“I WAS doing sessions in Paris and heard David was staying in the Château doing Low. I hadn’t spoken to Tony Visconti for years, but I found a number, called him and we had a chat. Then Tony called back and said David invited me to the studio to hang out. I hadn’t seen him since the Odeon show. When I got there, I didn’t recognise him. He had a beard and scruffy hair, check shirt and baggy jeans and hiking boots. I thought he was road crew until I heard his voice when he said, ‘Aren’t you going to say hello?’
“We had a meal and then he said let’s go somewhere quiet and talk. We talked it all through from the beginning and he said he wanted to tell me face-to-face that he knew he’d never get that buzz again of going from nothing to where he was now, and we, the band, did that for him, we were the rocket. He wanted to tell me that. He didn’t come out and say he shouldn’t have done it [the announcement], but it was closure. David actually tried to put the band back together in the 1980s but Mick was in the middle of a production and said he didn’t want to go over old ground. Mick later regretted it. Watching the film brought back some fantastic memories. I look good and I sound good. But there are sad bits as well.”