Stardust memories

By KATHERINE TULICH

David Bowie, the man who gave pop a whole gallery of images, from the orange-haired punk alien of Ziggy Stardust to the baggy-suited Thin White Duke, is ageing gracefully. While his marriage to supermodel Iman and the birth of their daughter three years ago has given him more headlines than his music of late, the legendary performer is hoping to change all that with the release of his new album Reality and the launch of a world tour - due to reach New Zealand in February.

As he walks into a downtown New York studio wearing a brightly coloured shirt, white with washes of purple and green, it's hard to believe the man facing me is 56.

His sandy blond hair falls casually around his face and his hands and body constantly move like a restless teenager. He is playful and funny and smiles widely all the time. It seems the rock chameleon has found the persona that suits him best, as happily married man and new father.

It's a contentment that extends into his professional life.

Reality is a buoyant album full of vibrant sounds and lyrics, quite a departure from Bowie's previous album, the brooding, dark Heathen.

"I think Heathen was more reflective of the period we were all going through post September 11, but this one reflects the energy of a bustling energetic city. I tried to take a snapshot of where I'm living and how I feel living in it," he says.

And he isn't opposed to a little light-hearted humour in his music. There is a tongue-in-cheek look at a rocker getting old on Never Get Old - Bowie shot a bottled-water commercial in France which uses the song as its soundtrack. It depicts him confronting his old images from the Ziggy Stardust and Diamond Dogs period.

"The image of a rocker in his 50s singing petulantly 'I'll never get old' is ludicrous and funny and an irresistible line to sing at this age."

Bowie has long put behind him a past of drugs, sexual experimentation and excess. He laughs at the thought of ageing disgracefully.

"Wouldn't that be fun to age disgracefully?," he says in mock cockney. "But I'm afraid I won't be hitting the bottle. I'm stone cold sober these days."

He has even given up his beloved pack-a-day cigarette habit.

"It was the hardest thing I ever did," he admits. "But as I get older I'm trying to get rid of some of the poisons in my body."

Bowie admits his 11-year marriage to Iman was the catalyst to getting his life in shape.

"I wouldn't say it was an overnight thing," he says. "I wouldn't say one person really changes another, but I think you change yourself to adapt to a situation, and I desperately wanted this relationship with Iman to be a good, true, healthy and successful one. So it really made me look at myself.

"One of the things that gave us a real basis for any kind of union was the fact that we both have been through all the positive and negative aspects of celebrity life. We both have had previous marriages and both have had children," he says.

"There are a lot of things we had in common right from the word go which really helped us to form a strong bedrock to this relationship."

Bowie says they have become the quintessential boring parents, happy to stay at home with their 3-year-old daughter Alexandria ("Lexie", as Bowie calls her). While he once jetsetted between homes in London, Los Angeles and Bermuda, he now prefers to stay put.

"I have this piece of string that only allows me to go half a mile in any direction from home," he laughs. Home for Mr and Mrs Bowie is Manhattan's trendy downtown SoHo neighbourhood.

"What is so great about living here, you don't really need to go anywhere else to get everything you need.

"Iman is a great cook so we rarely even go out to eat. We spend a lot of time at home, especially now that we have Lexie."

He blushes when asked if he is one of these typical dads who will take out the baby photos. "I can be, definitely," he says. "Of course I'm totally proud of her.

"She is wonderful and probably I believe the most intelligent child that has ever been born - so I struck lucky, I got a really bright one," he laughs. And even at her tender age she is showing some musical inclinations. "She loves dancing, it seems. She is terribly physical and I think she is mad for anything athletic ... running and dancing and getting bruises. She is a very active child and is terribly curious. I think she has a fairly insatiable curiosity which I recognise. She is a lovely lively child, but I'm going all gooey now, aren't I?"

Bowie's Reality world tour is his first major world tour in more than a decade. For Australia and New Zealand, it's been longer. He hasn't performed there since the late 80s.

"Has it really been that long?" he asks. "I'm sorry. I promise to make it up to everyone ... they will be really great shows and very long."

Though he says not to expect the theatrical extravaganzas of Ziggy Stardust.

"There will definitely be a visual slant to it - but I finished with all the running around and pieces of set and all that a long time ago," he says.

"I think there is too much of it now. There wasn't much of it when I was first doing it, but now everyone is doing it. I've gone the other way and become quite minimalist. It's almost like I have gone through that entire route of theatricality and ended up this guy on a mike with a nice pair of shoes and a song, and a dance and a joke."

While Bowie once said he would be embarrassed to sing songs like Rebel Rebel as he got older, he says he is now happy to revisit his musical past.

"To be honest, it has taken me to this age to finally feel comfortable with my old personas. I went through a very vulnerable period in the 80s when I lost a lot of my motivation for music, but through the 90s as I got happier I can look back at the old stuff and feel it's not competing with what I do now.

"I feel both ends of the spectrum are now equal weight. They are not the same, but they fit comfortably well together. I don't feel intimidated by my own past any more.

"I've changed some of the arrangements of the old songs. I've revamped Rebel Rebel [which he re-recorded for the soundtrack of Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle]. It's not the same as I would have done it 1972. A lot of things I have changed drastically, like Let's Dance. It's almost unrecognisable when it opens, and then it becomes the song you know."

And gone are the endless nights of partying on the road. This tour will strictly be a family affair. Iman and Lexie will be there at every opportunity, he says.

"I couldn't bear to be away from them for any long periods."

* Reality is out now. To read an earlier TimeOut review of it go to: nzherald/music

* The date and venue for Bowie's New Zealand show is expected to be announced this month.