Station To Station

The side effects of the cocaine

Although Station To Station remains one of Bowie’s most focused and successful musical statements, it was created during a period of personal and professional turmoil. Chief among this was Bowie’s chronic addiction to cocaine.

I’ve never really thought about whether or not a person can be too thin. Well, I certainly was at one point, back in the 70s, when I just ate peppers and drank milk. I have various photographs of me looking skeletal, which remind me how badly behaved I was back in the 70s. They’re Polaroids as well, which makes it even worse because they’re badly lit. I occasionally look at them and think, How did I ever get to that state? How did I ever survive it? So yeah, you can be too thin! I know some of those outfits, and some of those characters were iconic, and I know the image was enhanced by my skeletal nature, but I wouldn’t recommend it as a process, I wouldn’t recommend it as a career template.

Cocaine was the primary showbiz drug of the 1970s, and David Bowie was foremost among its celebrity devotees. His use took hold during the latter stages of the Ziggy Stardust Tour, and escalated rapidly in 1974, the year of the Diamond Dogs.

By early 1975 Bowie was suing his manager Tony Defries, in an attempt to extricate himself from management company MainMan. The ongoing litigation left him with little income, despite the success of his recent albums.

Bowie made an appearance at the 17th annual Grammy Awards on 1 March, at New York’s Uris Theater. He presented the best female R&B vocal performance award to Aretha Franklin, and was photographed alongside Art Garfunkel, Paul Simon, Yoko Ono, John Lennon, and Roberta Flack.

I was in a very serious state. You just have to look at some of the photographs of me, I cannot believe I actually survived it. You can see me at the Grammies, for instance, with Lennon, it terrifies me. It’s a skull. There’s not an ounce on me. I’m just a skeleton.

I have an addictive personality. I’m quite clear on that now. And it was easily obtainable and it kept me working, ’cos I didn’t use it for… I wasn’t really a recreational guy, I wasn’t really an out-on-the-town guy. I was much more ‘OK, let’s write ten different projects this week and make four or five sculptures.’ And I’d just stay up 24 hours a day until most of that was completed. I just liked doing stuff. I loved being involved in that creative moment. And I’d found a soul-mate in this drug, which helped perpetuate that creative moment… Yes, cocaine. Well, speed as well, actually. The combination. And apparently a lot of elephant tranquilliser went in there too!

In 1974 Bowie had befriended Deep Purple bassist Glenn Hughes, and the pair spoke of collaborating. Hughes invited Bowie to stay at his house in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles while he was away touring.

Bowie arrived at LA’s Union Station on 16 March, and was joined by friend Geoff MacCormack shortly afterwards. Bowie was lent a yellow convertible VW Beetle, which belonged to his new manager Michael Lippman’s wife Nancy.

One of Bowie’s associates in Los Angeles was cocaine dealer Freddy Sessler, popular among musicians for his supplies of ‘Merck’ – medicinal cocaine. Although the purity of Sessler’s coke was highly desirable, its potency and availability was a key cause of Bowie’s mental and physical decline in 1975.

Physically I was painfully emancipated – emaciated! Emancipated came later! Some points I almost reached like 80 pounds, it’s just really painful, and also my disposition left a lot to be desired – I was paranoid, manic depressive, all the usual emotional paraphernalia that came with abuse of amphetamines and coke.

Bowie’s move to LA coincided with a sharp rise in his coke addiction, in which he was joined by Hughes.

We never slept in the same bed, as we never slept. The love was what spurred us on, the love for music, and the love of drugs. Then when we were alone, we did become addicts. Cocaine is a demonic drug, although we did not need cocaine to have fun however. We argued like man and wife. About everything. He was very confrontational. He wasn’t physical but he was verbal.

Bowie’s drug problems were well known to those around him, an open secret within the media, and his weight loss and cadaverous demeanour were widely discussed. One commentator was his former guitarist Mick Ronson, who told reporter Allan Jones that Bowie would benefit from some straight talking.

I wish that Dave would get himself sorted out. He’s so very confused – I know he is. What he really needs is to have some good friends around him. I’ll tell you he hasn’t got one good friend now. He needs somebody around him to say, ‘David fuck off, you’re fucking stupid.’ He needs one person who won’t bow to him.