Spider from Mars Page 18

  Bowie answered, ‘You’re just a fucking backing band. I could have made it with anybody.’

  When someone has just knocked everything you are, you react without thinking. I told him, ‘You’re a cunt! You didn’t make it before we came along and if I wanted to back somebody, I would have picked somebody who can fucking sing, like Elvis Presley.’

  He looked shocked. He wasn’t used to people talking to him like that. Of course, Elvis was Bowie’s idol, although I didn’t know that at the time, which obviously made it hit home even harder. When Trev said he felt the same way Defries said to him, ‘You’ve got a wife and kid, Trev. How are you going to bring up a kid with no money?’ which was a shitty thing to do.

  Defries then said he’d found out about the CBS offer and had threatened legal action on the parties involved so the deal was no longer there. At this point I said, ‘Well, I’m not playing any more dates on this tour or the UK tour if this is how we’re going to get treated’, and Mick, Trev and I got up and left the room.

  I hadn’t argued with Bowie before that, apart from that one time over the stage outfits at Radio City. This time, though, I was a threat, because I’d said I wouldn’t play the forthcoming dates. That was unacceptable to him. I found out later that he’d said, ‘I’m not having them hold me over a barrel.’

  Again, in retrospect, we weren’t aware of the cocaine problem at this time; I’m sure this situation would have had a different outcome if the conversation had been with David Jones rather than Ziggy Stardust.

  I found out years later that RCA had spent so much money on funding Bowie’s American tours that they weren’t willing to do it again. Because they weren’t going to pay for the next tour, there was no money. It put Defries and Bowie in a tough position as everything had been funded by advances – now they had to confront what they had been spending and what they could afford from that point on. Worse for Bowie was that reportedly his deal with Defries was a 50/50 split, but all the touring expenses were coming out of Bowie’s percentage.

  Defries and Bowie could have told us the money wasn’t there at the time, but they didn’t. Instead, we were just insulted and told that Bowie could tour with any old band.

  The reason Mick was quiet in that meeting, I later found out, was because, on learning of the CBS deal, Bowie and Defries had taken him aside and told him that they wanted to make him the new Jeff Beck/Elvis, although they weren’t quite sure if Trevor and I were going to be included – and he fell for it. That’s why he had said nothing and why I had to be the spokesman on his and Trev’s behalf.

  I thought the only real strength we had at this stage was the fact that the three of us were the Spiders. But Bowie and Defries had managed to split that relationship.

  The next day Mick came to me and persuaded me to do the remaining tour dates. He told me that Defries had agreed to give us a good pay rise and a bonus, and that Trevor and he were both happy with that, so I thought ‘job done’. I had no idea what was coming. I had no idea what had gone on behind the scenes.

  Defries now asked us to sign contracts, which we duly did, in March 1973. These stated that he would be our manager, and that if we got a record deal as the Spiders From Mars, he would be the one who arranged it. We fell for it, like the suckers we were. After all we’d been through, we were still naive boys from Yorkshire who assumed that because you worked with someone you could trust they were going to look after your interests. That’s not necessarily true.

  Mick, Trevor and I were now put on salaries of £500 a week, plus another £500 as a bonus at the end of each tour, which I was happy with. I would have followed through on my promise not to play the remaining dates but it was the last thing I wanted to do. I still wasn’t there for the money, and, yes, I know that still sounds stupid but I was there because I wanted to be out there as part of a band, playing shows.

  After that, things with David seemed OK, in as much as we didn’t mention it again and he talked to me as much as he had before on that tour. I thought the bad blood was a thing of the past, because we were all talking about touring Europe in the autumn of ’73 and recording Bowie’s next album, Pin-Ups. We started listening to the songs he wanted to include, figuring out what we were going to do with them.

  I admit that I didn’t like the idea of doing a covers album. I didn’t want to cover other people’s songs, and nor did the others. Bowie later blamed it on us and said that we’d wanted to do it, but that was untrue; he just hadn’t had time to write any new songs and was contractually obliged to do another album!

  On the tour, a real turning point came for me when, in the spring of 1973, I came across Scientology. I’m not going to say too much about it because it’s a very personal thing, but it has helped me find a life that I’m very happy with, and I’m not bothered what other people think about it.

  The way it happened was essentially as the end point of a journey, which I’d been on since I was a kid. As I mentioned earlier, I was raised as a Methodist but grew out of that pretty quickly. Soon after that I became interested in Buddhism, the writings of Khalil Gibran and anything along those lines that might offer some answers. Some of it was interesting and offered new viewpoints, but nothing really grabbed me.

  I was still searching for something spiritual, though. I looked for things that were true for me – things that meshed with my experience, or enabled me to see things from another angle and help me understand life better.

  When Mike Garson joined us we knew he was part of some religion, although we didn’t know what it was. All we knew was that he didn’t drink and was anti-drugs, and once we got to know him he seemed relatively sane. For fun we nicknamed him ‘Garson the Parson’ which Mike took in the spirit in which it was intended. Many mornings at breakfast on the tour the whole crew would wait for Mike to come down and we would ask him to say grace before we ate.

  ‘For what you miserable drug-taking scumbags with no morals are about to receive, may you all go to hell. Amen!’ he would say.

  We never got tired of this joke and neither did Mike.

  During a conversation with Mike in Los Angeles, he told me he was a Scientologist. Putting it very simply, he said that Scientology was a religion developed by its founder, the humanitarian L. Ron Hubbard. He said it takes any area of life that you’re having problems with, and it uses exact principles and exact technologies to address self-confidence, intelligence and ability. I thought that sounded interesting, because, as I mentioned before, I’d always been really shy. It hadn’t gone away, even after all our success; in social situations it was always painful meeting new people. I covered it up well but it was becoming a major problem for me. The bigger the band got, the more of those situations I had to deal with and the shyness had become even more of an Achilles heel.

  Mike told me that there was a Scientology course in LA that was designed to help exactly the kind of problem that I had. He said, ‘I’m not promising anything, but it might be worth checking out.’

  After the tour finished with dates in Long Beach and the Hollywood Palladium I stayed in LA and did the course Mike had mentioned. At the beginning of the course I’d read, ‘If what I say works for you, great; if not, throw this book in the waste bin’, or words to that effect. I thought to myself, ‘That’s a very Yorkshire way of putting it.’ I liked that.

  After a week, it began to make sense to me, and I went from always thinking that life had dealt me a lousy hand, and that I would carry it with me as long as I lived, to the reverse. It was incredible. That one week of study really paid off. It didn’t take much effort on my part; it was simply data that I’d never received before from anywhere, and it completely changed the way I dealt with people.

  This evolution was as important to me as being in a band, because it was about me as an individual. All parts of my life would be better if I mastered this problem – and that is exactly what happened. I couldn’t quite believe it; I’d almost given up hope of finding a solution. It genuinely changed my life and co
ntinues to do so to this day. I’m definitely not shy any more!

  Since then I’m continually being asked ‘what’s Scientology all about?’ I tell people to read one of the books. The one I usually recommend is L. Ron Hubbard’s A New Slant On Life.

  So this tour had brought many changes to my life. Little did I know but even more changes were just around the corner.

  9

  WATCH THAT MAN

  I flew home in mid-March, arriving at Heathrow where June was waiting for me with a taxi. We’d barely seen each other over the last twelve months thanks to the crazy touring schedule, so it was nice to be back on British soil with the prospect of spending the next ten days with her before I had to leave for Japan.

  I filled her in with stories from the US tour and brought her up to speed on all the changes that had taken place, with more detail than I had been able to do on the long-distance phone calls I’d made during the tours. She was shocked to hear what had happened at the band’s meeting with Defries and Bowie.

  I told her that the relationship between Bowie and the band had definitely changed and our ‘gang’ no longer existed, apart from during the performances, but I reassured her that even though some of his behaviour was hard to deal with at times, we had quickly developed a mutually friendly and professional approach that seemed like it was going to be workable.

  She was happy to hear I’d curbed the drinking and stopped the weed and said she thought I looked healthier for it. That’s before I mentioned my epiphany on the groupies . . . I coughed up everything, and needless to say I didn’t look so healthy any more at this point. That was a hard thing for me to say and for June to hear, but we both survived the revelations and the hurt healed. It felt right and a relief not to have those kind of secrets any more in our relationship.

  The ten days passed in a blur and before I knew it the Spiders, the auxiliary musicians and entourage had all convened at Heathrow airport once more. We were heading for Japan, the Far East, land of the rising sun. We were all in high spirits, eagerly discussing the exotic journey ahead of us. What would it be like? Did anyone speak English? What would the food be like . . . did they even have vanilla ice cream? It made my childhood holidays in Filey seem like another lifetime.

  We took a flight to Paris and then Air France would carry us to Japan via Moscow, where we would stop for refuelling. Bowie had left America at the end of the US tour with his travelling companion Geoff MacCormack and sailed from LA on the SS Oronsay, arriving in Tokyo on 5 April.

  As we were preparing to land for refuelling at Moscow airport one of the air hostesses told all the Spiders and a couple of the crew that upon landing all the passengers would be vacating the aeroplane, but they would like us to remain seated until everyone had left. I asked why and she said someone would be attending to us. We landed and stayed put as instructed. I thought they must know who we were and this must be some kind of VIP treatment, so I wasn’t worried until two soldiers in uniform armed with rifles appeared at the front of the plane. They made their way towards us and, signalling with their weapons, insisted we follow them. They took us through passageways under the airport to a room where an unsmiling, uniformed guy who could speak English awaited us.

  ‘We were informed you were on the plane and we also know that you have caused riots in other countries. We cannot allow the people of Russia to see how you look,’ he said. So we were detained in what I presumed was an international lounge for the duration of the refuelling of the aircraft. They then escorted us back to the aeroplane to continue our journey. It had been quite scary; those guns were real after all. We’d had police escorts during the US tour and at one place we’d persuaded a couple of the officers to let us handle their guns (they were surprisingly weighty), but the atmosphere during this incident was so far from friendly that we knew better than to try that again.

  We were met at Tokyo airport by representatives of the Japanese promoters, who greeted us with lots of bowing. We’d been told beforehand that it was customary for the Japanese hosts to make the last bow as a sign of respect; we weren’t sure if this was true so we tested it out . . . It was true and quite funny. We were staying at the famous Imperial Hotel in the centre of Tokyo, overlooking Hibiya Park and the Imperial Palace. It was quite luxurious and the rooms themselves were decorated in a westernized Japanese style.

  My first impression of Tokyo was that it was just like a US city, the only difference being that all the signs and billboards were in Japanese, which was a little disorienting. I noticed extremely wide zebra crossings at road junctions where literally hundreds of people would cross when the lights changed. There didn’t seem to be anyone jay-walking. It seemed very orderly. Then I realized that everyone had black hair; there didn’t appear to be anyone of a different race, which was strange as most cities are quite cosmopolitan, at least the ones I’d visited.

  Interest in the band had been growing in Japan before our arrival. ‘Starman’ was a huge hit there and Aladdin Sane would go on to have a two-year run in the Japanese charts. I was told that before Bowie’s arrival a 60-by 90-foot poster was hung from a building in Tokyo, making it the biggest poster in the world.

  Our reputation for being a debauched rock ’n’ roll band had preceded us and security staff were stationed around the hotel to prevent any misbehaviour. All ‘guests’ would have to pass through a stiff security check before being allowed into the lifts. It was clear that the promoters and the hotel staff were going to make sure that it was a well-behaved tour, though I did see one Japanese ‘lady’ in full kimono who appeared just to be hanging around the lobby day and night. When I asked who she was I was told she was the hotel prostitute . . . so I guess to some degree they were still being ‘service-oriented’.

  We had a day off on the 7th and as we weren’t going to be in Japan for that long – for just nine concerts in fact – Mick, Trev and I and a couple of the crew had decided to get up early as we wanted to cram in as much as we could during our stay. We had breakfast at the hotel, which luckily served western cuisine as I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to be able to eat raw fish, and still can’t to this day. This could be due to the fact that one of my hobbies is carp fishing!

  Then we hit the streets of Tokyo and got used to being stared at continually as we walked around. Mick and I stood out in particular, having blond hair. In among the skyscrapers and bustling streets we found a Japanese Buddhist temple with a courtyard where people could light candles and tie ribbons onto the branches of a couple of trees. It seemed out of place in this modern metropolis but had a real air of tranquillity about it.

  I needed a new hairbrush so I checked out one of the huge department stores to see what I could find. I handed my brush to the sales girl who bowed politely and disappeared with it through one of the doors. She returned after what seemed like ten minutes with an intricately wrapped present with a huge bow on it, presented on a silver platter. I thought at first that she’d made a mistake as the packaging seemed to be more expensive than my hairbrush. It turned out this was normal service which impressed me no end and definitely made me want to do some more shopping. The Japanese had turned buying a simple item into an aesthetic experience. I bought a couple of kimonos for June, some Japanese fabric I knew she would like and some porcelain buttons that had Japanese faces hand-painted on them.

  Bowie, meanwhile, was spending some family time with Angie and Zowie, who had flown in from London. They also hung out with Kansai Yamamoto’s family. We met up with them later in the afternoon and went to see a performance of kabuki theatre. After the show some of the cast came out into the foyer and we were introduced by an RCA rep. David got some make-up advice from one of the actors, who, it turned out, was famous. One of the hairdressers from the show was fascinated by Trevor’s long black hair and offered to come and style it like a traditional Samurai warrior for the gig. Trev thought it was a great idea and that it would work perfectly with the stage outfit that June had made him for the tour. It was a kimono-style
jacket with huge ‘wings’ on the shoulders. When he walked out in front of the Japanese audiences later they were absolutely blown away.

  That evening we had a short rehearsal, including ‘Starman’, which Bowie wanted to include in the set. We also went over various songs that others wanted to brush up on. Then, on 8 April, we did our first gig of the tour at the Shinjuku Koseinenkin Hall. The response was wild. Unlike our other shows, the audience was predominantly young girls and their screams were so high-pitched my ears were ringing by the end.

  As the show had progressed, Bowie had gone through his various Japanese costume changes. Some of the outfits had been presented to him when he got to Japan and at one point he was wearing only a diamond-studded jock strap (an homage to sumo wrestlers) by which time the audience was almost at fever pitch. The next two nights at the Shinjuku Koseinenkin were equally successful and we were told there’d been a rave review in the Japanese Times which said, ‘Musically he is the most exciting thing to have happened since the fragmentation of the Beatles, and theatrically he is perhaps the most interesting performer ever in the pop music genre.’

  We did two more equally successful shows at the same venue on the next two nights.

  I was thinking very much of June at this time, knowing how much she would have loved Japan and its culture. It was time for another life-changing decision, I decided. I called her from my hotel room and asked her if she would marry me. It was a romantic gesture for me – I’m not the demonstrative type – but Tokyo with the cherry trees in blossom was inspiring me. Of course, the romance of the city was lost on June but I did try to include her by describing the scene. She said yes and we agreed to do it after the UK tour finished. Later when I got back and gave her the presents I’d bought in Japan, she said jokingly, ‘Most girls get engagement rings. I get buttons!’

  The next gig was Nagoya followed by Hiroshima. All of us, Bowie, Angie, Zowie, the Spiders et al., travelled on the famous bullet train. It was an eye-opener: they give you a ticket with the platform and seat number on it, and you walk along the platform to your designated number. The train pulls in, the door opens in front of you and your seat is right there! And it leaves bang on time. As the second hand on the station clock hits the twelve, the train starts to move – they don’t do late trains. It’s a completely different culture there.