Bowie on Area2, Moby and 'Heathen'

Bowie: 'If you're bright enough to take an interest in life, you're going to be an interesting person, whether you're 100 years old or 15 years old.'

(CNN) -- Twenty-five years ago, David Bowie sang Christmas song duets with Bing Crosby. Today, Bowie tours with Moby's Area2 festival and even sometimes does duets with the techno-pop maven.

Generational differences -- and all of the related, complicated musical tensions -- do not bother this man.

Bowie's Area2 touring is to promote his latest album, "Heathen," a nominee for the United Kingdom's prestigious Mercury Music Prize.

According to Bowie, the festival has fit him well, with its genre-crossing nature making age unimportant.

"You just have to be a continuing part of what's going on," he says.

The Music Room recently sat down with Bowie at Area2's stop in Toronto. He talked about his new album, his growing family and how he still manages to fit in.

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TMR: How did you end up at Area2?

Bowie: Moby and I have known each other since the mid '90s when he was doing punk music. I went to see him at CBGB's and we became friends. Now he's my neighbor, and a few months ago he said, "Let's play each others albums." He started doing all that and he just came up and said, "Look, I'm doing the next Area2 tour and your album will be coming out at that particular time. If you want to do the tour, it would be great." So it's really simple. It was kind of like quite a small idea coming out of a quite small kind of atmosphere. But I'm really, absolutely overjoyed to have accepted it. It has been a wonderful tour. I'm really enjoying every second of it.

TMR: What are some of the highlights?

Bowie: The rainstorms, the fantastic lightning and the real extreme heat. That's being pretty amazing. We've had everything -- and good audiences.

TMR: What do you think about some of the other acts on the tour?

Bowie: Everybody is pretty cool. I've seen everybody now. I like Ash a lot. I should know them better because they're a British band, but I didn't really know them.

(About) Moby: He runs. He jumps. He moves around. You missed him. Don't blink! I mean, he's just this energized little guy that shoots around the stage!

TMR: What's your approach on your new album, "Heathen?"

Bowie's latest album, 'Heathen' was released in June.

Bowie: If I knew quite what my approach was, I'd be able to tell you. It had been made as a decision quite some time ago that I'd do another album with Tony Visconti, who's worked with me on probably some of my best things from the past, like the "Low" album, "Scary Monsters," even "Young Americans."

We decided a couple years ago that we should do another album together. But I wasn't too happy about the idea of sifting through the past, so for me it became very important to create a lot of really strong songs before we went into the proceedings. So it really is an album built on the songwriting more than anything else. I think it's pretty good. I like the songwriting. These songs really feel good to interpret on the stage, which is pretty much all I do now. I don't even wear funny clothes any more!

TMR: Can you tell us about the first two singles?

Bowie: No. I don't know what they are! What first two singles are they? Help me someone! I didn't know we had any!

TMR: What about "Slow Burn" and "Everyone Says 'Hi'?"

Bowie: I'm more of an album person than a single person so I'm really not too hip to singles and how they work and all that. Apparently there's a single coming out from this album and it's a song called "Everyone says 'Hi'" I like that song. It's a simple melody and presumably, assuming radio stations are still playing guys of my age, it will get on there.

Otherwise, the album is doing pretty good by word of mouth. I mean, I'm very pleased with the way it's being received, and I was really bemused when I understood it has been nominated for a Mercury prize. It's down there playing in the toddlers' pool, so to speak! Everyone else is about 12 and a half years old, so I'm pretty happy about that.

TMR: What is it like to tour with people so young and to go through all the changes that have happened in the music industry?

Bowie: I have to go with the state of mind ... If you're bright enough to take an interest in life, you're going to be an interesting person, whether you're 100 years old or 15 years old. And if you're just a dumb thing, you're not going to be of interest to anybody. It doesn't matter how young you are and by 100 everybody will have lost interest anyway.

I think you have to keep reading books, going out, seeing what's happening, listening to things and talking to people who know something about something. You just have to be a continuing part of what's going on. I enjoy that. It's one of the motors that drives me around -- being "man!"

TMR: What are your plans for the future?

Bowie: None at all. Finish this tour; go home, start writing. Simple things.

TMR: Write a new album?

Bowie: Yeah. I mean, I've got a baby daughter now. It takes a lot of our time, which is tremendous. I'm quite happy doing that. And if I can fit an album in there somewhere as well that would be good.

TMR: How has being married and having a daughter changed your life?

Bowie: They are two very different things. I guess I don't travel as much as I used to. A lot of the traveling was just finding myself, I expect. These days we're pretty content being in New York. We live there. Secondly, having a new child really refocuses just about everything because you start looking at the future through her eyes as much as your own. It's a beautiful thing.

TMR: As a producer yourself, how important is the producer's role on the album?

Bowie: I think, as much as anything, presuming you've got some good songs to start with, the other main criteria that a producer should find in himself is to be able to encourage the artist to be uninhibited about all the little ideas that he may or may not have and hopefully will develop during the course of recording. (The producer should also) allow him the freedom to be able to execute those ideas. The artist shouldn't feel quashed by judgment and values that are not necessarily his.

TMR: Do you ever detect your influence in other artists?

Bowie: Yes, continually.

CNN's Dan van der Kooy and Patrick Cooper contributed to this report

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