We can be heroes!

Ricky on what it’s like to work with bona fide rock legends…

David Bowie

“Amazing. A hero of mine for 25 years before I met him. I have to pinch myself, and at the time, thinking ‘Oh my god, I’m friends with my musical hero’. But it’s almost like two different people. I sort of didn’t know David Bowie – David Bowie doesn’t exist – I just knew David Jones, the nice, normal man, who just happened to be a brilliant songwriter and rock star. I remember when I sent him the lyrics for Pug-nosed Face, [the song Bowie performed on Extras] and I said ‘Can you do something retro, like Life on Mars?’ He went [sarcastically] ‘Oh sure, I’ll just knock off a quick fucking Life On Mars for you...’ I just started laughing. It was just surreal. The first time I went to his place in New York, I went in and the concierge said, ‘Oh, you’re here to see Mr Jones?’ And I went, ‘Yeah. Yeah, course I am. Course I’m here to see Mr Jones’. People don’t think of that, you think, ‘It’s David Bowie!’ this fucking rock god, but he’s a guy from Beckingham who got really brilliant at something. He’s amazing.”

Noel Gallagher

“The night before [we recorded Freelove Freeway], I’d played the Palace Theatre and he was there. He came backstage and he went, ‘Ah, that was great’. And I don’t know how it came up, he liked the song I think and I said, ‘Oh, I’m recording it tomorrow for the DVD’. He goes, ‘Can I be on it?’ and I went, ‘Uh…YEAH?!’ and he just came down, and it was amazing. He’s great… he’s funny as well. Smart, funny, he just always speaks the truth. The ultimate for a vox pop on any subject is Noel Gallagher.”

Chris Martin

“What a lovely man. Well again, he was in Extras. I first met him because he was a fan of our XFM shows, and I became mates with him. In the film Brent says, ‘I’ll probably write a song about this one day. Probably with a Coldplay vibe…’ Because that’s what Chris Martin does – he takes ordinary everyday things and makes them about the universe and electricity and shit! And then of course, it’s exactly like a Coldplay song. And that was the gag, that he literally rips off every Coldplay song. He came in, nailed it in 10 minutes. I played it to him and he was just laughing, he got every reference. He said, ‘No, I get it. Let me help you to take the piss out of me!’”