David Bowie’s bid to persuade guitarist Adrian Belew to leave Frank Zappa’s band in 1978 included a series of bitchy interactions between the big stars, as the future King Crimson guitarist recalls.
He’d been with Zappa for around a year when Brian Eno heard him perform and tipped off Bowie, who was looking for a new guitarist. it led to a change of direction for Belew, who admits he still feels uncomfortable about some elements of the situation.
Recalling the trio’s uncomfortable dinner ahead of the move, Belew tells Ultimate Guitar: “Well, we didn't stay very long. David asked Frank three questions. Frank answered all three of them with, ‘Fuck you, Captain Tom.’”
The jibe about Bowie’s Major Tom character landed. “And so we said, ‘Well, okay then,’ and we got up and left the building,” Belew continues. “And then David said to me, ‘I thought that went rather well!’ And that is the true story.”
He adds: “There was a night when Frank had a little fun with me. There was a song called Maybe You Should Stay With Your Mama and he changed the lyric to ‘Maybe you should stay with your David!’ It was just fun.”
Zappa’s current tour was coming to a close, with a three-month paid hiatus ahead for his band. Meanwhile, Bowie wanted Belew to join a tour that was scheduled to last four months.“My manager called me in Europe,” he recalls, “and said, ‘Well, this is for real – David Bowie’s people have offered you a tour, so you need to make a decision.”
He went to discuss the situation with Zappa at the back of their tour bus. “I said, ‘Well, here, Frank, I could just stay on your retainer for three months, or I could go play with David and come back. What do you think I should do?’
“And he said, ‘You should go play with David,’ and he shook my hand. Everything that Frank did was a handshake, and that was that.”
As fate would have it, Zappa fired his entire band at the end of the tour, while Bowie’s road trip was extended over 18 months. “So, that's how I ended up not being in Frank’s band for more than a year,” Belew reflects. “I planned to stay there. I was really happy. I loved working with Frank. And of course, I loved working with David too.”
He emphasises that he never fell out with Zappa: “Any time I was in LA I would always go up and visit; we remained on very good terms. I’m sorry that it happened that way for Frank, having put so much effort into my career, and I will never forget him for what he's done for me. But that’s the music business.”
Belew is currently touring North America with King Crimson offshoot Beat, featuring fellow Zappa exes Steve Vai and Terry Bozzio, plus Crimson’s Tony Levin.
