SEE - Bono's Profile

Gender-bending glam rock pop star David Bowie showed U2's Bono how to sing beyond his masculine range, adding a feminine touch to the Irish stars vocals.

In the process Bono fell under the spell of the 'Life on Mars' singer, and he's frank about how indebted he and his band are to Bowie for the things he introduced them to.

Bono told Rolling Stone magazine this week: "U2 owe him a lot. He introduced us to Berlin and Hansa Studios, to collaborating with (musician and producer) Brian Eno."

"It's the high singing, beyond your 'man' voice into the feminine. And there's the staging, the attempt to be innovative. Bowie wasn't afraid to use scale, to dramatize things. His set list was not just a jukebox he could run through. It was drama."

Bono then compared Bowie to a UK version of Elvis, adding: "It's not exaggerating to say, what Elvis meant to America, David Bowie meant to the UK and Ireland. It was that radical a shift in consciousness.

"The first time I saw him was singing 'Starman' on television. It was like a creature falling from the sky. Americans put a man on the moon. We had our own British guy from space - with an Irish mother."

SEE - Bono's Profile