The creation of Tin Machine, with Bowie as lead singer, would be the path to his reinvention. And although the band released only two studio albums – the first of which was released on May 22, 1989 – and one live album in its brief lifespan, Tin Machine became David Bowie’s musical redemption.
Bowie teamed up with Reeves Gabrels, Hunt Sales and Tony Sales to form a band where every member was equal. Favoring jamming with each other versus having a songwriter bring in lyrics and a demo for the group to learn, Tin Machine were a cathartic experience for all involved.
Bowie told fellow band-member Gabrels that he felt he had "lost his vision" and wanted to be in the band to get it back.
I had to kickstart my engine again in music,” Bowie told Uncut in 2013. “There’d been a wobbly moment where I could quite easily have gone reclusive and just worked on visual stuff, paint and sculpt and all that. I had made a lot of money: I thought, well, I could just bugger off and do my Gauguin in Tahiti bit now. But then what do you do – re-emerge at 60 somewhere? So, I look back on the Tin Machine years with great fondness.”Gabrels said that Bowie came in one day while the group was first forming and said, "I think this has got to be a band. Everybody's got input. Everybody's writing. You guys don't listen to me anyway."
The band split profits four ways, no one was on a salary and each member paid for his own expenses. Bowie also clarified that "the band will cease to exist the moment it ceases to be a musical experience for any of us. None of us wanted to get into the kind of situation where you find yourself making albums because you're 
contracted".The group set up allowed Bowie a certain level of anonymity, and to that end Bowie stipulated that all four members divide interviews equally between them and that in the cases where he was interviewed, that another member of the band be present as well. He made a point to clarify that he didn't invite the others to join "his" band, rather, "the band literally came together." Also according to Bowie, the group decided when they formed that they'd play from album to album, and that "if we were still getting on with each other — which was the priority — that we'd continue."
