IT is one of the greatest rock albums of all time - but even some of the band weren’t sure what The Rise & Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars was actually about.

The record by David Bowie and company was released in June 1972 and became an instant classic.

Now Spiders drummer Woody Woodmansey will play the album in full on Monday at the O2 Academy with his group Holy Holy, who include regular Bowie producer Tony Visconti.

“He never explained anything to us about it, I don’t think we even thought it was a concept album until it was out,” recalls Woody, who released a book about his time with the band last year.

“We didn’t talk a lot about music, we’d listen to things we liked together and that was enough. Then when he came up with a song it was your job to find a groove or guitar part, and help give it more meaning.”

While the album is considered one of Bowie’s greatest works, it came at a time when the group were feeling under pressure. Although both The Man Who Sold The World and Hunky Dory had been critically praised, they hadn’t been as successful as the group had hoped.

”We thought there was some amazing stuff on Hunky Dory, but it didn’t sell enough,” says Woody.

“So you’re thinking ‘hell, what do we have to do, this isn’t as easy as we thought’. There was a lot of self doubt there. The one that kept our spirits up was recording Life On Mars (for Hunky Dory). Ken Scott (producer) had said to come in and listen to the finished version, and by the end our mouths were wide open.

“We knew Ziggy would be a bit rockier and that the songs were good, because everything David was coming out with was a great song. We knew the songs felt right, even if it was off the wall.”

Now Woody, the only surviving member of the line-up, will play the record in full with Holy Holy. The band previously toured The Man Who Sold The World, winning plaudits from fans, journalists and Bowie himself.

On January 8 2016 the band phoned Bowie while playing onstage in New York, singing Happy Birthday to him. Two days later, they woke up to find the singer had passed away from cancer.

“Tony played David the live album we’d done, and he was grinning from ear to ear all the way through – he said that’s what we would have sounded like if we’d been playing it in the 70s,” says Woody.

“So we were playing New York on his birthday, and we sang Happy Birthday down the phone to him, and he asked what the crowd thought of Blackstar and they went mental. He just said ‘thanks, catch you later’ – it was a day and a half later in Toronto that we heard he’d passed away.

“It was hard to play some of the songs after that. Sometimes you’d look up from the kit and it was like he was standing there. You couldn’t forget about it while playing.”

Woody played with Bowie from the late 60s through until 1973. He was always given freedom to come up with drum parts he felt suited the song the best – with one exception.

“He only once told me what drum part to play – and we argued about that,” chuckles the 66-year-old.

“It was Panic In Detroit on Aladdin Sane. We’d been touring in America when I heard him playing it on the bus. I immediately had a John Bonham groove for it.

“Then we started playing it, and he just stopped it immediately and said ‘I don’t want Buddy Rich! Give me a Bo Diddley beat’. I said 50,000 drummers could do that, but after a few bars I realised he was right.”

Recently Woody appeared at Aye Write! to discuss his autobiography, while he is looking forward to being back behind the drum stool on Monday.

However there’s one visit to Glasgow that will always stand out.

“We got in our limousine after a show at Green’s Playhouse once, and the fans had surrounded the car and were banging on the windows,” he adds.

“The car was rocking from side to side and there was a policeman trying to control it all. It was getting a bit hairy and eventually Bowie shouted ‘just go’ and we did – right over the copper’s foot.

“But it was us or his foot!”

Holy Holy, Monday, O2 Academy, £35, 7pm