[1] Kevin Armstrong played additional guitar and keyboards on the band's first and second studio albums and first tour, and American guitarist Eric Schermerhorn played on the second tour and live album Tin Machine Live: Oy Vey, Baby (1992).

Eager to return to making music for himself rather than the mainstream audience he had acquired following the Let's Dance album,[8] Bowie looked around for collaborators.

He briefly worked with Bon Jovi producer Bruce Fairbairn in Los Angeles, recording a few tracks, including a demo of "Lucy Can't Dance" (which was eventually re-recorded and released on Bowie's 1993 solo album Black Tie White Noise) and a version of Bob Dylan's song "Like A Rolling Stone", but this did not bear much fruit, and the Dylan cover was passed to his friend Mick Ronson, where it was released on his posthumous album Heaven and Hull (1994).

[9] Soon after, Bowie began collaborating with Reeves Gabrels, who pushed the singer to rediscover his experimental side.

Common interests in popular culture and the visual arts provided more than enough to talk about, Gabrels explained in later interviews, and also because he was in his wife's workplace, he felt it was not appropriate to bring up his own music.

Bowie sang, played and danced with troupe members while in lighted grottoes upstage three musicians (Gabrels on guitar, Kevin Armstrong on guitar, and Erdal Kızılçay on bass) played the new 7+1⁄2 minute score that Gabrels created from the three-minute song; the new material included drums programmed by Kızılçay.

"We went into the studio to rearrange it", said Bowie in a filmed interview; "I like the hard-edged wall of guitar sound that we put into it.

It took a week or so of actually being in the studio and working, and then I think we fully realized the potential, musically, for what we were doing and wanted to stick with it.

Bowie was pleased that the band members clicked, calling the ease at which the personalities came together "inspired guesswork".

[16] Hunt and Tony, the two sons of comic Soupy Sales, kept the mood jovial during recording sessions and interviews.

[17] Bowie later rejected the idea that Reeves, Hunt and Tony were backing members of his band.

"[15] The Sales brothers moved the tone of the sessions away from art-rock and more towards hard rock, and Bowie looked to one of his favorite bands at the time, Pixies, for inspiration.

The Sales brothers heckled Bowie into greater spontaneity, with most songs recorded in one take, and lyrics left unpolished, thus giving the band a ragged, punk rock edge.

"[19] In contemporary interviews, the band said their musical influences were Gene Krupa, Charlie Mingus, Jimi Hendrix, Glenn Branca, Mountain,[2] Cream, and the Jeff Beck Group.

It produced mixed but generally positive reviews[7] upon release in May 1989, picking up favourable comparisons with Bowie's two more recent solo albums.

"[17] Contrary to common reports, the band's first live performance together wasn't at the International Rock Awards Show on 31 May 1989.

'"[11] Bowie confirmed that Tin Machine live shows would be "non-theatrical" in contrast to his most recent tour.

[17] The band undertook a low-key tour in small venues between 14 June and 3 July 1989,[11] before further recording sessions in Sydney, Australia.

Hunt Sales said that EMI "kind of freaked out a little bit at the strident, single-less Tin Machine debut", which partially explained why Bowie switched music labels.

This was combined with tracks from the Sydney sessions to form the Tin Machine II album.

… I'm deriving a great deal of fulfillment from working with Tin Machine",[25] and band-mate Gabrels agreed, saying "we're doing exactly what we wanted to do.

[26] In early August 1991, the band began promotional performances for the album, starting with TV appearances in the UK.

Tracks from the "It's My Life" tour were released on the July 1992 album Tin Machine Live: Oy Vey, Baby.

[7][33][34][35] Starting in the late 1990s, critics reappraised the band more warmly and Tin Machine were found to have been "unjustly" harshly reviewed.

[5][6][36] One critic suggested that part of the reason for its poor reception was that Tin Machine's music was somewhat ahead of its time, and that the band "explored alternative and grunge before the styles were even widely known to exist.

At the time, Nirvana was toiling in Seattle obscurity, pushing its debut Bleach on Sub Pop at every dive it played.

"[39] Tim Palmer, after producing Tin Machine's two studio albums, would go on to mix Pearl Jam's grunge album Ten in 1991,[40] and later recalled to Gabrels that he had come into the studio one day to find Pearl Jam listening to Tin Machine's "Heaven's in Here".

[14] In 1996, Bowie reflected on his time with Tin Machine: "For better or worse it helped me to pin down what I did and didn’t enjoy about being an artist.

By the end of the 20th century, Bowie looked back at his time with the band as invaluable, saying "I had to kick-start my engine again in music.

"[32] Despite some reports to the contrary,[43] Bowie stated several times over his years with Tin Machine that he was happy working in the band.