David Bowie: The Last Interview and Other Conversations

The Last Interview

by David Bowie, Dennis Johnson (Introduction), Tracey Emin

A revealing collection of interviews with the shape-shifting, genre-bending, wildly influential musician and song writer   David Bowie was an icon, not only his stunning musical output, but also his fascinating refusal to stay the same—the same as other trending artists, or even the same as himself.   In this remarkable collection, Bowie reveals the fierce intellectualism, artistry, and humor behind it all. From his very first interview—as a teenager on the BBC, before he was even a musician—to his last, Bowie takes on the most probing questions, candidly discussing his sexuality, his drug use, his sense of fashion, his method of composition, and more.   For fans still mourning his passing, as well as for those who know little about him, it’s a revealing, interesting, and inspiring look at one of the most influential artists of the last fifty years.

Genres: Nonfiction, Music, Biography, Memoir, Journalism, Adult, Biography Memoir

208 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 8, 2016

About the author

David Bowie (born David Robert Jones) was an English singer, songwriter, actor, multi-instrumentalist, bandleader, producer, arranger, and audio engineer. Active in five decades of rock music and frequently reinventing his music and image, Bowie was widely regarded as an influential innovator, particularly for his work through the 1970s. Bowie has taken cues from a wide range of fine art, philosophy and literature. He was also a film and stage actor, music video director, and visual artist.

Reviews

[Lynx · Rating 4 out of 5]

The music, the films, the fashion, the art, Bowie discusses all facets of his career in this collection of Interviews. Very quick, enjoyable read.

[Hernán M. Sanabria · Rating 5 out of 5]

"INTERVIEWER: (...) So what disguise are you wearing today, David? Don't lie, because I can see you.

BOWIE: I'm wearing my heart on my sleeve".

[Christopher · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book strikes me as an attempt at a quick cash-in after David Bowie’s death, the editors throwing together whatever archival material they could quickly license. The “last interview” mentioned in the title is actually just the very brief gag interview that David Bowie did for the BBC in 2006 in connection with his appearance in the television series Extras. He just takes the piss out of Ricky Gervais for one page, he doesn’t actually talk about his own life or work.

Otherwise, the interviews here are from 1964 (this earliest of all interviews is another gag one, a young Bowie pretending to have founded an organization protecting the rights of young men with long hair), 1973, 1974, 1987, 1992, 1996, 2000 and 2001. Two of the interviews are as much Bowie interviewing someone else as they are him being interviewed, namely conversations with artist Tracey Emin and fashion designer Alexander McQueen.

Few of these are particularly insightful or informative. In the earlier interviews, the younger Bowie just makes rather inane pronouncements about aesthetics and his view of the future without much clear substance behind them; Bowie was pretty drugged up in this years, as a look at early-mid 1970s television footage will show, and this interviews are in the same vein. In the later interviews, he sounds considerably more sober, but there is still very little information here about his music. Probably the most worthwhile interview is the 1992 one, but this, for the publication Movieline concerns entirely Bowie’s roles in films and his reflections on cinema more generally. All in all, this book is probably a waste of time for all but Bowie completists.

[Joshua · Rating 4 out of 5]

How does a man become so much a part of your psychology, sexuality, mentality, and general environment in just a short amount of time. David Bowie never meant much to me while he was alive, in fact the only song of his I could name was "Fame." A coworker really pushed me to listen to more of the man's work, and in the last few months I've steadily began to realize that David Bowie is quickly becoming my personal icon.

This book does not do everything that I would like it to, but I've read enough of the "Last Interview" books that I realize that the function of these series is to provide a brief glimpse of a person's character. Rather than dig into the meat of an individual person and try to get an intensely personal interview that reveals the secret heart of an individual, these books provide a general overview of the events and life of a person so that the reader is left with a feeling of David Foster Wallace, or Ray Bradbury, or James Baldwin, or as is the case here, David Bowie.

By the end of this book I had a "feeling" for Bowie, as a man and as a character who has come to mean so much to me. When there are so many books out in the world that try to write the man into a myth, and when there are also many texts that ravenously dig into the mud of scandals or falling outs, a book like this is valuable to any reader who wants to start learning more about David Bowie.

It's not a full picture, but in a way that's a perfect summation of the David Bowie that many people saw and knew. You'll never get to know the man beneath the lightning bolt, but at least you'll gain an impression of the person who applied the make-up.

[Derek · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Last Interview is a collection of David Bowie’s interviews throughout his life. Reading them back to back illustrates how he changed and evolved over the course of his career, but the interviews themselves could have used some context instead of being copy-and-pasted from their original sources.

[Evie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Guys this just made me so sad he mentions a joke about being in his seventies and doing a Broadway show but he died right before his seventies. He was such a silly guy.

[Lone Matz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very entertaining and fun. Bowie, you are missed!

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tbh, the "last" interview is the only dud in this collection, being a brief promo bit with Ricky Gervais, but all the preceding conversations are great fun, and Bowie's humor, his perhaps most underrated talent, made me actually laugh out loud a couple of times, a mean feat via book-form. A definite must-read for Bowie fans.

[Morvling Bookink · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 stars

I've seen Bowie interviews before but it was rally cool to have a book that was solidly, 100% only interview content. I liked also that whoever chose the interviews seemed to choose ones that were not focussed on revealing facts about him but about interest in him as himself, as a person.

There didn't seem to be any link or running theme between the interviews, except for just hand-chosen, but that's alright.

Simple and slick cover, I like it.

Personally I thought that the interview where Bowie interviewed Alexander McQueen was the most socially potent, despite me not being a fan of his work - I guess it was because Bowie was being in a different role and not being antagonised.

Overall it just shows on the most blinding and utter level that David, the person, was just so..... Interesting. Not because of what he'd done, but because of who he is.

[Evan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Et knippe nøye utvalgte intervjuer, som effektivt kommuniserer hvem Bowie var, og hva han stod for. I motsetning til de engelske utgavene, inneholder den norske oversettelsen et intervju med NRK, der intervjuer virker spesielt nervøs, og ikke forstår Bowie's humor i det heletatt. Det var litt vondt å lese.

[Tim Kiernan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Last Interview collection is awesome and so fun to read. I received the Bowie from a cherished friend for Christmas last year and was delighted when it bubbled up to the top of my “To Read” pile. It was a jaunt!

[Fernando Sobral · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

I dont like talk and i dont like talkers.- Ma Barker.
WSB and Bowie in Rolling Stone interview is included.

[Pilar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Se calhar dou 5 estrelas porque não consigo ser objetiva no que toca a Bowie... mas “ouvi-lo” (porque as entrevistas são tão fantásticas que se personificam) falar é algo alucinante, eclético (palavra que aprendi com ele) e mágico: que inspiração, que músico, que artista... que pessoa.
Quero sem dúvida voltar a ler e anotar todas as filosofias e ideias que ele explora ao lado (e também outros artistas, músicos, designers e outras pessoas que menciona) como li rápido acho que bastantes reflexões me passaram desapercebidas e quero mesmo tirar o máximo proveito deste livro glorioso.

[Castles · Rating 3 out of 5]

There’s hardly any meaning in rating a book of interviews, and though it’s a cute little book giving a glimpse to the fascinating Bowie’s personality, it still leaves him a mystery.

There’s really no difference in this book than watching a filmed interview with Bowie in YouTube, and one can’t help but wonder if this book was put out rather too quickly, mainly because of the sad fact of Bowie leaving us.

[Jose · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little view into the life of a great artist. Bowie was a showman since he was young.

[Valerie Comber · Rating 3 out of 5]

Big fan of Bowie, book was easy reading but boring

[SeaShore · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was published by Melville House as part of their Last Interview series. One of the chapters seems incomplete, awaiting information (?)

**His first interview, he says was in 1964 when he was sixteen. David Jones shows off his mature media savvy and wit perfectly.

Blackstar was the 26th and final studio album by David Bowie. It was released worldwide on 8 January 2016, coinciding with Bowie's 69th birthday, through his ISO label, Columbia Records and Sony Music. The album was primarily recorded in secret between the Magic Shop and Human Worldwide Studios in New York City with Bowie's longtime co-producer Tony Visconti and a group of local jazz musicians. Dennis Johnson says, in the introduction to this book that this album was in a way a kind of self-interview.
For the album, Bowie took inspiration from electronic groups such as Boards of Canada as well as hip hop artists such as Kendrick Lamar and Death Grips. The album contains re-recorded versions of two songs, "Sue (Or in a Season of Crime)" and "'Tis a Pity She Was a Whore", both of which were originally released in 2014. It was preceded by the singles "Blackstar" and "Lazarus", both of which were supported by music videos. The album cover is designed by Jonathan Barnbrook.

Two days after its release, Bowie died of liver cancer.

**The long hair interview is funny... Bowie at age 16/17 said their mums shampooed their hair.

**In 1973, his interview with Salvo- first visit to the U.S. : "I use parody as a defense..."
"Music in America is a "communicative blanket media. ..."

"..Fellow man, I do love you.
I love humanity.
It's sensational, sensuous and exciting.
It sparkled and is also pathetic at the same time ..."

"There will be another age of contentment."

He mentions French-Canadian, Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac -March 12, 1922 to October 21, 1969), known as Jack Kerouac, a novelist and poet. He also references Allen Ginsberg. They were pioneers of the 'Beat Generation'.

Kerouac learned English at age six and served in the United States Merchant Marine.

His first novel was published over 40 years after his death.
Kerouac is recognized for his style of spontaneous prose. Thematically, his work covers topics such as his Catholic spirituality, jazz, travel, promiscuity, life in New York City, Buddhism, drugs, and poverty. He became an underground celebrity and, with other Beats, a progenitor of the hippie movement, although he remained antagonistic toward some of its politically radical elements.

He has a lasting legacy, greatly influencing many of the cultural icons of the 1960s, including Bob Dylan, the Beatles, Jerry Garcia and the Doors.

In 1969, at age 47, Kerouac died from an abdominal hemorrhage caused by a lifetime of heavy drinking.

**He interviewed Lee Alexander McQueen CBE, who was born 17 March 1969 and died 11 February 2010. As a British fashion designer and couturier, he founded his own Alexander McQueen label in 1992, and was chief designer at Givenchy from 1996 to 2001.
His achievements in fashion earned him four British Designer of the Year awards (1996, 1997, 2001 and 2003), as well as the CFDA's International Designer of the Year award in 2003.
He designed a coat for David Bowie in 1996. He wore this coat for his Earthling album tour

The interviews given in this book, give us a good characterization of David Bowie; his desires, his life, his intelligence, his family upbringing, what made him who he was- gives a final touch, I think.

Five star rating.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

David Bowie, The Last Interview and Other Conversations is a book offering autobiographical information in an atypical format. Dennis Johnson, publisher of this book, says in the Introduction that "Bowie gave a lot of interviews...until he didn't." The Bowie details presented reinforced my previous perceptions and significantly changed my understanding. For starters, over the years, I came to view Bowie, with his twenty-seven music albums, as always being rich, born famous and popular. That perception is false. My view of him being an interesting thinker, charming, articulate, and having a good sense of humor is true.

Bowie is known for being creative with interview formats, not to mention his invention of the 'glam rock' school of music, his authentic strangeness, and him being a trail blazer and promoter of 'personal fashion'. He often shared interviews with other artists. Sometimes, Bowie conducted interviews of other artists. Also, to promote upcoming album releases and concert tours he would engage venues on multiple continents and hire local radio personalities to be interviewed before live audiences concurrently with radio broadcast.

One of the interviews included in this book was conducted, in the privacy of their Switzerland home, by his last wife, supermodel Iman, with the questions written by BUST magazine employees where Bowie describes his ambivalence about feminism.

The 1974 Rolling Stone interview with both the writer William Burroughs and Bowie was my favorite. They take turns asking each other questions. Both said they obtain most of their creative vignette ideas from dreams and use pen and paper or tape recorders by their beds to save material from being forgotten. In this interview, Bowie describes Mick Jagger as "a mother figure, not a cockadoodledoo".

In a couple of the interviews, Bowie describes how weird and very quiet, "like a lethal kind of Svengali figure" Warhol was. And I didn't know his song, 'Hunky Dory' was about Warhol.

Bowie says his role model has always been Frank Sinatra, especially admiring Sinatra's successful crossover to movies. Bowie had some film career success including the Pontius Pilate role in Martin Scorsese's, 'The Last Temptation of Christ'. Also, he had a critically well-received performance in, 'The Man Who Fell to Earth'. Additionally, he got acclaim as the star on Broadway in, 'The Elephant Man'.

Although not much mentioned, Bowie's ditching a 3 gram per day cocaine habit acquired during the 1970s is worth noting

This book of interviews provides a vision of culture through the eyes of a multimedia star born in 1947 and who died in 2016.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

It feels weird to give anything less than five stars to David Bowie, an absolute deity in my mind, but to be entirely truthful, this book could have been cut in half and I think if he were still here, he would agree. I get what the editor was trying to do --- by doing each interview chronologically, we get a glimpse into the odyssey of David Bowie's life. Unfortunately, not every interview was worthy of print. Bowie was such an eccentric thinker, but in some of these exchanges he comes across as dispassionate, bored and at times ... a total blowhard. Some of these interviews were just total run-of-the-mill press junkets --- why include that shit?! The Bill Burroughs interview was also entirely forgettable, which was a total injustice to both.

The positives of this book:

The first interview, from 1963, is so charming and adorable. A must-read.

Hearing him talk about the Starman and Aladdin Sane years was ... insane.

I love that Bowie was a bit of a batshit crazy conspiracy theorist in his early 30s. LET ME MAKE IT PLAIN, GOTTA MAKE WAY FOR THE HOMO SUPERIOR.

Kurt Loder! In 2020!

Anyway, I put this book down and I'll pick it up again later. But if it doesn't include this quotation about the internet, from 1999, I don't want it:

"I don't think we've even seen the tip of the iceberg," Bowie says. "I think the potential of what the Internet is going to do to society both good and bad is unimaginable. I think we're on the cusp of something exhilarating and terrifying."

[Bridget]

I'm a Bowie fan (who isn't?) and when I saw we had this new The Last Interview series at our library (they also had one on J.D. Salinger I want to read) I scooped this up right before all the libraries shut down due to the pandemic. This book has 9 interviews that Bowie gave (*and one he conducted), including his first and last one. I loved going through and seeing the maturation of this artist and the expression of his thoughts. My only quibble with this compilation is why the editors found it important to include an interview he conducted with Alexander McQueen. While McQueen is deserving of his own, The Last Interview surely a book of interviews with David Bowie should only include interviews ABOUT David Bowie; this one in particular is all about McQueen. Why include it? Other than that, it makes for interesting reading.

[Allison Colwell · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Do you write to gain or lose your identity?"
"Possibly to understand it. I don’t think either to lose or gain."

David Bowie: The Last Interview and Other Conversations is a collection of interviews from throughout his life, beginning with the first one he gave in 1964 at age 16, to the last one he gave in 2006.

While this book didn't leave me with any overwhelming feelings, I found it very entertaining and fun. To see his views of himself and the world around him change throughout the interviews is really interesting. No doubt some of his earlier interviews are all-together kooky, but you can see as he ages how much more insightful he became. Its a good summation of the character we know to be David Bowie.

I did especially enjoy the interview with his wife, Iman, as well as the one with Alexander McQueen.

[Sem · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't want to judge this series on the basis of the two books I've read but I have to say that I'm not impressed and won't explore further. There's a "let's cash in on dead people" aspect to the project. Moreover, just because an interview exists it doesn't mean that it's worth reprinting. Artistically, Bowie in the '70s was as good as it gets, but in the interviews from that period included here he was incoherent and pretentious and, quite possibly (almost certainly), out of his gourd. Some of the later ones are better but the Movieline item made me cringe inwardly and the 'last interview' wasn't an interview at all. I call shenanigans.

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ce recueil d'entretiens est une véritable pépite pour les fans de David Bowie et les amateurs de musique en général. Traduit avec soin, il capture l'essence de l'icône à travers des conversations intimes et révélatrices, couvrant sa carrière, sa vision artistique et sa philosophie de vie. Chaque interview est un voyage fascinant dans l'esprit d'un génie créatif, mêlant humour, profondeur et anecdotes captivantes. La sélection des dialogues, incluant sa dernière interview, offre un portrait vibrant et émouvant de Bowie, rendant ce livre incontournable. Un hommage magnifique à une légende immortelle !

[Harold · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection of interviews is pretty uneven and far from comprehensive. At one point, the book references a legendary Bowie interview with Cameron Crowe that's NOT included - which was definitely frustrating. But if you're a fan, there's plenty of good bits to enjoy. Highlights include a 1974 conversation with William S. Burroughs, a great Rolling Stone interview by Kurt Loder, and a piece from the early 90s looking at Bowie's film career.

[John Carlsson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Här samlas ett antal intervjuer som gjordes med Bowie med utgångspunkt från den första som gjordes innan han var ett namn 1964, och den sista som gjordes innan han drog sig tillbaka från media 2006. Det är självklart intressanta intervjuer, men rent kronologiskt är det lite konstigt att man det inte finns några samtal mellan åren 1974-1987 inkluderade... under den här tiden hände det ju en hel del i Bowies liv. Men självklart är det intressant läsning för alla Bowiefans eftersom alla texter har något unikt.

[Samantha · Rating 3 out of 5]

I want so badly to give this a full 5 star review but I can't. There are so many great Bowie interviews that are missing, the time hops are giant, the eras glossed over are immense, and the interviews that are used are palid in contrast to some of his meatier and more constructive sit downs. I liked it, it was a decent gloss over of a very interesting and intense life lived but it really didn't do him the justice it could have. It's a must read for any Bowie fan or fan of incredible music in general, but it truly could've been better.

[Lindsay · Rating 5 out of 5]

This could have been an easy and quick run, but these interviews added an extra tinge of pain after his death two and a half years ago.

I found myself stopping to digest Bowie’s genius, his wit and his artistry. I took photos of his words that moved me. For two weeks, I had an emotional relationship with this book.

This book isn’t just showcasing Bowie the person, it showcases the incredible impact he’s had on our culture. There is no better way to describe Bowie than through his own words.

[emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

“you can’t stand still on one point for your entire life.”
this was officially the first book i finished this year, and it was my sweet salvation/intermission from reading dune (which i will now resume).
david bowie...what can i say.
i love the bastard i really do. means a lot to me and i love to hear what he has to say, even when it’s him being ridiculous. actually, especially then.
starman forever <3

[Joe · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this book is NOT a comprehensive take on Bowie's interviews, it does offer a smattering throughout his life. The subjects range from music to movies, fashion to feminism. Many of the interviews selected are two-way conversations between Bowie and another artist. Plus, these seem to be more difficult to find than the average Rolling Stone profile. A quick read for Bowie fans.