David Bowie, whose death from liver cancer at age 69 on January 10, 2016, rocked the music world, is again at the center of intense fascination as a 2002 interview resurfaces, revealing his candid reflections on drugs, sexuality and extraterrestrial inspirations during his most myth-making years.

The conversation, originally published in Mojo as Bowie promoted his then-new album Heathen, has reemerged online as fans prepare for the 10th anniversary of his death.



Source: MEGADavid Bowie died in 2016.



In the unusually expansive exchange, the singer - then 55 - looked back on the creation of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, his cocaine-ravaged Diamond Dogs era and the dizzying identity shifts that defined his 1970s work. Music historians say the resurfacing has struck a nerve among fans. One noted: "People are rediscovering just how fearless David was in talking about the chaos behind the art, and about taboo subjects."Another added: "These comments show a man completely aware of his demons, even at the height of his legend."In the interview, Bowie recalled that before Ziggy: "I really wanted to write musicals more than anything else." He explained the earliest framework for the character was as a musical-theatrical piece before it became "something other than that."

Bowie added he abandoned the idea of later producing a project to add a full narrative for Stardust, remarking: "There was a bit of a narrative, a slight arc, and my intention was to fill it in more later. And I never got round to it because before I knew where I was we'd recorded the d--- thing. There was no time to wait. I couldn't afford to sit around for six months and write up a proper stage piece, I was too impatient. I'm glad in the long run that I left it like that. Because I never drew a template for a storyline too clearly, it left so much room for audience interpretation."Ziggy's loose storyline, he said, allowed for vast audience projection. Bowie admitted: "A couple of years ago, I was seriously near to putting something together. But every time I got close to defining him more, he seemed to become less than what he was before. And I thought, I should just bloody well let go of this, because it's not right. So I left it. Project abandoned."He discussed his recurring dystopian themes, joking: "I went to the doctors for it. You always think you've got an ulcer, but it's just heartburn... no, in retrospect, it has been a strong theme in the work that I've done down the years. In fact, I think if there is any consistency to what I do, it's going to be the lyrical content. I'm saying the same thing a lot, which is about this sense of self-destruction."



Source: MEGADavid Bowie had always spoke openly about the glam era.



"I think you can see the apocalyptic thing as the manifestation of an interior problem. There's a real nagging anxiety in there somewhere, and I probably develop those anxieties in a 'faction' (fact/fiction) structure," he continued. Later, reflecting on his creation of his famous Major Tom character, he said: "The second time around, there were elements of my really wanting to be clean of drugs. I metamorphed all that into the Major Tom character, so it's partially autobiographical. But not completely so - there's a fantasy element in it as well. It probably came from my wanting to be healthy again. Definitely. And the first time around it wasn't. The first time around it was merely about feeling lonely. But then the limpets of time grabbed hold of the hull of my ship; it was de-barnacling by the time I got round to Ashes To Ashes. No leave all this out, actually, the barnacles... Jesus Christ!"Bowie had always spoke openly about the glam era and his own early declaration of being gay in a 1972 interview.

He said about "outing" himself: "I found I was able to get a lot of tension off my shoulders by almost 'outing' myself in the press in that way, in very early circumstances. So I wasn't going to get people crawling out the woodwork saying, (adopts seedy, muck-raking voice) 'I'll tell you something about David Bowie that you don't know... .' I wasn't going to have any of that. I knew that at some point I was going to have to say something about my life. And, again, Ziggy enabled me to make things more comfortable for myself."

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Source: MEGAThe star previously spoke about his drug addiction.

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