‘hours…’

In the studio

Following their London meeting with Quantic Dream to discuss Omikron: The Nomad Soul in July 1998, Bowie and Gabrels worked for a time at Bowie’s temporary home in Kensington, improvising on synth and guitar.

The first proper recording sessions took place in summer 1998 at London’s Mute Studios. Gabrels booked the studio under his name, and initially recorded solo music for a Nike commercial before Bowie arrived to work on their collaborative material.

House engineer Kevin Paul was more than up to the task. Our approach was to move what we had on the portable recorder – guitar, synths, bass, drum machine and some guide vocals – onto the studio’s digital audio system and continue work from there.

David took an immediate liking to 22-year-old Steve Crow, who was Kevin Paul’s assistant engineer. High competence and irreverence in sparkling combination. In the years since, Steve has become a renowned British builder of amplifiers and he owns the Audio Kitchen amp company. But back in 1998, on our last day at Mute, Steve, with an amazing poker face, told David the balance of the studio bill had to be paid before Steve could release the master drives to us. The two-second pause before the laughter: priceless.

Album songs we worked on at Mute included ‘Something In The Air’, ‘Seven’, ‘The Pretty Things Are Going To Hell’, ‘New Angels Of Promise’ and ‘The Dreamers’ – though titles weren’t yet firm.

‘Survive’ was another song we worked on then, and we nearly lost it. I had started writing it with my second solo album in mind, and in my initial demo the main riff was guitartastic. Then I doubled it with a sax sample. I played it for David, and he loved it (more of a mod R&B vibe, from his point of view). We transferred it from my 8-track, digital-to-digital, with no signal loss, yet David and his personal assistant felt it was different. Just as it seemed he might lose interest, I persuaded him to play his saxophone, live, on top of the synth saxes. David loved it (again) and suggested the two-chord vamp at the end, giving the song a Jimmy Webb vibe. I added the Morse Code guitar (‘Wichita Lineman’ by way of ‘Starman’) to drive the point home. ‘Survive’ survived.

Also recorded at Mute were four instrumentals for Omikron: The Nomad Soul, after which Bowie handed the project to Gabrels to complete.

By the autumn of 1998, the bulk of the ‘hours…’ songs were being worked into shape, plus several b-sides. The songs ‘Thursday’s Child’, ‘If I’m Dreaming My Life’, ‘What’s Really Happening’, and ‘We All Go Through’ were not yet written.

Joining Bowie and Gabrels at Mute for a week was The Cure’s drummer Jason Cooper, who temporarily replaced the programmed drum machine parts on a number of songs.

In January 1999, Bowie and Gabrels booked Chung King Studios in New York City, where Kevin Paul mixed the pieces recorded so far. Some overdubs and additional changes were made at this stage. Afterwards they took a break from recording to allow Bowie to review the mixes and consider next steps.

Songwriting recommenced in March 1999, with Bowie visiting Gabrels’ studio apartment in New York’s East Village. There the pair wrote ‘Thursday’s Child’ and ‘What’s Really Happening’.

This has been a very exciting recording period. Reeves and I started writing way early last year and unbelievably have produced well over three or four songs. Actually over 100 songs.

We’re recording most of the stuff ourselves and Reeves and I are playing most of the instruments and programming drums, etc. But I think you’ll be surprised at the actual intimacy of it all. I certainly was especially when it started taking my jacket off. By the time it got to my shirt, I had to give it a damn good slapping. Into it is not the word.

Among the changes requested by Bowie at this time were a more contemporary feel, Gabrels’ bass guitar parts replaced with fretless bass, and the drums re-recorded.

We began afresh by pulling the songs apart, and for me, getting a handle on what David was unhappy with. I was keenly aware that although he and I were splitting production and music-writing credit, this was a David Bowie album.

Drumming was the first order of business. I try to offer opportunities – as David had for me, back in 1988 – to players whom I know to be excellent, creative and to have a distinctive style. Mike Levesque is such a musician. About a year earlier, I had recommended Levesque for a track by Natalie Imbruglia that Mark Plati was remixing, and on which I played guitar. Mark loved Mike’s playing and afterwards used him on other projects. With both Mark and me vouching, Levesque was ‘it’ for David. We didn’t discuss calling anyone else (other than Zachary Alford, who was on tour). We booked Mike Levesque into Looking Glass Studios in New York City for five days. Without actual rehearsal, he cut five songs on his first full day. A couple of run-throughs and he was good to go. A sweetheart of a guy and a true thoroughbred on the drums. Every song we had, so far, for the album got new drum tracks played by Levesque.

Uniquely on ‘hours…’, Bowie chose to share the writing credits; each song was co-written with Reeves Gabrels, with ‘What’s Really Happening?’ additionally featuring fan-written lyrics.

Sharing the writing and production chores with David always makes for an interesting ride and for some very healthy and amusing debates. At the end of the day, it is his name on the album cover and so he is the one who needs to be most happy. Having said that, if it had been up to me I would have brought Mark Plati in sooner at the very start of the finishing touches, tightening up the tracks and mixing. Sonically, left to my own devices it would have been edgier or creepier.

Mark Plati, who had worked closely with Bowie and Gabrels on Earthling, was invited to play bass, but his skills as an arranger, programmer and mixer proved invaluable. Plati joined the ‘hours…’ sessions midway through, after receiving a pager message containing Gabrels’ telephone number.

I rang back and David and Reeves were at Chung King Studios, wondering if I’d like to put fretless bass on some of the new songs they’d written. Within two hours I had biked to the studio with a couple of bass guitars, and unknowingly settled in for the next few months. David and Reeves had been writing and working on the songs which would become ‘hours…’ for a few months by that point, working in fits and starts in Bermuda and other places. David and Reeves had convened in New York, looking to wrap up the project. A lot of it was already recorded – basic guitars and keyboards, drum loops and programs, some vocal ideas. My involvement grew from being a bassist to doing some additional production and recording and, eventually, mixing the album.

I hadn’t even counted on being involved in this album. Rumours abounded – David and Reeves were doing it on their own in an underproduced ‘home-grown’ fashion, in direct contrast to the last few albums, which were of course full-on studio affairs. Also, it was strongly rumoured to be Tony Visconti’s return to the fold, and since Tony and I are both producers/engineers/bassists, I figured that I’d be about the last person they’d need to call! But call they did, and a treat it was.

In the studio, Plati found Bowie more relaxed than during the frenetic pace of Earthling.

I hadn’t seen him since early 1998, and his hair was a lot longer and no longer dyed. He seemed a bit calmer, no doubt due to the conclusion of the Earthling tour and surrounding activities. It occurred to me then that I’d only worked with him while he was doing either a lot of press or live shows – both very draining, especially while trying to record at the same time. As a result, we spent more time discussing the news events of the day and life in general, a lot more so than on Earthling, when the pace was a lot more hectic, and we didn’t know each other as well. David would tell stories, talk about books he was reading, films he’d seen, and art he was interested in. He loves kids, so I’d fill him in on my six-year-old daughter’s shenanigans (when she would visit the studio she would lecture Reeves and David about smoking – they were polite, but it didn’t stop them smoking). He’d go on about the internet… he was very into eBay at that time, just amazed at the things people would put up for auction. And the humour between David, Reeves, myself and [assistant] Jay Nicholas – we’d often go off at a tangent and be howling for hours.

Another musician making a return was Sterling Campbell, whose first album with Bowie was 1993’s Black Tie White Noise. Campbell played on the songs ‘Seven’, ‘New Angels Of Promise’, and ‘The Dreamers’.

In the late ’90s, I received another call from David to recruit me for the album ‘hours…’. To hear David calling me, inviting me to play with him, was the most wonderful sound. He had such a great speaking voice – it was a gift to receive.

Chris Haskett played guitar on ‘If I’m Dreaming My Life’, which was written and recorded in a single day in the spring of 1999.

David was strumming an acoustic guitar on the couch and singing to himself, as he often did. He caught my eye and signaled me to come to a separate studio lounge, so I grabbed a guitar and followed. Thirty minutes later we emerged with ‘If I’m Dreaming My Life’ in playable form. And we had a band right there, ready to play.

David sang (and played harmonium on the outro), Chris Haskett played rhythm guitar, Mark Plati played bass, Mike Levesque played drums, and I played lead guitar. Ryoji Hata, assistant engineer, recorded us. I believe we were done in three takes. ‘If I’m Dreaming My Life’ as you hear it on the album is basically us live in the studio, with a couple of later overdubs.

Late-stage overdubs and mixing took place at Chung King, by which time Bowie was considering ‘Thursday’s Child’ as the album’s lead single.

The song featured Holly Palmer on vocals. She was not the first choice, however: Bowie had wanted R&B trio TLC to appear on the song.

David originally wanted TLC to sing on ‘Thursday’s Child’, which I wasn’t really into at all. Through a stroke of good fortune I managed to get Holly Palmer, who is a friend I used to write songs with in Boston.

Before Palmer was brought in, however, the part was offered to Mark Plati’s daughter, who turned down the chance to appear on a David Bowie album.

As far as the backing vocals are concerned, David had the idea of a child singing the ‘Monday, Tuesday’ part, so we asked my six-year-old daughter Alice to come in and do it. However, Alice wanted no part of it. She said she’d rather sing with her friends than with grown-ups. So we called Holly and she auditioned for David over the speakerphone, with him giving her some direction, like ‘more vibrator, less vibrato’. In a couple of hours she joined us on Varick Street and cut the backing vocals. Alice later had misgivings about turning down the session once she saw Holly performing with us on Storytellers and Saturday Night Live. After all, she could have been on tour with Dad!

Also guesting on the album were Alex Grant and Larry Tressler, who sang backing vocals on ‘What’s Really Happening?’ This was the result of a “Cyber Song” contest which ran on BowieNet from 2 November to 15 December 1998, offering fans a chance to write lyrics to a Bowie songs.

Grant’s offering was chosen from over 20,000 entries, for which he received a $15,000 publishing contract from Bug Music, a $500 gift card for CDNow, and Bowie’s complete back catalogue on compact disc.

The backing track for ‘What’s Really Happening?’ had been recorded in Bermuda, and the vocals, lead guitar and bass were added in New York. Grant and Tressler, a friend, were invited to attend the session and sing on the track.