The brutal way David Bowie rejected Coldplay
The creative chameleon David Bowie was prone to memorable collaborations, both on stage and in the studio. Notable team-ups include those with Robert Smith, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Morrissey, John Lennon, Marc Bolan, Freddie Mercury, Mick Jagger and Annie Lennox. However, as a discerning artist, there were several occasions where Bowie had to draw the line.
In a 2016 conversation with the NME, just a week after Bowie’s tragic death, Coldplay’s Jonny Buckland and Will Champion reflected on the influence of one of their musical heroes and remembered a missed chance to collaborate with the iconic performer.
“I felt incredibly sad when I heard David Bowie had died,” Buckland began. “We’ve all loved his music for as long as we’ve known about music.”
“When you have any involvement in music, he was one of the points of reference for absolutely everything, for genres and for how to be a rockstar or a popstar or whatever it was. Completely defining that. So for musicians, it’s quite disorienting,” Champion continued.
“The first thing, when I read [that Bowie had died] in the morning, I sent a message to Brian Eno. I said to him that, you know, we’ve all lost a musical hero, but he obviously lost a really dear friend.” Eno had previously worked with Bowie during his critically lauded Berlin Trilogy and later teamed up with Coldplay to co-produce Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends and Mylo Xyloto.
“I think his disappearance and death was just so typically enigmatic and – I mean, Brian hadn’t a clue he was even ill – it’s extraordinary how he managed to, even in his untimely and sad death was a work of art, you know, it’s amazing,” Champion pointed out.
Continuing, the Coldplay drummer remembered how his band had approached Bowie with a proposed collaboration: a track containing a “David Bowie-type character”. Unfortunately, The Starman couldn’t see any potential in the idea, but Coldplay respected his candid honesty.
“We once submitted a song to him to say, ‘Would you please sing on this song?’ Because it’s got this part – it was a three-part thing – and we had a sort of David Bowie-type character,” he recalled. “I think Chris [Martin] phoned him up and wrote him a letter to say, ‘Please sing on it,’ and he came back and said, ‘It’s not a very good song, is it?’ [Laughs]. I was like, ‘OK, I’ll take that as a no.”
“So he was very discerning,” Champion concluded graciously. “He wouldn’t just put his name to anything. So, I’ll give him credit for that.”
In a later recollection of the story live on Absolute Radio, Martin remembered that Bowie had texted him in response to the song: “Not one of your best”.
Although David Bowie declined to work with Coldplay on the song, the band persevered with Kylie Minogue on board.
Listen to ‘Lhuna’ below.
