Giorgio Moroder And Others Talk Donna Summer & Giorgio’s 10 Big Music Moments: Interview

Robbie Daw | May 17, 2013 9:05 am

5. “Cat People (Putting Out Fire)” by David Bowie (1982) By the time Moroder was composing music for the 1982 remake of horror classic Cat People, America had determined that disco sucks. And, as evidenced by Blondie’s “Call Me,” the producer’s sound became more experimental, and slightly more rock-oriented — something that attracted David Bowie, an artist who was going through his own reinvention in the early 1980s.

“The recording of ‘Putting Out Fire’ was done in Montreux, Switzerland, not far from where Bowie lives,” says Moroder of the pair’s Cat People collaboration. “We had breakfast at the Palace Hotel, went directly to the famous Casino studio and, two hours later, the song was done.”

Bowie and Moroder’s song proved its own durability — or at least Quentin Tarantino‘s penchant for left-of-center soundtrack choices — when it once again found its way onto the silver screen in 2009, via a key scene in the Academy Award-winning Inglorious Basterds.

“I was pleasantly surprised when I heard the song in Tarantino’s movie,” Moroder says. “It worked very well with the scene.”