Behind the Lens and Beyond the Icon: A Talk with Geoff MacCormack on Shooting David Bowie as a Friend, Not a Rockstar
Transmission 312: Interview with Geoff MacCormack
Geoff Maccormack, known to many fans by his pseudonym Warren Peace, is a vocalist, composer, dancer, and photographer whose interdisciplinary practice explores the meeting points between sound, movement, and visual perception. While many know him as the childhood friend of David Bowie, his contribution to the ‘Golden Years’ of music was foundational. A longtime friend of Bowie’s from their Bromley school days, he provided background vocals for many albums, starting with Aladdin Sane in 1973 and ending with Station to Station in 1976. When Bowie declined to fly, he accompanied him on his 1973 tour of the United States and Japan and returned to the United Kingdom via the Trans-Siberian Railway. He then played at the Hammersmith Odeon in July during the last UK stop of the tour, which concluded with Ziggy Stardust’s “retirement” (later published as Ziggy Stardust – The Motion Picture).
From providing the soulful backing harmonies on “Young Americans” to co-writing tracks on “Diamond Dogs”, he was a constant creative foil. He is also the co-composer of “Turn Blue” on Iggy Pop’s “Lust for Life” (1977). He created emotionally charged, immersive experiences, whether performing, composing, or behind the lens, approaching each medium as part of a larger conversation about presence, expression, and transformation. Rather than treating disciplines as separate fields, he allows them to inform and disrupt one another, musical shaping movement phrasing, photography influencing compositional structure, and sound extending beyond the audible into physical space. His artwork invites audiences to experience art intuitively, foregrounding sensation, presence, and the fleeting nature of live expression. MacCormack’s work is characterized by a fluid sense of rhythm and an in-depth eye for the peculiar, whether captured via a camera lens or microphone.
He published “From Station to Station: Travels With Bowie 1973-76” in 2007, an illustrated biography which detailed his time with Bowie. His 2023 book “David Bowie: Rock ‘n’ Roll with Me” is a remarkable photographic memoir. For this project Geoff Maccormack opened his archive to show more than 150 unique images. The book is available in Italian as well, and is published by Rizzoli. With his camera he took some of the most memorable and personal pictures of the 1970s outside of the stage. His images reveal the human heart underneath the celebrity façade, offering a unique, “inner-sanctum” glimpse into life on the road. In addition to the wildly popular “Rock ‘n’ Roll with Me” exhibition at Brighton Museum & Art Gallery from September 2020 to May 2022, the photographs were shown in St. Petersburg, the USA, and the UK.
He also created with Bowie expert, Jérôme Soligny a book “David Bowie: Music Lover /anglais: The Inside Story of David Bowie’s Record Collection” that will be available on 9 Jun. 2026, that shares which musicians, tunes, and albums did Bowie listen to during his lifetime. The book, which is the first of its genre, lists over 100 musicians who were included on Bowie’s turntable.
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Who were your early artistic inspirations? How did their work influence your way to see the world, approach and desire to path a career in the art fields?
Music was all around me growing up. My mother played classical music on her ‘Baby Grand’ piano, my brother played modern jazz, my sister pop music and Bowie (David Jones) and I found ‘Rock ’n’ Roll’ by artists such as Little Richard, Elvis Presley and Screamin Jay Hawkins. Music was the language of our generation, our great love and expression.
You move between voice, composition, dance, and photography. Which of those feels like your “native language,” and which still surprises you when you think about how it makes you feel?
Always music. All the other activities were accidental!
Their passion for music and their interest for artists like Mose Allison and Georgie Fame, whom they pursued around the streets of Soho and Eel Pie Island, allowed them to become friends quickly.
What’s the most unconventional starting point you’ve ever used to start a piece? When you compose, do images, movements, or sounds come first?
Sampling a hinge on an old vacuum cleaner, it had just the right sound for American, overhead swinging traffic lights in a wonderful ‘Guess Jeans’ ad I was scoring.
Is there a skill you learned in one discipline that unexpectedly became essential in another? Are there emotions you find easier to express through movement than through sound, or the other way around?
I think rather than a skill it was the idea that, if pushed, one can do more new activities than one might have contemplated. For example, David told me (not asked) to learn choreography for ‘The Diamond Dogs Tour’. His belief was enough. Many times it’s the attitude rather than the skill that counts.
You performed under the name Warren Peace for a time. Does that persona feel like a character you played, or was it a necessary way to protect your friendship with David Bowie from the madness of the industry?
Absolutely, a mythical character invented for a mythical period.
What draws your eye before you even lift the camera?
The truth is, I’m not a photographer, never was! However, my ignorance of photography was my blessing, I didn’t have the mindset of fiddling with controls which gave me a minute advantage. Ignorance is bliss!
Your journey across the Soviet Union on the Trans-Siberian Express is legendary. Looking back, do you think that specific ‘isolation’ from the Western press helped solidify the creative transition from Ziggy Stardust into the Thin White Duke?
I think that would have been a question for Bowie himself to answer. My guess would be that much of our travels, especially, the Soviet Union journey, fed his influences including his writing.
Most photographers of that era were looking for the ‘Icon.’ You were looking at your friend. How does the composition of a photo change when the subject is someone you’ve known since you were a little boy?
The familiarity helped enormously, the advantage of a subject being relaxed is, probably, the holy grail for photographic portraiture.
A pair of old childhood school friends circumnavigated the world by ship, train and land.
In your book From Station to Station, many of the most striking photos are of quiet moments on trains or in hotel rooms. There is one photograph you didn’t take and you still have it in your mind? Can you share the story behind it? Or about an unforgettable moment that still holds special meaning for you?
There have been many times that I wish I had taken more images of my friend in different circumstances, in truth, if I’d have pushed my luck too far, David may have found it irritating, which would have altered his mood in the wrong direction.
In an age of digital cameras and smartphones, what does photography miss or don’t understand about the mystery of the journey traveling those routes with analog film?
In my case, being an amateur, photography was an expensive hobby, considering the price of film and cost of developing meant every shot had to be considered. That selective mindset is still with me today to the, fairly useless, extent that I choose images I’ve taken on my phone and delete the others!
Photos courtesy of Geoff Maccormack
Ciao! My name is Dominique. I’m Italian and I’m proud to be a mix. My father was an Italian chemical engineer and high school teacher, with Greek and Polish heritage. My mother is Haitian, she was high school language teacher, with Dominican, Spanish, French, Portuguese, African and Native American heritage. Being a mix makes me appreciate to want to understand different cultures and lifestyles. I grew up in Italy, lived few years in Haiti, travel around main European capitals, lived many years in China, in Spain and UK. Traveling makes me feel that we can learn something from every situation in every part of the world.
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