The bizarre reason David Bowie hid his urine from Jimmy Page
The mid-1970s marked one of the darkest periods in David Bowie’s life. After shedding his persona as a glam rock god with Ziggy Stardust, his latest turn as ‘The Thin White Duke’ brought its own set of challenges, including picking up a nasty cocaine habit and a love for the darker side of life like the occult and sympathising with Hitler. Even though Bowie was only looking forward to this era, he was also making some of the most outlandish music of his career.
In between recording Station to Station and Low, Bowie moved to Berlin, working with Brian Eno on a new phase of his career which included delving into synthetic music and krautrock, which would become a huge influence on the post-rock movement decades later. Between the many songs about the next phase of humanity, though, Bowie was delving heavily into satanic practises, getting heavily into the works of Aleister Crowley and trying to harness the power of what dark spirituality had to offer.
Granted, Bowie wasn’t the first artist to consider going down this road. For years, Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin had been hoarding Crowley’s works and had even been rumoured to use some of his power to make some of Zeppelin’s biggest hits. Depending on which of his friends was asked, though, Page had it in for Bowie as the ’70s wore on.
Although both Page and Bowie had been on good terms for a few years, biographer Paul Trynka recounts a story in which Bowie and Page got too deep into the occult together, including one instance where they tried to use their satanic practices against one another. As he recounts, “The two glared at each other; Page seemed to be invoking dark forces against David, who in turn, says Ava Cherry, ‘wanted to show Jimmy that his will was stronger’.”
While the satanic shenanigans should have ended there, Bowie’s issue with Page made him even more paranoid about what rabbit hole he went down. In the tales depicted by rock critic Casey Rae in William S. Burroughs and The Cult of Rock and Roll, Bowie allegedly became more sceptical of what Page had planned for him, taking to hiding his urine after answering the call of nature because he was certain that Page would use his bodily fluids to create the antichrist.
However, no such ritual would ever come to pass, with both men leaving their satanic tendencies behind. In the wake of Led Zeppelin’s breakup after John Bonham’s death, Page would go on to work with several acts like The Firm to deal with his grief and years of partying. Bowie’s memory is fuzzier in terms of what went down at the time, saying he doesn’t even remember making albums like Station to Station.
Despite his paranoia, Bowie kept reinventing himself musically instead of spiritually, delving into the world of new wave on albums like Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) and eventually giving himself a new career when working with Nile Rodgers on his ’80s smash Let’s Dance. The satanic rituals were left in the past, and here’s hoping that ‘The Starman’ could urinate in peace until his dying day.
