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David Bowie, Mick Ronson, Woody Woodmansey, Trevor Bolder...did we lose you halfway through? The latter two names are those of the oft-forgotten rhythm section of The Spiders From Mars - two names that deserve to be held in the same rock ‘n’ roll esteem as the likes of John Paul Jones, John Bonham, Mitch Mitchel and Noel Redding for propelling the sound of late ‘60s and early ‘70s hedonism.

It would be churlish to simply palm off the contribution of Woodmansey, Bolder and Tony Visconti (who Bolder replaced in 1971) as if they were nothing more than hired goons. Their contribution to David Bowie’s first purple patch from ‘The Man Who Sold The World’ (1970) to ‘Aladdin Sane’ (1973) is telling and was crucial in facilitating Bowie’s artistic vision. Along with Mick Ronson, they helped to transform Bowie’s acoustic compositions into swaggering rock ‘n’ roll classics so adored today.

“I suppose with Mick being up front with David, and in the photos and being involved in a lot of the controversial stuff with David, it pushed those two up,” says Woodmansey, “but I always thought you’re not going to get great vocals and lead guitar parts without a good rhythm section.”

“You had to get it right and get it right quickly when you were recording. As a rhythm section, we had to pull on every bit of skill that we had to make it right. Mick used to take a lot of his lead guitar lines from what Trevor had played on bass. He’d go 'Oh I like that note and that note and I can play this.' So if that rhythm section hadn’t been doing its thing it wouldn't have sounded like that, but not many people probably view music like that.”

When Bowie killed The Spiders From Mars in 1973, the one regret that stayed with Woodmansey was that he never got to play ‘The Man Who Sold The World’ album live.

“It was the first album that me and Mick Ronson had done together with David [Bowie] but we never played it live because Bowie was in the middle of changing from one management company to another.”

“We’d always really got off on that album because it was heavy. it’s oblique; there are some pretty weird concepts for the songs.”

With Bowie entering a phase of extreme creativity and change he was keen to explore new ideas and jumped into recording ‘Hunky Dory’ and ‘The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars’, but Woodmansey believes ‘The Man Who Sold the World’ doesn’t get the respect it deserves.

“Because he [Bowie] was trying out different images at that time you ended up with this kick-arse, almost metal album, but he’s sat on a chaise lounge with a dress on on the cover.”

“I could see why it didn’t really go. I couldn’t see many Zeppelin fans walking around with that album under their arm so I do think it was over-looked,” says Woodmansey “but I always thought the music was well up to it.”

“By the time Hunky Dory came along he’d really gotten into writing more immediate songs and it really took off, and then Ziggy took off and 'Aladdin Sane'. He’d really found his feet by then, but a lot of his concepts where in 'The Man Who Sold The World', but you had to look for the concepts - it wasn’t as immediate as Starman and the later tracks. You had to immerse yourself into the songs on 'The Man Who Sold The World' to get’em”

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Despite his obvious affection for ‘The Man Who Sold The World’ and his other recordings with David Bowie, Woodmansey never intended to re-immerse himself in that period of his career to the extent that he finds himself doing so today - at the helm of an all-star band, Holy Holy, touring ‘The Man Who Sold The World’ and other Bowie material from The Spiders era with Tony Visconti on bass, with David Bowie’s blessing for the project.

“It came about from doing some talks in front of a live audience at the ICA (institute of Contemporary Art) in London. They asked me to come and talk about how my drumming influenced the culture,” says Woodmansey. “I said, 'how long do you want me to talk for?' And they said 'two hours', and I said, 'well what are we going to talk about after the first five minutes?' They talked me into it in the end and there were some really good questions from the audience.”

“Then I found out that the Institute had put a band together of guys from bands that had gotten into music from listening to the early Bowie stuff.”

“Steve Norman (Spandau Ballet) Glen Gregory (Heaven 17) Clem Burke (Blondie)-  they’d done a few gigs and were booked to play Latitude festival and they asked me if I’d do a few numbers as a special quest.”

“So I went and I stood at the side of the stage waiting to get on. I was going 'no, no, no, I want to play that one' at the side of the stage. It was really frustrating, I was going mental. I’d never thought I’d have that sort of a reaction to it. And then they said Blondie was going on tour and would I step in and do the drums?”

“They wanted to do something different [for the gigs] and I said well we never played 'The Man Who Sold The World' live.”

It was at this point that Mick “Woody” Woodmansey approached his former partner in crime, legendary producer and bassist Tony Visconti, to join the project.

“I guess we didn’t know if the feel was gonna be there playing together after so long,” says Woodmansey. ”We rehearsed in London. Tony flew in from New York. He was supposed to have a day off to get over the jetlag.”

“We’d started rehearsing the day before, but when he landed he came straight to rehearsals, picked up his bass and said 'What are we doing?' We went straight into Width of a Circle and it just rocked. It was there and I said to him 'Even if the tour gets cancelled it was worth it for that moment right there.'"

“We did four gigs in September last year. I’ve said previously that I never thought an audience wouldn’t sing along to that album. I could see them singing along to Starman, but not when it’s about a guy in a mental institution or somebody popping people off with a gun. I never saw that as a singalong, but they were just singing along to all the lyrics, it was amazing.”

Tony Visconti and Woody Woodmansey’s Holy Holy featuring Glenn Gregory and special guests play The Olympia Theatre, Dublin on June 24th. Marc Almond has appeared at several of the UK tour dates so far but it's not clear if he'll make the journey to Dublin.