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Fact #141815

When:

Short story:

David Bowie releases his 24th album, The Next Day, on ISO Records in Australia, Germany and Ireland.

Full article:

DAVID BOWIE - 2013 COMEBACK - THE NEXT DAY

Researched and compiled by Johnny Black

2004 : Bowie's 2004 tour is cut short when the singer undergoes emergency heart surgery for a blocked artery.
Tony Visconti : We all know he had a health scare. I hate to hear it described as a major heart attack - it was not a major heart attack - but he had surgery in 2004 and he's been healthy ever since. Because he hasn't come out and said anything, people suspect the worst. And it was frustrating. I would have lunch with him and I’d tell people that he looks fantastic and he sounds great and all that. And people would not believe me. Someone recently said to me, "Well, why didn't he make a statement?" And I mean, that's silly - can you imagine David Bowie getting on television and saying, "I'd like to tell everyone that I'm healthy?" So what could he do? Nothing.
(Source : BBC Interview, Jan 8, 2013)

Tony Visconti : I was a little scared after he had his heart condition. He had a little scare himself. I didn't speak to him for a year after that. He was just recovering and just not talking to anybody. But I was one of the first people he e-mailed afterwards and we were steadily in contact since then. But he never really brought up music until two years ago. So he never said to me he retired, and every time I saw him in person, he looked in really good health. 
(Source : http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/david-bowies-the-next-day-album-a-track-by-track-preview-20130115)

Gail Ann Dorsey (bassist) : I’d had some correspondence with him where he’d said that he just wasn’t interested in writing music any more, because he didn’t have anything to say.
(Source : NME interview)

2010
Tony Visconti : Music didn't interest him until two years ago; that's when he made the call. He said, "How would you like to make some demos?" And I was a little shocked, quite honestly; it was just so casual. It was just the next topic in the discussion.
(Source : http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/david-bowies-the-next-day-album-a-track-by-track-preview-20130115)

He just said, "I feel like writing again." I don't know long prior to that he began writing. He just came up with about eight songs.
(Source : BBC Interview, Jan 8, 2013)

Tony Visconti : He wrote them (the demos) at home.  He had an eight- or 16-track digital recorder. They were quite fleshed out. He had nice bass line ideas and drum patterns. We quickly took down the names of the chords and we scribbled it out on paper. Gerry Leonard and I read from the chord sheet. The room was about eight-by-eight, which included a drum kit. We were on top of each other, gasping for air after an hour or two.
(Source : http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/david-bowies-the-next-day-album-a-track-by-track-preview-20130115)

Tony Visconti : You could tell from the beginning that the songs were stunning even in primitive form. They were obviously things that he had built up over the past 10 years, sketches he had all along.
(Source : http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/jan/12/david-bowie-how-made-next-day)

November 2010 : Demos done during five days with Tony Visconti, Gerry Leonard and Sterling Campbell at a demo studio in The East Village. No recording done until the fifth day.
Tony Visconti : I was working on another project in London, and he didn't know that. He said, "Well, when are you going to get back?" I said, "In a few days."  The next morning after I returned (November 2010), I was in the studio with him playing bass.
(Source : http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/david-bowies-the-next-day-album-a-track-by-track-preview-20130115)

Gerry Leonard : David sent me an email asking if I was free for a week to get in a rehearsal room with him, Sterling Campbell and Tony Visconti to play thru some ideas he had. The title of the email was Schtum and that apart from bring your guitar was the main instruction.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black, Oct 2013)

Gerry Leonard : We did the earliest demos in a tiny basement rehearsal room in the East Village in NYC.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black, Oct 2013)

Tony Visconti : We had to sign NDAs, non-disclosure agreements, but that wasn't necessary. We love him so much and everyone in the project except for a few were old timers - people who made albums or toured with him. So of course, we didn’t tweet or put it on Facebook or even tell our best friend. That was the hard part because people close to me wanted to know what I was working on, and I couldn't tell them. I knew if I told one of them, somebody would leak it and it would be all over the world in a day. I didn't even tell my children what I was doing.
(Source : Hollywood reporter, 11 Jan 2013)

Tony Visconti : David always prefaced every session [saying] that it was experimental and that it might not be an album, so let's just get together and make some music. It was never pressure. It was fun, fun, fun, the whole time.
(Source : Hollywood reporter, 11 Jan 2013)

Tony Visconti : He and I work in a certain way - we would record the music first when he had only a vague idea of what the song was about. We would then have a working title and for the melody, he would sing live in the studio.
And certainly the lyrics were the farthest from his mind at that point. So it was great to work up these sonic gems based on a gut feeling. And then he would take it away for a month or two and come back with lyrics.
(Source : Hollywood reporter, 11 Jan 2013)

Tony Visconti : He was finding his voice - he’s not an opera singer, he doesn’t practice every day. But, boy, did it kick in. Then, for a whole year he was doing vocals. He did all his own backing vocals, too, which is pretty laborious to do.
(Source : NME interview)
Tony Visconti : Even when we made the first demos, we were sworn to secrecy. The three musicians working on them - me, Sterling Campbell on drums and Jerry Leonard on guitar - had to sign a non-disclosure agreement. It was unnecessary with the the three of us, we were long-time Bowie people . If he'd just said keep it a secret and don't tell a soul, we would have done that without signing but, later on, as the crew on the album got bigger, the NDAs were necessary because we didn't know everyone that well.

Tony Visconti : We spent five days, and we didn't record anything until the last day. We just kept writing down notes. On the fifth day, it was hard to try to remember what we did on the first day. But we got them down and this guy at the studio had a basic Pro Tools rig, and we got them down. This is November 2010.
(Source : http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/david-bowies-the-next-day-album-a-track-by-track-preview-20130115)

We had Sterling Campbell on drums, Gerry Leonard on guitar and David on keyboards. We were in this little studio down in the East Village doing demos for a week. I was pinching myself. I couldn't believe it was really happening. From nothing, right into this demo situation.
(Source : http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/david-bowies-the-next-day-album-a-track-by-track-preview-20130115)

Gerry Leonard : We would arrive at ten, play thru song ideas till lunch, one or two songs, then after lunch play thru another couple of ideas.
Knock off around 5 or 6 pm. We did that for four days and then on the last day we made a super fast recording where we replayed thru everything we did all week, just as a memo. Obviously it was good to take some decent notes as we went along. We all instinctively had sketches of parts and arrangement worked out as we went along.

David had rough sketches on his little four track recorder. He would play us chord changes for sections on piano or guitar, or sing melody ideas.

Sometimes he had rough sketch recordings, sometimes it was a combination of all three.
But he always had a definite idea and direction for the song.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black, Oct 2013)

Gerry Leonard : Most of them had simple one word working titles or sometimes even a number. When I heard finally "Where Are We Now" in January 2013 I had to look up my charts and found it was titled 064, which was simply the number the four track recorder had assigned to the file.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black, Oct 2013)

Tony Visconti : Then he disappeared for four months and said, "I'm gonna start writing now." So he wrote more songs and then he fleshed those out even more. He came up with lyrics and melodies, which he didn't have at first.
(Source : http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/david-bowies-the-next-day-album-a-track-by-track-preview-20130115)

2011

January 2011 : Mario McNulty has lunch with Tony Visconti. Bowie calls on phone to Visconti, and they ask Mario to get involved in sessions for new album.

Mario J. McNulty (engineer) : I'm an independent producer, engineer and mixer, and I've been working with David and Tony for eleven years.

I was having lunch one day with Tony Visconti, right at the start of 2011. January 2011. And I went to Tony's studio and while I was there David called him. That's when they broke the news to me and asked if I'd be interested in getting involved. Well, of course I would. Who wouldn't?

I had to sign a non-disclosure agreement, like everybody else.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black, Oct 2013)

Tony Visconti : The members of the band and the engineers, the people who bring us coffee in the studio, everybody who was involved in this had to sign a (non-disclosure agreement) to keep this a secret.
(Source : Billboard interview)
Tony Visconti : We had to talk about it about it as a group, share our experience of the insanity, the frustration. And David would just sit there smiling. The fun we were having in the studio overshadowed all the neuroses, but there definitely were neuroses.
(Source : http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/jan/12/david-bowie-how-made-next-day)
Mario McNulty : They told me about the demo sessions they had done a couple of months previous, in November 2010. It was just David, Tony, Gerry and Sterling. They were just at a little, not very fancy, rehearsal room. It was even more top secret then, because only they knew about it. They were just trying to get some ideas down.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black, Oct 2013)

February 2011
Kabir Hermon (project manager, The Magic Shop studio) : They got in touch with us in February or March of 2011, just to come down and have a look at our facilities. Tony Visconti came down to get a feel for the place, and he took a lot of pictures. We didn't know at the time that he was going to be showing them to Bowie. In fact, we did not know who the artist was until the day he came in.

Zack Alford (drummer) : David sent me an email asking if I was available in the first two weeks of May of 2011. It was out of the blue. I mean, we'd been in email contact, but there was never any talk about work. 

Luckily I was available, so I was just really happy about that. But I didn't know what it was. But whatever it was, I'm available.

I didn't know what it was. He wouldn't even say where it was or what it was. I remember [bassist] Gail [Ann Dorsey] and I talking about it, like, "Oh, did he contact you too?" "Yeah, he contacted me." "What's it for?" "I don't know." 
We didn't know if it was a performance or a recording or anything. It wasn't until maybe a week before that he said, "Yes, be here at this studio on this day." Then somehow it leaked out.
(Source : http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/david-bowie-likes-the-struggle-of-winning-fans-says-drummer-zack-alford-20130201#ixzz2j6etU8MN)
Gail Ann Dorsey : I honestly cannot recall now (how Bowie got in touch), but it would have been one of two things.  I would have received an email from David asking if I was available for a certain time period, or I vaguely recall possibly having an email/message sent to my manager from David's management explaining the secretive nature of the project, and also inquiring about my availability for the studio.  I know you might be thinking 'how could I forget a detail like that, but lately, somehow I just do.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black, 2013)

Steve Rosenthal (owner, The Magic Shop) : Originally, they were going to go to another studio, but although they told those guys that secrecy was very important, someone spilled the beans within twenty minutes of Tony Visconti agreeing to work there.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black)
Zack Alford : I got an email from David saying, "Do you know a photographer named so and so?" I could find the name, but I don't remember offhand. I said, "No." It's a good thing I didn't know him. [Laughs] Apparently this photographer had called someone from David's office and asked if it was OK for him to take pictures of David at the studio. They were like, "What? Who told you there was even a session?" Obviously, someone from the studio leaked it out. We got an email after that saying, "OK, change of plan. We're doing it at Magic Shop

(Source : http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/david-bowie-likes-the-struggle-of-winning-fans-says-drummer-zack-alford-20130201#ixzz2j6etU8MN)

May 2, 2011 : three weeks of recording sessions begin in complete secrecy at The Magic Shop - 49 Crosby Street,, NY, 10012
Tony Visconti : We got lucky with the studio, a place called The Magic Shop in SoHo. Normally there are interns at studios, but whenever we were there, they gave their interns time off. They didn't want them to witness it. When we were working there, they had a skeleton staff of two, which is not normal.
Steve Rosenthal (owner, the Magic Shop) : We've had a lot of great people in here. Arcade Fire, Norah Jones, Coldplay, Natalie Merchant, a stack of people.
I built the studio in 1987, and opened it in 1988. In the early years, the 90s, we did Sonic Youth - Dirty; Lou Reed did Magic And Loss and Set The Twilight Reeling; Suzanne Vega did a number of records here, The Ramones did Mondo Bizarro.
The heart of this studio is a Neve mixing console, built in 1971, and originally used by the BBC at Maida Vale in London, as a broadcast console for many of the classic rock session broadcasts, and we also only use English studio monitors, because they're incredibly accurate.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black, Oct 2013)

Kabir Hermon (project manager, The Magic Shop studio) : They came in on May 2, which I clearly remember because it was the day that Bin Laden died.

Kabir Hermon : They came in and did roughly the same hours every day, like a ten AM to seven PM kinda day, and they would ten have sandwiches brought in around lunchtime.
All in all, I think they did between 90 and 100 days in the studio with us at Magic Shop.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black)
Gail Ann Dorsey : I recorded bass tracks from May 2nd through the 13th, 2011, and returned to sing backing vocals with Janis on March 5th, 6th, and 7th, 2012.

10:00-10:30 AM was the call time, a few minutes for coffee orders, vent on current events, a few laughs, then just dive on into building, shaping, fleshing out, and performing the next song.  I think we were knocking out about 2 songs a day on the sessions I did.  We may have rerecorded one or two in hindsight, but that was pretty much it.  It's not a "rigid" or humourless session working with David and Tony, but there is a highly professional work ethic throughout anything Bowie does, and there is not a lot of messing around.  We are there to play and get results.  It's exciting!  Gets my adrenalin going and makes me feel like I am truly tapped into something; an integral, and unique part... There would be a lunch break at some point, and then back to work.  I was usually done by 6:00 or 7:00 PM, sometimes even earlier.  Often guitars or keyboards stick around a bit longer than the bass and drums to do overdubs and such.  David was usually heading home at supper time.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black, 2013)
Mario J. McNulty (engineer) : The Magic Shop live room is what I would consider a medium-sized recording room. The room is treated so the reflections aren’t too crazy, plus the tall ceilings help. There were never any strange frequency pockets in the room that I had to worry about. For many of the songs there were five people performing live in the room at once, that also changes the sound of the room a bit.  I used Magic Shop’s two isolation cabinets for guitar amps and the bass cabinet, but even with those cabinets you have to deal with the small amount of bleed. Because of this bleed and the fact that the performances were captured live, this might be a nightmare for many bands… but this band was incredible.  When a group plays together that well you can record this way. David finished lyrics after the basic tracking was done so there were no issues with keeping the scratch vocal.  There were lots of overdubs of course, but all the live takes were kept and that’s what’s on the record.
(Source : http://www.sonicscoop.com/2013/03/11/engineering-david-bowies-the-next-day-inside-the-magic-shop-sessions-with-mario-j-mcnulty/#sthash.b3dnmSaC.dpuf)

Kabir Hermon (project manager, Magic Shop) : I was second assistant engineer, so I was in the control room a lot of the time.
Mario McNulty : When we started at Magic Shop, David had the early demos, and some of them were reasonably developed. During the first phase, which was about three weeks there, I believe he had about sixteen or eighteen demos to work on, but over the whole time we spent at The Magic Shop, we recorded maybe 28 or thirty songs.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black)
Zack Alford : One of the songs we worked on was a leftover from Lodger. I think it was called Born in a UFO when we worked on it, but I didn't see that title on the record. Maybe he changed it. I don't know.
(Source : http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/david-bowie-likes-the-struggle-of-winning-fans-says-drummer-zack-alford-20130201#ixzz2j6jR3iXH )

Mario McNulty : The songs were all in demo form, so the band had to learn them. The band, by this point was Gerry, David Torn and Tony Visconti. Gail Ann Dorsey came in on bass. Sterling Campbell had scheduling conflicts so Zack Alford came in on drums.
As well as being a producer and engineer, I started out as a drummer so I brought in a lot of my own cymbals and snares.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black, Oct 2013)
Tony Visconti : Gail Ann Dorsey played most of the bass on the album and sang backup vocals. 
(Source : http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/david-bowies-the-next-day-album-a-track-by-track-preview-20130115)
Gail Ann Dorsey : David and/or Tony would play the demo of the song that they had made at some point before I arrived on the scene.  I can't remember if it was played to me on a CD, a workstation recording device thingy, or coming directly off someone's laptop or iPad, but I seem to recall hearing some kind of demo in various different stages of development for each song before I attempted to play it immediate after hearing it for the first time!

I would also get a chord chart/sheet music for each song, sometimes just as a road map for the form, and sometimes with specific bass notes that were written as a part in the overall arrangement that I was meant to throw in; usually some cool bass thing or idea that had happened at the demo stage that was just too perfect to lose.  For the most part I was given the freedom to inject my personal spin on the bass vibe, as usual.  His songwriting is so strong it makes it easier for me to automtically know what will sit and feel right, what is necessary to bring out the mood and character of the song.

A little something I recall that I always thought was kind of funny and very cool, was that the sheet music that was handed out as each new song was introduced, was always meticulously and purposefully collected from our music stands at the end of the day so that there wasn't even a chance of a piece of paper with some chords scribbled on it being leaked or entering into the world!  It was like 'Mission Impossible' or something from a spy movie.  It added to the drama and excitement of it all for me!  Ha ha ha!
(Source : interview with Johnny Black, 2013)

Zack Alford : The songs did not have names at this point. I think he had ideas for names for a handful of them. And some of the titles he gave them when we recorded them had been changed by the time the album came out. The Stars Are Out Tonight he had been just calling Stars. They were changed after the mastering stage. Some of them I wasn't sure until I put them on.
The whole album, especially because of all the secrecy, was a very unusual album to work on. We knew it was an album project, because we were recording large batches of songs.
I'd worked at Magic Shop many times before so I was already familiar with their lovely old Neve Console. It's a fantastically maintained desk, sounds really wonderful and it could remain in perfect condition for many years to come. There's nothing else like them.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black, Oct 2013)
Tony Visconti : Over an 18-month period, we only spent three months recording. David would also work on the songs musically in his own home studio and he'd bring demos in. Then we'd learn it and flesh it out a lot more. But he still didn't have a really serious title.
(Source : Hollywood reporter, 11 Jan 2013)
Tony Visconti : We never spent more than two to three weeks at a time recording. And then we'd take off as much as two months. We'd usually work on one or two songs in an afternoon and we'd whip them up to shape where they'd sound like great rock tracks. At that point there wouldn't be any final vocals or lyrics. This is the same way I'd been working with him since The Man Who Sold the World. He hasn't really changed in his approach.
(Source : BBC Interview, Jan 8, 2013)

Kabir Hermon (project manager, The Magic Shop studio) : The team at that point was David, Coco Schwaub - his assistant, Tony Visconti, Mario McNulty, Zack Alford on drums, Gail Ann Dorsey on bass, David Torn on guitar, Gerry Leonard on guitar as well. That was it. No entourage or anything like that. And they're all people who have worked with him for many years.

Tony Visconti : The guitars are Gerry Leonard who played on Heathen and Reality, and he's David's music director. David Torn on the other ambient guitar. I played bass on the album for two songs, and that's about it. David played his own keyboards; he played also some acoustic guitar, some electric guitar as well.
(Source : http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/david-bowies-the-next-day-album-a-track-by-track-preview-20130115)

Gerry Leonard : I was involved in two of the three tracking session at Magic Shop. I also did a week of overdubs and a couple of other days here and there.

Mario McNulty was the recording engineer. Zachary Alford played Drums, Tony Levin and Gail Ann Dorsey on Bass, David Torn on Guitar.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black, Oct 2013)

Tony Visconti : We had Tony Levin, who's a wonderful bass player, come in for a few tracks as well.
(Source : http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/david-bowies-the-next-day-album-a-track-by-track-preview-20130115)
Tony Levin : I think it must have been very hard for him (Tony Visconti) and the production team to keep people about finding out, though. For me, it was a nice honour to be part of the album, but also a treat because the music was so good, and David a real pleasure to work with. (Source : interview with Something Else)

Steve Rosenthal (owner, The Magic Shop) : We were in, setting up with the engineer Brian Thorn, who has worked as a staff engineer at The Magic Shop for many years. he's now a freelance, but he still works here a lot.
Kabir Hermon : Later, Gail went on tour, so Tony Levin came in for a while, Sterling Campbell was here for a little while playing drums.

Earl Slick and Steve Elson came in to do their parts, and then Gail came back again.

Zack Alford : The first week in May we actually had both guitar players, David Torn and Gerry Leonard. Gail was on bass and David was on either synths or he'd play acoustic guitar or piano, depending on the song.

Gerry would hand out charts while we listened to the song so we'd have something to follow, and we could make any notes we needed. We listened to the songs about two or three times, and then it was time to go play it. That was the drill.
He handed out nondisclosure forms for everyone to sign.

I told my wife and my kids. But we home-school, so I didn't have to worry about them blabbing it all over school.

(Source : http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/david-bowie-likes-the-struggle-of-winning-fans-says-drummer-zack-alford-20130201#ixzz2j6gayEyX )
Steve Rosenthal (owner, The Magic Shop) : I've owned this studio now for 26 years, and we've had lots of wonderful artists recording here, but I've never before experienced the level of secrecy we had to achieve for David's album. We realised early on that keeping the secret was imperative. It had to be done or else the project would go elsewhere.
So basically, each time David was coming to the studio, we allowed about 60% of our staff to take time off. I mean, I trust these kids implicitly, but the more people who knew, the more danger there was of the story getting out on a Tweet or on Facebook or something.
We have two engineers, Jessica Thompson and Warren Russell-Smith, who work on audio restoration projects for us, so they were still able to come in and work in the basement. They too had to sign the NDA.
It's not a particularly quiet street. We're in Soho in Manhattan, right across the street from Bloomingdales, we're in between Lafayette and Broadway. It's a touristy-shopping area, but I try to keep the studio low key.
David was usually able to come and go, but there was one occasion when someone nearby thought they saw him, and we just denied it, like, 'Naw, c'mon man. No way.'
(Source : interview with Johnny Black, Oct 2013)
Zack Alford : It was all very matter-of-fact. We weren't allowed to hear any of the songs before that, because he didn't want anything out there circulating. So we basically walked in, and there wasn't much discussion. It's like, "Here's the first tune." Usually he'd play us a demo. It would be a home demo with a drum machine and a synth. Then he'd play a rehearsal demo, because they had actually rehearsed some of the material up from the initial demo stage in November. I guess that was in 2010. And so we listened to both, and then we'd go in the room and start playing it.

The routine was very much like going to work. It was a lot of fun for me, because I don't live in the city anymore, but I grew up there. This was a nice way to come back. Every morning I'd stroll through Soho to go to the Magic Shop. I'd show up around 10:30 a.m. David was almost always already there. He'd be in the control room strumming away on something. Then he'd come back when we were all gathered and drinking our coffees. He'd then throw on a demo. Gerry would hand out charts, we'd take notes, and after hearing it two or three times he'd say, "Everybody ready?" We'd say "Yeah," and we'd go in and play it through. We'd only do two or three takes and he'd say, "Either we've got it or we don't."
On one occasion I recall we came back in and he still wasn't happy, so he wanted us to move on. He'd rather keep the momentum going and keep the juices flowing than sit there and hammer out a tune until it's perfect. 
So we'd do the first one, then we would break for lunch. Then the same drill. We'd listen to another one, takes notes, go in . . . Usually we'd finish by five or six.
(Source : http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/david-bowie-likes-the-struggle-of-winning-fans-says-drummer-zack-alford-20130201#ixzz2j6gHM844)

Mario J. McNulty (engineer) : When you’re working with a producer like Tony Visconti who’s obviously a veteran, an icon like David, and his band is a supergroup of some of the best players in the world, your job is not to just get the right sounds to tape, but make it seamless and easy. People have to come into the studio and not worry – instead get to their station, put the headphones on, and just create in a very comfortable fashion. You also have to know how to get sounds extremely fast. That’s probably the most important part of all in making a record like this.
(Source : http://www.sonicscoop.com/2013/03/11/engineering-david-bowies-the-next-day-inside-the-magic-shop-sessions-with-mario-j-mcnulty/#sthash.b3dnmSaC.dpuf)

David and Tony have been working together for so long and know each other so well, that the work in the studio is very natural, never forced or tense.  Tony is used to what David will expect in most situations, so I think that saves an immense amount of time.
(Source : http://www.sonicscoop.com/2013/03/11/engineering-david-bowies-the-next-day-inside-the-magic-shop-sessions-with-mario-j-mcnulty/#sthash.b3dnmSaC.dpuf)

Mario J. McNulty (engineer) : David’s station was laid out around the Baldwin piano.  I made sure there was plenty of room for him to move about and also take notes if he needed to. In addition David had his Trinity keyboard workstation, an acoustic 6-string guitar and a 12-string, a tambourine, and a digital mixer which he had some recordings on for reference. I had an SM7 for his live vocal takes going through the Neve, and hitting an LA-2A very softly. The band was tracked through the fabulous Neve at Magic Shop, using EQ on each channel and additional compression for some microphones…A little compression for kicks, snares, bass guitar, and electric guitar.
(Source : http://www.sonicscoop.com/2013/03/11/engineering-david-bowies-the-next-day-inside-the-magic-shop-sessions-with-mario-j-mcnulty/#sthash.b3dnmSaC.dpuf)

Tony Visconti : He’s rosy-cheeked. He smiles a lot. During the recording he was smiling, he was so happy to be back in the studio. From the old days I recall that he was the loudest singer I’ve ever worked with. When he started singing I’d have to back off, and go into another room and just leave him in front of a microphone. He still has that power in that chest and in his voice.
(Source : BBC Interview, Jan 8, 2013)
Tony Visconti : He hurts my ears when he sings. When I'm right up close to him, I have to back off very quickly and go into the other room.
(Source : Hollywood reporter, 11 Jan 2013)

Mario J. McNulty (engineer) : Gerry Leonard had a two cabinet dual mono setup with his vast array of pedals.  Gerry normally had a rhythm guitar to one cab, and FX to the other.  I used an SM57 for the main cab and a Royer 122 on the FX cab, and using the Neve as front-end with each source discreetly hitting an LA-3A, which is my all time favorite electric guitar compressor. Gerry also had this amazing white Synthi Hi Fli [synth/multi FX processor] which sounded insane in the best way.
(Source : http://www.sonicscoop.com/2013/03/11/engineering-david-bowies-the-next-day-inside-the-magic-shop-sessions-with-mario-j-mcnulty/#sthash.b3dnmSaC.dpuf)

Mario J. McNulty (engineer) : For David Torn, his setup is quite complex, but all of his sounds end up going to three outputs/cabs. It’s an L-C-R rig:  Dry guitar in the center, and ambience going to the left and right cabs.  I had a SM57 for the center and AKG 414s for the left and right, with the Neve as the front end again with no compression to tape for Torn.
(Source : http://www.sonicscoop.com/2013/03/11/engineering-david-bowies-the-next-day-inside-the-magic-shop-sessions-with-mario-j-mcnulty/#sthash.b3dnmSaC.dpuf)

Mario J. McNulty (engineer) : The bass rigs for Gail Ann Dorsey, Tony Levin, and Tony Visconti I kept the same, except for the gain stages.  A great-sounding Music Valve tube DI, and an Ampeg B15 which sounded fantastic.  I used a Neumann U67 for the cab, and both went to UREI 1176 compressors.
(Source : See more at: http://www.sonicscoop.com/2013/03/11/engineering-david-bowies-the-next-day-inside-the-magic-shop-sessions-with-mario-j-mcnulty/#sthash.b3dnmSaC.dpuf)
Tony Visconti : We had two drummers. The main drummer was Zackary Alford, and Sterling Campbell played on several tracks, too. It's unfortunate. Sterling was at the demo sessions in the beginning but then he didn't know when the album was gonna start, and he already committed to a tour with the B-52s. We called Zack in to substitute for him, and Zack played amazing drums on the album. But Sterling is in there as well on songs like Valentine's Day and (You Will) Set the World on Fire, which is another steamer, another big rock song on the album. 
(Source : http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/david-bowies-the-next-day-album-a-track-by-track-preview-20130115)
Zackary Alford (drummer) : It was like being in Mission: Impossible.
Mario J. McNulty (engineer) : With the drums, I tried to take a similar approach for both Sterling Campbell and Zack Alford. All microphones going through the Neve, with a three-mic setup for kick drum which is pretty normal for me… D112, U47 — a couple feet back with a pop screen, and an NS-10 sub kick.  I would normally use a FET47 for the kick, but used this U47 in this instance. Three mics for the snare: SM57 top and bottom, plus an additional AKG 451, padded, on the top.  The top two had some Distressors and dbx compression going on.  For some songs Tony wanted to hear an old 441 on the snare, and that was what I used for some of the tracks Sterling played on. Toms had both top and bottom mics as well, with Sennheiser 421′s on top for the classic rock sound, and my own Sennheiser e904 on the bottom.  AKG 451′s again for rides and Hi Hats.  KM84s for Zack’s overheads, and 414s for Sterling’s overheads.  Room mics were 414′s hitting a Chandler EMI TG1 Limiter.  I also used just s very slight amount of Neve 33609 compression on the overheads. The drums themselves were an assortment… Zack playing mostly birch Yamaha drums and Sterling playing mostly maple GMS drums.  We would swap out kick drums and snares for each song, so there was a variety to choose from there.  Same situation with the cymbals, lots of choices from dark to bright, but only Zildjian cymbals were used.  I also brought my own cymbals - I have a huge collection - and some snares to throw into the mix in case we needed any options for a particular song.
(Source : http://www.sonicscoop.com/2013/03/11/engineering-david-bowies-the-next-day-inside-the-magic-shop-sessions-with-mario-j-mcnulty/#sthash.b3dnmSaC.dpuf)

Gerry Leonard : We worked pretty quickly, so everything had a live feel about it. I would try to come up with parts from start to end and switch sounds on sections so i could play everything live as if I was playing a gig.

I remember seeing David literally writing the lyrics as he sang a guide vocal on an actual recording take. It was almost distracting to the point where i could have messed up.

Mario McNulty : I'd often see David just jotting down something, and it can often be lyrics. He would come in with a half-finished lyric and then start putting down ideas that he was having right there in the studio. he'd say, maybe, 'Mario, let me put this down in the bridge.'

Some of the lyrics, I believe, were finished after we left Magic Shop, at Tony's Studio in the 20s.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black, Oct 2013)


???? 2011 : Metric drop by unannounced...
Kabir Hermon : There was one day when Metric dropped by to see Brian Thorn, the engineer, to see when they could next come in for a session, but we had to keep them at the door and Brian told them they couldn't come in. I think they were super-confused by that.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black)
Kabir Hermon (project manager,The Magic Shop) : One day I opened the door and found Emily Haines and James Shaw from Metric, literally just about to ring the doorbell. They were like, 'Hey, we just stopped by to... see when we can come in!' I had to close the door behind me and explain that they weren't allowed in the studio, and that I couldn't tell them why."

A lot of people would try to guess who we had in there. They'd say, 'Is it The Rolling Stones?' and I'd go, 'Well, I don't know...' Sometimes I'd get people going by saying it was a Smiths reunion."
(Source : interview in the NME, March 2013)

Tony Visconti : The evidence was there, but no one put all the pieces together. He was photographed near the studio. Over a year ago, he asked Robert Fripp to play on the album and Robert Fripp put it on his blog, something like 'David Bowie's asked me to play on his album but I'm too busy', and no one believed it! If someone was actually monitoring all these leaks, they could have put it together."
(Source : http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/jan/12/david-bowie-how-made-next-day)
Steve Rosenthal : There were several times when I was talking with people about David, and they'd be saying how they'd heard he was ill and would never record again, but I knew he was at that very moment in my control room.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black)
Kabir Hermon : Warren Russell-Smith and I had dinner with some friends one night, and one of them was saying they knew David and that he was upstate writing a book, but I knew he had left our studio just a couple of hours earlier. Warren was kicking me under the table.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black)
Steve Rosenthal : I have a number of good friends who have been coming to the studio ever since it opened, and I wouldn't let them in. My friend Jimmy Zhivago, the guitar player is a huge fan of David's, and I couldn't even tell him. I'm really proud of how well my staff kept that secret.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black)
Late May 2011 : First session at Magic Shop ends.
Steve Rosenthal : It was difficult because they would come in for a few weeks, then leave, then call and come in again.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black)
Tony Visconti : We only worked for two-week periods. We would take as long as two months off after each period, and he would go and write some more stuff. I would listen to it and get some ideas, sketch out some overdub things, and we'd be in constant communication during those periods. So this is about 18 months ago. If you added up all the weeks in the studio, we probably actually spent three-and-a-half months.
(Source : http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/david-bowies-the-next-day-album-a-track-by-track-preview-20130115)

Aug 2011 : According to Gerry Leonard, there were a couple of Writing Mornings upstate New York

Sep 2011 : According to Gerry Leonard, tracking sessions and guitar overdubs in Magic Shop.
Gerry Leonard : One day I am there doing overdubs and Tony says do you want to try it on "Mark's Guitar". It turned out to be Mark Bolan's Stratocaster. I guess it was just hanging around the studio. It was a thrill to pick it up and play it.
Another time David had me come in and he said "Trust me, just bring a favorite guitar". He and Tony had recreated Mick Ronson's set up from an old photograph from a rehearsal back in the day. They had me plug into it and do some overdubs. It was really fun and really loud too!
(Source : interview with Johnny Black, Oct 2013)

Sep 22, 2011 : Steve Elson adds his saxophone parts at the Magic Shop.
Steve Elson (saxophone) : It's a great studio, just a great vibe in the room. It's also not far from where I live, which is nice. It's quite compact. You walk in, there's an office, then a control room and then the studio. there's no kitchen or catering or anything fancy.

I got there about 10.00am and I was done by about 5.00 in the afternoon. One of the best things about it was that David had no deadline, so it was very leisurely.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black, Sept 2013)

Tony Visconti : Dirty Boys, the second song on the album, is very sleazy.
It's dark and it's sexy.  There's a fantastic sax solo. You know, David plays baritone sax, but he invited his friend Steve Elson to do the baritone on this album. He's a little guy, and he's got a huge baritone sax, and he plays this dirty solo in it that sounds like stripper music from the 1950s. Old bump-and-grind stripper music . . . It wouldn't be out of place on Young Americans. 
(Source : http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/david-bowies-the-next-day-album-a-track-by-track-preview-20130115)

Steve Elson (saxophones) : I was only in the studio for one day. I ran into him in a shop, because we live quite close to each other, and also close to the studio we used.
As we parted at the shop, David told me he'd like to have me do something on a project he was working on, and then sometime later, I got a call from Tony Visconti, asking me if I was up for it, but he was quite secretive about exactly what it was. Then there was another phone call from David's long-time business manager, Bill Zysblatt, who said, 'Before I tell you anything, you have to sign a non-disclosure agreement.
Kabir, who was the project manager, actually came over to my house and helped me carry my saxophones to the studio. It was too close to take a cab, but quite a long walk with all of my instruments, so Kabir came and helped.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black, Oct 2013)

Steve Elson (saxophonist) : I said to him, 'You know, David, this is gonna be a hard thing for me to keep under my belt. This is something I wanna boast about.' And he said, 'Yeah, but just think how good you'll feel when the record comes out.' And he was right. I could tell that this was something that he really needed to be kept quiet, so that he could work the way he wanted to work.
(Source : interview in the NME, March 2013)

Steve Elson (saxophone) : It wasn't until I actually got to the studio that I found out what David wanted. He wanted low horns, he was looking to fatten up the bottom end of the sound. David thinks of me as a baritone sax player, probably because I did the baritone sax for him on Let's Dance. He is a sax player himself, so he knows a thing or two about the instrument.

So he started playing a couple of tracks for me and we started fooling around. At that point there were no vocals at all on the tracks. They had working titles only.

His instruction to me was basically, "Just go for it." We'd do maybe a couple of passes at each one, and that was it. He was just looking for licks that he liked.

I think the first song we did was the one that became Dirty Boys. David was sometimes in the studio with me and his guitar, sometimes he was in the control room, and he had ideas of what he wanted and I got some good sounds. He is attracted to the idea that the first idea is maybe the best idea, and I really like that attitude. I don't like when things get too refined. So he wasn't looking for the perfect take, more just the spirit of it. He likes a certain kind of grittiness.

The day went by very quickly, but I remember we stopped for lunch, there's a local place that does very good sandwiches so somebody got sent out, and we watched some old sax players on YouTube, not specifically to get ideas for the session, but just because he thought it might interest me. I think he would loved to be a sax player in Little Richard's band.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black, Oct 2013)

Steve Elson (saxophones) : Frequently in the studio you spend time trying to figure out this line and that line and where it should go. Not this time. You can tell within the first couple of minutes how the day is going to go. And you could tell this was going to be a good day.

They were interested in early takes. Often in session work time is spent refining solos, making them smooth. They weren’t interested in smooth.
(Source : feature by K. Webster, Counterpunch, online blog)
Mario J. McNulty : David and Tony both want the recording to sound like a record on playback, so dynamics go to tape all the time.  There are times when a special sound is called for - if so then we will talk about it and change what might be my usual approach.  Mostly though, it’s about not missing anything and getting all the performances to tape. (Source : http://www.sonicscoop.com/2013/03/11/engineering-david-bowies-the-next-day-inside-the-magic-shop-sessions-with-mario-j-mcnulty/#sthash.b3dnmSaC.dpuf)
Steve Elson (saxophones) : Tony and David have done a bunch of records over the years. Tony has ideas and gives direction and was handling the technical side of the day with the engineer. He creates the ground on which this gets built. He knows Bowie well enough to interpret when needed,

Steve Elson : We stopped for lunch and watched/listened to some Rhythm and Blues players on YouTube. We talked about Johnny Otis a little bit and about Dr. John and Little Richard.
Steve Elson : A recording studio can be a sterile environment, but there was something about having the headphones on, David in the control room, singing ideas kind of back and forth. It felt as spontaneous as it gets. Not contrived. And I don’t think it’s ever ironic. Playing R & B with Johnny was never ironic or coy and I don’t think it is with Bowie. It’s never “playing at playing music”. You’re playing music.
Steve Elson : At one point, listening through my headphones, I was thinking, ‘Here is this beautiful voice I’m hearing’. It’s very intimate, we’re singing ideas and he’s a few inches away from his microphone. He’s playing his guitar. He’s singing, you're playing, he’s giving direction.
Steve Elson : When we finished the last song, Tony said how well it had gone. I had no idea whether any of it would make it on the record. But in a way, I thought, it didn’t matter. I get to be alive making music with a brilliant mind.
Steve Elson (saxophones) : At the end of the day, David asked me to "keep schtum" about what we'd been doing. I didn't know what that meant, but I later learned it was a British Jewish word meaning to keep it quiet.

Oct 15, 2011 : Robert Fripp writes in his blog that he has dreamed of working on a new album with David Bowie. This is misinterpreted by some readers as meaning that Fripp has really been invited to play on a new Bowie album.

Tony Visconti : Robert Fripp was asked to play on it, he didn't want to do it and then he wrote on his blog that he was asked. And nobody kinda believed him. It was a little flurry for a few days, but everyone said,  "How could that be true? We haven't heard it from anyone else?"
(Source : http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/david-bowies-the-next-day-album-a-track-by-track-preview-20130115)
Oct 15, 2011 : Robert Fripp blog entry : Rising from traveling adventures, in ‘planes and cars. Dropping off along to way to visit David Bowie, and it gradually appeared that David had some remarkable new ideas in process, not yet public. These he presented indirectly, to allow the penny to drop without prompting. Eno also got involved, and what a flowering of ideas!
Robert Fripp : I wasn't approached … If I was asked to take part in this totally excellent project, who asked? Nothing ever came to me … My association with David and Tony has provided highlights of my life, not only my musical life. I would regret if anything negative, completely invented, were to query the reality.

In the creative world, when someone begins thinking, other people sometimes “hear” what’s going on. My NightWorld, or dreaming-life adventures, often involve those with whom I have been creatively involved. David, Eno, a lot Crimson characters, all contribute to my NightWorld. Who knows, on the subconscious – Unconscious levels, what gets “overheard”?
(Source : http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/jan/18/robert-fripp-david-bowie-album)

2012

March 2012 : According to Gerry Leonard, a couple of days guitar overdubs.

Recording sessions in New York continue.
Tony Visconti : In the studio his stamina was fantastic. It was as if he never stopped doing this for a 10-year period. He was singing with every live take; quite often he'd play piano or guitar at the same time. And when it came time to do the final vocals, he was just as loud as he ever was.
(Source : Billboard interview, Jan 13, 2013)

Tony Visconti : He's writing in the third person. Some of them belong to his life, but some of them are things like social commentary. He was reading a lot of medieval English history books, and he came up with one medieval English history song. That's the title track, The Next Day. It's about somebody who was a tyrant, very insignificant; I didn't even know who he was talking about. But if you read the lyrics, it's quite a horrific story
(Source : http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/david-bowies-the-next-day-album-a-track-by-track-preview-20130115)

Brian Thorn (asst. engineer) : The distinct drum sound of David Bowie's new single was partially obtained from the use of a random microphone that was set up for another instrument that wasn't being played. It was just in a spot in the room that everyone thought sounded great.
(Source : http://www.nature.com/bridgetoscience/news/view/index.html?id=715)
Mario J. McNulty (engineer) : I do remember a great moment - there are many with David - but there was one part he played on the bridge in, I believe, Love Is Lost that made me shiver. The chord progression came out of nowhere when David put it down on the Trinity keyboard workstation, it was pure magic.  It wasn’t so much an engineering moment, but a musical one.  I did say ‘Holy sh*t’ to myself!
(Source : See more at: http://www.sonicscoop.com/2013/03/11/engineering-david-bowies-the-next-day-inside-the-magic-shop-sessions-with-mario-j-mcnulty/#sthash.b3dnmSaC.dpuf)

Mario J. McNulty (engineer) : Another song which I thought, as soon as I heard it, should be a single, was The Stars Are Out Tonight, which turned out to be the second single. It had the video with Tilda Swinton in it.

That song had a very special feeling. I took a liking to it immediately. It was very exciting hearing it on playback, and as the weeks went on, I really felt like it was a single. It had an incredible groove and vibe. It had a great, dark atmosphere with that bassline happening. It was immediately catchy, right off the bat, and it felt like a David Bowie song.

Gail is brilliant, an amazing bass player in the studio, and the line she plays on that is a perfect example. She's also one of the nicest people you could ever meet, an absolute joy to work with.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black, Oct 2013)

Zack Alford : I remember Boss of Me. We cut that with Tony Levin on bass. I remember specifically thinking, "Oh, this one sounds kind of funky. Wouldn't it be great if he played the [Chapman] Stick?" I suggested that, and Tony wasn't thrilled with that, because there were a lot of chord changes. He doesn't like to do songs with chord changes on the Stick, but everybody thought it sounded great.
(Source : http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/david-bowie-likes-the-struggle-of-winning-fans-says-drummer-zack-alford-20130201#ixzz2j6iK6Jgt)

Tony Visconti : If You Could See Me is extremely far out there - if anything, a bit jazzy. Bowie writes a lot of songs on keyboards now, and when he writes on keyboards he goes into this jazz thing which is quite remarkable. But he’s always had songs that have sophisticated chords in them. 
(Source : Billboard interview)
Tony Visconti : There's a few songs about world wars, about soldiers. One is How Does The Grass Grow and it's about the way that soldiers are trained to kill other soldiers, how they have to do it so heartlessly. How Does the Grass Grow is part of a chant that they're taught as they plunge their bayonets into a dummy. I'd Rather Be High is about a soldier who's come out of the war and he's just burnt out, and rather than becoming a human being again, I think he laments, "I'd rather be high/I don't want to know/I'm trying to erase these thoughts from my mind."
(Source : http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/david-bowies-the-next-day-album-a-track-by-track-preview-20130115)

Tony Visconti : I didn't hear the lyrics (to Where Are We Now?) until about five months after it was recorded. It was just a pretty ballad; it was called something else, but I forget what. He came in one day and said, "I've written words for that. I wrote a song about Berlin," and I thought, "How nice. That's really cool." And he gave me a copy (of the lyrics) and got on mic and started warming up, and I read the lyrics and it gave me goosebumps because I spent quite awhile in Berlin, too, making the three albums that are called the Berlin Trilogy.(Source : Billboard interview, Jan 13, 1013)
Tony Visconti : And then we had string players come in, wonderful string players who play in Broadway musicals and things like that, and various other people. It was a nice, small combination. I'd say at most a dozen musicians were involved.
(Source : Billboard interview, Jan 13, 2013)
May 2012 : Earl Slick signs non-disclosure agreement.
Earl Slick : David got in touch with me out of the blue, and he said, 'I'm ready to go back in. What are you doing? Are you around? Are you touring?' I said, 'No, just get me some dates.' We started banging dates around - and he was already recording - and I went in and did all my stuff in July.
Source : http://www.nme.com/news/david-bowie/68115#BmiqMRG8MkyYtlLe.99

July 2012 : During a week of sessions at Magic Shop, Earl Slick records his parts... his roadie is not allowed in the studio.
Tony Visconti : And then we got Earl Slick to play some fantastic guitar solos and heavy guitar on some tracks.
(Source : http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/david-bowies-the-next-day-album-a-track-by-track-preview-20130115)
Earl Slick : I told him (Slick's roadie) to pick me up Tuesday at 1pm and drop me off at the studio, but I said, 'They got guys to haul the gear in at the studio, you just sit in the truck'.
(Source : http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/jan/12/david-bowie-how-made-next-day)
Mario J. McNulty (engineer) : Slick’s setup was the rock and roll setup, it was a real no-brainer.  Slick has this awesome-sounding Orange 2×12 with an AD30 head.  It’s no nonsense: Slick plugs in, and it sounds HUGE.  I used two mics both going to the Neve - an SM57 on one speaker, and a M160 ribbon on the other off-axis. 
(Source : http://www.sonicscoop.com/2013/03/11/engineering-david-bowies-the-next-day-inside-the-magic-shop-sessions-with-mario-j-mcnulty/#sthash.b3dnmSaC.dpuf)
Earl Slick : It’s just a really relaxed, casual, hanging out… I wouldn’t liken it any different than if we were just sitting in my living room, only there happened to be a recording machine in here. That’s what it feels like.
The only thing was that this one had a lot more secrecy going on. I mean, one day I went out to have a cigarette in front of the studio, and something felt weird. Cause I would hang out in the doorway, in a little alcove; I didn’t even walk into the street. And something felt weird, and I peered across the street, and there was a guy there with a camera on a tripod. So I put my cigarette out and went back inside. Cause if they see me, they can put two and two together.
(Source : http://ultimateclassicrock.com/earl-slick-david-bowie-new-album-interview/)
Earl Slick : He had been cutting tracks. And then I went in and I cut three from scratch with me and David and Sterling Campbell on drums, and Tony Visconti playing bass. And then he had other tracks that were already done, that were missing some guitars he needed from me, and I did those.
(Source : http://ultimateclassicrock.com/earl-slick-david-bowie-new-album-interview/)
Earl Slick : We’ll sit down and we’ll listen to the stuff. And he’ll ask me how it hits me - how does this hit you, how does that hit you? Or he’ll go, “This one you gotta be on.” And we’ll sit down, we’ll listen to the song - well, we’ll sit in the control room with a couple of acoustic guitars and then we just bang ideas around. I’ll go, “What do you think about this?” He goes, “What do you think about that?” It’s not like taking direction as a session player would take direction, because that’s why I don’t do sessions - cause I can’t take direction.
What he’s done since day one - and still continues to do - is, he knows exactly what it is that I bring to the table, and that’s what he wants. He doesn’t want me to sound like anybody but me. So we just sit there and we just hash through ideas until something hits one of us, and then we record it. It’s real casual — you know, you throw a couple cups of coffee on the table and you pick up a few guitars and we listen through some tracks. And he already knows pretty much what he wants me on, but then I’ll say, “Well, let me play you these and see if these hit you. If they do, let’s work out some parts.” It’s really casual. And that’s why it gets done quickly and efficiently, because it’s all done organically.
It’s really funny, as sophisticated as some of his records sound, he’s not anal about this stuff. And neither am I, and that’s why we get along so well. I’ll do a take that’s really not perfect, but it is perfect, because it feels great. Therein lies the perfection: It lies in what it feels like and what it does to you emotionally, not the exact notes. I can play a note that’s a little bit on the outside - like, “What the hell was that?” - and then we listen back to it and we go, “Wow, that felt really good.” And we just leave it alone. Whereas some guys will sit there and they’ll try to fix a weird note. Those weird notes, to me, is what really makes it happen.
(Source : http://ultimateclassicrock.com/earl-slick-david-bowie-new-album-interview/)
Earl Slick : I'd say the Slick model got used the most, and then the Mayfield, and I think I used a Tele on one of them - a '72 Custom Shop reissue.
(Source : http://www.premierguitar.com/articles/Interview_Earl_Slick_on_David_Bowies_Next_Day_Sounds?page=2)
Tony Visconti : Earl Slick was the tearing-it-up lead guitarist, and then both Gerry and David have different versions of ambient guitar, very dreamy, washy kind of guitar sounds. So the three guitarists were very complementary.
(Source : Billboard interview, Jan 13, 2013)
Mario McNulty : I love Earl Slick. I'm working on a couple of projects with him right now - a solo instrumental album and a band album under the name of The Outriders.
Slick is a really incredible player, but we had three guitarists and all of them quite different. Gerry does great rhythm but he also does ambient guitar, in his own quite beautiful style. David Torn is the extremely wild, experimental mad scientist guitar player. Slick is the rock'n'roll guitar player, like Jeff Beck or Keith Richards or somebody like that, but nobody does it better than Slick.
There were three main full band tracking sessions over the course of the two years. Gerry played on two of those, and the other one was with Slick. David Torn was only on one of those sessions.
Valentine's Day, the recent single, was mostly Slick, maybe even all Slick. He was at Magic Shop for a whole week.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black, Oct 2013)

Late August - Early Sept 2012 : last session at Magic Shop.
Tony Visconti : We over-recorded, yeah - I think 29 songs in all ... and some of them were abandoned within weeks. They just didn't work out. He often writes without lyrics or melody; we're just going for a groove or something that's pre-lyric stage.
(Source : Billboard interview, Jan 13, 2013)

Mario McNulty : One thing I'm really pleased about was that I was able to take all of the different parts, different instruments, recorded in separate studios with different players and make them all sound like one seamless, cohesive body of work.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black, Oct 2013)
Zack Alford : On the very last day he asked if I would be available to do any promotion. I said "Yes!"
(Source : http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/david-bowie-likes-the-struggle-of-winning-fans-says-drummer-zack-alford-20130201#ixzz2j6jkWjoN)


Steve Rosenthal : David was last in the studio in late August, early Sept 2012, and we had been asking them regularly if this was going to be an album, but they never had any definitive answer, and when he left, some time went by and I really started to think it would never see the light of day.

Steve Rosenthal (owner, The Magic Shop) : I don’t think any of us really believed that it was gonna come out until we saw the song online.
Gail Ann Dorsey : I was beginning to think he had ... changed his mind about releasing the record.
Tony Levin : I’ll wait ’til the album comes out to see how much of it I am playing on.
(Source : interview with Something Else)
Oct 2012 : Rob Stringer, President of Sony Music Group, invited to studio in New York to hear some tracks.
Tony Visconti : He (Rob Stringer of Sony) came to the studio in Dec 2012. He was thrilled. He said 'what about the PR campaign?' And David said, 'there is no PR campaign. We're just going to drop it on 8 January. That's it.' It's such a simple idea, but Bowie came up with it."
(Source : http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/jan/12/david-bowie-how-made-next-day)
Dec 2012 : Earl Slick appears on the cover of Guitar Player magazine.
Earl Slick : I had the cover for the Christmas issue of Guitar Player magazine. That was the hardest one - it’s a double issue and it stays on the stands longer, and they did a 14-page spread on me, and I’m thinking, “Christ, and I can’t even say anything.” Anyway, he appreciated that - and I got a nice thank you for keeping my big mouth shut.
Source : http://ultimateclassicrock.com/earl-slick-david-bowie-new-album-interview/
2013
Jan 4 : The Outside Agency is advised that David Bowie is about to release a new single and album.
Julian Stockton, (publicist, The Outside Organisation) : We first heard about it on Friday (Jan 4). Alan (Edwards, Outside's MD) was called to New York for a meeting and told about the album and the single, and instructed to get the message out on the Today program.

I was in the office at 4am on Tuesday, waiting to hear a single that I had to write a press release for by 5am.
Jan 8 : Bowie's 66th birthday, Iso/RCA Records release a new single by David Bowie titled 'Where Are We Now?' exclusively via the iTunes Store in 119 countries. Even the UK arm of Sony had not been informed.
Steve Rosenthal : My wife, Jennifer and I, were sitting at home. I was watching tv and Jennifer was online, and she got a message from a friend of ours in England on Facebook saying that David had put a song on iTunes. That was the first time we knew something was happening.

Tony Visconti : When it was finally released, I stared at my computer for fifteen minutes until the first person realized it was simply dropped in iTunes.
Steve Elson : I didn't even know for sure until the album came out, which tracks I was playing on.
Mario J. McNulty : This record is one for the history books, I can’t ever see an artist like David with his status pulling off a secret album like this again.

Iman : Everyone asks, 'How did he keep it so quiet?' But they were loyal to his vision and he asked, could they just keep it under wraps til it was released?

Tony Visconti : It's (Where Are We Now?) a very reflective track for David. Maybe the only track on the album that goes this much inward for him. It's quite a rock album, the rest of the songs, so I thought to myself: 'Why is David coming out with this very slow, albeit beautiful ballad? Why is he doing this? He could come out with a bang.' I think the next thing you hear from him is going to be quite different."
(Source : BBC Interview, Jan 8, 2013)

Tony Visconti : Traditionally people will lead an album with an up-tempo song. And I should know better. Bowie is never traditional. He always breaks the rules.
(Source : Hollywood reporter, 11 Jan 2013)

Steve Elson : I'm the only sax player on the album, and I played some contra-bass clarinet on Where Are We Now.
(Source : interview with Johnny Black, Sept 2013)

Tony Visconti : It was his idea to release it on his birthday. He came up with that plan about two months ago, and the countdown was unbearable. When it was finally released, I stared at my computer for fifteen minutes until the first person realized it was simply dropped in iTunes.
(Source : Hollywood reporter, 11 Jan 2013)

Iman : Everyone asks, 'How did he keep it so quiet?' But they were loyal to his vision and he asked, could they just keep it under wraps til it was released?
(Source : Interview in Grazia magazine)
Mario J. McNulty : This record is one for the history books, I can’t ever see an artist like David with his status pulling off a secret album like this again.  It’s an amazing record.
(Source : http://www.sonicscoop.com/2013/03/11/engineering-david-bowies-the-next-day-inside-the-magic-shop-sessions-with-mario-j-mcnulty/#sthash.b3dnmSaC.dpuf)

Tony Visconti : He's a very healthy man. I assure you. I've been saying this for the past few years. I couldn't explain how I know that, but I worked with a very healthy David Bowie in the studio and a very happy David Bowie in the studio.
(Source : BBC Interview, Jan 8, 2013)

Mar 8 : 24th studio album, The Next Day, released on ISO Records in Australia, Germany and Ireland.
Steve Elson : I didn't know for sure until the album came out, which tracks I was playing on.
(Source : Interview with Johnny Black, September 2013)
Mar 11 : 24th studio album, The Next Day, released on ISO Records in the UK.

Tony Visconti : I've been listening to this on headphones, walking through the streets of New York, for the past two years. I have not tired of a single song. I think the material on this album is extremely strong and beautiful. If people are looking for classic Bowie, they'll find that on this album. If they're looking for innovative Bowie, some new directions, they'll find that on this album too.
(Source : BBC Interview, Jan 8, 2013)

Tony Visconti : Some tracks sound like they would belong on Scary Monsters, others like they would be on Heathen, two albums that we made together, but that's because it's him. And we actually were listening to a lot of our own records when making this album. We weren't listening to anything current. We're not very impressed with today's music. And we didn't have any guest artists, either.
(Source : Hollywood reporter, 11 Jan 2013)

Mar 12 : 24th studio album, The Next Day, released on ISO Records in the USA.

Mar 13 : 24th studio album, The Next Day, released on ISO Records in Japan.

Mar 17 : The Next Day debuts at No1 in the Official UK Albums Chart.