Watch Legs McNeil Talk David Bowie: ‘He Still Sounds Shockingly New’

The rock world continues to mourn David Bowie, who passed away on January 10th at age 69. Artists such as Ozzy Osbourne, Marilyn Manson and Chris Cornell have previously shared their thoughts on the late icon with Rolling Stone, and the Strokes’ Albert Hammond Jr. recalled meeting Bowie in an exclusive video interview. In the above clip, author Roderick “Legs” McNeil — whose 1996 book, Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk, documents Bowie’s wild early-Seventies New York period — reacts to Bowie’s passing.

“There’s kind of a moment where Alice Cooper, David Bowie and Elton put performance back into rock,” recalls McNeil of Bowie’s initial rise to fame. “These guys put theater back into rock & roll. Thank God they did. I think rock & roll would’ve just dissolved under the mediocrity of jam bands.

“He’s not going to be imitated,” McNeil says of Bowie. “Whenever I put him on, he still sounds shockingly new.”