I, I *should* be King..
Dot music interviewed David Grohl of the Foo Fighters recently, about the making of their new album ‘One By One’. David was asked about his predilection for working with other artists, notably Queens Of The Stone Age and our hero. He had some fascinating gossip to offer about his recent work on ‘Heathen’ which is very much worth repeating here for you:-
Q: You recently played guitar for David Bowie’s ‘Heathen’ album; was that years ago?
DG: “No, that was recently, that was maybe five or six months ago; he just called and asked if I’d play guitar on a song. And I said, yes sure; he sent me the copy of the songs, I played guitar and sent it back. I mean, I went and bought the album last week and it sounds pretty good.
“I recorded something for Reeves Gabriel’s (Bowie’s guitarist who formed part of metal-experimental Tin Machine) solo record and it was Reeves, Charles from the Pixies, Frank Black, David Bowie and me, we did one song, called ‘My Face’. That was a trip, that was pretty amazing, just to be in the studio with Bowie for that.
TH: Didn’t he let you have his lyrics?
DG: “No, he left. He came in to write lyrics, he sat down on the floor and spread postcards and pictures of things, all over the floor.”
TH: “Very Bowie”
DG: “And sat down and started writing down lyrics and the song was called ‘My Face’ and it says ‘I’m nothing without my face’. So, he wrote the lyrics on a notebook paper, and then on the bottom he did a self-portrait of himself. We recorded the songs and by, like, 2 o’clock in the morning everyone was leaving and I looked on the ground and the lyric sheet was just sort of lying there. It was an almost like that last pork-chop on a boat of starving people, everyone was standing there starring at this f**king lyric sheet on the ground, like – who’s gonna get it? who’s gonna grab it? and I f**king grabbed it and I gave it to my sister, she is a huge David Bowie fan; so, she has it framed in her house. It’s f**king cool.”
CS: “That’s f**king unbelievable.”
DG: “It’s pretty awesome. But, he is a great guy, I mean, he is the consummate gentlemen and he seems like he should be f**king King, and not a rock star. So, he is very nice. The fact that it was a Neil Young cover (‘I’ve Been Waiting For You’) on the (‘Heathen’) album, made it more, even more inviting.”
You can read the whole thing online, here.
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Who knows? Not me
David Grohl is also very much involved in the Nov 11th (UK) release of the new ‘Best Of Nirvana’ album, which includes their 1993 ‘MTV Unplugged’ cover of one of David’s best loved songs ‘The Man Who Sold The World’
NME has a special Nirvana issue this week, which is an excellent read and includes what they describe as ‘an impeccably cool list of the band’s Top 50 albums of all time’. And of course, the album ‘The Man Who Sold The World’ features on the list. Sort of questions Paul Du Noyer’s hotly debated ranking of db’s output (11/06/02 NEWS: Q GOES BOWIE BONKERS FOR DECEMBER), don’t it? 😉
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Footnote: BowieNetter MickQ was quick to spot the *deliberate* mistake in the original ‘What’s New’ description for this item. The song ‘My Face’ was in fact re-named ‘Jewel’ and released by Reeves Gabrels on ‘Ulysses (Della Notte)’, his second solo album. You can check out the lyric at MickQ’s message board post, here.
:))