Filmmaker Michelle Heighway on her journey with musical maverick Damo Suzuki

Michelle Heighway spent several years working on the film Energy, charting Suzuki’s return to touring after twice recovering from colon cancer. Following screenings at several film festivals, it is now available on DVD.

In his later years, the Japanese-born, German-based performer was renowned for his improvised performances which involved a revolving cast of backing bands who he called his ‘sound carriers’. Heighway had become intrigued by Suzuki when her friend Neil Atkinson’s band Window Right became part of the ‘Damo Suzuki Network’ for six nights on one of his jaunts around the UK.

When Atkinson tragically died of cancer, Suzuki posted a blog about him which Heighway said “really touched” her. Documenting Suzuki’s own journey became part of her own process of “self-healing”.

“I think the first gig I saw of his was in 2007 at the Parish in Huddersfield,” she tells The Yorkshire Post. “I knew him through friends and I’d go to gigs for years and not even thinking about making a film about him... But when my friend passed away and Damo did that tribute, I thought it was important to follow Damo’s journey.”

Heighway, who has specialised in making films about people who lead unconventional lives, says: “It was lovely to spend time with such a unique being that had so much to give to so many people.”

She says she feels “honoured” to now be able to share the film and hopes that “people will be able to find inspiration and joy from it, rather than deep sadness” at Suzuki’s passing on February 9. Its intimate feel, she says, offers people “a chance to step into Damo’s world and feel as if they’re having a cup of tea with him in his house”.

She adds that “Damo was proud of the film and I’m glad to have made something that he could be remembered by”.

The singer’s life story was certainly extraordinary. Born in Japan, he travelled to Europe in the late 1960s and was one day spotted busking in Munich by Holger Czukay and Jaki Leibezeit of the German experimental rock group Can. They invited to him join their group and made three albums together – Tago Mago, Ege Bamyasi and Future Days – which are now regarded as classic examples of ‘kosmiche’ rock.

But in 1973 Suzuki quit, seemingly leaving music behind until the 1990s, when he made a surprise comeback. Although in 2014, his cancer returned, he recovered sufficiently to tour and released a memoir, I Am Damo Suzuki, five years later. Talking to The Yorkshire Post in 2021, he said of life on the road: “For me, it’s no problem or no big thing I’m waiting for, just something happens in the next moment.”

Heighway had to launch two crowdfunding appeals to complete her film, and in his final months, Suzuki helped her with Japanese subtitles for the DVD release. She also became close with his wife, Elke, and was asked to read a poem at his funeral. “She just said it’s going to be very hard without Damo now, so I hope to be able to spend as much time as I can with Elke and invite her to stay with me sometimes and go over (to Germany), just so she’s not on her own.”

Working so closely with Suzuki seems to have left a lasting impression on Heighway. “Damo and the documentary gave me something really wonderful to live for and to create something that I’m incredibly proud of as an artist, just to keep going, it’s important to keep making things. That’s in the power of Damo. He says in the documentary, ‘Time is endless, I’m never going to stop, I’ll just continue, I’ll keep going’ and that’s what he did, he continued to create until the end of his life, even though he wasn’t performing because of Covid and after Covid he didn’t trust the world as much to do gigs, so he was doing paintings. He did a painting of me, he did a painting of Elke and one of his sons.”

Energy is available now on DVD or to stream on Vimeo. http://www.energythefilm.co.uk/