THE BEAT GOES ON
NEW YORK—Earl Slick was not only the guitarist whose licks scorched through David Bowie’s Station To Station album (“Anything good on that album is mine,” he says); he had the je ne sais quoi to quit his $3,000 a week gig with Bowie and strike out with a band of his own.
THE BEAT GOES ON
Slick Spews It Out
NEW YORK—Earl Slick was not only the guitarist whose licks scorched through David Bowie’s Station To Station album (“Anything good on that album is mine,” he says); he had the je ne sais quoi to quit his $3,000 a week gig with Bowie and strike out with a band of his own. Currently on tour with that band, having released a Capitol album that hasn’t really taken off, Slick took time out to chat with us backstage at a recent concert.
CREEM: Okay Slicky, if Bowie is a mystic-oriented rock star then how come he won’t get in an airplane?
SLICK: Well asshole, if you’d listen to Ziggy Stardust then you’d know about these things. The “Five Years” is up in January ’77, and the man starts flyin’.
CREEM: How’d you meet Bowie?
SLICK: Through Michael Kamen. Michael used to play with me in the New York Rock and Roll Ensemble.
CREEM: You might say that you went from obscurity to Mick Ronson’s successor overnight.