The story of how David Bowie saved Deep Purple
While Deep Purple have been considered one of the progenitors of heavy rock and heavy metal, their history has been written with several line-up changes and even an eight-year hiatus. Interestingly enough that history might have been called to an abrupt end had it not been for David Bowie.
Glenn Hughes, Deep Purple’s one-time bassist, once explained that it was Bowie who had essentially kept the band together. The two had lived together when Bowie was making his 1976 album Station to Station, and during this time, Bowie gave Hughes some vital (and quintessentially Bowie) advice.
Hughes noted: “He was always telling me, ‘Keep fucking changing. Never stay the same. Never. Stay. The same. Throw those leather pants away. Throw those boots away. Let me cut your fucking hair.’ He was all about forever changing, and I’ve always done that, really. Some people don’t get it, and some people do.”
Indeed, Bowie was an adherent of that very advice. He was persistently changing his image and his sound regardless of what his fans thought and what the press wrote about him, and that mantra of “keep fucking changing” stayed with Bowie right up until his death in 2016 and the release of his final album Blackstar.
However, this was not the only advice that Bowie gave to Hughes that helped to keep Deep Purple ticking along after guitarist Ritchie Blackmore left the group in 1975. Hughes noted: “When Ritchie left the band, I gotta be honest with you, I wanted to go back to Trapeze and reform the band.” Hughes had performed vocals in the Midlands funk rock band before he joined Deep Purple.
He continued: “Bowie was in my house, and he said, ‘You should go get a new guitar player who sounds way different to Ritchie, and maybe looks different.’ He kind of convinced me. I think Jon and I were going to throw the towel in.” Naturally, there were a number of guitarists that would have jumped at the opportunity to join one of the “big three” heavy rock bands (Sabbath, Zeppelin and Deep Purple). But there was only one man for the job when it came down to it: Tommy Bolin.
“Bowie drove me down in his Mercedes to audition Tommy,” Hughes added. “So Bowie had a lot to do with me going down there that day. And I fell in love with Tommy the moment I saw him, you know? I knew before he switched his fucking amp on that he was going to kick my ass.”
