David Bowie: the musician Lou Reed said had “everything”
The co-founder and principal songwriter of The Velvet Underground, Lou Reed, was known to have been, at times, a hot-headed, cantankerous contrarian; there was little he enjoyed more than criticising his highly revered peers. He was also known for being difficult to work with occasionally due to his forthright, unwavering opinions and dry sense of humour.
Just how difficult Reed was to work with is a matter of conjecture among fans, but he managed to maintain friendships with his Velvet Underground peers and many subsequent collaborators, despite a few ups and downs. One of Reed’s most valued musical partners was David Bowie, who was among a very small contingent of Velvet Underground fanatics during his sluggish rise to prominence in the late-1960s.
In 1971 the pair were introduced to each other by Tony Zanetta, who first caught Bowie’s eye while acting in Andy Warhol’s theatre production, Pork. Zanetta also introduced Bowie to Warhol and Iggy Pop around the same time and would later manage his famous Ziggy Stardust tour.
Following Reed’s poorly received solo debut LP of 1971, as if repaying artistic debt, Bowie and his guitarist Mick Ronson agreed to help Reed produce his second solo album, Transformer. Released in November 1972, the album was tinged with Bowie’s glam-rock sensibilities and boosted Reed to the top 20 in the UK and US, thanks to his most successful single, ‘Walk on the Wild Side’. That same year, Bowie had caught his wave with the release of Ziggy Stardust, and the year seemed to propel the pair into the decade with a sense of optimism.
Reed and Bowie remained close friends until the former died in 2013, but a spat in the late ’70s strained this bond significantly. After performing together at the Hammersmith Odeon in 1979, Bowie, Reed and some of their band members departed for the Chelsea Rendezvous restaurant. During the meal, Reed asked Bowie if he’d like to produce his ninth solo studio album, The Bells. Bowie accepted but said he would only work with Reed on the album if he agreed to get sober as he had done himself in Berlin two years prior. Though the injunction came from a friendly place, Reed took it as a personal insult as an intoxicated rage overcame him. Suddenly, he lurched across the table, grabbed Bowie by the scruff of the neck, and dropped a few punches on the Starman’s emaciated countenance. “Don’t you ever say that to me! Don’t you ever fucking say that to me,” Reed reportedly shouted.
Reed was eventually peeled away from Bowie and escorted from the building as a de-escalating verbal exchange replaced the violence. “As a guitarist in the Lou Reed band at that time, I was actually sitting next to both David and Lou at dinner when this exchange took place; I can tell you exactly what transpired verbally,” Chuck Hammer once recalled in an interview with Uncut. “Lou had been discussing details regarding his upcoming new album — as yet unrecorded. Lou asked David if he would be interested in producing the record, and David replied yes — but only upon the condition that Lou would stop drinking and clean up his act. And upon that reply, the aforementioned chaos ensued.”
“It should be noted that this verbal bantering also continued into the night back at the hotel — with Bowie in the hallway demanding that Reed ‘come out and fight like a man’. Eventually, it all quieted down as Lou never reappeared to continue the fight and was most likely already fast asleep,” he added.
Despite this intense confrontation, Reed had only pleasant things to say of Bowie in his interviews over the years. “How can I remember my first impression of David Bowie? That’s really… [smiles] Okay… I mean, David and I are friends to this day,” Reed beamed in a 2004 interview with Loudersound. He’s very smart and very, very talented, and I met him in New York and thought, ‘This guy would be a fun guy to work with; we could really bring something to the dance.'”
“David is no slouch,” he added. “We were rehearsing for our little show, and we’re doing ‘Satellite Of Love’, and we were doing the real background part at the end, and the guys were really admiring David and going, ‘Holy shit, what a part that is.’ He outdid himself.”
“I love the guy,” Reed affirmed in another interview (via Open Culture). “He’s got everything. The kid’s got everything… everything.”
Hear David Bowie and Lou Reed perform The Velvet Underground’s ‘I’m Waiting for the Man’ below.
