Earl Slick’s resumé certainly isn’t short of high-profile session stints – he’s played and recorded with John Lennon, Robert Smith, John Waite and David Coverdale over the years – but his time in David Bowie’s band could widely be considered his crowning achievement as a guitarist.
Slick first replaced Bowie’s outgoing electric guitar player Mick Ronson in the mid-1970s, and stuck by Bowie’s side for the Diamond Dogs tour, later contributing to both Young Americans and Station to Station. Though he left in 1976, he’d return to the Bowie band in the early 2000s for more shows, and more albums.
During his tenure as Bowie’s guitarist, Slick admits he was largely given free rein to use whatever gear he thought fit for the job. There was, however, one time when Bowie was looking for a heavier sound – and ended up issuing a guitar recommendation.
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When asked for his golden tips on becoming a successful sideman in a new interview with Andertons, Slick reflects, “You have to know where you fit in. ‘What’s my role? Am I going to be the guitar player that wants to keep standing in front of the singer all night?’
“And if you’re lucky enough, like I was, to work with the right people, they picked you for a reason,” he continues. “The whole idea is you don't want to have to be sitting there instructing everybody like they were in the first grade about, ‘Well, you got to play it this way. You got to use this kind of amp.’
“Any records that I've done, especially the last few that I did, I brought all the right guys I knew were gonna bring the right shit to the table. We didn't have to discuss anything. It wasn't like, ‘Use that amp,’ or, ‘Use this guitar.’ If you bring in a sideman that you need to tell everything to, then he’s probably not your guy.”
Though Slick was very much ‘that guy’ for Bowie, there was one instance where his gear choices didn’t seem to cut it as the legendary singer set about recording Reality in 2003.
“You know, David did make one suggestion after we did the first special gigs in the early 2000s and we did the Reality record,” Slick remembers.
“It was a heavier record, and at one point he said, ‘You know, Slicky, you don't have Les Pauls anymore.’ I said, ‘I haven't been playing them because I was playing the Tele.’ He said, ‘You need to get a couple.’
“But you know what? We needed them. We needed them for the stuff. But that was it. He wasn't about what kind of amps to use or any of that kind of stuff.
“I find that this is why groups break up and fight all the time. It usually means there's some wrong people in there. But you know, you shouldn't have to sit on top of people to get the job done.”
Speaking to Guitar World last year, Slick recalled the time he said no to Whitesnake.
