A Quote by Edward Enninful

Music, for me, is as important as fashion. The first visuals I remember are Elvis Presley, David Bowie, New Romantics, and different punk bands. — © Edward Enninful
Music, for me, is as important as fashion. The first visuals I remember are Elvis Presley, David Bowie, New Romantics, and different punk bands.
David Bowie and Elvis Presley are my style icons.
The first thing that got to me was seeing David Bowie on a children's TV show, but Bowie was way beyond my aspirations. The Buzzcocks' Spiral Scratch came out in 1977 and it had a breakdown of the recording costs, then you saw Pete Shelley playing a broken guitar from Woolworths. We already had an idea of the kind of music we wanted to do, but punk showed us a way to do it.
Elvis Presley, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie and The Sex Pistols may come and go, but rebellion remains a key part of the rock n' roll experience. However, that rebellion - the outgrowth of a youthful search for independence and identity - doesn't always take the same form.
The likes of Bob Dylan and David Bowie and probably Elvis Presley or any of the Beatles, none of them would have got through Pop Idol, because they're not conventional. They're not what people think is popular now. I like the individuality in people. I don't want everyone to sound the same.
I guess, for me, what started me getting real excited about music was the New York punk and new-wave scene. All those bands looked back to the Velvet Underground and the Stooges and the Modern Lovers as well. But that was back when Television were punk, and the Talking Heads were punk.
That's my idol, Elvis Presley. If you went to my house, you'd see pictures all over of Elvis. He's just the greatest entertainer that ever lived. And I think it's because he had such presence. When Elvis walked into a room, Elvis Presley was in the f***ing room. I don't give a f*** who was in the room with him, Bogart, Marilyn Monroe.
I was in punk rock bands, heavy metal bands, world music bands, jazz groups, any type of music that would take me. I just love music.
The first record I ever listened to was Elvis Presley, and I remember thinking, 'Man this guy is cool!' The swagger he had really helped my confidence, because he really made me think that a white boy could make music like this.
Presley is country music, white music. Jazz is black music - it was invented by the blacks in New Orleans. And I'm really a jazz singer. I was impressed with Elvis - he was the handsomest guy I ever met in my life, and a very nice person, too. But the music doesn't impress me.
I was in L.A. with my wife in a restaurant, and I spotted my great hero David Bowie at another table. Of course I wasn't going to bother him. Then I felt a tap on my shoulder, and it was Bowie, and he squatted down to talk to me. David Bowie came down to my level - so gentlemanly.
Elvis Presley was rock 'n' roll, I thought that was pretty mediocre. But since that time, the succeeding steps in music has been down, just more degradation. Then we got into punk rock, and now we are into rap music, which is a total oxymoron.
I watched Elvis Presley become - I listened to Elvis Presley. I watched Chuck Berry become. I listened to Little Richard. I heard that music, and it was part of my upbringing.
[David] Bowie had a genius for continual change himself, reinventing his sound and his image throughout the decades. Each album seemed to find Bowie in a different persona, with a new sound to match his new look.
Elvis Presley is the main founding father of rock music. He was an unheralded genius behind a new music that changed western civilization for all time.
The first Decline I did was out of sheer love and appreciation for the music. In 1977, it was more about bands, because punk was a new form of music. It was groundbreaking and political.
If you took a couple of David Bowies and stuck one of the David Bowies on the top of the other David Bowie, then attached another David Bowie to the end of each of the arms of the upper of the first two David Bowies and wrapped the whole business up in a dirty beach robe you would then have something which didn't exactly look like John Watson, but which those who knew him would find hauntingly familiar.
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