Bowie on Bowie: Interviews and Encounters with David Bowie

Over the Rainbow Selection 2016

David Bowie has been one of pop music’s greatest interviewees since January 1972, when he famously risked career death by asserting to Melody Maker that he was gay. Although he wasn’t yet a big star, it was a groundbreaking moment. And over the years, Bowie has failed to give an uninteresting interview. It might be said that he has habitually used the media for his own ends, but he has paradoxically also been searingly honest, declining to ever be coy about his ambitions, his private life, and even his occasional ennui.
 
Bowie on Bowie presents some of the best interviews Bowie has granted in his near five-decade career. Each interview traces a new step in his unique journey, successively freezing him in time as young novelty hit-maker, hairy hippie, Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, the Thin White Duke, plastic soul man, fragile Germanic exile, godfather of the New Romantics, eighties sellout, Tin Machinist, and, finally, permanently, artistically reborn beloved elder statesman of challenging popular music. In all of these iterations he is remarkably articulate. He is also preternaturally polite—almost every interviewer remarks upon his charm.
 
The features in this book come from outlets both prestigious (MelodyMaker, Mojo, New Musical Express,Q, Rolling Stone) and less well-known (The Drummer, Guitar,Ikon, Mr. Showbiz). In all cases, Bowie enables the reader to approach the nerve center of his ferociously creative and prolific output.

“"[T]his is a fascinating journey through the mind of a musician many people claim to "know" but who proves time and again that his own essence is often foreign to himself. An asset for Bowie fans." -- Library Journal”

“David Bowie has always been a consummate mythmaker, and this fascinating anthology captures him at his most mysterious and mischievous, laying himself bare and building walls around himself in the same mercurial instant.”—Peter Doggett, author of The Man Who Sold the World: David Bowie and the 1970s

“[T]his is a fascinating journey through the mind of a musician many people claim to “know” but who proves time and again that his own essence is often foreign to himself. An asset for Bowie fans.” —Library Journal

“A must for Bowie fans.” —Booklist

“It’s great fun to browse through. And it’s the closest you’ll get to an actual Bowie autobiography.” —Goldmine, The Music Collector's Magazine

“...this imaginative compendium of more than thirty interviews is a welcome addition to an ever-lengthening bibliography. […]So good, you want to read it as you revisit his peerless catalog.” —Classic Pop

“Bowie on Bowie is an incredible glimpse into the man who unarguably made the world not only more interesting and more enjoyable, but more inspirational.” —Blogcritics

Sean Egan is an author and journalist who has interviewed members of the Beach Boys, the Beatles, the Kinks, Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, the Sex Pistols, the Velvet Underground, the Who, and many others. He is the author or editor of several books, including Keith Richards on Keith Richards, Jimi Hendrix and the Making of Are You Experienced, Defining Moments in Music, The Mammoth Book of the Beatles, The Rough Guide to the Rolling Stones, and David Bowie: Ever Changing Hero.

This item is eligible for free returns within 30 days of delivery. See our returns policy for further details.