Five musicians who couldn’t stand David Bowie: “I’m gonna kill you!”
“I love to see people being dangerous,” David Bowie once proclaimed, and it was a proclamation that he lived by. He was an endless slew of superlatives, but the area where he excelled way beyond any of his peers is just how revolutionarily daring he was as an artist.
When the world zigged, he zagged, embodied by the lightning bolt he sported upon his face at the pivotal phase of his career. That trailblazing strike vitally flashed through mainstream culture, remaining a beacon of individuality for us all to aspire towards in our own humble ways. As Johnny Marr put it, “David Bowie is easily the most influential and important artist to come out of the UK, for so many reasons – there are musicians who are influenced by him who don’t even realise it,” he told NME in 2013.
”Ziggy Stardust and Hunky Dory liberated so many people from the straight sensibility in the suburbs,” he added. That’s exactly how Bowie would’ve wanted it. He found himself stifled by life in Bromley, a place he thought was awkwardly betwixt the bohemian city and the high ideals of the country. So, he looked to shake it up.
However, if you’re a daring artist, you will have your detractors, too. You can’t please everyone all the time, and when you’re purposefully not playing to the gallery, as Bowie put it, that capacity to displease isn’t going to be all that uncommon. Moreover, constantly trying to push boundaries means that you could sometimes end up pushing yourself off a precipice. As Bill Ryder-Jones recently told me, “Even David Bowie tried his hand at jungle, didn’t he? I mean bloody hell, nobody is safe.”
But for every regrettable moment or glaring mistake, there are masterpieces and a glowing legacy that far eclipse these little mishaps made for all the right reasons. However, not everyone saw it that way; some believed he was a mere poser, others have questioned whether there was enough sincerity behind the make-up, and there are other criticisms even more facile than that.
These are the rare discerning voices that we’ve chronicled below. From Keith Richards getting the wrong end of the stick to a strange feud, these are the unfortunate folks who actually hate the Starman.
Five musicians who hated David Bowie:
Keith Richards
Keith Richards hasn’t had praise for many artists over the years, blasting Led Zeppelin, The Band and even The Beatles at times, to name but a few. He did, however, credit the Hunky Dory track ‘Changes’ as a classic but quickly added: “I can’t think of anything else he’s done that would make my hair stand up.”
Later, he took an even more scathing turn when he commented: “It’s all pose. It’s all fucking posing. It’s nothing to do with music. He knows it, too.” That hardly puts Richards in line to be the next Sherlock Holmes. I mean, it’s obviously all pose, mate, but how many people had the creative ingenuity to pose as an androgynous alien rather than another cliched snarling rock star?
Axl Rose
While the words of Richards might not have hurt Bowie, the sticks and stones of Axl Rose very nearly did. However, the Guns N’ Rose frontman had plenty of reason to take umbrage with Bowie. His band were announced as the warm-up act for The Rolling Stones at their favourite haunt, The Cathouse. A drunken Bowie figured he’d swoop by early. As preparations were being made, word soon reached Rose that Bowie was flirting rather boldly with his girlfriend.
So, the screaming frontman soon pursued him, and fists were thrown in fury. This scuffle was soon broken up, leaving Rose to be carted off while he yelled, “I’m gonna kill you, TIN MAN.” Thankfully, the American rocker failed to live up to his promise, but it didn’t stop him from holding a grudge against The Man Who Fell to Earth for his apparent misdemeanours.
Elton John
While hate is far too strong a word for the strange rift between Bowie and Elton John, there was a very unusual flow of bad blood between the pair, all the same. Strangely, even Elton struggles to reconcile quite why they began to dislike each other. “David and I were not the best of friends towards the end. We started out being really good friends,” he recalled. Adding, “We used to hang out together with Marc Bolan, going to gay clubs.” Before explaining that they eventually “just drifted apart”.
“Years later, he’d always make snippy remakes about me in interviews,” Elton said. “‘The token queen of rock and roll’ was the most famous one, although, in fairness, he was absolutely out of his mind on coke when he said it.” Concluding with a sense of sincerity, “I honestly don’t know what the problem was, but there clearly was a problem. I was never great friends with Bowie. I loved his music […] but there was always something distant and aloof about him, at least when I was around.”
Frank Zappa
Frank Zappa is another musician who stayed well clear of hero-worshipping. In fact, you’d be hard-pushed to fill a thimble with the amount of praise he extolled. But once more, Bowie supplied good reason for his opinion on this occasion because, after a show in Berlin, he decided to poach Zappa’s guitarist Adrian Belew.
When Zappa realised that something was rotten in Denmark as Bowie was chatting up the guitarist, an incendiary incident took place. According to Belew, Zappa approached and quipped: “Fuck you, Captain Tom.” Belew carried on his account: “David persisted, ‘Oh come on now Frank, surely we can be gentlemen about this?’ Frank said, ‘Fuck you, Captain Tom’. By this point, I was paralysed. David said, ‘So you really have nothing to say?’ Frank said, ‘Fuck you, Captain Tom.’” They then parted acrimoniously, and Zappa refused to ever talk to him again.
Gary Numan
There was a time when Gary Numan loved Bowie, but perhaps he loved him a bit too much. Bowie felt that Numan was ripping him off somewhere along the line. In fact, the ‘Starman’ thought this to such an extent that he reportedly had him kicked off The Kenny Everett Christmas Show in 1980, where the duo were set to share a bill. This was a saddening blow for Numan and led to a change of heart regarding his old hero.
“It bothered me at the time because I was a massive fan, and he’d been such a big part of my life for so many years, so I was pretty disappointed – and the fact I got taken off the show afterwards,” Numan recalls. Before adding with great understanding, “But I later came to realise we all go through periods when we’re more fragile or paranoid and not sure how we fit into all of this.”
