What was David Bowie’s first band?
As much as it might have seemed like David Bowie crashed into the industry in a massive burst of light with ‘Space Oddity’ in 1969, alas, that was somewhat of a musical mirage. Of course, once he got going, Bowie’s effervescent talent was the subject of a decades-long and iconic career in which the world spun in his orbit, but his path to gathering this Godly status was less than straightforward.
Indeed, the Londoner’s first attempted foray into the musical limelight had come some seven years earlier than his stratospheric breakout single, where, let’s just say, the surroundings were a bit humbler. But Bowie – then going by his real name, David Jones – was not seeking this rapture all on his own. In fact, the beginning of Bowie’s career was peppered with stints in no less than six different bands, none of which had the sticking power to make it to the big league.
The first of these efforts was formed by Bowie in 1962 when he was just 15 years old. They were called The Konrads, consisting of a fluctuating lineup of between four and eight members, and played the local wedding and youth club circuit with their rock and roll guitar tunes.
Valiantly, Bowie was enraptured by the vision and set his sights on becoming a popstar – but it seemed his fellow bandmates were less inclined, so he decided there must be bigger fish to fry. From the starting point of The Konrads, the starman hopped from band to band, determined to capture his dream.
What bands was David Bowie in?
His next stop-off was with a group called the King Bees, which, through a chain of events, landed him his first management contract with Lesley Conn, under whom the single ‘Liza Jane’ was released, credited to Davie Jones with the King Bees. However, unsatisfied with its lack of success, Bowie quickly jumped ship to the Manish Boys, a blues band whose most predominant offering was a cover of Bobby Bland’s ‘I Pity the Fool’ – also, incidentally, where he met Jimmy Page of later Led Zeppelin fame for the first time.
The subsequent stepping stone was to the Lower Third, which, irrespective of its muted commercial acclaim, was a pivotal moment for Bowie as it was the era in which he would adopt his stage name. Their single ‘Can’t Help Thinking About Me’, much like the slew Bowie had churned out before it, didn’t manage to lift them off the ground, at which point the frontman sensed the time to move on to pastures new.
By this time, under the management of Pye Records, Bowie had moved to a band called The Buzz, where he released singles ‘Do Anything You Say’ and ‘I Dig Everything’. You can’t accuse him of not putting in the hours to hone his craft; his final band was the Riot Squad, though their recordings never saw the light of day. All those false starts meant a break was surely coming soon.
It eventually did, after Bowie made the leap to go solo and two years after his flopped debut self-titled album. There’s no doubt that ‘Space Oddity’ shook up the game, but it turned out in more ways than one – not only for the music industry, which had never seen anything like it before, but also for Bowie, who was finally reaping the reward for his years of thankless graft. If you’re looking for examples of overnight successes, don’t turn to David Bowie. He’d have probably told you there was no such thing.
