Who was in Tin Machine with David Bowie?
Towards the end of the 1980s, David Bowie was finding himself in an increasingly sticky situation. His most recent album to that point, Never Let Me Down, and the Glass Spider Tour it produced had gone down as a bit of a lead balloon in the eyes of critics and punters alike, and facing the damning fate that his career was on the rocks if something didn’t happen fast, Bowie was in desperate need of some divine intervention.
Those guardian angels came in the form of the Tin Machine, the rock band that Bowie helmed for four years from 1988 until 1992. The four-piece spawned two studio albums, one live album, and a tour in that time, giving Bowie a well-needed boost in an environment that helped him get back in touch with the roots of his career.
Though the band were a huge asset to Bowie, it would be unfair to laud him with all the credit as he was ultimately just one wheel that helped to keep the Tin Machine turning. The other three members played just as valuable a role in making the group the worldwide rocketing success they were, and that the Starman patently wouldn’t have survived without.
Tin Machine primarily consisted of Bowie on lead vocals, saxophone, and guitar; Reeves Gabrels on guitar and vocals; and brothers Tony Fox Sales and Hunt Sales on bass and vocals and drums and vocals respectively. This storming four piece had just the right pitch of rock musicality coupled with eclectic vision, but the path that led them to realising this was less than conventional.
So, how did David Bowie form Tin Machine?
Bowie had met the Sales brothers during his iconic stint alongside Iggy Pop in 1977 touring The Idiot, but his crossing with Gabrels was much less starrily inclined. Gabrels’ wife, Sara Terry, had been part of Bowie’s staff for the infamous Glass Spider Tour, and the singer had struck up a friendship with his employee’s husband while they traversed the world together, without knowing he too was a musician. Before parting ways, Terry finally asked Bowie if he could give Gabrels some direction with his guitar playing, and on discovering his talent, the genesis for Tin Machine was born.
Bowie told Gabrels of his vision: “Basically, I need somebody that can do a combination of Beck, Hendrix, Belew, and Fripp with a little Stevie Ray Vaughan and Albert King thrown in. Then, when I’m not singing, you take the ball and do something with it, and when you hand the ball back to me, it might not even be the same ball.” Onboard with the idea, the guitarist and his new Sales cronies set about bringing Bowie’s imagination to life, while also yielding the enviable power of influencing the rock god in the process of doing so.
As a result, Tin Machine’s two studio albums – neither of which were huge lasting critical successes, but lapped up by Bowie aficionados all the same – set the frontman back on the path to glory, not necessarily for the critical acclaim but for the renewed sense of energy and experimentality that the band had restored in him, launching him into his electronic era which later cemented him as a sonic visionary. Not all artists are as lucky as Bowie in getting the chance to start over, but if anyone was bound to grab that opportunity by the horns if it came their way, you knew it would be him.
