Bonus Episode: 'Heroes' Assistant Engineer Peter Burgon Recalls Singing with Bowie on a Rock Classic and Life in a Divided Berlin

creation is loaded with drama. It was recorded in an old Nazi concert hall, within sight of watchful East German snipers atop the Berlin Wall, and of course there was the famous Kiss by the Wall, which supposedly inspired one of the songs best known verses. My guests today not only worked at the legendary Hansa Studios, the so called Hall by the Wall where Heroes was recorded, he actually sang on it eye to eye with Bowie himself. And

that's just one of his many incredible stories. His name is Peter Bergen, and he worked as an assistant engineer under our previous guest du Meyer. When Harry Meyer was on vacation for much of the sessions for Heroes in seven, Peter stepped up and took over. He helped achieve the epic expansive sound of the title track, and he also helped get this gargantuan drum sounds on Lust for Life by Iggy Pop, whom he still refers to by his

given name, Jimmy. Peter did all of this, and he still found time to bring David's son to school on occasion. Our conversation was a joy. Peter shared his memories, busted some tall tales, and provided fascinating insight into the man and his music. You know, basically the story of me with David was I began as as assistant in around the Hands and when when Low was done, um, but because basically there wasn't a lot of work to be done, because they basically just mixed it. They mastered the Low

because most of the recording was done. There was a few bits and pieces done on top during Low. But I wasn't around much. But I've met him sort of rub shoulders with Wisconti. I don't think we jelled then. Then obviously, in seventy seven, when David came back with Jimmy for Lust for Life, we went to a different studio. We were in Studio three. Then Studio three was completely up and running because they had been completely rebuilt and

we weren't able to record in the Great Hall. Yes, so we did hear Lust for Life in Studio three, which was downstairs the hands up and was authoroughly modern studio. I would have said for that time period, it was probably stated meant to juice state of the art, you know, they were they were looking at the other studios and thinking, okay, how can we be probably the most polished studio to be. I don't know if you've seen any photos of Studio three. I saw with the old wood paneling and the and

the recess lights and everything. Yeah, it looks very it was all that. Yeah, it was really really plush. Unfortunately, I don't think the the ambiance was quite as good, and it probably suited more more German pop at the time than they suited anything else. So when we did Last for Life, Ado and I had been experimenting with

trying to get more sound out of the studios. So we we we might the drum kid out in the big part of the studio instead of you know, having it confined in the drum drum boost like most drums were recorded back in those days. We were looking for to get more of a booming sound from from drums,

which is what we like. So so I was sort of feeding of Ado, and it was feeding of myself the way we wanted because I did a lot of live live work at the time, mixing live bands and doing live work because I managed a few bands, which is how I actually got into the music side and got into the hands up. So we were looking looking at that side of it, and of course David was working there anywhere as producer on that on that album with a lot of with a lot of artistic input,

and we had a guy called Colin Thurston. I don't know how they've picked up on Colin in London. Colin had been working in London at the time, so he came across and I think he's actually listed as producer on the album. Although ringing David did most of the production. David and Jimmy handler most of the production side of it, and Ado and myself handling engineering side of it, you know, of course in the front seat, and I was just

sitting in the backseat putting in my input. And that was really my first time of working together with David. What what I did appreciate at that time with David was I had a couple of ideas for the way of doing some of the backing vocals and Philosopher Life. You know this very high pitched Lust for Life. Yeah, yeah, part of it, and that was part of my import into that. And David said, yeah, well come on go

and record it. And David yeah, and so I sort of laughed and I went, well, okay, yeah that was it. And then Al said, yeah, go get in the studio. We'll put the micup, and put the micup. And I did this that Lust for Life and did a bit of backing vocals on Lust for Life. I also sung backing vocals together with David on Passenger. So if you listen to the backing vocus on Passenger, that's staying myself doing the backing vocal. Was that intimidating? Was that scary

to too this thing with him? Well, well it wasn't really intimidating. What it was was I mean, you know, we'll go back really in history now. I met Jimmy Hendrix when I was fifteen in Berlin and a concert. Yeah wow, that is it. You know for fifteen year old that trips are like fantastic. And most most of my my time after that was going to live concerts and I met a lot of musicians live in the Deutschtann Howe, because I used to work as a like

a age monitor and running around. Because I spoke German and English, I was able to get into the live venue as on a working basis, So you know, I did things like just making sure that the band were happy and the roadies had everything they wanted when they were arriving. If anything were short, I made sure they got it, and so things like that. So I saw a lot of live music in Berlin and I got involved in a lot of live side but I always wanted to be an artist. My unfortunate situation is I'm

no good you know. You know, I can play a three chord twelve bar but I wouldn't even be as good as stay this quote, so oh you know, yes, yeah, but that's what I'm saying. So you know, my limitations were enormous. But I had a lot of influence on a lot of the local musicians and a lot of the local bands, and I got my put bands together. I managed a lot of the bands on the live scene in Berlin, which is how I ended up meeting Adam.

So so when David said, you know, let's do these vocals for me, it was like, yeah, but why me, you know, I can't see. But but David I found always to be somebody he'd like to encourage people. Now, I don't know what he was trying to encourage me for, because I was never going to be be an artist, you know, But but but he knew. I think I wanted wanted to produce. I wanted to produce my own artists, and I wanted to get things going. So I was working very hard on that, and David seemed to encourage

me there. Um. But then when he came to Heroes and Tony was we spent a week just David and myself in the studio before anybody else arrived, while equipment was arriving and bits and pieces like that which I was looking after the whole issue, and David was in the studio playing piano, playing a bit of guitar, trying to work out what he wanted to put together at that this new album before anybody arrived. And then when

was cont arrived, he was very very disappointed. But I think, you know, in retrospect, I'm I'm thinking this, I think he was very disappointed that Ada wasn't there, and I think he was looking at me and going, well, you know, why have we've been given the the the the amateur. Why have we've been given this guy? You know that who is he and what is he? He had this arrogance about him that, you know, he was the guy that knew everything, and I was probably not fit to

be there. But unfortunately because of the workings of the studio and studio too was actually quite basic. Why we had lots of problems with wiring. It was historically, you know, trying to get everything sorted. You know, he needed somebody to understood the studio because he wouldn't be able to it was. It was back as if it wasn't straightforward, and so I needed to be there, but I don't

think he wanted me to be there. And then subsequently, when we got all the music down, on all the music tracks and all that part of it, they started working on the vocals. But once again I had to be there to sort of make sure the studio was operated and make sure that mikes were put in the right place. And you know, just on the Heroes thing, he talks about that the way he set the mics

up and set them up through gates. Well, you see, my problem is we didn't have the gates he's talking about back in Hansa and I have an email from our technician, our studio technician, when I cleared him about this quite a while ago, and I said, you know, Teddy Tony was gone. He's talking about these microphone gates that he set up to do the vocals of David on Heroes that you know, the one microphone would cut in after the next one and the next one close

up on the middle one and the further one. But we didn't. We didn't have that. Now, my remembrance of it, and I say, it's my remembrance of it the way we did it. We did everything mangrly. We had different mics set up. Now I can't recall it being three mic set up, but I know there was two mics set up, so he professes there were three. I don't recall it being three, probably to remember we having to cut from mike to mike going that way manually. Everything had to be done. But but it all went down

on one track because that was all they had left. Yeah, that's all we had left. And I mean, and you have to look at it in this way. The only people in the studio at the time with David Tony and myself, So the only three people that know how things were put together. Then those three people, those three individuals um and in his interviews with the BBC, he he uses Adamyer did this and Ado Meyer did that. Well,

Aidamyer was in the Caribbean on the beach um. But so basically he just has never ever said Peter berg And did this, or Peter did this, or Peter did anything. So I was sorting to another journalist and he said he's One of his opening statements was he said, I don't understand any of this, Peter. You have been airbrushed out of heroes. There is no mention anywhere of you working on heroes. And I went, okay, but that's fine. You know, it's not a big deal out of my

life because I other was there. I didn't get paid in the extra. I was paid a pittance at the time because I was on an assistant assistant retainer, which was useless. I lived outside the studio in a in a caravan, you know, in the trailer as you would call them in the States, outside Pat Stammer plants. Yeah, right outside the studio in because I couldn't have formed an apartment. On the wages I was getting out of the studio, I couldn't have formed an apartment. Wow, oh

yeah it is, you know, historically it's great. But I loved working on heroes because we had a restaurant in the studio called Studio Track, which was run by an xboxer X German Champion boxing or world MM but he was a German boxer. And of course our cea you were footing the bill, so it would be we're going to have dinner, so Peter got Peter got to eat good good food. Well, well, David was doing heroes on the bill of our our ce a good yeah, yeah, so you know, and that was the same with lust

for life. You know, it was good when you had a good and it was different artists as well. We always so I mean I used to live eat quite well. But you know I had a little gas chemistry in in my in my trailer for the winter, it's just to keep me warm. But that was basically what my life was. What was that area of Berlin like that? I mean I've seen pictures and it looks like something from from a movie like Blade Runner or something. Can you describe like what that part of West Berlin was

like at the time. Yeah, well, if you can imagine the cur curtains rasa. All right, you turned off a small it was like a like a mainly sort of road that went from down near Checkpoint Charlie and it would come up um just along the the let me see which side of the oof that is. It would come up one side of the UF up towards the Deutsche Oba the Berlin Open House. But from hands A student right across the Opera house, there was nothing. It was just derelict. It was like clear clear bond sites.

So it was all just you know what used to be rubbled. I'm sure you'd be able to see pictures of it. And and then if you came out of the studio of the out of the front door, if you turned right down curt Strassa about two hundred yards down the road, the road stopped because that was the Berlin Wall. So you now had the Berlin Wall right

in front of you. Now on the curtains answer. Between Handser and the Berlin Wall, there was one more building, which is which is if you look at one of the pictures there is from Handser, I can maybe sending you. Sometimes you can see this one building out of studio to a window. You virtually cannot see the boiling wall out of the hands of studio window. So this story that came about Wisconti kissing Antonio mass outside and you know at the burling wall, and David had seen it

from the studio window, it's not possible. So I think over the years of Heroes sort of being marked as the work, it has been marked recently because initially it didn't really make it. I think they also inherited a little bit of artistic scope to where it was put together, make it a little more poet absolutely. Now. The other thing is when it came to the backing vocals of Heroes, Uh,

this is these are my facts. Now. I'm not sure if you'll get anybody to ever agree to this, because the only other person that is alive that was there studied Wiscontin was Tony used to like to double David's voice in backing vocals. So so basically, if you listen to when he was doing choruses, he would overlay the same track two or three times in David's voice. So if you listen to some of his earlier stuff. You know, most most of David's sort of choruses are doubled, so

you hear the boy. And I had the idea that to to get this, you know, we could be heroes because it's like you're you're talking to two people. So as opposed to David doing the backing vocals, there would be a reply and so you would have that secondary statement afterwards. And if you listen to the vocals, obviously you've got that. So we did. What we decided to do was double it up together. Now, Tony Wisconti claims that he went into the studio and ablud Meyer was

at the recording desk. The actual fact was I went into the studio with David because we've done it on on Lust for Life, out of a bit of fun, and Tony operated the desk and we did the backing googles once again. In the BBC interview from a few years back, Tony said, if you listen carefully, you can hear David with an English accent and you can also hear a Boston accent. Well, if you actually listen to those two vocals that are on the backing track, which

he actually separate did for the BBC interview. There isn't there isn't a Boston accent because he's not Tony. I can hear, I can hearly clear clearly here David, and I can clearly hear myself, and so I just have the pleasure of going, thanks Tony, you isolated my vocals, so you know, and that's it. But hey, listen it. I never got paid paid for any extra work. I never got paid any extra money for being being the engineer on Heroes. I never got any of the credit.

It made no difference to me in my latter life because it was about a year after that I decided to give it up. I was fell up. I spent another winter in the in the trailer. I got together with a girl that had an apartment and she said, what are you doing. You need to earn money and

I ain't. Got a job in a bar which I was being paid twice as much as I was being paid in the studios, and then I also started doing pirate pirate video cassettes to all the people used to coming to the bar, and eventually I opened up five video rental shops in Berlin. So it was a complete contrast to what I've been doing. But you you sang with David Bowie on here Is. I mean that's something that you know, that's you take that with you wherever

you go. Just inside wow that I mean, well, yeah, I don't know if you if you were aware of the London Olympics. Hero has been played all the time and I used to listen. I go great, So when he comes on the radio and driving down the street and he comes on the radio, I just yeah, okay, here it is. I'm singing again, and and and a few people that know me and know it it's me singing. You know, Davi. There's so many text messages from time to time he said, oh I just heard you singing

on the radio and I'm going, oh god, it sounds good. Yeah, hey, listen, it's so simple, you know, we we can be here. It's so easy. You know, it's it's a very easy line. But I feel more I would like to have the credit for the idea of putting that in in a reply to the to the main vocal, because that was my idea. It was me saying, well, rather than doing it this way where you're actually singing the chorus as a chorus, why didn't you like echo it, you're getting

an echo back from it, so it was different. So yeah, you know that was my input into that. Also. My other input was I was managing a band that Antonio Mars Sang was the singer in UM and we were doing a demo in one of the studios one morning before we did Hear It, moved an in studio three before David came in to go to work in studio too, and I introduced Antonio master David and Tony Wisconsin. Wow, so you kicked it all off. You kicked that whole verse off. You introduced the two. Oh, I don't know

about that. I don't know about that because, like I said, you know, the mystery of whether David ever did see them kissing, I don't know, but he definitely from the studio. Didn't see him kissing in front of the wall, but maybe he saw him kiss somewhere else. Now as far as I know from my my knowledge was Antonio mass had a boyfriend at that time because he was he was the road with the band that she was singing with s and Tony had a wife. So did they

have this illicit thing? I don't know. I never saw him kissed. I didn't even know there was anything going on. But then you know, I was probably busy doing a lot of other stuff to be and and the other thing about that whole period with David and Jimmy, we didn't socialize. So when the day was over in the studio, that was it. They go their way. I went mine. Because the other thing I've got to say about it

is I wasn't a fan of David Bowie. My my, you know, led Zeppelin, Deep Purple Um ten years after jet O Toll. That was more hardly seen. Yeah, hardest stuff.

I mean, you know, from fifteen. I mean at fifteen, my brother taught me to this concert with Hendrix, ten years after Canned Heat procol harm Oh, I can't remember who were at this big concert in Berlin in September of seventy uh And of course, me being a fifteen year old wanting to find out everything, I talked my way into getting into the backstage area and I got to meet Hendrix. He what did he say? Well, if I give you this background, Jordan's my father worked in Berlin,

all right, which is why we lived in Berlin. And he worked for the British military and his job was listening to Russian and East German radio because it was the Cold War period and he worked in a place called Teufelsberg, which is the devil Shill now Toeutfelisberg was a listening station in Berlin for the for the Allied military, and all he would do is listen to German and East East German and Russian radio conversations. I'm writing down

in English and send off to intelligence. There were about a thousand people working in Teufelisberg at the time, so my father wasn't doing anything like James Bond. He wasn't all right. But then Jimmy says, what are you doing in Berlin? And I said, oh, well, I'm here with my father. What's your father doing in Berlin? Well he's just by because there was a fifteen year old I've got Jimmie Henry's in front of me. You know, I

want to be impressive. Why you know, I probably would have got battled by my father for telling anybody, but that was it. And he answered me all these different questions. So it was me wanting to find out how do I play this and how do I turn into what you are? And everything like that. You know, if you want to know, what are you doing in Berlin? Why are you in Berlin? Wow, it must be fantastic. So that was it, and then unfortunately, my my brother then

found me and dragged me out of there. I think we were probably there for another five ten minutes or something, and then, you know, the next band was getting ready to play, so we were gonna have going to go out and watch the next band. So that was that, But for for many many years it was my brother's. His story is, oh, yeah, I took my brother to see Hendrix and I had to pull him out of the dressing room because he was he was he was vending Jimmy Hendrix's ear. Yeah, so he loved the sword.

But you know, but he was He was absolutely nice guy. You know, but most of most of the Archers I've met, it doesn't matter how big they are, how special that are, they are really genuinely nice people. And David was just the same. David was a gentleman as far as I was concerned. What was his relationship like with with with Iggy Pop with Jimmy, Well that they were initially for

lust for life. I felt that they were joined at the hip architecturally, but you know, like you know, yeah, they just hung out together and they were together, they were around and everything. They would leave the studio together, they would arrive at the studio together. Oh yeah, yeah, That's one of the things I have to say, because you know, you have all these stories about the drug problems they had in the States and before they came to Berlin and they came to in the studio, the

studio was always clean. There were no drugs about the studio. I think there might have been a little bit of pop or something, you know, but but listened, there was there was no drug sessions at the studio. What they did as soon as they left the studio, I don't know, you know. And and there are pictures of David and Jimmy I think at a bar called Rommy Haggs, which was back in those days was a transvestite and bar. They used to do transvestite shows. It was one of

the in places to go. Rommy Harks. You know, the zim been taught that Rommy harg has made a statement actually had a relationship with David. I don't know about that, but there's a lot of people anybody that sort of shoulders with David. I think over the years, was trying

to make a story out of it. But yeah, but I have some fond memories of the time I spent with David because one at one stage his son was in Berlin and he was actually going to a British military school in Berlin, and I had I had to drive him and the child minder to the school a couple of times because we had a little Volkswagen buss too. I took him to school a couple of times. And I could see this interaction David had, you know, as a as a father and also on Lost for Life.

I don't know what the issue was at the time, but David spent a lot of time on the phone from the studio because it would have been late night, well obviously in California at that time, um, it would have been sort of daytime in time, and he spent a lot of time on the phone back and forwards. And if I think you I don't actually know what the conversations were about, but I think it was about, you know, the part of the parting of the waves and when when Duncan was going to be sort of

with David full time and all all those things. So yeah, you know, I saw this emotional side of David just by chance of being there that you know, he wasn't just this superstar guy that you know, had this persona that he wanted to put other people. You know, he he was also a human being. He was also a person that cared, you know, and I think the love for his son shone through at that time as well. You know, you know, he was he was a father

and those things make a difference. And I don't I don't think those things ever really came came came to before in his life because until later, of course, when he married the model I can't think of my name, but anyway, I think he kept his private life private and then he put out this per persona for you know, being the superside. And this is why he had these

different ultra egos that he had throughout his career. Yeah, you only see what he wanted you to see, absolutely, but if you actually had you know, if you were there when when the curtains opened for a little while and you saw behind the curtains, you could see this was a real person. This is a person that cared passion. I mean, he told me of a story about being in Tokyo and in this hotel in Tokyo, and he said, I think they were they were they were doing a

gig there or something. But was in this big hotel in Tokyo and just by chance he opened the door to walk out into the corridor, and who did he bump into John Lennon and Yokna. And so he's just telling the story about being in Tokyo and again bumped into John Lennon and Yoko Hona and you know they

spent the evenit together or whatever. I can't remember the exact details of what he told told me, but I'm just going, wow, you know that must be mega, because that would have been something very very uh dawned into me, you know, being in the in the presence of John Lennon or George Harrison, you know those those are people that you know to me, would there my childhood? Who were some other acts that you worked with at hands?

Were there any any heroes of yours? One of the funny things, um that happened was after we've done Lust for Life and we've done Heroes the back end of that year, UM, there was a session booked the sex person that booked a session, well here's the funny thing. Now, we had six people working in the studio based basically his recording engineers, meaning more than tumbler aid, and my guy called Will Roper, a couple of a couple of others.

Nobody wanted to do the sex pissons. I was told that the sex pisses are coming and I'm doing the sex presson pess session. And I went, I wait, why nobody wanted to do the six But I said why and they said, well, nobody wants to do them, so you're doing them. I went, Okay, brilliant, Great, I'll do the sex pistons And that was it. What were they like? They like, no, fortunately, fortunately or unfortunately I'm not sure which.

All right, they canceled and before that there was some issue but they never arrived at hands but they had booked a session but nobody wanted them. I can kind of see that. I can understand. Yeah, that was it, but yes, so there's a lot of stuff. But then i'd like, I say, I was doing I've been a German pop and getting sessions that really nobody else wanted.

So I always start at the bottom of the packing list. Um, and I just shouldn't you know, I kind of thought to do this anymore, and I gave it up, which is a shame because I would look back and think if I would have maybe put personally in another year, two years, maybe I would have done it. So I've done a lot of things since, and I have no regrets. You know, I don't regret leaving music industry because it didn't do anything for me. What was it that David

and Iggy or Jim. I guess I should say, what do they like about Berlin at that time? And what was it like for you as a Westerner being there? But then was very raw at the time. Because um, there's uh, there's a movie or a German series been on I watched recently which I thought would give you a sort of insight into what it was like over there, um with East Germany. And it's called deutsch Land eighty three, Deutschland nine and deutsch Light three eight six eighty nine.

The it's a it's a German produced thing, but it's it's about the Cold War, and it's about the Berlin War coming down and all the things that were involved in that and the spies and all, you know a lot of other stuff. But it gives you a great insight into how Germany felt in itself. And of course Berlin was an island in East Germany. So if you sort of if you could imagine taking Berlin as an island and lifting out into the middle of an ocean,

that's one way of saying it was an island. But if you actually take Berlin and you can imagine putting it into the center of Russia, okay, with complete Western ideal idealism, okay, in this communist era, or put it into the middle of China under today's era. You know, it's just unfathomable, but that's what it was. You had East Germany, which was, you know, part of the Soviet Union, which was you know, the socialism um communism. Keep keep an eye on your neighbor and inform on him if

you will, you know. And then you had West Germany, which was a complete free state within this area. And the only way you could get out of Berlin was either drive through the Eastern Corridor, which was actually quite depressing, or your frew you know, the are the only two

ways of getting in and out. There was sort of attention, there was sort of a sparkle in the city, and Also, one of the other things that a lot of people haven't realized about Berlin and is if you were a German teenager of eighteen in West Germany, you got conscripted to the German Army. The only way to get out of that was you moved to Berlin. Because of Berlin, if you lived in Berlin, you weren't conscripted into the army.

So if you can imagine that seventeen and a half, most West Germans that did not want to have to go to conscription in the army moved to Berlin to live in Berlin. Did you ever make it over to East Berlin? Did you ever visit there? I visit there quite often because my mother used to go to East Germany to buy porcelain and crystal that was made in East Germany. So Karl Heinz, you know, Carl Entz was I think one of the big porcelain makers in East Germany at the time, so she used to go over.

Then she used to buy portling in crystal um because it was cheap, and because my father was connected to the military, we used to go over in the military convoy, so so so we used to go over like three or four cars in the military conboy and they go around to all these different places to buy this portion and then this crystal. This is when I was about thirteen, fourteen twelve, you know, to buy this crystal. And of course you had these three or four military cars in

the convoy. But then following the ministry cars in the convoy were like was probably I don't know if it was a Russian car. But then in East German car as well. You know, the police to keep an eye on what these people doing. You know, why are they coming to to East billion Now I didn't think much older at the time. It was great, well we'll go over here. But the contrast between what was in the West and what was in the East was day and night.

You know, the buildings who were run down, they weren't, they weren't weren't up to the specification that the West was after the war. You know, these were still buildings that had taken a beating during the war, and you know it was showing. You could see it. It was very,

very different. And the thing that David and Jimmy used to love was used to be able to travel on the s Bahn, which and the s Bahn means Strawsonbahn, which is it's sort of mainly above ground, but when it went to go from the west to the east, it went underground and it stopped at a place called Friedrichstrasser, and then it continued after that and it came back

out in the west. Now as you drove, as you came on the underground on the Sumn where it went underground was around about the curtains Strasa, just just before you got to the wall, so it would go underground there and it went into the east. Well, as you came into each part of the east, you would have military guards underground in the tunnels with lights on, with

machine guns, guarding that nobody got onto the train. I don't think they cared about anybody getting off it, but they made sure that nobody was going to get into the tunnel to get on the train to get out of his Germany. So that was like a controlled area and you went through and when you've got a free re start, you could actually get off the train because that was a border crossing, but you could actually get off the train and not go through the border crossing.

But you could buy cigarettes and drink to ut free, you know, tax free on the train train platform. So everybody used to go through free restructed to buy cheap booze and cheap cigarettes, like duty free at the airport. Yeah, it's like juty free in the airport because it was in East Germany, all right. And then you got back on the train and hoped that by the time you got off the train at the other end, there wasn't West Berlin customs officer asking to look in your bag,

because they did that from time to time. It wasn't much. I mean, most people could get away with a couple of hundred cigarettes and the bottle of whiskey, but you certainly couldn't have got away with four cases of whiskey. They'll be watching help for things like that. Yes, So this was it. So they would get on the Sman and ride the SMA and there's there's a famous picture of them riding the span, a picture of the two of them on the SMA. I don't know if you've

seen it, just two guys, just anonymous. Yeah, I leve to. Yeah, I love to dig out some of these things and send them to you because you just smile at what the whole thing was. So this was this was the whole background to the inspiration they were getting in Berlin and the ideas that were getting. I mean, Passenger was written about traveling the spar There's the story that they

always tell. I don't know if it's true of of Tony and David and Jimmy being in the control room at Hanser and seeing the East German guards in the gun turret across through the window. Is that could you see that? Well? No, that that was on low. Now, whether whether Jimmy was there at that time, I don't know because I wasn't. I wasn't there on the day. There is a photo of David Ado and Tony Wiscondi behind the desk. I don't know if you've seen that

photo three of them behind the desk. That was taken while they were doing low and while they were mixing low. But if you looked out of the student the trol rooms window, you could see just the top of the wall in the distance. It was about two hundred yards three hundred yards away maybe you know about about about if you put yourself in in a one of your football stadium, Yeah, and you know, like sat at one end of the stadium and looked at the other end

of the stadium. It was about that far away. It was quite a distance away, but just there there was a tower which was a turret, and the guard the East Germans will be sitting in that tower overlooking the area which was between them and the wall, which was the Nomen's area, which was where the mines were and where you know, all the barred wire was, and if and all the lights were, and if anybody tried to run across there, they would shoot them or try to

shoot them. So you know, that was how people died, trying to escape things. And of course it who wanted to have a bit of fun with the guys, so he told them about these East Germans and he said they sit in that tower with guns and they could shoot. And he's putting a little bit of emphasis on, you know, trying to put the wind up them. And what we used to have was lamps hanging down over the over the desk to lighten up the de lighten the desk.

So as they're standing there and he's talking about it, he said, yeah, yeah, he said yeah, but they can't actually see us because they you know, we're too far away and everything. They could only see you if you if you shot shoe the torch at them like this, and so was one of these lights and aims it out of the window towards their tower. The story is Tony and David dived under the desk. Now that's the story. Now,

whether it did happen that way, I don't know. Edre said it did does and he loves telling that story, or but that's basically what happened. Yeah, you can see it. But that's how close you were to this, this this differential between east and west. And then when David went was it seven eight he did his concert in Berlin. Yeah, he mollless, you know, set the stage up on the west side to aim at the east, you know, and he was like, listen, this is this is where we are,

this is who we are here to have some free music. Now. I wasn't. I wasn't in Berlin at the time. I didn't see the concert at the time. I don't really have any background on that concert, but you know, that was that was something else he did with Berlin. Now, and of course after Heroes he went back to Berlin to to record the other album with two three Bow. Yeah, so I mean that would that's really the third album in the trilogy to Berlin trilogy. I know they don't

put it that way. Below was the first one and Low was only finished in Berlin. They they've done all the most of the music, backing tracks and everything for Low in What was the name of the yeah yeah, yeah, yeah chateau somewhere in France. And why they moved to Berlin at that time to do it, I don't know.

It might have been to do with Edgar Frozer, I'm not I'm not party to that real insight to it, because David met up with Eda Edgar Frozen at some stage in seventy six seventy seventy six, and he went to stay with Edgar Frozen in Berlin for a while, so he stayed. He stayed with Edgar, of course, and then David got the apartment on help Strassa, and Jimmy stayed with David in David's apartment until he actually got

his own apartment in the back of the building. So David's apartment was in the front of the building and Jimmy's apartment was in the back. I never visited David. I visited Jimmy's twice because he bought a piano and he needed it reconditioning. He brought an upright piano and he wanted reconditioning, so I went with him to have

a look at it. I can't really recall much about the apartment, separate scene, this piano, and then I got a piano guy to have a look at it and recondition it, and took this piano guy to the apartment. That's about it. But it's like I said to him, I didn't really socialize with him. They were they weren't

my social sphere, if you get what I mean. I mean, well, I had a lot of musician friends at the time, and and it would have been very, very difficult because if I had a socialist with Jimi and David, my other friends would be on the short short side of it, and I couldn't really include them because it's not like you can sort of say, oh, David has invited me to go such and such a place for drink, you want to come with me? You know, that's not really

what you do, not not in a professional relationship. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. You can't really bring your friends. Yeah, if you if I met him and he was just a friend of mine and whatever. I could say, oh yeah, I'll meet you for a beer, but David's asked me to go for a beer. You want to join us? You know, you could do that, but not you know, I didn't feel in a professional so so so maybe my state, my status are more professional.

And I wasn't a fan. You know, when when they said David Bowie's coming to hands, it was like, okay, great. But when I heard Brian, When I heard Brian Eno is going to be there, you know, that's a different fish. Oh yeah, what was that like? What was the like working with them together? How was their relationship there? Relations brilliant? I mean they just they just used off each other

and and well David really bust off Brian. You know, Brian would come up with these these thought processes of what to do and everything, and David we go, oh yeah, yeah, you know that would You could see he was following following that direction. Were they funny? I always hear these stories about them doing like like Peter Cook and Dudley more routines and stuff like that. Were they funny together?

I don't know about being funny? It was fun I don't really remember things like that, you know, but maybe that was more more, you know, to the side, like when when they were doing other things together, you know when when they left the studio and went and did something else, they might have done stuff like that, because obviously we were in the studio eight ten hours a day. But then the rest of the time, which is a

lot of other stuff going on. Did David know the sounds that he wanted or was there a lot of experimentation going on and trying stuff out and then after the words kind of refined a lot of experiments, a lot of experimentation, and and this is the other thing I would say, in fairness to aid, I think a lot of the pre pre ideas for the way to get the studio to sound when David was going to do the album was worked at Ada and I put together you know, we we we put the big boom room,

mike in there, we put all the other stuff around because that was the ambience we were trying to create. We were trying to get the sound of the room. Now, you see, the main hall was divided in in a quarter of it had this enormous um um curtain that went right across the hall and for most of the stuff that was done in studio to everybody used to record within this curtain area, which was about a quarter

of the room. It's where the drum box was. There was a drum box when you put the drummer in, and then everything else had these barriers around them to more full the sound, so sound was more muffled, and then you had this enormous curtain blocking off the main part of the hall. But what I did a lot of with a do over the time was we would do a lot of work with the Berlin Philharmonic and their orchestra coming to do productions music productions for German TV.

So if there was music needed to be recorded orchestral music for German TV, it would be done in hands in the main hall and this way we would move the curtain out the way and you would use the whole of the hall for orchestral stuff. And you'll probably be able to find some photos of orchestras in the

in the main hall recording. But until Heroes No Band, no music was recorded in the studio in that way where we put the drum drums up on the stage because there was a state you know, the stage platform and then the rest of the the instruments, the based, the electric guitar, the piano, and everything was on the whole side of this huge curtain because we basically almost didn't use the other side. So everything was recorded in

the hall to get that huge ambient sound. That was what we were looking for, and that was that was more or less what Adio and I had spoken about well before you know, Heroes was even started, because we did some We did some great stuff in studio too, in orchestral stuff. I think you could probably liken it

to abbey Road. I've never been in abbey Road, but I've seen pictures of Abbey Road and Abbey Road is huge, high ceiling and you know, everything is you can get that orchestral sound in abbey Road and you could have got back in those days the orchestral sound in hands It too. So that was the sort of the move that that Ado and I really buzzed on, was getting this huge sound, you know, trying to get something sound much bigger and then you get something like Heroes. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

I think so. I'm hoping that I'm hoping that my feedback with Aid and what I brought to the table with Ado not being there, is it helped to create some of that ambiance and create some of the sounds. Do you have a favorite memory of those sessions of your time together? The favorite memory of that, Yeah, I think my favorite memory of it was doing the vocals with David, because it's a good choice. We no, we did, Yeah, well we did, we did. I set over a back

to back Mike. I set up to you ul seventy nines facing each other, so David, you know, David and I were facing each other doing it, and there was the buzz feeling between that. So doing the backing vocals was like, you know, I had I had my chance

to have my fifteen seconds of frame. You know, I'm standing with David and we're seeing it, and there was there was that buzz, and I had that same sort of buzz doing that with Passenger, thinking this is the closest I will ever get to being an artist, because I'll never be an artist. I disagree. I think everything that you're describing about how you added to to the sounds of all all these songs, I think you have absolutely proven yourself as an artist. At the time, it

was nothing special, and today it's nothing special. Unless I'm actually talking to somebody that gets that buzz out of it. You know, whether everybody on the planet knows about it doesn't make any difference to me. Have you had any contact with Duncan, with David's son, No, No, I mean, to be honest with you, I haven't even tried to reach out. I I sort of got the impression that that he liked to keep those memories to himself, which

is totally understandable. One of the things I would love to be able to do at some stage, probably before I die, was find out off Duncan if he realized how passionate his father was about him being his son at that time in Berlion. Because Duncan mosting about six

seven eight, he was only a very young child. And I mean, I don't know what you remember at the time with your father when you were six seven or eight, um, but your father probably had a lot more time for you than David had for Duncan, or you know, was able to make because he had some he was spending so much time being this this uh persona that the

world wanted. Yeah, he belonged to everybody. Yeah, but but I believe, I honestly believe this from the little that you know, a couple of years of interaction I had with David Duncan was a huge part of what his feelings were, you know, he had he had that farther emotion. Now, whether he ever showed it at the time, I don't know, because you know, it's it's like a different thing. But

I believe he did because I believe. Now I don't know how true the story is, but I believe when he died, part of his will was to leave a million dollars or a million euros to Duncan's nanny, the girl in Berlin that looked after him. Now I have I mean that's what I've been told, I think through different conversations or every different people. But yeah, but he still had that connection with with with the girl that

had looked after Duncan for him all that time in Berlin. Now, when that stopped, when it started, and when that stopped, and how that progressed, I don't know. But for me, that would be a more interesting conversation that we don't done anything to do with his father. You know, if I ever do manage to get in touch, you know, with him, I would let you. I'll tell him that I spoke with you and that you know you would

love to to let him know. I mean, I I have a parent who passed away when I was very young, and I know I've had some some of there are some of her friends get in touch with me years later to kind of let me know what she was really like, especially at that time when you're a kid and you don't really know. And yeah, that's very special. I know firsthand how special that can be. So I you know what I for you, I will, I will. I now have a reason to try to get in

touch with him. I will, I will do that and I'll let you know if I succeed. Yeah, because Jordan's is like this. I mean, they turned up at the studio and obviously there's work to be going on and everything, and it was like, wait a minute, we need to it done into school and I said, well, I've got a minibus there, I'll take the mini bus. I'll drive into school. And I'm must have driven into school two or three times. You know, I don't really I don't

really recalled because of me. It was just something, Oh, let's get downe into school and get back to the studios as quick as I can, you know, But yeah, but those were little things and I just thought, and of course that was hero. So that was after the period David has spent all this time on the telephone

during Loss for Life. And I mean, I know how much time you spent on the phone, and how much it costs, because every night I would have to do the studio breakdown for what expenses had to go onto the bill for our c A and for LUs LUs for Life. The telephone bill was huge because obviously he was using the studio phone to phone California, and of course he went on there and you know, whatever the rate was, I'll see you were playing the bill. I'd love to see a copy copy of some of those bills.

Oh yeah, I wonder if they have them in the archives or something. Yeah, I doubt it. I doubt it. I was lucky enough to visit Hanza last year and it was amazing. It's such an incredible room. What a beautiful room now, it's an actually beautiful room. Where he were there, it was derelict, the windows wrell boarded up. Back in those days, it looked nothing like it does now,

absolutely nothing like it's day and night difference. Did it still seem like kind of a grand room or was it really just like a big almost like a gymnasium, but it was a big room. You could had the feeling of what it had been set up for originally and set up for originally was was done for for the Nazi. It was done for the Nazi hierarchy to

go and listen to chamber music. It's a weird energy in there, yeah, you know, if you just got to think about it, you know, I don't know, I've never seen any records of it, but I'm sure adults went in there and listening to music with somebody playing live music in there at some stage because it was one of the you know, back in the in the thirties, that's what it was done for. Wow, what is it?

What a strange, intense history for one building to have, you know, I mean, going from just night and day, from from the Nazis to Bonno and you too. Yeah. Yeah. I've been going to Berlin now for Davi's birthday for five years and every time somebody's there they say, well, where did they kiss? And I'm now standing in the window all right where they were meant to have kiss, and they said where did they kiss? Well, you look out the window. Now there's all these buildings there. Before that,

there were none of those buildings there. There was only one, but that have structured your view of the actual wall, and there were walls in between, so so you couldn't actually see the wall. Um I said, I said, it could have been possible that they were outside here because just underneath the window of the of the the the control room is a little yard, a little courtyard where we used to part of the minibus. They might have got into that yard. He might have seen them kissing there,

but I almost don't think so. I think it was more an artistics impression of he felt so close to the wall. There might have been a romantic connotation between and Antonio Marson Tony. I don't know. I wasn't with the seven, so you know, I'm not going to say it wasn't U. You know, if I had to take a point, I would say it wasn't. I don't lie, you know, I'm not the person would like I said I wasn't there, and that the story didn't come out

until fifteen years later. David's good at making up stories. Yeah, well that's it. That's it. And on the same on the same point, you know, he told me about being in Tokyo in this hotel and walking out the hotel room and meeting John Lennon and yokoh No and they were doing this and they were doing that, and he told me all these different things about it that could well have been made up. Do you know what that might have been his ans impression of wanted to tell

me a story that would interest me. You know, I don't know. That's a really great point. Wow. Yeah, you just don't know these things that be And I've spoken to so many different people that's over years, years ago, had brief encounters with David, and their stories seem to be clouded in a mist You're going, really, do you know what I mean? It's like they're all as if you know, I have a story to tell, But this is this is this is what it is again. It

gets back to what you were saying earlier. You saw what he wanted you to see. And uh, and that's why he was so many different things as so many different people. Yeah. And and and the thing about me with the vocals on lust for Life and on heroes, I was there, I was there, I did those things. I know it. Nobody else needs to know, you know, unless somebody like yourself specifically says, oh, look, tell me

about that, tell me about that, tell me your story. Um, And like I'm telling you now, Jordan, you know it probably not going to assist you write a better article or make a better podcast about it, but it might just be of you a different insight into how you look at all the information you're gathering. Oh absolutely, I mean that that was part of the idea with this, was that I was writing something to to then do voiceovers for and record it and share that. But I thought,

you know what, that's just my point of view. I want to get a bunch of people's point of view. It was such a multi multifaceted person. I want to talk to as many people as I can to to do interviews with them and and and share that so that it's kind of like, don't take my word for it, here's everybody else's point of view, make your own. Try to like figure out your own truth about who this person is, who meant so much to so many people, but seemed to be so many different things to so

many different people. Off the Record is a production of I Heart Radio. If you liked what you heard, please subscribe, and leave us a review. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.