These days, David Bowie isn't intimidated by his own music.

Touring as a headliner for the first time in more than seven years, Bowie told the San Francisco Chronicle that the music he made as a glam-rock pioneer was dragging him down throughout the 1990s.

"I really felt, in all honesty, fairly intimidated by my catalog at the time. I really had to work out a new way of approaching what was going to be the '90s, and I needed elbow room. I didn't want those things staring me in the face every time I went to do a show."

Bowie's hits include the songs "Let's Dance" and "Serious Moonlight" and the album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and Spiders From Mars."

Now the 57-year-old singer-songwriter has worked up more than 50 songs for his latest tour.

"I kind of feel there are certain amounts of the new material that balances well with the older material. And the older material doesn't seem so intimidating anymore."