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Peninsular - June 2014
Fauxie Bowie: Serious Moonlighter or Thin White Fluke?
by Ron Miller
In late May 2014 I interviewed Fauxie Bowie, a David Bowie impersonator based in Seoul. I'd seen videos of his recent concert performances, which revealed both a stunning resemblance to the Thin White Duke and a natural, confident delivery that transcended the usual lookalike-soundalike shtick. The overall effect was like attending a full-blown Bowie concert in miniature. I was curious about how "Fauxie Bowie" (Don Johnson to his buddies) and his capable backing band The Reality Tourists came to be.
RM: Let's talk about how you got started.
FB: Well, I put a band together about three years ago to do a one-off show. It was something I'd always wanted to do. The response was quite fantastic, but I felt I'd gotten it out of my system. But after a few months, a critical mass of people had said, "So, when're you gonna do another show?", and I'd since had a few ideas about what I'd do differently, and so that became the pattern. I started doing my last show every six months or so. <laughs>
RM: So you're in retirement now?
FB: Far from it! I've come to realise I enjoy it too much. All the excruciating labour is worth it.
RM: Have you always been a Bowie fan?
FB: No, actually. I liked his rockier things when I was young, but in all honesty I found the whole androgynous glammy thing a little bit creepy when I was a little kid. I've since come around to it, though.
RM: I guess you've had some catching up to do, then.
FB: Yes and no. I'm still not one of those fans who knows every little thing about Bowie. It's too much material, and I'm too lazy, and really – what's the point? Becoming a walking David Bowie encyclopedia would just banish me to a position outside the man... all knowledge, but no real understanding, you know? Bowie himself doesn't waste his time repeating factoids about his life from twenty years ago, or forty years ago. I get so much more insight to help me in my characterization by just watching him in interview situations, and thinking about his choices. That's where the man lives, and where the relationship between David Bowie and David Robert Jones [Bowie's real name] can be glimpsed from time to time. And that's where I really discovered a kinship with the man, which in turn helped me understand him as an artist, which I couldn't do before, you know, when the Diamond Dogs poster was leering down at me from my friend's basement wall.
RM: So how did you go from finding David Bowie creepy to playing him on stage?
FB: Ha! Let's see...when China Girl first came out I found I could do a decent job of that creaky, croony baritone – just playing around at home with friends. I was more a drummer than a singer at that time - so nothing came of it. It was years later at an outdoor British car show – I was dressed up a bit – when someone walked by and pointed at me and said “David Bowie!”. Until then I actually had no idea I looked like him. At various times people had pointed at me and said, “Shaun Cassidy!” or “Leif Garret!” or even “Andy Warhol!” so I'd always just assumed there was something about me that looked vaguely famous. But I started to listen a bit more carefully to Bowie's music from that point, and got a sense of the incredible range of his material.
RM: Then what?
FB: Oh...I guess a few more years had passed before I came to Korea and discovered this wonderful creative expat community that was very supportive and an incredible resource. There were so many great musicians here, and actors, makeup artists, filmmakers – and very willing to help one another. I'd never encountered anything like it. So I played drums in a few bands and came to realise I was in a place where one could really make a start at pursuing their lifelong creative fantasies. So I got involved in a couple of theater projects, and starting practicing Golden Years in the shower, and plotting my 15 minutes of fame.
RM: What about the Reality Tourists? How did the band come together?
FB: Well, having played in and seen so many bands, I had a good idea of who I wanted to work with. I'd also started a popular party band in Seoul called the Total Assholes, but I felt I was ready to put together something a bit more ambitious. Bowie's music can be deceptively complex, and managing personalities in a band this big always takes some doing. And musicians are constantly leaving this country, so I had a different line-up for every show in the beginning. But now we’ve settled into a core group of players with extraordinary ability and a fantastic collective energy. I’m really very lucky to have them. But that doesn't stop me from being an evil taskmaster in rehearsal.
RM: Really? That’s hard to believe.
FB: It’s true! Someone will suggest a variation or a simplification of something, and I’ll apparently shoot them down in flames. I don’t even realise it at the time, but when I’m on my way home from rehearsal I’ll think, ”Oo, I guess that was a little harsh”.
RM: So when you perform, do you focus on trying to duplicate the studio versions, or live versions?
FB: It depends. Mostly, we try to strike a balance. We do our best to create a live concert experience, so it wouldn't make any sense to try to recreate the studio versions verbatim. It would all end up sounding too much like karaoke. On the other hand, those are the versions most people know, and we don't have quite the latitude Bowie has to stray too far from the originals. So what I try to do is look for live versions he's done with his own band that are somewhat true to the original, or represent a really appealing departure, and go from there. And sometimes it's a very welcome thing, as it gives us carte blanche to do what he's done and change the keys of some of the early songs that are just too high to sing comfortably.
RM: You mentioned that you didn't always see yourself as a singer, but you told me you do professional voice work.
FB: That's right – I'm a voice actor, but there's not much singing involved. It's mostly reading exam materials, stories, animation, video games, commercials – that sort of thing. I get shown pictures of monsters and have to come up with how they'll sound when they're being punched. It does keep my voice in shape, though. Sometimes I'm asked to imitate another voice actor who started a project and then left the country. That's good practice for being someone else.
RM: Do you impersonate anyone besides Bowie?
FB: Not in public, although there is a disparate smattering of people I can imitate when I put my mind to it.
RM: Like?
FB: Oh, Elvis Costello, Karen Carpenter, Neil Diamond, Billy Idol, Mike Myers, Fred Schneider [B-52's]...
RM: That's quite a collection. Is it the same for accents? Do you do a lot of them?
FB: Not really, though I have been asked to do some very non-PC accents for work. But I guess as a Canadian with a closet anglophile upbringing, and having watched an awful lot of Monty Python, I've had fair bit of practice with a range of British accents. And luckily for me, Bowie himself has a very fluid accent, and great control over it. He's always used accent as an expressive tool. It buys me some leeway when my Canadian leaks out.
RM: What's your musical background? You said you played drums.
FB: I've played drums my whole life, since I was eight. I'm not a brilliant drummer, but I can hold it down pretty well. I've played percussion in a few amateur orchestras, studied music at university, but never pursued a career in it. And I always had a guitar laying around. Quite a lot of them, actually.
RM: Is your family musical?
FB: We had an upright piano - does that count? <laughs> But yes - mostly on my father's side. He plays a mean ukulele, he sings and whistles, and has this deep feeling for music and rhythm, but no formal training to speak of. My mother came from a highly non-musical family, although they did own a hi-fi and some Irish Rovers records. She used to sing to herself when I was little. My parents still trot off to the symphony from time to time.
RM: As a musician, do you find being a tribute artist limiting?
FB: No, I don't. I mean, if you're doing Bon Jovi, there's only so much you can do. But with Bowie there's so much to draw on and learn from... which creates it's own problems in a way, as some people want nothing but Ziggy, and someone else would be over the moon if we played Low cover to cover. But on the whole our audiences are very forgiving, and we go way, way beyond just playing the radio hits.
RM: Do you ever look at other Bowie impersonators?
FB: Not if I can help it, but sometimes I just can't, you know? When I started out I watched some videos on YouTube for ideas. Some of them have truly great voices, and have put a lot into their costuming and all that. And I realize that the market they're in dictates what they do. But most of what's out there is really not my thing, you know - wedding singers and such.
RM: Do you consider what you do to be better than that?
FB: I don't see myself along any good-to-bad continuum at all. I don't really subscribe to the idea that people – in any field – can be lined up in order from best to worst. And this field is one of the most subjective things you can do, on both sides of the curtain. For another, I know I'm not a singer's singer. I just do whatever I can to make my characterization as satisfying as it can be. And every performer - no matter what they do - brings something of themselves to the table. You can't avoid it. And it's probably for the best, you know? If I do a show where I felt relaxed, that I wasn't trying too hard to be David Bowie, people will tell me that it was the best impersonation they've ever seen. It's strange.
RM: How well is David Bowie known in Korea?
FB: Not very, in fact. I've seen the occasional T-shirt on the subway, but then I've also seen a 9-year-old Korean boy in a shirt that said “too drunk to fuck” in huge letters, so it's hard to say. By contrast, Queen and ABBA are almost revered in this country. When we play Under Pressure the crowd literally goes wild. But I have met a few Koreans who are true, dyed-in-the-wool David Bowie fans. And of course the expats all know at least one era of his music – especially the Brits.
RM: So you probably don't have a lot of competition there.
FB: <laughs> You know, I haven't found evidence of another David Bowie tribute band in all of Asia! Not that I wouldn't enjoy performing with another Bowie or two over here. That'd be fun.
RM: So what's next? More shows in Korea?
FB: Actually, we're really hoping to perform in some other Asian cities as well. Japan is so close, and has so many great cities. Hong Kong is not far. We'd be happy to play anywhere in the world there's a demand. And I really feel we're ready for a bigger audience. The band has really come into it's own of late. We've got lots of material, and scads of stage experience, between the lot of us. There's so much to draw on. And it's such a treat to go on stage with people who not only know how to play, but also have so much showbiz savvy and professionalism. Some of them have directed their own shows, so they know what they're doing. They really are an extraordinary group. So touring, definitely.
RM: Anything else you'd like to add before we wrap up?
FB: Just to thank you for the interview. It really is a treat. We sometimes run into this bias from the music media about what we do. I guess every tribute band or cover band does to some extent. It's like we occupy a lower echelon of the music world. People tend to forget that the Beatles and the Stones started out as cover bands, and they continued to draw on that music throughout their careers. We're not the next Beatles, but we are bringing a lot of great music to people in a context that's otherwise unavailable to them. They go home happy, and at the end of the day, that's what's important to me as a performer.
More information about Fauxie Bowie and the Reality Tourists can be found at www.fauxiebowie.com.
Copyright 2014. Reprinted by permission from Peninsular.
by Ron Miller
In late May 2014 I interviewed Fauxie Bowie, a David Bowie impersonator based in Seoul. I'd seen videos of his recent concert performances, which revealed both a stunning resemblance to the Thin White Duke and a natural, confident delivery that transcended the usual lookalike-soundalike shtick. The overall effect was like attending a full-blown Bowie concert in miniature. I was curious about how "Fauxie Bowie" (Don Johnson to his buddies) and his capable backing band The Reality Tourists came to be.
RM: Let's talk about how you got started.
FB: Well, I put a band together about three years ago to do a one-off show. It was something I'd always wanted to do. The response was quite fantastic, but I felt I'd gotten it out of my system. But after a few months, a critical mass of people had said, "So, when're you gonna do another show?", and I'd since had a few ideas about what I'd do differently, and so that became the pattern. I started doing my last show every six months or so. <laughs>
RM: So you're in retirement now?
FB: Far from it! I've come to realise I enjoy it too much. All the excruciating labour is worth it.
RM: Have you always been a Bowie fan?
FB: No, actually. I liked his rockier things when I was young, but in all honesty I found the whole androgynous glammy thing a little bit creepy when I was a little kid. I've since come around to it, though.
RM: I guess you've had some catching up to do, then.
FB: Yes and no. I'm still not one of those fans who knows every little thing about Bowie. It's too much material, and I'm too lazy, and really – what's the point? Becoming a walking David Bowie encyclopedia would just banish me to a position outside the man... all knowledge, but no real understanding, you know? Bowie himself doesn't waste his time repeating factoids about his life from twenty years ago, or forty years ago. I get so much more insight to help me in my characterization by just watching him in interview situations, and thinking about his choices. That's where the man lives, and where the relationship between David Bowie and David Robert Jones [Bowie's real name] can be glimpsed from time to time. And that's where I really discovered a kinship with the man, which in turn helped me understand him as an artist, which I couldn't do before, you know, when the Diamond Dogs poster was leering down at me from my friend's basement wall.
RM: So how did you go from finding David Bowie creepy to playing him on stage?
FB: Ha! Let's see...when China Girl first came out I found I could do a decent job of that creaky, croony baritone – just playing around at home with friends. I was more a drummer than a singer at that time - so nothing came of it. It was years later at an outdoor British car show – I was dressed up a bit – when someone walked by and pointed at me and said “David Bowie!”. Until then I actually had no idea I looked like him. At various times people had pointed at me and said, “Shaun Cassidy!” or “Leif Garret!” or even “Andy Warhol!” so I'd always just assumed there was something about me that looked vaguely famous. But I started to listen a bit more carefully to Bowie's music from that point, and got a sense of the incredible range of his material.
RM: Then what?
FB: Oh...I guess a few more years had passed before I came to Korea and discovered this wonderful creative expat community that was very supportive and an incredible resource. There were so many great musicians here, and actors, makeup artists, filmmakers – and very willing to help one another. I'd never encountered anything like it. So I played drums in a few bands and came to realise I was in a place where one could really make a start at pursuing their lifelong creative fantasies. So I got involved in a couple of theater projects, and starting practicing Golden Years in the shower, and plotting my 15 minutes of fame.
RM: What about the Reality Tourists? How did the band come together?
FB: Well, having played in and seen so many bands, I had a good idea of who I wanted to work with. I'd also started a popular party band in Seoul called the Total Assholes, but I felt I was ready to put together something a bit more ambitious. Bowie's music can be deceptively complex, and managing personalities in a band this big always takes some doing. And musicians are constantly leaving this country, so I had a different line-up for every show in the beginning. But now we’ve settled into a core group of players with extraordinary ability and a fantastic collective energy. I’m really very lucky to have them. But that doesn't stop me from being an evil taskmaster in rehearsal.
RM: Really? That’s hard to believe.
FB: It’s true! Someone will suggest a variation or a simplification of something, and I’ll apparently shoot them down in flames. I don’t even realise it at the time, but when I’m on my way home from rehearsal I’ll think, ”Oo, I guess that was a little harsh”.
RM: So when you perform, do you focus on trying to duplicate the studio versions, or live versions?
FB: It depends. Mostly, we try to strike a balance. We do our best to create a live concert experience, so it wouldn't make any sense to try to recreate the studio versions verbatim. It would all end up sounding too much like karaoke. On the other hand, those are the versions most people know, and we don't have quite the latitude Bowie has to stray too far from the originals. So what I try to do is look for live versions he's done with his own band that are somewhat true to the original, or represent a really appealing departure, and go from there. And sometimes it's a very welcome thing, as it gives us carte blanche to do what he's done and change the keys of some of the early songs that are just too high to sing comfortably.
RM: You mentioned that you didn't always see yourself as a singer, but you told me you do professional voice work.
FB: That's right – I'm a voice actor, but there's not much singing involved. It's mostly reading exam materials, stories, animation, video games, commercials – that sort of thing. I get shown pictures of monsters and have to come up with how they'll sound when they're being punched. It does keep my voice in shape, though. Sometimes I'm asked to imitate another voice actor who started a project and then left the country. That's good practice for being someone else.
RM: Do you impersonate anyone besides Bowie?
FB: Not in public, although there is a disparate smattering of people I can imitate when I put my mind to it.
RM: Like?
FB: Oh, Elvis Costello, Karen Carpenter, Neil Diamond, Billy Idol, Mike Myers, Fred Schneider [B-52's]...
RM: That's quite a collection. Is it the same for accents? Do you do a lot of them?
FB: Not really, though I have been asked to do some very non-PC accents for work. But I guess as a Canadian with a closet anglophile upbringing, and having watched an awful lot of Monty Python, I've had fair bit of practice with a range of British accents. And luckily for me, Bowie himself has a very fluid accent, and great control over it. He's always used accent as an expressive tool. It buys me some leeway when my Canadian leaks out.
RM: What's your musical background? You said you played drums.
FB: I've played drums my whole life, since I was eight. I'm not a brilliant drummer, but I can hold it down pretty well. I've played percussion in a few amateur orchestras, studied music at university, but never pursued a career in it. And I always had a guitar laying around. Quite a lot of them, actually.
RM: Is your family musical?
FB: We had an upright piano - does that count? <laughs> But yes - mostly on my father's side. He plays a mean ukulele, he sings and whistles, and has this deep feeling for music and rhythm, but no formal training to speak of. My mother came from a highly non-musical family, although they did own a hi-fi and some Irish Rovers records. She used to sing to herself when I was little. My parents still trot off to the symphony from time to time.
RM: As a musician, do you find being a tribute artist limiting?
FB: No, I don't. I mean, if you're doing Bon Jovi, there's only so much you can do. But with Bowie there's so much to draw on and learn from... which creates it's own problems in a way, as some people want nothing but Ziggy, and someone else would be over the moon if we played Low cover to cover. But on the whole our audiences are very forgiving, and we go way, way beyond just playing the radio hits.
RM: Do you ever look at other Bowie impersonators?
FB: Not if I can help it, but sometimes I just can't, you know? When I started out I watched some videos on YouTube for ideas. Some of them have truly great voices, and have put a lot into their costuming and all that. And I realize that the market they're in dictates what they do. But most of what's out there is really not my thing, you know - wedding singers and such.
RM: Do you consider what you do to be better than that?
FB: I don't see myself along any good-to-bad continuum at all. I don't really subscribe to the idea that people – in any field – can be lined up in order from best to worst. And this field is one of the most subjective things you can do, on both sides of the curtain. For another, I know I'm not a singer's singer. I just do whatever I can to make my characterization as satisfying as it can be. And every performer - no matter what they do - brings something of themselves to the table. You can't avoid it. And it's probably for the best, you know? If I do a show where I felt relaxed, that I wasn't trying too hard to be David Bowie, people will tell me that it was the best impersonation they've ever seen. It's strange.
RM: How well is David Bowie known in Korea?
FB: Not very, in fact. I've seen the occasional T-shirt on the subway, but then I've also seen a 9-year-old Korean boy in a shirt that said “too drunk to fuck” in huge letters, so it's hard to say. By contrast, Queen and ABBA are almost revered in this country. When we play Under Pressure the crowd literally goes wild. But I have met a few Koreans who are true, dyed-in-the-wool David Bowie fans. And of course the expats all know at least one era of his music – especially the Brits.
RM: So you probably don't have a lot of competition there.
FB: <laughs> You know, I haven't found evidence of another David Bowie tribute band in all of Asia! Not that I wouldn't enjoy performing with another Bowie or two over here. That'd be fun.
RM: So what's next? More shows in Korea?
FB: Actually, we're really hoping to perform in some other Asian cities as well. Japan is so close, and has so many great cities. Hong Kong is not far. We'd be happy to play anywhere in the world there's a demand. And I really feel we're ready for a bigger audience. The band has really come into it's own of late. We've got lots of material, and scads of stage experience, between the lot of us. There's so much to draw on. And it's such a treat to go on stage with people who not only know how to play, but also have so much showbiz savvy and professionalism. Some of them have directed their own shows, so they know what they're doing. They really are an extraordinary group. So touring, definitely.
RM: Anything else you'd like to add before we wrap up?
FB: Just to thank you for the interview. It really is a treat. We sometimes run into this bias from the music media about what we do. I guess every tribute band or cover band does to some extent. It's like we occupy a lower echelon of the music world. People tend to forget that the Beatles and the Stones started out as cover bands, and they continued to draw on that music throughout their careers. We're not the next Beatles, but we are bringing a lot of great music to people in a context that's otherwise unavailable to them. They go home happy, and at the end of the day, that's what's important to me as a performer.
More information about Fauxie Bowie and the Reality Tourists can be found at www.fauxiebowie.com.
Copyright 2014. Reprinted by permission from Peninsular.