David Bowie’s son Duncan ‘would rather watch 24-hour rolling TV news than listen to dad’s songs’
DAVID Bowie’s son Duncan Jones has revealed that he would rather watch 24-hour rolling TV news than listen to his dad’s songs.
The film director, 46, giving a rare interview about the late rock star, compared listening to music to watching your father do accounting.
He said: “I never really got into music. It’s like work – watching your dad do accounting. I listen to a lot of CNN and watch a lot of news.
“I was always interested in making films. Music didn’t feel like a natural fit.
“I think I pushed away from it. I didn’t want to play guitar or drums or sax. I was constantly urged by Dad to learn an instrument but I was not interested.
“I met a lot of (famous) people when I was a kid but mostly they were just dudes. I listened to music but not with any great enthusiasm.”
London-born Duncan, who changed his name from Zowie Bowie when he was 12, said he had “no enthusiasm” for watching his father create some of his biggest hits like ‘Heroes’ and ‘Modern Love’.
But while promoting his latest science fiction film ‘Mute’, he told podcaster and stand-up comedian Marc Maron: “He was a great father.
“I had an unusual upbringing but not a negative one.
“I was taken to see ‘A Clockwork Orange’ at too young an age. I was on the set of ‘The Man Who Fell to Earth,’ in New Mexico, although I was very young for that to have an impact on me.”
Bisexual Bowie was awarded sole custody of Duncan when he split with his model first wife Angie and sent him off to Prince Charles’ tough Scottish boarding school Gordonstoun.
Duncan said he stopped speaking to his mother when he was 13 and still has no contact with her.
He added: “She was a corrosive person.”
But he spoke lovingly about his 17-year-old half-sister Lexi from his father’s second marriage to model Iman.
He said: “I am 30 years older. My relationship with her is more like a fun uncle.”
When asked how long his father, who died of cancer two years ago aged 69 days before he launched his final album ‘Blackstar’, had been ill Duncan refused to answer “out of respect” for his family.
But he added: “He knew he was sick. And there was an amazing effort by him to keep focused on making Blackstar.”
Duncan, whose son Stenton was born six months after Bowie’s death, appeared much happier talking about his own upbringing and work.
He said his father encouraged him to make movies, buying him his first camera and getting him work experience with British ‘Top Gun” director Tony Scott.
After three years studying at the London Film School in Covent Garden, Duncan started his career making low-budget music videos but admitted that he wasn’t that bothered by the songs.
Asked if he turned to his multi-millionaire dad for financial help while making his first full-length film ‘Moon’, Duncan said: “I tried as much as possible to forge my own path.
“He came to Sundance to watch ‘Moon’. It was amazing because he didn’t like to travel too much,” he said. “It was an amazing time having him in the audience.
“He’s always been very, very supportive of anything I wanted to do.”
He also joked he was part of a “weird little group” of celebrity children, including Jacob Dylan, Stella McCartney and Julian Lennon, trying to forge their own separate careers.
“Everyone is experimenting. There is no text book on how to do this,” he said, joking that they should set up an anonymous Facebook page to discuss the problems of having famous parents.
Despite dedicating ‘Mute’ to his father’s memory, Duncan also joked of what would happen next time a journalist asked him about Bowie.
He added: “This is my fourth film. If people bring him up on my fifth film, I am going to stab them.”