Photo: Tony Visconit at Good Earth studio by Ricky Gardiner
This Ricky Gardiner interview was requested by Dave Simpson journalist via e mail and is reproduced here verbatim.
On 23 January 2013 at 19:59 Dave Simpson <simpo6@mac.com> wrote:
Hi Ricky… questions as promised. I’ve realised that you’ve played on two albums that would feature in my Top 10 of all time (Low and Lust for Life) and toured another (The Idiot ), which is going it some!! So here goes…
OK Dave
1) Didn’t you get the call to work with Bowie through working with Tony Visconti? Was Bowie familiar with your work with Beggars Opera?
My appointment was undoubtedly reinforced by that connection. Interestingly at that time Virginia and I were working with Tony on the Diana Demon/ Beggars Opera project at the original Good Earth/ Melrose Terrace/ Shepherd’s Bush studio in 1975/6. David recorded vocals there too. I think that would have been David’s Station to Station album. In fact we were invited to his show at Wembley around that time but did not actually meet him then. Mary Hopkin too and Tony’s solo album were recorded there. It was a very intimate studio, with all the new gear of the moment. I think that was when Tony got the Eventide Harmoniser that he used a lot with David for drums.I mean we were all just part of what was happening there at the time.
As to David knowing about Beggars Opera? David advised that he was aware of Beggars Opera and I think there would have been more than one reason for this: firstly, Beggars Opera had been very big in Germany (our Time Machine track was ubiquitously played there in all night club venues, and still is, having been what was known there as a ‘superhit’ and the introduction if I may say so, makes it’s presence felt with some fairly unusual guitar effects, which may have caught David’s ear and , secondly Beggars Opera were supported on their many tours of Germany in the early 70’s by the latest experimental krautrockers like Kraftwerk etc, who had attracted Tony, Mary and David’s attention.
Interestingly later on Vertigo they released a split single of Beggars Opera Classical Gas and Autobahn !2) One of David’s current band, who has worked with some of the world’s biggest stars, told me that when he first met DB it was the only time he had ever been totally starstruck, but that Bowie instantly put him at ease.
2) Where did you first meet David? How was it for you?
I first met David on the LOW sessions at the Chateau D’Herouville outside Paris in1976. It was in the control room, which was crowded with Americans plus David, and Corrine Schwab (Coco) David’s PA introduced me to everybody which was very pleasant.
3) Did you have any preconceptions about what working with David Bowie would be like? (whether from the Ziggy/ Aladdin or Young Americans eras etc?
No. I was not really aware of David’s work in detail as Beggars were so busy touring Germany at the time. We only really heard the bands we played with like Floyd, progressive Rockers and Krautrock bands of the day.
4) Did you discuss much about how Low was going to sound? Or was the creative process quite spontaneous?
My recollection is that it was all quite spontaneous, certainly with respect to side one. The two sides of that album must be considered separately in my opinion. But the Always Crashing in the Same Car track, was the first solo I did on arrival. David hummed the first few notes and I took it form there. When I came back into the control room both David and Eno seemed to be quite happy. The song is about David crashing his car in the hotel garage.
5) Everyone I have spoken to so far has spoken of how David can talk about virtually any subject in remarkable depth. Do you remember many such conversations? You spent a lot of time in the studio and on tour with him. Did you get to know him well?
I regard David as being well read in the areas that interest him. At the Hauptstrasse apartment, where I did some initial rehearsal with David and Iggy, he had an extremely well stocked library on many subjects including astrology, which we were all interested in at that time. We talked of UFO’s, oriental music and psychicphenomenon.
6) Wasn’t the first studio based in a haunted French chateau? What’s David like to work with in the studio compared to other artists you’ve worked with?
The studio in question was the Chateau D’Herouville. It was situated in the countryside among the beautiful Golden Delicious apple orchards. I recall cycling there with Tony in the glorious sunshine. Brian Eno joined us towards the latter part of recoding the LOW album and his bedroom in the Chateau was reputed to have been occupied at one time by Chopin who had consumption. Brian developed a cough while occupying that room.
Working with David at a musical level was collaborative and mutual. While he was open to ideas, he knew what he liked and did not like. Being decisive in this matter is important.
7) David once said that he had arrived in France trying to escape the “foreboding of Los Angeles, on the brink of drug-induced calamity, at the end of my tether physically and emotionally, and had serious doubts about my sanity.” And that Europe offered spiritual and physical escape/detox. Did he ever express these sort of sentiments to (any of) you at the time?
I certainly concur that Los Angeles is a strange place. The Chateau had the potential to bring tranquility perhaps due to its location. On the other hand, Berlin in those days, was a colourful island surrounded by a dark oppressive colourless hinterland. I am not convinced that tranquility was to be found there. You see wartime Berlin was still very visible. In the environs of David’s Hauptstrasse apartment, one could still see the bullet holes in the walls of buildings and David took us to a place where they ran the Nazi propaganda films 24/7, which was a very sobering experience. We rehearsed at the old UFA film studios with Iggy, where these films would have been made and one could see the guards pacing the wall/ towers at Hansa studios. The atmosphere was laden with the resonance of WW2: the war in which our parents were heroes. I think any sentiments were silently confirmed.
6/ 8 The Low sessions transferred to Hansa in Berlin, which I suppose is the most mythologised period of David’s long career, a vastly creative sojourn where studio work would be interspersed with nightclubbing and visits to late night underground bars, with Romy Haag as host/guide. Tony Visconti has described Romy Haag’s club, how you’d all knock on the door and speak into a little hatch, which would be opened by a transvestite entertainer and lead into a “space age disco”. I believe Joe’s Beer House was another popular destination. What do you remember of those days?
All of the above in our recreational time. But the work was important you know. I was in Berlin for the Iggy Idiot tour rehearsals and after, recording of the Lust for Life album. We stayed at the beautiful old Schlosshotel Gerhus hotel, which in those days still held the odd Nazi commemorative event. We happened on one of these one evening after recording, and it was indeed very illuminating to say the least. No doubt to them, we must have seemed as they did to us, in their Nazi regalia, dancing in formation like dummies.
7/9 Bowie has revisited the Berlin era on his new single, sounding quite wistful. At the time, was it very obvious that Berlin was having a remarkable effect on him, creatively and personally? Did you all do the tourist thing in Berlin: the remnants of the war etc?
I forgot to mention earlier that I had been to Berlin on several occasions in previous years with Beggars Opera, so all in all my experiences of that town resonate with my music and the music of the others with whom I collaborated.
I think David’s new single ‘Where are We Now” is just beautiful, as it retrospectively encapsulates sentiments which were perhaps not easy to express at that time, due life events and pressures.
8/10 Low is such an experimental album, especially from a major star. Was everybody aware that it was or would become a seminal work? Were there any real goosebump moments??
It takes courage for a ‘major star’ to engage in an experimental album which the business machine, responsible for its distribution, was to find commercially unpalatable and threaten to bury it. It is to David’s credit and shrewdness shown in the drawing up of his recording contract that the album saw daylight at all. It is all too easy to take the commercially safe route. However, that would be to ignore the context. You remind me that David admits that he was “on the brink of drug induced calamity, at the end of my tether, physically and emotionally, and had serious doubts about my sanity”. It was therefore more than brave. It was artistically and physically life saving.
9/11 How was Sound and Vision created? (Again, that would be in my top 10 singles ever)
Sound and Vision is an interesting track. It perhaps encapsulates in microcosm what David is about. He is good at utilising the available forces at his disposal. In this case, the key people might be Carlos, George,Tony and Mary the rest of the band, David himself and subliminally Iggy. I mention Iggy because he is very spontaneous and can use his imagination on his feet. In Sound and Vision I saw David do exactly this to very good effect and with a strong measure of vocal precision. Tony Visconti is not wrong when he states that David is a true professional. Recording people of this calibre is a privilege and a pleasure and makes the process so much more inspiring.
10/ 12 What were the different roles taken on by you and Carlos Alomar – was it as straightforward as Carlos rhythm and you lead, or more complex?
Pretty much -Carlos’s riffs and accompaniments can and do transfigure a song.
11/13 Almost everyone I’ve spoken to has talked of the marked difference between the Bowie they knew personally – I suppose, basically, David Jones – and the “David Bowie” he becomes when in public. Did you notice such a disconnect? A lot of people have told me that where they expected a remote and mysterious superstar, they found a charming and actually very normal, down to earth – but brilliant – man.
I saw no difference between David the man and David the star. David works hard in both capacities.On stage he certainly maintains a persona. But then don’t we all? Consider Freddie Mercury.
12/14 I read an interview with you where you described how Bowie had an unlikely love for Mantovani – and that he had played you his unused score for The Man Who Fell To Earth and it was brilliant.Can you remember how it sounded, or whether David had revealed other unlikely passions? (And was any of the Man… score reworked for parts of Low??)
Today that all seems rather vague in my memory. One thing I do remember is that David showed an interest in musical expression at it’s extreme.
13/15 It still fascinates me that Bowie played keyboards in Iggy’s band on the Lust for Life tour – one of the biggest stars in rock at the time, helping a friend on the road. What was it like touring the country with (a) Bowie (b) Iggy (who at that time was being rightly recognised as the forefather of punk) and (c) the enigmatic Sales brothers!. It must have been magical, surreal… or what?!
After the years of intensive touring with Beggars Opera, Virginia and I found the Iggy tour a pleasure and something of a holiday. It is a great way to see the world albeit more airports and hotels. It is an interesting conjunction that Iggy and David should tour in the same band/ Iggy being related to Punk and David having just having completed a progressive album. You mention the ‘enigmatic Sales’ brothers. They were a pair of stars- surreal, just like their father and fantastic company. I shall never forget Hunt Sales splitting his remaining few dollars with me when we ran a bit low.
14/16 Do you think David enjoyed taking a more back seat role for a change, taking a step out of his own spotlight (as he would do much later, to varying success, with Tin Machine, and then by simply retiring from the public eye for a decade)?
My understanding is that David had legal restraints upon him with regard to appearing as a solo artist- so I think that tour was “killing several birds with one stone”
14/17 If you had to describe David Bowie to someone as a person, as well as a musician/artist, how would you describe him?
A serious minded human being.
15/18 I’m speaking to Dennis Davis next week. He sounds a very entertaining character…. anything you’d like me to ask him, remind him of or tell him? (George Murray seems to have completely disappeared.)
Like me Denis will be entering his prime. I remember him as a queit chap. Wish him well.
Cheers
Ricky
Ricky Gardiner 