They could have approached Silverhand's character from many different angles. Mike Pondsmith
had this to say on Reddit about Silverhand's original design:
Mike, Bowie may be dead, but Ricky Gervais is alive and well
Now everyone repeats that Johnny was supposed to look like David Bowie. Nobody ever mentions the Bryan Adams part.
By the way, today I learned that Adams is also a photographer
(click if you want to see Pink topless).
Anyway, the problem is, the image below doesn't look like Bowie to me:
Aside from the fact that it's drawn like a comic book super hero, that is, with clothes so tight that he's basically nude; he reminds me more of metal bands from the 80's.
Of course Bowie would change his image more frequently than Madonna,
in this clip from 1973 for example he wears two distinct costumes.
1988, when Cyberpunk RPG first came out, was the tail end of hair/glam metal, which was soon to be replaced by new look and sound.
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Here's
another quote about rocker boys from Mike Pondsmith:
So a rocker boy is sort of a political activist. U2's songs in the 80's used to be considered political, but their message is rather pacifistic:
The Clash were a little more militant. Still, quite popular. As people pointed out, Johnny in some of the concept art kinda sorta looks like Joe Strummer:
But those leather pants remind me of Jim Morrison:
Hardcore punk bands of the 80s were very political, but by design, didn't have mass appeal.
As I mentioned in the other thread, CDPR wanted to move the soundtrack from the 80's to 90's.
P.T. Adamczyk:
The original design of Silverhand certainly evokes the heavy metal virtuosos. If they decided to go this route, my personal pick would be Alexi Laiho, as I listned to early albums of Children of Bodom on repeat back in a day. Sadly he passed away two years ago. He looked bad those last couple of years, probably wouldn't be able to do it anyway.
And he wasn't American nor an actor. Which leads us to Keanu. As Zappa said:
But there is one band that changed the world: Wyld Stallyns. You can see that even the Johhny Silverhand's costume was copied from that movie.