bowie and gabrels had initially met through gabrels' then-wife sara terry, who was part of the press staff for the north american leg of bowie's 1987 glass spider world tour. the two men had struck up a friendship when gabrels visited at several tour venues. notably, their relationship began as a social one, as gabrels didn't mention that he himself was a musician. common interests in popular culture and the visual arts provided more than enough to talk about, gabrels explained in later interviews, and also because he was in his wife's workplace, he felt it wasn't appropriate to bring up his own music. at the tour's end, bowie kindly asked terry if he could do anything for her. in response, terry gave bowie a tape of gabrels' guitar playing. months later, after listening to the tape, bowie phoned gabrels to invite him to get together to play and write. bowie told him that he felt he had "lost his vision" and was looking for ways to get it back. after a month working together, gabrels asked bowie what he wanted of him, and, according to gabrels, bowie said "basically, i need somebody that can do a combination of beck, hendrix, belew and fripp, with a little stevie ray vaughan and albert king thrown in. then, when i’m not singing, you take the ball and do something with it, and when you hand the ball back to me, it might not even be the same ball."