Bonus Episode: 'Low' Engineer Edu Meyer Remembers Working with David Bowie During His Berlin Years at Hansa Studios

on paper, none of this should have ever worked. Who gets an R and B rhythm section to play lockstep, crowd rock electro jams? Who loads an entire side of what's obstensively a pop album with wordless ambient soundscapes. Who makes an album mere steps from the Berlin Wall one of the most notorious geopolitical hotspots on the globe. Even David's compositional process had changed, adopting avant garde techniques gleaned from renegades like iggy Pop, Brian Eno, William Burrows, John Cage,

and Steve Reich. As is so often the case, David fused this collection of disparate ideas and influences into something completely new, a sound that's indefinable and sometimes indescribable. What would you call say sound and vision At best, it's a freakish multi hypha native genres. If you forced me to pick a single word, I just have to go with awesome. In addition the co producer Tony Visconti and arrant Mad musical scientist Brian Eno. Another crucial collaborator on

the German sessions was Du Meyer. U was an engineer at Hansa Studios, the famous Hall by the Wall that served as David's creative home during his time in Berlin. When he wasn't working on Schlager or schlocky German pop that ruled the airwaves at the time, Ido helped David put the finishing touches on low. David even enlicted him to play the mournful cello part on Weeping Wall, inspired by the sim of division and oppression looming just outside

the studio windows. Du also assisted on the album's David produced for Iggy Pop, The Idiot and Lust for Life. They're Working. Relationships stretched into the eighties, when David would return to Berlin to record the soundtrack to the Berthold Brect play Ball and Players legendary seven concert at the Reichstag.

They'd remained friends until the end of David's life. Du occasionally gives speaking engagements in conjunction with Berlin Music Tours, the only company that actually takes you inside the famous hall by the Wall. I've taken the trip myself and being there in the room where Bowie actually belted out

heroes as truly all inspiring. Edu was giving a talk as part of the release celebration for Black Star and when he heard the news about David's passing, I'm so grateful you do agree to speak with me and share his memories of being alongside Bowie as it recorded the groundbreaking music of Low. I just start to tell a little bit about my turn to Berlin, and actually I was I was born as somebody who wanted uh not to be a musician and not to be a technical guide,

but to do both together. So that what that means uh I had to had sound engineering course lecture at

high school in dessert Off. I did this in dessert Off in UH nineteen sixty nine to nineteen seventy two and made my final final exam in nineteen seventy two and started my career as a recording engineer at Cornege Studio in Cologne, and from there I got the jump in nineteen seventy five to Berlin, and very soon I came across the Hansa studio manager who whom I asked for a job, and who said where you can start next Monday. Yeah, that was in February nine seventy six.

So I came across David Poe. Yet this year nine seventy six, in summer he had to contact to Eca Fusa from Tantiling Dream uh in a while, and Edgar recommended him Answer Studio right to the edge of the Berlin Wall. We had the Berlin Wall a few steps far from the studio, and so he came across Answer and looked at it and said, wow, a big hall. And he named it the Big Hall by the wall, which was originally the Masters are the house for the

Masters of building houses. And so we had a new name for international name for Answer Studio too, um, which was Studio Too, because we had one studio at another location in Berlin. Uh. This was, by the way, the

studio where we started to listen to David's tapes. Because Answer Studio Too the Big Hole was busy with our Schlager producer Jack White in Germany who produced all these uh Lager people um from morning till night, and uh so the studio was busy day and night, and yet to move where to direct him to the Nestor stars of the studio One, which was a very good studio and meanwhile very famous studio as well for for the Berlin music scene. So we started as well with Iggy Pop.

He was present at the time as well at the very beginning of David's work in Berlin and did some of his finished some of his plans to uh bring out some music, some new music the Idiot for example, And so we worked on on the baking tracks of Low who were produced in in France before. And David was a bit fed up with the studio in France, and so he came to Berlin by recommendation as well of Edgar Fursa, and and I knew Edgar Fursa as

well a little bit before. So when when we started at Hansa One in Nestor, starters came closer to each other. First of all, I was the one the guy who directed Tony Visconti to the specialties of the studio and of the plug ins and or or the equipment which was available to do something with the tapes, and they got cassettes to rehearse and to listen to it in their hotel UH rooms. And so then I decided to

do some work on it. And later we had another session in Uh Answer too in the big Hall by the war and so we were worked on the album Low, and he added some small vocal parts and the saxophone part, and we did two new tracks as well with the equipment in the studio where there was was a maremba phone and David played on this marimba phone in the Big Hall and he said, okay, can can we use it? I said, of course, we can use everything here in

the studio. And then he started to record one of the tracks of the B side of the album Low, which was the Weeping Wall, and he did a count on tape on one track from one two hundred and eighty and UH. Every time he was overdubbing his counting, he said, okay, dropped me in at six, dropped me in at ninety, dropped me in anywhere you want. And so he used this marima phone to do UH certain kind of musical carpet on on on this tape, which was the basis for the Weeping Wall, and then he

added some other things to it as well. As when he find out found out that I was trained musician on my cello, he had the idea, uh, and Tony Visconti as well, to do some overdubbing with my shadow. So I brought my shadow into the studio and so we did eight tracks on her art decade and uh so UM got some bow scratching from my cello to this track, which made it much more alive than it

was when I listened to it. And Tony Visconti wrote a little score for me because I'm a classical musician and I'm used to play music from scores, and so it worked. It worked, very funny. What did you think of the music David was playing as you were working on it? Was it apparent early on that this wasn't

just an ordinary pop album. Well, it was something very new for me because the way we did recordings at Ansa and as well in Cologne before was like somebody who was organizing this on scores and writing scores for the single musicians and uh, they used to play from from this course, and this was a sort of completely different stuff that there were no scores at all. There was no written music except maybe for some lyrics of David and Um as well with Iggy Poppy. He wrote

very much lyrics on a piece of paper. He had had a role from the kitchen and he sat in the side room where he could look to the console and watch Um watch the movements on the recording session. And he had a role and he wrote lyrics and the role was hanging just around the whole room. The long role of of of written stuff of lyrics. I don't know what for. Maybe it has written some letters

as well. Yeah, funny, yah, quite funny. What was David like in the studio when he when he came into the studio did he know exactly what he wanted and he sat down and did it or was there a lot of experimentation at this time and trying stuff out and then kind of making a decision afterwards when he heard all the different options. Well, and he was present all the time, of course, and David was was very keen on working on his stuff. And no drugs, no drugs at all. And yeah, little box of beer beer

bottles was around. He was very keen on working on his tapes and so whatever there was a discussion about how to do something, David had the last word and he was doing what he wanted. Everybody was most clear that David's ideas were performed, of course, so when when he performed himself as well, he did what he wanted and and he was very clean, very clear on on this.

And of course he was interested in everything which has got to do something with the technique of the studio, and I mean V six cannot be compared to a studio technique today. And there was no digital stuff at all, and there was everything was analope and if you wanted to head it music you had to cut the tapes and was very heavy, very much. What was his working relationship like with with Tony Visconti, How did they push

one another and and uh and and work together. They they were um master and client and from both sides, I mean, David said Tony what to do, and Tony said, recommended David something and he accepted also. Uh. They were good friends, and so I came to both of them after a while as a good friend too. And first of all, there was a skeptic, isn't And so we were fresh and not yet colleagues like we we were

later on. And so during the whole time with David Bowie, I mean at lasted until until eighty seven, him last time, except for the concert he did in two thousand two. But all the time we were good friends and Uh and I had contact until he finished his contact with his friends before just two years before he died. Probably the doctor had said, you have two more years and and that's it. And at this time we were good friends together and well, uh could smell each other very

very well. I know you were at a Black Star a listening event at Hansa's studios when when you heard the news of his passing. In a strange way, it must have been nice to be surrounded by so many people at that moment who loved him. Yeah. Yeah, we had no idea that two days after the publication of Black Star David would pass. I mean, this was was terrible. It was It's like, I can't believe what's going on. And so it was a very heavy time at this time.

And I flew from Berlin when Tino woke me up in the morning after this weekend and said, David has passed, and I said, no way, it can't be. But it was. And our telephone lines were blinking all the time, and it was very heavy, and I said, I have I have to quit now, I have to go back to the country. At this point, yeah, that's That was the tenth of January two thousand sixteen. It was very heavy, heavy for us, for the whole world. I guess David's

relationship with Berlin always seemed very special. When I visited Berlin a few years back, I got the sense that David was revered as far more than just a pop star or a talented musician, but he meant something to the German people in a much deeper way. Berlin has sort of adopted him as there their adopted son, and it seems like he felt really comfortable there. The stories

as well was with a girlfriend he he had. She talked about him that in the underground when somebody asked her is this David Bowie, she she made something very strange like, uh, she talked to him in German. Uh, and uh, we have forgotten to to buy some potatoes

high she said. She said she if she covered him from everything, and as well, Coco I was taking care of him all the time, and Coco was watching, uh the tapes and no, no tapes out of the studio and so they had made bad experiences with stolen tapes and uh yeah, something like that, and so I took very much care of all the tapes and yeah, that worked one for you. Spent Christmas with with David and Coco. I think it was Christmas even, Yeah, how was that?

What was that? Like? Yeah, it happened that they invited me to a Christmas meal. I said, oh, yeah, why not? And so I came to Houstraza and I was shown around this apartment and it was many rooms, one after another. You could go like an archum around the whole apartment. All the rooms were just one matters or nothing in it,

and exactly for the year. For the last room, which was David's the sleeping room where he had a real bed, and and an idle where he had his paintings, and I can't remember which painting was just on the eisle. Maybe was just the aisle standing there alone. But the last room was the kitchen, and there was everything you

needed to prepare the food and a meal. And Coco had had a rooster in the oven in the oven, and and there were a couple of people of course, Iggy Pop and his son and David's son and Cocoa of course. And yeah, it was was a very funny evening. Was David in his privacy, uh with with a goose a goose? Uh brown baked brown and very tasty. Yeah. Did you see him much outside of the studio aside from this Christmas meal? Did you go out to dinners or go up coffee or anything like that? We we

have have not. We didn't have very much a private contact just I mean just the studio was was our meeting point all the time. And I didn't need to fear as well, because there was going there were going things around like the divos was was his lady in Switzerland, Angie. There were strange stories and so I couldn't even follow the speeches which were held there on telephone and um.

And there was trouble with a lawyers as far as I remember, There was trouble with R. T A with the company who didn't like the duct of low and what have you. What what a ship is on this tape. It's so funny to hear that now because everyone loves it. Yeah, Yeah, it's very strange. David's spoken a lot about the studio's proximity to the wall, the Berlin Mall being something that that really unnerved him. You could see the guards from

the control room. What was the atmosphere like? Look through when you sit in front of the console, You could look through a window right to the wall, and there was a big house behind the wall, and on top of the house there were two little barracks for the guards who were wearing binoculars and machine guns on on their backs. And very funny, and did someone we opened with we we we listened to the tapes on with open windows and I'm I'm sure they could listen and

they could watch us with their binoculars. And one day at the very beginning, when we were standing in front of the console and looked to the wall, I took one of the lambs and and directed it to the to the guards on top of their And at the same time Tony and David jumped down under the desk to hide themselves because they thought they were they were doing something with their guns, and I said, they like us, They they don't do us anything that they were going

to get shot at very funny, many little jokes around a situation, and I mean the results were quite all right. 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.