What we have for you here are two early ‘80s interviews with David Bowie for the New Zealand TV show, Radio with Pictures. Though the conversations occurred only twelve or so months apart, oh, what a difference a year makes.
The music program Radio with Pictures premiered in 1976 and was a Sunday night TV staple in New Zealand for over a decade. Bowie was interviewed for both segments by Brent Hansen, the producer/director of Radio with Pictures. Hansen was later hired by MTV and went on to be the president of the network’s European division.
In 1982, Bowie was in New Zealand acting in Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, and the interview was conducted at the Auckland Railway Station during a break in filming. A number of topics are addressed, including the prospect of re-recording some of the tunes he and Iggy Pop wrote for Iggy’s solo albums, The Idiot and Lust For Life. Bowie would subsequently do just that, the first of those being “China Girl”. He also reveals that his iconic “Ashes to Ashes” video was influenced by master of film surrealism, Luis Buñuel, and that the cut-up technique, a method he would occasionally employ when writing lyrics, was introduced to him by William Burroughs. Bowie appears relaxed throughout, but there is one question he takes very seriously—it concerns the first record he ever bought.
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Bowie’s 1983 Radio with Pictures interview transpired under significantly different circumstances. In the 1982 piece, he had talked about how he was looking forward to recording his next LP, which would turn out to be Let’s Dance. Bowie had been very famous for some time, but the worldwide success of the album turned him into a global superstar. The November 1983 chat took place during the tail end of his Serious Moonlight Tour, which began the previous May. On the Oceanian leg of the world trek, Bowie played two big shows in New Zealand. The first was held on November 24th at Athletic Park in Wellington, which drew over 40,000 fans. Two days later, the turnout at Western Springs stadium was double that, with approximately 80,000 people in attendance. It was not only the biggest single show of the entire tour, but was cited by the 1984 Guinness Book of Records as “the largest crowd gathering per head of population anywhere in the world.”
For an article that appeared in the March 1997 issue of Live! magazine, Bowie gave a glimpse into what his mindset was like during the Serious Moonlight Tour.
I remember looking out over these waves of people and thinking, ‘I wonder how many Velvet Underground albums these people have in their record collections?’ I suddenly felt very apart from my audience. And it was depressing, because I didn’t know what they wanted.
Bowie and Carlos Alomar, 1983.
The 1983 discussion was taped on November 26th, before the Auckland gig. Though Bowie is largely cordial, he gets a bit testy at one point, and his overall demeanor is noticeably different when compared with the 1982 exchange. He looks tired, which is totally understandable. He answers the first question by declaring that he’s “never enjoyed a tour as much as this one.” Other subjects covered include the impending release of the Ziggy Stardust motion picture, a film he says is “very funny,” and his desire to make another record with Iggy (Bowie would co-produce Pop’s next record, Blah- Blah-Blah, co-writing six of its songs with Iggy). Live clips from Wellington bookend the segment.
Bootleg audio captured at the Wellington show:
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Watch David Bowie’s Japanese TV commercial for sake from 1980
When David Bowie was in Iggy Pop’s band: Their final concert