When John Lennon and David Bowie Shared a ‘Mountain of Cocaine’

Award-winning file producer Tony Visconti has loved some unimaginable experiences throughout his spectacular profession. One of essentially the most memorable? An evening with David Bowie, John Lennon and a “mountain of cocaine.”

It was December 1974 and Visconti was with Bowie in New York recording materials for the the singer’s Young Americans album.

“One night he left the studio early,” Visconti recalled throughout an look on The Bob Lefsetz Podcast. “He says, ‘I’m going to go back to my suite.’ He was in Hotel Pierre, and he said, ‘Lennon is coming by tonight.’ He goes, ‘I’m a bit frightened of him, a bit scared of him.’ He goes, ‘Would you mind coming after work, after you finish all your tidying ups and all that, would you mind coming over and kind of buffer the meeting?’”

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Visconti jumped on the alternative to fulfill Lennon and shortly agreed. After ending his work on the studio round midnight, the producer caught a cab to Bowie’s lodge.

“I go up to David’s suit and I knock on the door a lot and nobody answers. But I hear a lot of scuffling behind the door, and finally I don’t know who answered, but I think it was Neil Aspinall, one of the minders of the Beatles,” Visconti recalled. “I stated, ‘It’s Tony. Tony Visconti. David asked me to come by tonight.’ He goes, ‘Yeah, OK. We were just a bit worried you might be the police.’”

Once he entered the suite, Visconti was surprised by what he saw.

“I walk into the main room and I saw a sight I’ll never forget,” he explained. “On the floor was David and a beautiful Hispanic woman, really really beautiful, and between them there was like a mountain of cocaine. It was Mount Everest but about six inches high. You know, with ski slopes, it was like the real deal. And on the couch is my idol, John Lennon. I couldn’t believe it.”

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Visconti soon grabbed a seat on the sofa next to Lennon and politely began asking him about various Beatles tunes. The two chatted about the song “A Hard Days Night,” but Bowie stayed out of the conversation.

“I had [Lennon] for a good hour. And then he’s like looking over at David. You know, now David’s being absolutely rude,” Visconti noted. “He’s so frightened of John, he’s not even looking up at John. He’s just in with this girl, they’re chopping lines away, and John had a few.”

David Bowie and John Lennon Started Drawing

Eventually, the ice was broken not by a conversation, but by an activity.

“David picks up a pad, a sketch pad, and he’s got some charcoal pencils or something like that, and he starts, you know, David was a great artist, and so was John. So David starts sketching a portrait of John, like a caricature,” Visconti recalled. “And John says, ‘Hey, give us a piece of paper and give me a pencil,’ and John places it on like a tea tray or one thing like that, and he begins doing David.”

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“From this point onwards, it broke the ice,” Visconti continued. “I couldn’t buffer anything. The drawing of each was very funny, and they picked it up and they showed each other the drawings and had a good laugh, and they’d start a few [again]. And then eventually David and John started talking to each other.”

David Bowie and John Lennon Worked Together on ‘Fame’

During that very same time in New York, Bowie and Lennon ended up collaborating on the track “Fame.” The monitor was recorded in January 1975, nonetheless Visconti wasn’t current for the rapidly organized session. When Bowie known as the him in London to let him know they’d have to seek out house for the track on Young Americans, the producer was surprised.

“I stated, ‘David, I would have booked my own ticket on the Concord,” Visconti recalled. “‘If you had told me, I would have been there in five hours.’”