Of course, Ricky,
you famously became friends with
your kind of musical hero
through Extras.
Oh, David Bowie, yes,
he was my hero for about 25 years.
Yeah, then I met him
and I invited him to do
Extras and he said yes.
Just incredible.
I co-wrote a song with him,
the song that he sings in Extras
and I sent him the lyrics
and I called him up and I said,
"Did you get the lyrics?"
And he went, "Yeah."
I said, "Can you give me something
sort of like retro,
like Life On Mars?"
And he went,
"Yeah, I'll just knock off a quick
fucking Life On Mars for you."
I'll do that.
It was amazing.
He was amazing, to the end, just
incredible, an artist to the end.
He kept putting out material right
to the end. It was incredible.
Did you just get in touch because of
Extras or were you friends anyway?
No, well, the first time I met him
I was sort of newly famous,
and I was invited to
one of those things at the BBC,
like The Office had just come out
I think on DVD, the first year.
And I was invited by Greg Dyke,
who was the Director-General then,
and we went and watched David Bowie
with a few other people,
and then after Greg Dyke
came up to me and said,
"Oh, you're a big
Bowie fan, aren't you?"
And I said, "Yeah, I love him."
He said, "Come and meet him."
I went, "Really?" He said, "Yes,
come and meet him, come on."
And there was me and Jane,
and Greg Dyke, walking
to meet David Bowie,
and on the way he went, "Salman!"
Salman Rushdie joined us...
LAUGHTER
..and we went
and we met David Bowie,
and he was very polite -
he didn't know who I was.
I remember the next day,
I was in the pub with my mate,
and he said, "What'd you do last
night?" And I went, "Nothing."
LAUGHTER
And then I got an e-mail
from David Bowie saying,
"So I watched The Office.
What do I do now?"
And we sort of became pen pals,
and I invited him to Extras.
Then he invited me to play
a benefit in New York,
my first New York gig,
at Madison Square Garden,
and he introduced me,
and the crowd didn't know
I was going to be there,
and they went crazy.
And he just came out
with a harmonica and went,
Bvvvv...
# Chubby little loser... #
And just sang the song,
and it was amazing.
And that was his last
live appearance.
Oh, my God, I didn't know that.
Wow. Yeah, incredible.
That's extraordinary.
Extraordinary, yeah.
