Exploring David Bowie’s love for Suede and frontman Brett Anderson
The late David Bowie has been tied to many musical acts over the years, as his colourful iconoclasm and ever-changing artistry inspired a variety of legends ranging from pop icons to niche rockers and a host of cult electronic artists. Over his long time in the sun, the chameleonic Bowie experimented with many different genres, including industrial and jazz, but despite this, there is one genre that he is most closely associated with: glam rock.
This connection has seen him canonised as the progenitor to some of the most extraordinary acts that followed in his wake, and when the 1990s enjoyed a brief glam resurgence, there was one act, in particular, that were hailed as the modern successors to Bowie – Suede.
The London band are one of the most influential British bands of the last 30 years. Formed in 1989 by frontman Brett Anderson, guitarist Justine Frischmann, who would later front Elastica, and Anderson’s childhood friend and bassist Mat Osman, the group were united by a shared love of Roxy Music, The Smiths, The Cure, and of, course, David Bowie.
Before too long, guitar hero Bernard Butler had entered the fold, Frischmann had left, and drummer Simon Gilbert joined, courtesy of mutual friend Rickey Gervais. Suede spent time honing their skills, and when they emerged from this period of creative incubation, things would move quickly, and before too long, they were revered as one of the most exciting outfits this tiny island had to offer.
In February 1992, the band signed to indie label Nude, and due to their cultish live shows, the press were backing them as the next big thing. They released their debut single, the glam-inspired ‘The Drowners’ in May that year, and the future looked incredibly bright.
They released their self-titled debut album in 1993, which contained significant flecks of the glam Bowie perfected on 1972’s Ziggy Stardust, with tracks such as ‘Animal Nitrate’ and ‘Metal Mickey’ confirming to many that the resurgence of glam was here to stay. This time though, it had much more attitude and power than the original wave that Bowie and Marc Bolan spearheaded, courtesy of the social mores of the contemporary world.
Added to this, Brett Anderson was an androgynous enigma, penning risque lyrics that gave Bowie a run for his money and with a dynamic form of overtly English vocal delivery plucked straight from the early 1970s. Suede were so indebted to Bowie, that when on tour in the US in 1995, they covered ‘The Man Who Sold the World’, to everyone’s delight.
The band followed Suede up with 1994’s Dog Man Star, which was another resounding success that contained prominent hues of Bowie, and the rest, as they say, was history, albeit a very tumultuous one. The group broke up in 2003 before reforming in 2010, when they embarked on a highly successful second chapter that has seen them reach artistic heights that many believe more worthwhile than their efforts in the ’90s.
Given that Suede were so closely linked to David Bowie in the ’90s, fans were eager to hear what the man himself thought about them. Unsurprisingly, he was a big fan, calling them a future “institution”, suggesting they even deserved honours from the royal family.
“Still one of the great British bands of the ’90s,” Bowie expressed in Select in 1996. “They have the enviable knack of taking the rather pathetic fumble of a quick fuck under the pier and extracting those few golden moments that many years later convince oneself that, for one brief flickering moment, one was as inspired as Romeo or, in some cases, Juliet. The poor things are bound to be an institution by the year 2000. Dame Brett, anybody?”
