David Bowie: Playboy Interview

He was once a scruffy, honey-haired folk singer. Then the foppish leader of a Beatles-prototype pop band, The Buzz. Then an adamantly bisexual balladeer. Then a spacy, cropped-red-haired androgynous guitarist backed by a band called the Spiders from Mars. Then a soul singer. Then a movie actor . . . and finally, a smartly conservative, Sinatraesque entertainer. David Bowie, it's safe to say, would do anything to make it. And now that he has made it, he'll do anything to stay there.
At 29, David Bowie (born David Jones in Brixton, England) is far more than another rock star. He is a self-designed media manipulator who knows neither tact nor intimidation. There is but one objective to his bizarrely eclectic career—attention. Without it, he would surely wither and die. Before a crowd of paying customers, if possible.
In April 1975, Bowie splashily announced he had given up on rock. "I've rocked my roll," is the way he put it. "It's a boring dead end. There will be no more rock-'n'-roll records or tours from me. The last thing I want to be is some useless fucking rock singer." That was the second time he'd made such a statement. He had first announced a rock retirement during his encore at a huge outdoor London concert in 1973, after which he went on to release "Diamond Dogs" and to book a three-month American tour.
This time, Bowie ate his words of farewell even more spectacularly. Last November, he arranged an interview by satellite from his Los Angeles home with England's most popular talk-show host, Russell Harty, to explain that he had a new album of double-fisted rock 'n' roll, "Station to Station." What's more, Bowie rambled on, he would soon be embarking on a six-month world-wide concert blitz. The government of Spain, meanwhile, demanded emergency use of the satellite to tell the world that Generalissimo Franco had died. Bowie, always the bad boy, refused to give it up.
Bowie is not the most loved man in the music business. Still, he has made his mark. When he first appeared on an American stage, in 1972, he was humping his guitarist, wearing full make-up and sporting lavishly feminine costumes. He instantly created a new genre—glamor rock—that yanked rock out of its innocence. Mick Jagger and The Rolling Stones, Elton John, Alice Cooper, Todd Rundgren, Lou Reed and a host of glitter bands, such as Queen, Roxy Music, Slade, T. Rex and Cockney Rebel, followed suit.
Once Bowie had turned everybody's head on that first U.S. tour, it wasn't long before his then-current LP about a doomed rock demigod, "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars," shot to the top of the charts. His three previous albums—all stiffs in their day—began selling wildly. The press leaped to proclaim Bowie the Next Big Thing we'd all been craving since the demise of the Beatles. Just as quickly, it turned to attack the phenomenon. There was, it seemed, something about Bowie's bisexual band wagon that wasn't quite . . . healthy.
Musicians and critics banded together to revolt against Bowie's decadence. But Bowie had already assumed a new, equally ludicrous façade—disco soul. Suddenly, this frail, faggy hard rocker was bumping and grinding out rhythm-and-blues. And it worked. Bowie racked up two huge hits, "Young Americans" and "Fame." Then came the ultimate acceptance: He became one of the very few whites ever to be invited to appear on "Soul Train."
To accommodate the wide base of his success, Bowie has since assumed the posture of grand old entertainer, wearing black formal trousers and vest over a white shirt. "Station to Station" reached the sacred gold status of $500,000 worth sold. His subsequent world tour, just completed, was a sellout at every stop.
Now, in Bowie's biggest year yet, the onetime glitter king/queen of rock is threatening to keep a promise for once. He has always claimed to be a genuine film star, and his performance in Nicolas ("Walkabout," "Don't Look Now," "Performance") Roeg's recent release, "The Man Who Fell to Earth," has won lavish praise. The choice of Bowie to play the title role was, according to The New York Times, "inspired. Mr. Bowie gives an extraordinary performance."
We figured it was about time to catch up with Bowie's crusade—as he has explained it—to rule the world. Free-lance journalist and Rolling Stone contributing editor Cameron Crowe was sent to visit with the most arrogant superstar to invade the media in the Seventies. His report:
"My talks with Bowie began as far back as early 1975. Few of our sessions were marathon affairs. No matter how stimulating the conversation, after any longer than an hour of sitting still, Bowie could barely contain himself. 'Can we just take a short break?' he'd blurt. Not waiting for a reply, he would then shoot to his feet and dart in another direction: sometimes to write a song or two, other times to dash off a painting. In one instance, he ended a session by asking for a random list of 20 items. I gave it to him. He studied the list for ten seconds, handed it back and recited it from memory. Backward and forward.
"Bowie is expertly charming, whether in the company of a stuffy film executive, another musician or a complete stranger. He is fully aware that he is a sensational quote machine. The more shocking his revelation, from his homosexual encounters to his fascist leanings, the wider his grin. He knows exactly what interviewers consider good copy; and he gives them precisely that. The truth is probably inconsequential."