The “underrated” musician David Bowie thought of as one of the most important ever: “That guy was a danger”
David Bowie was a lot of things: enigmatic, captivating, iconic, and sincere. But as far as the description of dangerous comes into it, that was far more of a grey area.
The man was hardly dangerous in himself. His outward persona may have been one thing, but privately, Bowie was a quiet but dedicated individual whose overriding passion and first commitment in life was always to his art. Stepping into the spotlight was a somewhat different story – there, his many characters and outfits could allow him to assume the mantle of someone daring, devilish, and indeed, dangerous.
Above all else, that type of presence in a rock star is perhaps the one thing that keeps audiences enthralled for the longest time. Bowie emitted a cosmic energy that could almost be seen from space, but it was also that element of danger and relative unknowability that kept his fans stuck to him over decades like glue.
To a certain extent, it’s not a trait that’s learned; it’s just an intuition that someone is instinctively born with. For someone like Bowie, then, it was easy to spot people within the scene who carried that very same attribute, not necessarily because they always said it out loud but because they had an intrinsic connection. Keeping their power quiet was perhaps the most dangerous of all.
As such, the notion hit Bowie in spades as soon as he came into the orbit as soon as he came into the orbit of one supposed wallflower of a musician, whom he secretly knew was anything but. Of course, when you’re standing behind someone like Lou Reed, it’s easy to be overshadowed, but the second the Starman met John Cale, he instantly recognised The Velvet Underground’s secret weapon.
“Oddly, it was not really Lou Reed who attracted me to the Velvet. To me, the sound of the band was John Cale,” Bowie explained in a later interview. “John was the subversive element of the band, one of the most underrated musicians in rock history,” he added. Indeed, the aspect of unknowability also rang true here – as the multi-instrumentalist, the breadth and depth of Cale’s talent was in a constant evolving state of revealing itself.
In turn, it was this that prompted Bowie to claim: “That guy is a real danger, a true character. I cannot think of anybody more terrifying and dark. Lou Reed is a choirboy compared to him.” Keeping the listener on their toes is always the ultimate key to any sense of intrigue or beguilement. As Cale traversed the studio, never knowing what sound, vision, or instrument he would pluck next, that was as dangerous to his bandmates as it was to their fans.
The only real tragedy was that although Cale and Bowie could recognise each other’s talents and livewire energies, they were never able to commit that to anything more advanced than a demo recording. As the former recalled after Bowie passed away, “There was this period around mid-late 1970s when David and I would run into each other in New York. There was plenty of talk about getting some work done, but of course we’d end up running the streets, sometimes until we couldn’t keep a thought in our heads, let alone actually get a song together!”
In some ways, that also encompasses the element of danger that Bowie and Cale both possessed. They could be electric in their own rights, but possibly sometimes too much for their own good. You can imagine, if they ever did manage to work together to create a song, it could have turned into a world-changing explosion.
