Travel: London to Hérouville

David Bowie left London on 9 July 1973, bound for Hérouville in France.

He took the 10:30am train to Dover from Victoria Station. From there he crossed the English Channel to Calais, and from there travelled to the Château d’Hérouville in the Val-d’Oise area of northern France.

There were two studios at Château d’Hérouville, one named after former owner Frederic Chopin. The other was the George Sand Studio, in converted stables in the grounds. It was there that much of Pin Ups was recorded in a three-week period in July 1973.

The château was built in 1740, and had been made popular by Elton John’s Honky Château, recorded there in 1972 and engineered by David Bowie’s producer Ken Scott.

Sometimes known as Strawberry Studios, the château had been recommended to Bowie by Marc Bolan, who had recorded parts of the T.Rex albums The Slider and Tanx there.

Another motivation was money: by recording the album in France, Bowie would avoid paying British tax on royalties. With the enormous expenses of his recent tour, and RCA’s stoic reluctance to loosen the purse strings, it was advantageous for Bowie to make as much as possible from his next release.

Recorded a short time after the Hammersmith gig, it was decided to record in a small village thirty minutes outside of Paris, France, at a studio known by different names: Strawberry Studios, Château d’Hérouville and the Honky Château. I had already recorded two albums there and so was quite comfortable with the choice. There was a small amount of recording done back at Trident to complete the project and then, as usual, I mixed there too.

In contrast to Bowie’s previous albums, there was frequent tension during the sessions, due to Bowie’s mishandling of the Spiders From Mars and Bolder’s knowledge that these were his final days with Bowie. Nonetheless, the band played tightly and forcefully, sprinkling some glam rock magic dust over Bowie’s 1960s song choices.

The recordings lasted until 31 July, with sessions often lasting 12 hours or more. When not working on new tracks, the multitrack tapes from the final Ziggy show were mixed.

Pin Ups was briefly put on hold on 16 July for the recording of Lulu’s single ‘The Man Who Sold The World’ and its b-side, ‘Watch That Man’.

Scott also excused himself “for a couple of days in the middle” to return to England for the birth of his twins.

I caught a flight back from France the night before it was supposed to happen and, of course, in typical rock ‘n’ roll style, I still got to the hospital late the next day. While I was away, they may have done a bit of Lulu recording but nothing on Pin Ups.