Mick Ronson

A similar event.

I don't think quite as impactful as that, because that is the one that's most often cited, isn't it? The Bowie doing Starman and Mick Ronson on his shoulder.

But I can remember, I must have missed Top of the Pops that day, and Culture Club had been on with Do You Really Want to Hurt Me? And it People nowadays would be staggered to think this, but I remember going to school the next day and everybody talking about it, not knowing whether the singer was male or female.

And the fact that music could cause that sort of hullabaloo excited me hugely.

You either come up with something or you're going to be off the label.

So I called up a friend of mine named Mick Ronson, who was David Bowie's guitar player.

And Mick's dead now.

I loved Mick.

when you say doing it, what do you do? You?

I play, well, I get to be Mick Ronson.

Yeah, but

you

play a gig or you

record something? No, we've done gigs.

But he told me, Woody has told me some brilliant stories because Mick Ronson, I'm beyond a fan.

He's the reason I picked up a guitar when I was a kid.

So we're always very conscious of rock and roll or what we appreciated about rock and roll, which, of course, you got that Bowie shirt on today, Terry, which is just like that to me.

Bowie with Mick Ronson you know it's like that era of Bowie Celine was very rock and roll there's a ton of bands to mention about that being influences but yes we're always very into presenting ourselves as a rock band and not pigeonholing us as a post grunge or grunge band

yeah I remember when Wax Ecstatic 2 dropped and I remember thinking wow this is like you from here to here for the band.

The songwriting was so refined and the record had such a different sound and you guys were taking a chance.

It was acoustic, but he had a couple of guys with him, keyboards and another acoustic guitar.

He did some of his solo stuff, but then he played like a really good mix because I don't know if you know the Slaughter on the Dogs got their name from, he's a huge Mick Ronson.

Mick Ronson fan, yeah.

Yep.

And a huge David Bowie fan.

His breakthrough television appearance came on top of the pops in July 1972 when he performed in front of live TV cameras as Starman with the Spiders from Mars.

Bowie looked directly into the camera, placed an arm around guitarist Mick Ronson and appeared completely relaxed in a performance that unsettled some parents and electrified many young viewers.

For teenagers who felt awkward, gay, bisexual, artistic, gender non-conforming or simply bored by the world around them, Bowie represented possibility.

He made living differently look deliberate rather than shameful.

That night, David Bowie calls him.

And because, you know, he had been working with David and he said and David's like, well, I'm thinking of making up a band with I want you and Mick Ronson to lead it called the Spiders from Mars.

You know, what do you think? And and if you think about it, imagine 1971, you know, you're you're this big hotshot keyboard player and you're being asked to join, you know, to form David Bowie's new band, which would be Ziggy Stardust, of course.

Or join this band called Yes, which has some momentum, but they're not

Ah, he ...

Did you ever meet, uh, Mick Ronson?

I'm, I'm sad to say I did not

Oh, I met him.

In his view, the world is frantically dancing on the edge of disaster.

And so given that, you know, the musical treatment that this gets and the sonic creation that Ken Scott and Mick Ronson and Bowie come up with here is just marvelously because it just has an unrelentingly twitchy energy to it.

You know, you mentioned Watch That Man.

and then Aladdin Sane.

But he sneaks in an ode to liberated bisexuality in there.

Yeah, pure rock song.

Uh, worth noting that one of the reasons that this album sounds the way it does and is, it has a different feel than it from, from the Ziggy albums is that one, he, he basically fired Ken Scott, the producer and Mick Ronson and the rest of the spiders from Mars band.

Uh, and he, uh, he brought back Tony Visconti who had, uh, produced the man who sold the world and would go on to produce a Moving forward.