The London Pressconference from 13.11.1995

(shortened)

Do you put on an act in any way if you do this?

Absolutely, yes, this is...as you can see this yourself. Very choreographed.

Hi, you've stated in an interview with "The Standard" last week

(B: Yeah!)

you've talked about the turning of the mainstream

(B: Yeah!)

and how an album like "Outside" was designed to avoid that

(B: Yeah!).

Do you think it's still...

(B: Successfully I suggest. Yeah!).

Do you think that it's still able to say that you never had mainstream success? Do you think it's still talkabout turning the mainstream?

Bowie: I think so, yeah, because that was my chief interest before. Ahm... I had that... that sort of success. Its really the only thing that it is, anything that I bought or used to go and see really or listen to, it was always stuff on the edge. I was always far more interested in the periphery in that like ????????, than sort of what was happening in the center. The center sort of seem to symbol that category or something....You didn't catch my imagination really.

Hi!

(B: Hello!)

I'm, I read in an interview a reference to a quote from Picasso, that it took him 30 years to learn to paint a bit like a child

(B: Yeah!).

Are you still striving for that kind of simplicity or you...

No I don't think so, I think I like ahm... you know he said another interesting thing. Somebody said to him that: "What you do a child of 3 could do that," and he said: "Yes, but very few adults." Which I thought was nice calling ahm... But I, I like ahm... I like complications; I like things that seem to be endless ahh... puzzles, and Ive always liked art that was fairly any ??????? and maybe was made of layers and things. So I like, I like ahh... I like thickly textured things. With Brian Eno it was probably more like... he, he goes through a much simplier moment of a minimalism thing; he's a minimalist, isn't he?

Hi David

(B: Hello!)

In America, I think, you've created some sort of cyber-operatic-cinematic-double show; you interact a lot with Trent Reznor. Didn't that. What do you mean... what?

The show that I've just done in America?

(Yeah!)

No, no, not at all. He was doing ?????? a bit actually. Or we used, we used lighting... ahh... that on the whole it was... ahh... very much to singing the songs; they were just autonomous peaces; they weren't connected in any way, and I throw in quite a lot of my older, maybe less known songs. Well, they're known to people who bought my albums. (Staff wants to take away the microphone from the reporter.) Don't take it away from him, he hasn't really got his question out yet. I'm just being talking and being interrupting. Sorry. Go on.

You interact a lot with Nine Inch Nails and Reznor

(B: Yeah!)

Is Morrisey as attractive and entertaining as Trent?

It's difficult, you know. I've not had hard, hardly any contact with Morrisey. Ahh... I guess we get to say hello tomorrow night. I'm not seeing the guy, I mean he seems... I thought I was reclusive, and this guy, this guy is impossible to get hold of. I mean, he never answers me phonecalls (Laughing). But he said something nice about you. I think, no, I didn't say anything nasty about him, lets be clear. No, I think he's wonderful; I think he's one of Britains best lyricists; I think he's ahh... he's sort of Rocks Allan Bennett, I think; ahh... I think he's probably ahh... very perceptive about a certain British kind of... the ???????? of the Britains. I think there's something very 50s about him. He's kind of a John Ozzborn figure, ahh... I think he's going to be very enjoyable; ahh... I think it really could be quite a lot of fun. But Trent and I, you know, I mean we sort of rehearsed quite a long time before we went out. Ahh and, and it is continuing that, because were gonna be doing some work, probably its point out the next 2 or 3 months. Ahh... were going to be sort of doing some recording and things together; ahh... which is more about sending each other tapes and changing them and sending them back. Its a bit like a puzzlegame, ahh... I enjoyed working with him very much. Its a good kid.

I'm a French journalist

(B: Hi!)

Your track "Hearts Filthy Lesson" is in the movie "Seven"

(B: Yeah!)

Have you seen the finished movie and did you offer the rest of the album to make the soundtrack?

No, I, I, the ahh... director David Fincher asked the record label if he could use the track in the film. I only saw the film the week before last.

Did you think ?????? if they would have used the whole album? Its about this similiar topic.

No, I was quite glad that they only used the one track that they used. I thought Morgan Freeman was absolutely excellent by the way.

When you were in the studio, you were working with a computer for the... for creating the lyrics

(B: Yeah!)

Do you really comfort creating like the other with the computer or deliver chaos?

You know, I think the process sounds a lot more random than what the result then is. Ahh... I was thinking a lot about that a few weeks ago, and it was...somebody asked me a very similiar question; that it was just total randomism that I was after. Ahh... I actually find some kind of cult hero... there's a kind of continue how many songs say... I dont know how well you know the songs on the album, but something like "The Voyeur Of Utter Destruction", which is almost Outsides 70%, processed by the computer. Ahh... but it's my choice... ahh...how long it juxtapoints against each other. And I think in the same way, ahh... immodestly, that a Joyce or a Borroughs would use jumbo sentences against each other. There's a, there's a thread that runs through any junc of a song that has some kind of sense to it. Ahh... so it might have come out of circumstances, that were random, ahh... that there's some, maybe not a logic, but there's a rationally there somewhere.

But you're 100% happy?

Yeah, I like working this way very much. Ahh... but I always did, I mean I always liked working this way. I wasn't working in this way, as I'm not actually a very good writer, but my choices are very good. That's my strength. And I guess this is a certain... I can, I can intuitively feel, when there's an interesting poignancy or extremism, more a point is made, I can generally detect that. Thank you very much.

Yeah!

Hi, I'm Vicky from Germany

(B: Hello!).

I just wanted to know, on the album, on the sleeve you used a lot of diary fragments

(B: Yeah!).

Do you keep a diary for yourself? In the way were you modelled things like that?

I you know, I actually had done since I wrote that score. I never kept one before, but I'm keeping one since last year. So there are no bits left from that 1977 period, where...I wish that Id kept a diary in that period, boy do I ever; it looks so blank reading through the last 12 months. I do those highpoints no longer, obvious.

Hi David

(B: Yes.).

How's your wife doing?

She's doing very well (laughing).

Mumble mumble. No, I think its mainly, I think I, I would imagine whats going on in, not only visualized, but I think in popular culture, is almost apology before the end of this millennium. I imagine at the very start of the next millennium things will be delightfully and tinklely lovely. Ahh... I think its all symbolic. I don't think it, it, it boats some great negative future at all. In fact Im positive about the future. I think a lot of it has to do with the ritual looking for spiritual foundation. Which, I think, is the shakiest part of living at the end of the 20th century. Spiritual, not religious, I might add; the spiritual foundation.

Hello again

(B: Hello, you again)

You've created these characters for the Inside and the Outside albums

(B: Yeah!)

How ahh... in terms of identification, how was it different from putting yourself in the part as opposed to doing it in the film? Because you said, you're not to keen on film roles really

(B: No, I don't like acting very much.).

When did you create a particular character for this thing then?

I found it very easy... now to be playing the part of ahh ????? intended of ahh...of ahh... of an author. I feel quite comfortable in that situation. Ahh... I find it not a problem to distance myself from the things that I write about; whereas I think, that 20, 25 years ago I felt a lot more involved in the characters that I was writing. Because at that time I wasnt really sure, how we defined the, the, ahh...parameters of what one was writing. I didnt know how much of myself was supposed to be in there, or... I was a real learner; and it got, I, I found it, maybe I was very naive, but I found it very confusing. Ahh no, I just like, I like writing as a fictional author. I enjoy that. Id like to write more prose in fact and, I dont know, guess a book of praise. Somebody elses, I dont care. You know, it doesnt have to be mine.

Hello David

(B: Hello!)

When you went to Gugging... what you experienced there? Where and how you put it to use when recording the album?

Gugging was an incredible... ahh experience. For those of you, that maybe don't know it: its a mental hospital institiution on the outskirts of Vienna in Austria. And a mutual friend of Brian Enos and myself, Andre Heller, whos an artist and something of an own ???????, suggested, we might like to do some work there. Or ????? mates or somehow he wanted us to go and see Gugging, and see, whats going on. And ahh... what it is, its a hospital, where a 100% of the inmates are involved in the visual arts. Ahh... it was, I believe, an experiment, that was set up in mid 60s? You dont know. I think it was something like mid 60s, yeah. Ahh... as some of the inmates in hospitals in and around Austria showed ahh ????? for the visual arts, I thought it might be a good idea to give them their own wing, where they could sort of examine and create things, and this is the, this is really the foundation of whats subsequently become called "Outside around". And we went to talk with the... ahh... patients there and, and look what they were doing. Ahh... and I found that... Well, it reminded me a lot of course of a, a museum in Switzerland called "La Brute", which is in Lausanne. That was started by Tipofi; a similiar sort of ideas, I think. Ahh... and I just like the sense of... ahh... exploration and... ahh... their lack of selfjudgement of what the artists where doing. And it became one of the atmospheres for the album. I enjoyed it very much.

I'm Morden from Denmark

(B: Hi!)

Could you tell me a bit about your fascination of the year 2000?

Its not really a fascination of the year 2000, its much more ahh... ahh curiousity about why things are like they are now. And on the album they would bring in to play the idea of the barrier of the year 2000, but really its about 1995. Ahh...one of the things that Brian and I hope to do is to complete the cycles of albums, meant 4 or 5 of them. As a sort of musical and textural diary for the last 5 years of the 90s. The subject matter isn't really... ahh... the subject matter may be to play the year 2000, but the content is the texture of this year.

Hello, hello again. Do you know so far how will the diaries end? Whether if they will end definitely sometime?

Ahh yeah, I think they will end in the year 2000. I mean its quite likely, because in the way Brian and I work that ?????????? narrated might really fulled by the way side of the next album. We're not actually sure, if the narrated will even continue or it might suddenly reemerge on album 4 or something. We don't know, because we don't know what the next years gonna feel like. It really... the sound of what happens fo be... albums are dictated by the year before.

Have you ever feel tempted to experiment this kind of art which is murder?

Ahh... a number of times, but it was never connected with art. I felt murderous on a few occasions, yes. Thank you....(next reporter) Bowie

(B: Yeah!)

we heard that you are going on a European tour

(B: Yes.)

starting. What is it that makes you continue to go along touring?

I think the excitement of ahh... new ahh... new material ahh... is really the thing that just get me out of the house. Ahh... I think that's the only reason that I would tour. I don't think I keep just touring, touring. I'm not actually got that keen on doing performances. You know, cause I got ahh... I don't know. I feel week. I don't really see the point of doing them again. Ahh... but logistically that's not really possible so, least on tour, maybe one every 4 or 5 years.

I am Patrick from France

(B: Hi!).

I read, that you said, that you didn't want to work on the melodies on this album. Why? Are melodies a contradictory with the university you wanted to make?

Yeah, my ahh... chief problem with that is that I naturally fall into them. I mean, I cant help, but maybe... There's a lots, I mean, I fight that all the time, and Brian fights it even more. Ahh... I'm just good at them. I mean I'm good in writing tunes, so being that kind of optimist fellow that I am, I, I try very hard to go away from that. Otherwise Id just be churning them out. They would be so simple for me to churn out. Album after album of good tunes; we walk out of that building singing that set (laughing). Ahh... I don't have a problem with that.

Hi, ahh... I had the impression that on the album you relied a lot on improvisation

(B: Yes very much, so the music, yeah.)

and ahh... how much is this important when you go on stage. How much ahh ...

(B: Yeah!)

is this relevant so...

An interesting point, ahh... ahh... I think properly we didn't... the context of several of the songs. There's a certain amount of improvisation. Ahh... but its amazing how full ???? its all become... ahh... its down to, I think, its real challenge that, you know, a quite right interesting point. How far could one go on stage? I guess if I wanted to loose the audience entirely, ahh... it seems I'm doing the best that I can at the moment, but I'm ahh... the idea of making each and every show total improvisationist... (microphone hisses). Exactly (laughing)! I couldnt have put it better myself. Its terribly enticing, I know (still laughing).

Ok, hello David, I'm Thomas from Greece

(B: Hello!).

Is there any...

(B: Yeah, P.J.Harvey played there the other night, did you go to the show?).

No, I'm based in England actually

(B: Oh, she liked Athen, Athens a lot.).

Do you think you might play there?

Ahh... I think a lot of countries that aren't actually on the list at the moment, I know 3 or 4 that actually are under discussion at the moment. Well, its ahh... very likely. I mean, once I've got this, I've got one together what I consider a dreamband, ahh... they're just the best musicians that I've ever worked with all the way around. And... I'd like to keep the band together as long as possible, because as soon as we stop, they've all got such independent careers in their own right, that I'm gonna loose everybody. So I'm just gonna endlessly go on and on and on and on.

David, two questions. First one, how was it to work with Mike Garson again

(B:Whoop, yeah!)?

Second, is there a musical style, a group or artist, that came out in the 80s and 90s that you consider interesting over?

Oh yeah, a lot, gee. Ahh... the first one with Mike Garson. I actually started working with him again, you know, on an album called "Buddha Of Suburbia", which is ahh... it started out as a soundtrack to a BBC play a couple of years ago. And Mike did some work with me on that. And it was just astonishing, that he still had the ???? for playing around the edge of the pool again. I mean he's, he still is as excentric and as queery as ever in his playing. He doesn't seem to, if ahh... well, he's been playing with some interesting people in California. He's been playing Jazz for the last 15 years or so. Ahh... Stanley Clark in fact has been working with him an awful lot. Ahh... so I enjoy, I still enjoy the experience of work with Mike a lot. Ahh... in terms of new artists, I think there's dozens of them. Brrr... what comes to mind immediately, well, I, I guess the ones that I've been interested in. In the 80s, for me I thought, the best band of the 80s were the Pixies; when I thought it was ahh... just a disaster that Frank broke them up at the wrong time. Really, I think they should have been a terribly important band now, if they're still together. Its a shame. And a... again, like several of this band situations, Frank just didn't... he doesn't have the strength or that the chemistry of the band was so strong, that it was just a shame, that he kind of opted to go solo. But there again, I don't know about all the personal problems in the band. So I don't really know. I think ahh... P.J., not just because I've just worked with it, but I, I think P.J.Harvey is great. Ahh... I also think Tricky is wonderful, out of Britain. Anyway, ahh... ahh... that Scott Walker album this year, that came out, that nobody bought as usual. Somebody buy it here (Voice from the back: Yes!)? Well done! Give that woman a cake. That's ahh... for me one of the ahh... ahh... more serious ahh... ahh... adventurous peace of work that I've heard in years. I think its tremendous. Absolutely, absolutely great. Funny though, I didn't hear it on the radio (laughing).

Are you going to be performing together with Morrisey or is it going to be strictly separate?

Unless he turns up this afternoon, no.

And how do you reconcile his music with what you've just said about wanting to change music and not writing songs?

Yeah, I think again that Morrisey doesn't write in a formulate way. I think that he expresses himself very much from, very much from the place where he wants to come from. It strikes me that he doesn't write to match audiences expectations of him. Which, for me, is the most important. I think, when I'm looking and listening to other people and their work, I always get a sense of, yeah, he's trying to please me, you know, and if they're trying to please me I tend to go off them really fast..

So David, once again, for the first part of "Outside" you started jamming with the musicians in the studio, giving everyone a different subject, and have them play to the different subject. Didn't you want them to harmonize or what was the reason?

Actually the very first thing that we asked them to do, was redecorate the studio, ahh... and we got, I mean, we got them painting and putting up wallpaper and carpets and just generally redecorating. And I haven't got them to that point, it was quite hard to get them actually start playing instruments again. Everybody's...inside every musician there is an interior decorator wanting to get out, I found (laughing). We, we created any device that came to hand, that stopped them being like regular. The worst thing is to go into a studio and think, you've got to make this album, you know, and, and that's coloures everything; its trying to break out of that. There's dreadful constrings of, of this earnest industrial, this is what the record industry expects kind of thinking. So we were trying most anything to get people to forget that they're making an album. Ahh... ahh... what it, it really, what the ultimate situation is: to have some kind of event happen and the thing is recorded. That's really the ultimate situation. Its very hard to get those circ..., circumstances. Like that we can get quite near. Rather than there is a recording studio and then you have to deliver something that works for the studio.

Are you planning to do something like that on the next part of "Outside"? Is there going to be a next?

Yes, yes, ahh... Brian and I have sort of at least worked out different kinds of parameters, different ideas. We were thinking in terms of maybe just describing and ???? "New Oxford Town" or something. We don't, we don't know. We, we just, we really won't know until we go back into the studio, I think..... just, just when you vocally had to do it, I mean, there's so many different moods, different date feelings, different light feelings.

I mean, when you did the vocals, how did you approach them? I mean, because you, you ????? from one to another.

Yeah, the ahh... original thing that I did, ahh... we did, we did ahh...ahh... a set of 3 1/2 hours of improvisation on, I think it was, March the 20th 94. They were going to put out on some point. Ahh...which was really the, the genesis of this whole thing. And that was absolutely a complete improvisation for 3 1/2 hours. And there's an awful lot of just straightforward dialog improved on it. And ahh... some of the stuff that comes out on it is really peculiar; really strange. It was a little that the album, the results of the album "Outside" is a bit more ordered than the original thing.

David

(B: Yeah!)

how important is painting for you, and have you ever thought of giving up music and just do painting?

No, and I, I can't, I really, I just can't see the time when I would stop making music. I enjoy it far too much. It really is a lifeplat for me. Its a, a source of a merishment, you know why. And I try to say that with a smile, ha. It really is... I enjoy it so much. Ahh... that ahh... likewise I do enjoy, I enjoy writing, I enjoy painting, I, I enjoy any way of, of trying to ahh...a certain my position in, in a universe. And it has to do with those things, creative outlets, I, I guess.

Do you see it as work or hobby or...

No, just ahh... this is real as breathing. It is much part of me as that.