The one rockstar that David Bowie kidnapped: “Hijacked a Mini”
David Bowie was never a stranger to a little bit of mischief when he was in his prime. The biggest calling card of any rock and roll musician is to be a little bit unpredictable, and aside from being one of the biggest musical chameleons of all time, ‘The Starman’ always knew how to have a good time and going a little bit overboard when he went through his glamorous period. But even when he was introduced to the new school of rock and roll, he wasn’t shy about getting them outside their comfort zones.
Then again, Bowie never seemed to envy what the new generation of rock and rollers had to say. After all, ‘Changes’ was all about embracing all the children that people in power spit on, and even if he wasn’t the biggest thing in the world at every juncture of his career, you could hear him always listening to what people were doing, whether that was Stevie Ray Vaughan or Trent Reznor.
But looking through the history of rock and roll, hair metal may have been the clearest example of Bowie’s influence on the world. The later generations of LA may not have even bothered listening to what ‘Ziggy Stardust’ was doing back in the 1970s, but when kids like Joe Elliott were starting out, Bowie was more than a rock and roll star. He was every bit the alien that he sang about, and when he finally had the pleasure of meeting him, Bowie didn’t disappoint when it came to being a bit strange.
Bowie may have witnessed Def Leppard’s rise firsthand when he was going through his Let’s Dance period, but he knew that what they were doing was something completely different. Whereas most people took one look at Poison and saw them as a passing fad in some respects, Leppard were always music fans before anything else, and it wasn’t strange for them to throw in nods to all their glam influences, whether that was Mott the Hoople or namechecking ‘The Jean Genie’ in their song ‘Rocket’.
Bowie, Bono and a birthday surprise
Although both Elliott and Bowie were both legends in their own right when they met, the frontman remembered his idol kidnapping him and Bono in the middle of a party, saying, “Me, Bono and Bowie hijacked a Mini and drove to this restaurant where the Edge was having a meal cos it was his birthday. We pulled up, jumped out of the car, sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to the Edge, jumped back in and drove back to Bono’s. [Bowie’s assistant] went fucking ballistic. She thought we’d kidnapped him. We were, like, ‘No, David Bowie kidnapped us.’”
But judging by Bowie’s reputation, he was only out to have a good time. It might look like the same kind of rock and roll shenanigans that every other celebrity likes to do, but chances are he would have done the same thing no matter who he was working with. If anything, the fact that he showed up among other celebrities was the real shocker, since the mental picture of Bowie tends to make him look like he floats on air every time he moves.
It might have been a bizarre way to meet his hero, but Elliott was nothing but reverent towards what Bowie had done. Looking through Def Leppard’s discography, there are always pieces that sound like they were taken straight from the Aladdin Sane days, and when the Sheffield legends eventually made their covers album, Yeah, Elliott was proud to capture the same phonebox shot on the back of Ziggy Stardust.
Because that’s all that Bowie hoped to do: inspire. He knew that the pop world was always meant to be for a finite amount of time, and through his music and his interactions with his fans, he knew that he would give everyone with an experience that they would never forget whenever they were in his presence.
