They say ‘He was born again’…
The June 2008 issue of
In an interview with the man who came to be known as The Modfather after he spearheaded the late 70s mod revival, (surely the greatest music-themed oxymoron of all time) Weller admits to rediscovering the Bowie records that were such an important part of his youth.
Over to MOJO…
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MOJO: Roger the roadie says you’ve recently got into Bowie – whom you’re famously meant to despise…
PW: Yeah Rog put me on to him. I’m a born again Bowie freak! I was saying to him that the next time he sees me I’ll have a fucking great Aladdin Sane flash on me boatrace (laughs). Every night we’d drive home to London after recording [his current album] and have Ziggy Stardust on five or six times. As a kid I’d had the album at school, it was one of the records that was passed around. But I never connected with it. This time it clicked, I heard it in a different way. It was really revelatory.
Low’s one of my favourite records anyway. Whatever gripes I’ve had about Bowie in the past, Low’s been a constant since I bought it [in 1977]. I like the Eno stuff, I’d never heard songs deconstructed in that way. Breaking Glass and Be My Wife, great melodies that have been fucked with a bit.
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I remember back in 1979 in a Smash Hits questionnaire, Weller hailed Boys Keep Swinging as his favourite track of the moment and he had praised other Bowie recordings before that.
So it did all seem a little odd when he later attacked Bowie in interview …they all come back around eventually. He was most likely just envious that Bowie got there with what is now the trademark Weller hairstyle (see above) many, many years before him.