MANAGER TONY DEFRIES ON TURNING BOWIE INTO “THE NEXT PRESLEY”.

PART OF THE problem with David was he wasn’t a natural performer. What I wanted to do with David was take somebody who was essentially shy, nervous, not self-confident, but capable of being wrapped up in a character that would be all those things. Ziggy had to be self-confident, strange, unusual, different, alien and very talented. If you could believe all that, then you could believe that David was going to be the next Presley.

I’d said, “David, think about getting the best musicians that you can get at any point in time. Not the best individually, but the ones that work best together. Because that’s what you need. Don’t tie yourself to a bunch of musicians that may not grow with you.” Essentially, that message meant David was sort of free to not have to think about the band. But he didn’t really get the message, frankly, until we retired Ziggy. Because then he realised, “I can’t keep doing Ziggy forever. I can’t go on-stage and do this another 1,000 times. I need to do something else.” But you can’t do something else unless you step away from that and you look at what’s next.