just around the whole room. The
(12:16):
long role of of of written stuff of lyrics. I
don't know what for. Maybe it has written some letters
as well. Yeah, funny, yah, quite funny. What was David
like in the studio when he when he came into
(12:36):
the studio did he know exactly what he wanted and
he sat down and did it or was there a
lot of experimentation at this time and trying stuff out
and then kind of making a decision afterwards when he
heard all the different options. Well, and he was present
all the time, of course, and David was was very
keen on working on his stuff. And no drugs, no
(12:57):
drugs at all. And yeah, little box of beer beer
bottles was around. He was very keen on working on
his tapes and so whatever there was a discussion about
how to do something, David had the last word and
(13:23):
he was doing what he wanted. Everybody was most clear
that David's ideas were performed, of course, so when when
he performed himself as well, he did what he wanted
and and he was very clean, very clear on on this.
(13:44):
And of course he was interested in everything which has
got to do something with the technique of the studio,
and I mean V six cannot be compared to a
studio technique today. And there was no digital stuff at all,
(14:06):
and there was everything was analope and if you wanted
to head it music you had to cut the tapes
and was very heavy, very much. What was his working
relationship like with with Tony Visconti, How did they push
one another and and uh and and work together. They
they were um master and client and from both sides,
(14:34):
I mean, David said Tony what to do, and Tony said,
recommended David something and he accepted also. Uh. They were
good friends, and so I came to both of them
after a while as a good friend too. And first
(14:57):
of all, there was a skeptic, isn't And so we
were fresh and not yet colleagues like we we were
later on. And so during the whole time with David Bowie,
I mean at lasted until until eighty seven, him last time,
(15:22):
except for the concert he did in two thousand two.
But all the time we were good friends and Uh
and I had contact until he finished his contact with
his friends before just two years before he died. Probably
(15:43):
the doctor had said, you have two more years and
and that's it. And at this time we were good
friends together and well, uh could smell each other very
very well. I know you were at a Black Star
a listening event at Hansa's studios when when you heard
the news of his passing. In a strange way, it
(16:06):
must have been nice to be surrounded by so many
people at that moment who loved him. Yeah. Yeah, we
had no idea that two days after the publication of
Black Star David would pass. I mean, this was was terrible.
It was It's like, I can't believe what's going on.
(16:28):
And so it was a very heavy time at this time.
And I flew from Berlin when Tino woke me up
in the morning after this weekend and said, David has passed,
and I said, no way, it can't be. But it was.
(16:49):
And our telephone lines were blinking all the time, and
it was very heavy, and I said, I have I
have to quit now, I have to go back to
the country. At this point, yeah, that's That was the
(17:11):
tenth of January two thousand sixteen. It was very heavy,
heavy for us, for the whole world. I guess David's
relationship with Berlin always seemed very special. When I visited
(17:32):
Berlin a few years back, I got the sense that
David was revered as far more than just a pop
star or a talented musician, but he meant something to
the German people in a much deeper way. Berlin has
sort of adopted him as there their adopted son, and
it seems like he felt really comfortable there. The stories
as well was with a girlfriend he he had. She
(17:57):
talked about him that in the underground when somebody asked
her is this David Bowie, she she made something very
strange like, uh, she talked to him in German. Uh,
and uh, we have forgotten to to buy some potatoes
(18:22):
high she said. She said she if she covered him
from everything, and as well, Coco I was taking care
of him all the time, and Coco was watching, uh
the tapes and no, no tapes out of the studio
and so they had made bad experiences with stolen tapes
(18:48):
and uh yeah, something like that, and so I took
very much care of all the tapes and yeah, that
worked one for you. Spent Christmas with with David and Coco.
I think it was Christmas even, Yeah, how was that?
(19:10):
What was that? Like? Yeah, it happened that they invited
me to a Christmas meal. I said, oh, yeah, why not?
And so I came to Houstraza and I was shown
around this apartment and it was many rooms, one after another.
(19:31):
You could go like an archum around the whole apartment.
All the rooms were just one matters or nothing in it,
and exactly for the year. For the last room, which
was David's the sleeping room where he had a real bed,
(19:54):
and and an idle where he had his paintings, and
I can't remember which painting was just on the eisle.
Maybe was just the aisle standing there alone. But the
last room was the kitchen, and there was everything you
needed to prepare the food and a meal. And Coco
(20:19):
had had a rooster in the oven in the oven,
and and there were a couple of people of course,
Iggy Pop and his son and David's son and Cocoa
of course. And yeah, it was was a very funny evening.
(20:41):
Was David in his privacy, uh with with a goose
a goose? Uh brown baked brown and very tasty. Yeah.
Did you see him much outside of the studio aside
from this Christmas meal? Did you go out to dinners
(21:03):
or go up coffee or anything like that? We we
have have not. We didn't have very much a private
contact just I mean just the studio was was our
meeting point all the time. And I didn't need to
fear as well, because there was going there were going
(21:26):
things around like the divos was was his lady in Switzerland, Angie.
There were strange stories and so I couldn't even follow
the speeches which were held there on telephone and um.
(21:48):
And there was trouble with a lawyers as far as
I remember, There was trouble with R. T A with
the company who didn't like the duct of low and
what have you. What what a ship is on this tape.
(22:09):
It's so funny to hear that now because everyone loves it. Yeah, Yeah,
it's very strange. David's spoken a lot about the studio's
proximity to the wall, the Berlin Mall being something that
that really unnerved him. You could see the guards from
the control room. What was the atmosphere like? Look through
(22:30):
when you sit in front of the console, You could
look through a window right to the wall, and there
was a big house behind the wall, and on top
of the house there were two little barracks for the
guards who were wearing binoculars and machine guns on on
(22:55):
their backs. And very funny, and did someone we opened
with we we we listened to the tapes on with
open windows and I'm I'm sure they could listen and
they could watch us with their binoculars. And one day
(23:16):
at the very beginning, when we were standing in front
of the console and looked to the wall, I took
one of the lambs and and directed it to the
to the guards on top of their And at the
same time Tony and David jumped down under the desk
(23:39):
to hide themselves because they thought they were they were
doing something with their guns, and I said, they like us,
They they don't do us anything that they were going
to get shot at very funny, many little jokes around
(24:01):
a situation, and I mean the results were quite all right.
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