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| Mike Garson (Photo: Steve Rose) |
SFBayAreaConcerts: Mike, thanks for your time! You’ve been spearheading this Bowie Celebration Tour for several years now, what were your initial goals when the tour first started coming together?
Mike Garson: The very initial ones were just to really do just solo piano concerts where I told stories about David and played the piano and maybe a singer or two drop in, sing a few songs, and it just sorta spiraled into this because the fans didn’t have enough of him. He was, his life was so cut short in a way, and they still needed to hear these songs, and when I’m out there, they’re singing the words to every song so that’s really rewarding. So I keep finding each year, different alumni who worked with him through the years, and this year is all alumni. All five of us at different periods of David’s life, and his whole musical career, and I have three great singers, and that’s how it came about. So we’re into about the 100th show or 110 shows already. This year we have about 45 we’ll have done by the end of April and last year was about 60 and next year we’re gonna do the five year tour which will be five years since his passing and that probably will be 100 shows. So it’s more like what’s needed and wanted by the fans. When they don’t need it anymore I’ll probably move on to something else.
SFBAC: That’s amazing. Do you ever foresee adding some shows where it would just be you and a piano and doing things of that nature?
Mike Garson: No, I go off every year, this’ll be the third year this October but the last two years I go off to a small jazz club in London and stay there a week and I play, with one singer and two sax players, a guitar and we just do Bowie songs, in a very small setting. And, I like all versions you know? But but the one that seems to captivate, you know, with a lot of people in an audience is a Bowie celebration. So that’s the main one, but there are a lot of offshoots that I have done and will continue to do, like symphony orchestra shows, and jazz trio ones, and string quartets. I have ten years of music in my head that will unfold as the time is right, but right now I’m so in the middle of learning all this music ‘cause we’re doing the Diamond Dogs album and then we’re doing the Ziggy Stardust album and then some other hits and deeper cuts, so it’s a lot of music to prepare for.
SFBAC: Did you ever envision the tour and project continuing for this long when you first started putting it together?
Mike Garson: No. I thought it would only be the first year.
SFBAC: And that’s it? It’s certainly continued on for quite some time after that.
Mike Garson: Well, it’s strange because David would come to a territory every ten years, and here I’m coming to the same places or same cities, every year for four years. It’s pretty remarkable actually.
SFBAC: I know. I’ve seen the show in San Francisco several times, so as a fan from that part of the world, I appreciate that you do come back and play the tour over and over again. It’s a lot of fun to come check it out.
Mike Garson: Well thank you. I’m glad you saw those. Yeah, they’ve been good up there. It’s a small place this year but I think it should be very intimate and nice.
SFBAC: It is. You’re playing Bimbo’s and it’ll be, more of a club type setting. It’ll be fun to see the show in that environment after seeing it at The Regency and The Warfield.
Mike Garson: It’s interesting sometimes like when we’re up in Seattle we play in a concert hall of 2,000 people and the following year you’re in a club. They each offer something. Naturally the band likes when it’s a club setting because the people are right in front of you, and when they’re sitting in a concert hall they’re a little more reserved. Growing up in the jazz and classical world I’m used to the concert setting, so I like it better that way, but I’ve learned to love the excitement of the audience and the fans when they’re right in front of you. So I think they both serve their purpose.
SFBAC: Absolutely. You mentioned you’re doing some different songs and things on this tour. Are there any other unique items to this run of dates that people in my position, who’ve seen the tour before, could look forward to? Things that you’ve changed up for this run of shows?
Mike Garson: I’ve changed this one up quite a bit. I’m doing the Diamond Dogs album from beginning to end, and then I’m doing the Ziggy Stardust album from the beginning to end and then I’m gonna do encores like Aladdin Sane, and the “Lady Grinning Soul,” and “Life on Mars,” and “Changes,” “Lazarus,” things like that so it’s, it’s a whole different show actually.
SFBAC: Excellent. I see that Kevin Armstrong is joining you on the tour this time. He worked on Tin Machine and one of my favorite albums, Outside. Is there any chance of songs from that era of David’s stuff being added maybe into one of the encores?
Mike Garson: I might have to wait ‘til the 50th for that because I’ve been thinking about it, believe me, because I love that album. He actually wrote the song “Outside” with David, and he’s been Iggy Pop’s music director so he’s one of our great guitarists. And, then you have Gerry Leonard who played on The Next Day and Reality and Heathen, so we have him and Carmine Rojas who played on Let’s Dance playing bass and Alan Childs who played drums on the whole Glass Spider Tour, and then myself who’s played like 1,000 shows with David Bowie and 20 albums. So it’s kinda the real deal. It feels authentic to me. I have played with over 13 bands with David through the span I worked with him, and, you know these bands that I’ve had the last four years, each of them sound familiar to me because they’re people that have worked with him.
SFBAC: Excellent. Are there any dream guest performers that you’re still looking to add to the shows? People who would come in and do a couple of one-offs here and there?
Mike Garson: From time to time people drop in, the first year, Perry Farrell, Ian Astbury came, Evan Rachel Wood came last year and Judith Hill is joining us this year. A lot of talented people. I don’t know right now if anyone is coming to San Francisco. Sometimes in the last seconds someone reaches out, you know? I know in LA we do have some guests ‘cause we're local, there’s a lot of local talent here and they’re too busy to go on the road but they’ll stop by in LA if they’re doing a film. Gary Oldman loves the music, who’s very active but loves David’s music and sings as well, and was a big fan of his. He stops in. There have been over 100 singers that have dropped in over the last four years which is really flattering. But that shows you how much people love David’s music. You know? And what an influence he had.
SFBAC: Absolutely. Is there a personal favorite special guest you’ve had so far on the shows? One that really stands out as super memorable to you?
Mike Garson: The two that stand out the most were Lorde who did “Life on Mars” with us on the BRIT Awards a few months after David passed. That was stunning. And then Sting sang “Black Star” and “Lazarus” with us at the Wiltern in Los Angeles the first year after he passed. Those were remarkable. But there were some other great shows by Evan Rachel Wood where she did some obscure Bowie song called “Slip Away” and, “Rock n Roll Suicide” which is pretty famous. There hasn’t been a bad singer. You know? This group is Corey Glover, who who’s with Living Colour, and Joe Sumner who’s Sting’s son, and Sass Jordan who’s a great singer from Canada, so I change it around every year some stay for a year or two, some have other projects. It’s, it’s one of these things that I’m committed to and always searching for new alumni and some of the same alumni, and trying to just keep it as authentic as I can and, and doing it in the same spirit that David might have, where I push the envelope, do new things each year, take extended piano solos, and, and what have you. So, that’s the plan.
SFBAC: Excellent. So on a tour with David Bowie, what was a typical day like with David? Are there any pre-show rituals or routines that he would do with you and the band before each gig?
Mike Garson: The main thing that we did before each gig is we would soundcheck and rehearse. So we were always adding songs, and jamming, and writing new ones in rehearsals and all that. And then there’d be a little keyboard backstage where I’d entertain the band before we went onstage. David would come in. We’d fool around and we’d sing. So it was a very “up” environment, and then we’d just go do the show, and a lot of times right before the show David would show me the setlists and he’d ask what I thought of it and then after the show we would discuss it and he always knew when we were in the “magic zone,” as opposed to just being professionals. And it was fascinating how he couldn’t fool himself or we couldn’t fool ourselves as a band between when we were really in the zone versus when we were just phoning it in.
SFBAC: Do you have a favorite memory of either recording or performing with David that still stands out after all these years?
Mike Garson: Well recording the Aladdin Sane album was memorable because I never expected to be utilized to such a degree. And then I have some other memories where we were playing Glastonbury in the year 2000, and there were 250,000 people out there and David looks out into the audience, perhaps got a little nervous, and looks at me and says “Go warm the audience up with a solo piano piece.”
SFBAC: Oh wow. And what, what did you do?
Mike Garson: “Greensleeves.” He asked for “Greensleeves.” Which is "What Child Is This?" So I did it, but it was nerve-wracking. But he just sprung it on me, it’s not like we talked about it.
SFBAC: (Laughs) That’s fantastic. You were obviously in the studio a lot with David over the years recording a bunch of albums and things with him...
Mike Garson: Probably 20.
SFBAC: Was it the same sort of workflow that he had for those years or did it evolve over time somehow when you were in the studio and making a record?
Mike Garson: No. David was very spontaneous. I remember working on Earthling and being in the studio with the band for two weeks. He wasn’t even there and one day he just came in at three in the afternoon and said “I want to sing this song,” and boom. He sang it and left. I mean, he was just very spontaneous and, the music unfolded spontaneously through the years. That’s not to say he didn’t think about it prior and write great songs, but he would allow for that‒ within that discipline he would allow for those moments of freedom and spontaneity.
SFBAC: So it was often, the songs would be maybe not completely written in the studio but a lot of arrangement work was done in the studio kind of on the fly with the band?
Mike Garson: Uh huh. Uh huh. On the Outside album was all that it was, I wrote six songs with him on that.
SFBAC: All while you were in the studio recording it?
Mike Garson: Uh huh.
SFBAC: That’s fantastic. I had no idea.
Mike Garson: Yeah nobody knows that.
SFBAC: Earthling and Outside are two of my personal favorites, that’s neat to hear, you know, tidbits about how those were recorded and how those, you know, come together.
Mike Garson: Well the song “Seven Years in Tibet” on Earthling I played an organ solo, and it’s something I don’t usually do with David because I’m known for my piano playing, and he specifically when I finished the solo said that’s the second best solo I ever played that he heard after "Aladdin Sane".
SFBAC: That’s a heck of a compliment.
Mike Garson: Big compliment! And it was very very very, uh, understated in a way, but it was a vibe that he liked. Then the song “Battle for Britain” or “The Letter”, he actually asked me to go down to the record store, which we had at the time, Tower Records, and I went down he said, “Go listen to Stravinsky’s ‘Octet’ and then play a solo that has that kind of vibe.” So, he knew so much about music, and he was just pulling things out of you all the time. So the solo I play on that recording, even though it’s only 30 seconds in the middle, is pretty profound. And only he could have framed it to make it work. And that’s ‘cause he was a great casting director and a great producer.
SFBAC: That's fantastic Mike. Thank you very much for your time and we'll see you at Bimbo's on March 8th!
Mike Garson: Well thank you so much and see you soon.
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Transcription by Grace Kline
