Photograph king, watches you go…
A week later than promised, but perfectly timed for the release of Anywhere I Lay My Head, the current issue of
Half way through proceedings NME decides to present an enquiry to Scarlett from her backing vocalist…over to NME…
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At which point, let’s throw this open to the floor. Yes, over there, a question emailed in from a certain Mr David Bowie: “Did David [Sitek] ever stop taking pictures of you?”
Scarlett smiles. “Yeah, Dave’s an incredible photographer. He takes beautiful pictures but when we were recording he didn’t actually take any. During the day we would, though. We did experimental photographs with the band and weird lights and smoke bombs, everything.”
Bowie, as it happens, is an old mate of Scarlett’s, having worked with her on The Prestige, and when he ran into her shortly before recording began, he expressed an interest in getting involved.
“He was very interested in the concept of the album and he knew Dave [Sitek] was doing it because Bowie seemingly knows everything. You think you’ve found some great band and you look over and go, ‘Oh shit, there’s Bowie!’ He’s at every concert everywhere in the city, he’s just a music lover. So he was curious and I said something like, ‘If you ever want to come down and lay down a track, let me know!’ And he kind of laughed.”
Ironically, Scarlett had had Bowie in mind to sing the Bette Midler part on her originally planned duet of ‘I Never Talk To Strangers’, and on the road trip she and Sitek had bonded over their mutual Ziggyphilia.
“We listened to a lot of Bowie, we talked about Bowie, we loved Bowie, shared stories about him, and then I was off in Spain making a film and Dave called me going, ‘Guess who I have in the studio!'”
Were you gutted you weren’t there?
“I was devastated. I was like, ‘Give me the play-by-play!’ Bowie had come in, he’d heard the rough mixes and he was really into it. He came in with his lyric sheets and he knew exactly what he wanted to sing. It was awesome. His voice is like an instrument.”
Bowie sings on two tracks; the sublimely maudlin Leaving Glasvegas of Tannin Street’ and first single ‘Falling Down’, a song Scarlett was reluctant to cover as it includes the line “I come from St Petersburg/Scarlett and me”. But Sitek was keen for her to create different characters for each song, often barking emotions at her like a movie director.
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Anywhere I Lay My Head is now available all over the place, as indeed is