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RAKISHLY thin and devilishly handsome, even before he was famous David Bowie had no problems seducing women.

It’s something that drummer Phil Lancaster, who played alongside the Starman in one of his first groups The Lower Third, knows all too well.

Because as a 19-year-old David discovered his love of ladies, Phil was in the bed right next to him.

“He was a pain in the a**e,” Phil chuckles.

“It wasn’t just the girls he kept up all night!”

After one raucous gig in Birmingham, a pretty young waitress caught Bowie’s eye.

Phil reveals: “He came up to me and said, ‘She’s mine.’ We had nowhere to stay so after the gig we went back to her bedsit.

“There were two beds in this room lying parallel next to each other.

“David climbed into bed with this girl next to me and I pulled the covers up to my eyes, hoping not to hear any noises. But I didn’t catch a wink.

“Let’s just say it was very noisy in there. I can only describe it as the sound of a razor being sharpened in a barber's shop - and it went on all night.”

Even as a scrawny teenager, Bowie had no problems with the opposite sex.

Phil said: “He was a red blooded man. Women loved him and he took full advantage of it.”

Explaining David’s sexual appeal, Phil explains: “Rikki Farr, a big promoter back then once pulled me aside after a gig. He said, ‘You know why the girls love him don’t you? They want to take him home and feed him.’

"Obviously he was this skinny little thing. You didn’t want to knock up against him, you’d get bruised.”

But it wasn’t just women that David had his eye on, he was beginning to experiment with men too.

Back in 1965 homosexuality was illegal, so the band - which also featured Dennis Taylor on guitar and Graham Rivens on bass - were shocked to learn that their singer swung both ways.

Phil said: “Dennis was the one that found out about it.

“He was freezing his nuts off in our tour bus one night, when it was parked outside our manager Ralph’s flat. He went and knocked on the door and Ralph’s flatmate Kenny said, ‘I’m sorry, you can’t come in because Ralph is in bed with David.’”

The group were taken aback by the news, with Phil adding: “Initially it was a shock - especially seeing as David seemed so red blooded. But eventually I accepted it. David always kept it secret.”

While the band weren’t fussed about David’s sexual dalliances with manager Ralph Horton, the dynamic did change in the group.

Phil reveals: “Ralph only really saw David. It became quite clear later on that he wanted to help him become ‘David Bowie’ - an artist in his own right.”

In Phil’s new book, realised this week on the third anniversary of Bowie’s death, he also reveals for the first time that David was sexually abused.

On their way back from a gig on the Isle of Wight, the teenager was accosted on the ferry by a male music industry insider and molested.

Phil reveals: “As soon as I saw him I could tell something had happened. He was with our manager Ralph and they both looked very solemn. I didn’t want to approach him so asked my bandmates what had happened.

"They told me that someone had grabbed him inappropriately when he was alone on the ferry. He looked really down - he seemed to be quite affected by it.”

Phil, now 76, continued: “He was a skinny thing so was hardly able to defend himself. I remember thinking it was a pretty brazen and outrageous. You didn’t hear about blokes getting touched up.

“None of us ever brought it up but I don’t think he held on to it. I hope not anyway. Obviously now we’ve had the Me Too movement which has brought to light some absolutely shocking revelations. Thank goodness someone has burst the bubble and all the rot is coming out.”

Phil first met David Bowie in 1965, when the was aged 22, after answering an ad for a drummer in Melody Maker magazine. He was invited to meet the band’s singer ‘Davy’ at La Gioconda coffee bar on Soho London’s ‘tin pan alley’ Denmark Street.

He reveals: “I walked into the cafe and I walked straight up to the counter and I said, ‘can you tell me if there’s a bloke in here called Davy Jones’.

“I turned around and immediately spotted him standing there on the pay phone - how could I have missed him? He was very, very skinny and had this shoulder-length bleached blonde hair that was half grown out. I thought, ‘Wow this guy’s a bit different.’”

But there was an “immediate rapport”.

Phil said: “We spoke about our favourite music and the big thing that connected us was the writer Jack Kerouac - we were both huge fans.

“We were talking about Bob Dylan and he did this hilarious impression singing one of his songs. He was very personable and funny.

“I didn’t have to audition - he said, ‘We’ve got a gig in Brighton on Saturday, we’ll come and pick you up.’

“I was surprised - suddenly I was in the band. I read an interview with Bowie later and he said that the band all changed their hair to be like mine because he thought I had good hair.

“In all honestly that might be why I got the job.

“But I like to think it was my personality that did it,” he says, giggling, “he couldn’t resist me.”

Bowie already had connections in the rock and roll world, but his star was still yet to shine.

The band’s early days were less than glamorous, playing odd venues like ice rinks and touring the country in an out of service ambulance.

He said: “The coppers were always stopping us because it was illegal for us to drive that ambulance with the sign and the light still working.

“We were a bit naughty. If we saw a queue of people by a bus stop or something we’d drive up to them. The windows were all smoked out so we’d slide a section of the window open a few inches and David and I would stick our arms out and moan in agony.

“The times we didn’t have a bed to sleep in after a gig - which was more times that not - we’d sleep in the back of the ambulance together with all our kit. Dave and I got up one morning with the logo of Marshall amplifier stamped on our backs.”

The band were what could be described as “experimental” - with a set list featuring a cover version of Mary Poppins’ Chim Chim Cher-ee and a rocky reverb version of Holst’s Mars, The Bringer Of War.

Phil said: “I’d always wanted to be in a band that was a bit out there and different and when it came to stuff like that then David called the shots. It was inventive, it was almost freeform. I loved it.”

But it wasn’t just the music that Bowie was experimenting with back then.

The father-of-two said: “There was one instance where the four of us were walking down the street and Dave and Graham were smoking weed.

“It’s embarrassing looking back. Me and Dennis were moaning at them saying they shouldn’t do it, saying, ‘We don’t smoke weed do we?’

“We were babies back then - very innocent.”

While Bowie’s cocaine use in the 70s was legendary, back in the mid-60s Phil insists he was on “nothing stronger that weed”.

The Lower Third built up a following and released a couple of singles - You’ve Got a Habit of Leaving and Can’t Help Thinking About Me - but David’s manager had bigger plans for him.

Phil said: “Ralph was grooming David to go out on his own as David Bowie. He never really managing all of us - he was always David’s manager first.”

While the rest of the group were still slumming it in the ambulance, David would be driven to gigs in Ralph’s plush Jaguar.

Then one night in 1966, Ralph told the band they wouldn’t be receiving any payment for their next gig.

Walthamstow-born Phil said: “We told Ralph that we weren’t going on if we didn’t see any of the money and he without hesitation he said, ‘Right, that’s it then. It’s finished.’

“In hindsight, Ralph was probably getting what he wanted.

“But David was very upset - we were supposed to be playing to his home crowd in Bromley and it meant something to him, that gig. As we left I went up to David to shake his hand and he wouldn’t shake it. I was devastated. It was left on a sour note.”

The band never signed any contracts - and subsequently received no royalties for the two singles, that have subsequently been re-released several times.

Phil said: “We always trusted David. He was a young guy but he was older than his years and he was connected. It’s a shame because the two singles we released have been reissued countless times in countries, all over the world.

“I’ve not seen a bean in royalties.”

But Phil and David did patch things up a year later when the drummer went to see Dave’s new band The Buzz.

“I finally got my handshake,” he smiles.

Phil went on to work as a professional drummer in bands, restaurants and BBC One TV show Come Dancing, the predecessor to today’s Strictly.

He clearly remembers hearing Bowie’s first big hit Space Oddity in 1969.

“I was sitting in my living room when it came on the radio,” he recalls.

“I just thought, ‘wow’. I was totally blown away.”

Phil went on to have a successful career in sales and now hosts a radio show on Channel Radio and spends his days songwriting.

In 2015, a year before David’s death, the rock legend sent a message to his old drummer.

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Crossing his lips with his finger, Phil says: “He gave me some very nice compliments. I won’t tell a soul, it feels a bit too much like cashing in our relationship. But it was lovely.”

He was visiting his daughter in Canada on January 10, 2016, when he learned that David had passed away.
“I was in a state of disbelief for a while,” he admits, “but then the grief just hit me out of the blue and I was very emotional.

“I was so impressed with his bravery. To create that album Black Star and turn his own death into art is extremely brave.

“He was an artist right until the end.”

At the Birth of Bowie by Phil Lancaster is published by John Blake Publishing and is out now priced £20.00.

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