David Bowie swapped drug binges for biscuits in his later years.

The 'Space Oddity' hitmaker - who died of cancer in January 2016 - and his guitarist Earl Slick downed espresso and tucked into biscotti to keep them going through the night when recording his 2013 album 'The Next Day', a drastic change from the wild partying and illegal substances that had powered them through in the 1970s.

Writing in his new book 'Guitar', Earl revealed in an extract obtained by the Daily Mirror newspaper: “During those sessions for 'The Next Day', we were older, obviously, and there was no dope. None. By 2012 we had long-time sobriety. It wasn’t even a part of our lives any more. But what we were doing then was hammering espresso.”

The 71-year-old musician - whose real name is Frank Madeloni - explained they had developed their habit in the early 2000s when recording and rehearsing in New York.

He continued: “At a great bakery that’s been there forever called Bella Ferrara, a little, old-school place, I’d pick up biscotti, which are insanely good, and bring them to the rehearsals.

“David would smash a whole box of them. He’d kill them. Along with his espresso, of course. When we got to 'The Next Day', on my first day I stopped at the bakery and picked up biscotti. David picked up pastries from Dean + DeLuca, and we had an espresso machine in the studio, and we just hammered the s*** out of all of it.

“We had a very big control room, and we made ourselves at home and were like pigs in s***.

"In the old days, we would have done the same thing, only with different substances. We’d sit in the control room and blow our brains out and not start working till hours later. Sometimes days later.”