Is saying “no” once not enough? Apparently not for the funk-rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers. According to legend, the band asked famous art-rock icon David Bowie to collaborate with them two separate times in the early 2000s. And both times, Bowie turned them down.
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It’s not entirely surprising that the band wanted to work with Bowie. Plenty of artists in pop and rock were influenced and inspired by him. But the man was simply way too busy.
David Bowie Had To Turn Down a Collaboration With Red Hot Chili Peppers Twice in the 2000s
The funk band wanted Bowie to serve as the producer of their 2002 album By The Way. I can’t blame them for trying; sometimes, just asking is the best thing one can do to get ahead in the music world. However, according to Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman Anthony Kiedis, Bowie turned them down. And his reasoning was perfectly understandable.
“[Bowie] wrote us extremely thoughtful, kind letters explaining why he couldn’t,” said Kiedis. “Whether he was busy or just into something else at the moment…But a true gentleman, not a guy who just blows you off without an explanation.”
Kiedis went on to say that the band had simply called Bowie to ask him to produce the album, with little success. Eventually, they started to write the Starman very long-winded emails explaining, in-depth, why they really wanted to work with him. Nothing came of it.
Several years later, Red Hot Chili Peppers would shoot their shot with Bowie again to produce their 2006 album, Stadium Arcadium. In that same Bowie fashion, he admitted that he was too busy with other projects to produce that particular album as well.
Despite their attempts to contact him and get him on board, Bowie yet again said he was unavailable to take on that second album. Kiedis said that he was upset for about “two minutes” but eventually moved on. He also revealed that they attempted to get famed producer Brian Eno, Bowie’s longtime friend and collaborator, to work with them a whopping eight times. Each time, Eno rejected them.
It looks like there’s no bad blood, though. Flea, Red Hot Chili Peppers’ bassist, got a Bowie tattoo on his arm after the rejection. The band would later pay tribute to Bowie after his passing in 2016 with a cover of “Starman”.
It’s good to know that Bowie was at least a gentleman about the whole thing. What a class act!
Photo by Pavel Suslov
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