1975 was a drug and milk-addled year for David Bowie. He moved to Los Angeles to be a movie star, and then began production on his next album, following that year’s Young Americans release. In a drug-fueled mania, he created Station to Station, a six-track offering that was, as he later said, a cry for help. Bowie also had no recollection of making it.
In L.A., David Bowie started using hard drugs, barely sleeping, and consuming only milk and hot peppers for sustenance. He lost a significant amount of weight, which supported his Thin White Duke persona around this time. This alter ego, which started to rear its head around the time of Young Americans but really came about due to Bowie’s role in The Man Who Fell To Earth, caused some problems for Bowie, however.
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The Thin White Duke had a habit of spouting off pro-fascist sentiments in interviews, such as the 1976 Playboy interview conducted by Cameron Crowe. Bowie, in his drug-addled madness, claimed he “believe[d] very strongly in fascism,” and called Adolf Hitler “one of the first rock stars.”
However, when asked if he stood by what he said in the interview, Bowie replied, “Everything but the inflammatory remarks.” An interesting moment of lucidity, perhaps. There were other controversies during that time as well, such as a photograph from Victoria Station of Bowie greeting fans with an alleged Nazi salute. At the time, NME ran the photo with an accusatory headline, and the topic was of much debate. In 1977, Bowie addressed his fascist remarks to Melody Maker Magazine.
“All I can say is that I have made my two or three glib, theatrical observations on English society and the only thing I can now counter with is to state that I am not a fascist. I’m apolitical,” he said. He also outright rejected claims that he gave the salute when it was mentioned.
“That didn’t happened [sic]. That did not happen. I waved. I just waved,” he urged, adding, “Believe me. On the life of my child, I waved. And the bastard caught me. In mid-wave, man.”
[RELATED: Did David Bowie Warn of a Cosmic Apocalypse on ‘Blackstar’? Unpacking His Final Album]
David Bowie Did the Station to Station Tour “Under Duress”
Following the release of Station to Station, David Bowie took the album on the road. There, he made his infamous remarks, but later shed some light on the situation during a 1980 NME interview.
“That whole Station to Station tour was done under duress,” he said. “I was out of my mind totally, completely crazed. Really. But the main thing I was functioning on was — as far as that whole thing about Hitler and rightism was concerned — it was mythology.”
While making Station to Station in 1975, David Bowie fell into some interesting hobbies. Notably, he started studying the occult, Kabbalah, UFO phenomenon, and black magic. He was watching German Expressionist films and listening to Kraftwerk almost exclusively. Bowie was wired on hard drugs and suffering from insomnia and perfectionism. Through all that, he managed to make one of his most influential works, even though he had no recollection of it afterward.
He relied on the people who worked on the album with him to explain how it came about. In 1999, during a recording of VH1 Storytellers, Bowie described the making of Station to Station “singularly the darkest days of my life.” He added that the time was “so steeped in awfulness that recall is nigh or impossible.”
Following the conclusion of the tour in 1976, David Bowie moved to Berlin, ultimately for his health. He quietly retired the Thin White Duke persona, and went to work on what would become the Berlin Trilogy—the albums Low, “Heroes”, and Lodger.
Featured Image by CPC/THA/Shutterstock
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