Hunt Sales, who was a member of Tin Machine alongside David Bowie, said the late icon had “made some shitty records” and that he regretted not reconnecting before his death.

Tin Machine were always billed as a band during their four-year existence starting in 1988, and even though they didn’t find the commercial success that had been expected of them, the project remained close to Bowie’s heart.

Drummer Sales – who’s also worked with Iggy Pop, Todd Rundgren and others – lost his mother around the time of Bowie’s death in 2016. “I always thought I’d run into him one day and he’d go, ‘Hunt, that’s really great. You got your shit together,’” he told Billboard in a new interview. “I don’t have closure with that. I had heard he wasn’t well, but I thought I’d see him. I’ll deal with it, but I miss him.”

He noted that they were "close," and that "Tin Machine was a band; I didn’t work for him, I worked with him. I could say, ‘You know what I like about that idea, Dave?’ He’d say, ‘What?’ and I’d go, ‘Nothing!’ And he’d laugh ‘cause at least I was shooting from the hip and being honest with him. For once he had some people who weren’t kissing his ass.”

Sales will release a solo album, Get Your Shit Together, in January, with much of the work inspired by his experiences of defeating a heroin addiction and living with Bell’s palsy, a form of partial facial paralysis. Looking back on his time with Bowie he said, “I respected him for how creative he was, but I wasn’t buying some of his shit. I know what the guy’s capable of, but he made some shitty records too, when I thought he was much better than that.”

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