The beat of the moment
by Anil Prasad
Copyright © 1998 Anil Prasad. All rights reserved.
I'm a dinosaur. Somebody is digging my bones," sings King Crimson frontman Adrian Belew on one of the more memorable tracks from the progressive rock act’s 1994 comeback album Thrak. To some, the tune is a self-mocking look at an unfashionable band with an almost 30-year legacy reuniting in the face of today’s throbbing electronica pulse and post-grunge angst. This afternoon in downtown New York City, the song holds new meaning for Bill Bruford, the band’s drummer for the last quarter century.
As he’s done countless times before, Bruford takes the stage with King Crimson. Accompanying him are guitarist Robert Fripp, vocalist/bassist John Wetton and violinist David Cross. The odd thing is Bruford and Fripp are the only current members of the band. Even stranger is the fact that there are no instruments. Only a few tables and a microphone are in view. That's because the purpose of this gathering at HMV Records is to promote The Nightwatch, an archival concert recording from 1973, when this fiery incarnation was in full flight.
During the event, the band indulges the crowd in a question and answer period, and autograph session. It’s a scenario Bruford approaches with equal parts amusement and dread. It’s not hard to see why. After all, over-the-top praises are sung, quiet hysterics ensue, and a Carpal Tunnel Syndrome-inducing number of signatures are proffered. Indeed, bones are being dug.
Despite Fripp's request for "burning questions," the hundreds of assembled fans tend to ask variations on the following: Why did member X leave line-up Y? When will line-up Z reunite? Why did member X use gizmo Y on album Z? Bruford tolerates his share of the queries and never fails to respond politely. But although he's acutely aware of the necessity of publicity in today’s saturated music marketplace, he’s infinitely more comfortable behind his drumkit splashing away with the likes of guitarist Ralph Towner and bassist Eddie Gomez. Bruford worked with both renowned musicians on his latest solo album If Summer Had Its Ghosts. It's an atmospheric, jazz-tinged trio record that wouldn’t be out of place in the ECM catalog.
With a focus on intimate compositions and subtle group interplay, creating the new album was a reflective and refreshing experience for the drummer. Recent years have seen Bruford serving mainly within a Crimson context. Collaborating with Towner and Gomez provided him with a unique opportunity to flex a different set of musical muscles. But the new disc hasn’t been Bruford’s only respite from Crimson proper. He’s also been performing with Projekct One, an all-improv ensemble with Fripp, bassist Tony Levin and touch guitarist Trey Gunn. And his jazz quartet Earthworks continues with a new line-up including saxophonist Patrick Clahar, bassist Geoff Gascoyne and keyboardist Steve Hamilton.
Innerviews hooked up with Bruford just prior to stepping onstage at the HMV event.
Thanks for taking the time to speak to Innerviews during what’s surely a manic day for you.
My pleasure. So, Innerviews, this is a new music magazine?
That's the rumor on the street.
Just music then? Do you do interviews with construction workers as well? [laughs]
In some ways, you’re a construction worker, aren’t you?
Indeed so—a hard laborer, a man in the trenches, a foot soldier. [laughs] Being a touring musician is like being in the trenches during World War I sometimes. It’s endless—90 percent boredom and 10 percent terror, as they say.
It’s not even one percent enjoyment?
Oh, enjoyment? [laughs] That's around. Well, it used to be around anyway. It's still around when I set up the drumset.
I understand you’re off to exhume the past at the HMV King Crimson nostalgia-fest in just a little while.
Apparently so. It gets strange as life goes on doesn’t it? We're going to HMV to sign a few zillion autographs on record sleeves that are 25 years old for God's sake. So, life gets weirder by the minute.
Assess the value of taking part in an event of this nature.
Well, actually it's becoming an irritating thing. I don't mean it badly, but it's something you didn't bargain for when you joined the trade—this business of running for president every time you release an album. Every time you want to release any kind of artistic endeavor to the public in our saturated society, you've got to talk yourself into sickness to merely bring to their attention the fact that the art endeavor has been created. And that’s apart from whether it’s any good or bad, or if they can actually buy it or not. When I started, we didn't do that. We made the record and we released it. Fifteen years into my career, somebody asked "Would you like an interview?" and that was very novel—that was exciting because obviously, it meant we were famous. [laughs sarcastically] But the way it is these days, you're given a piece of paper and it tells you that that's all there is for the next six months. No complaints, but it's heavy going. [laughs]
The HMV event is something different though. You get to remove me—the buffer-zone and middle-man—and directly deliver your message to the audience.
That's true too and indeed it has its compensation because it's fun to meet the end consumer. But people are not backwards about coming forwards with their opinions about the music. They make all kinds of suggestions about what you can do with your music—good, bad and indifferent, rude and amusing. They make suggestions about who you should play with, what drums you should play, and I quite like that in a Shakespearean sense in that you meet the audience and they tell if you if they like it or not. That's good, but it's incredibly repetitive.
What question do you encounter the most?
"Why did you leave Yes?" [laughs] That's been the bete noir of my career. I actually became famous for a negative—for leaving a group, not for contributing to it. It was 25-odd years ago, but there you go.
How do you account for the seemingly ceaseless interest in this King Crimson line-up—one that only existed for two years?
[pauses] I don't know. [laughs] I really don't know. [pauses again] I don't know anything anymore. I don't understand why I'm signing my name and defacing the nice artwork. I’ve never asked anyone for an autograph in my life. I would never dream of asking anyone I admire for an autograph. I'd be terrified or humiliated if the guy said "No." So, I'm surprised at having to sign these things and the interest the whole thing is generating, which is 25 years late. [laughs] I'm accustomed to the audience not getting it immediately, but 25 years late? It's bizarre isn't it?
At least they’re voting with their wallets. I’m astonished at the flood of recent King Crimson releases the fan base is willing to support.
Yes, I am too, but there are good financial reasons for this. There's a small company called Discipline Records which Robert [Fripp] runs and he has this entire catalog of King Crimson material one way or another. And when you start a record company, you can't start it for nine months and then stop. You set-up relationships with distributors globally and they require a steady—but not too full—schedule of releases, otherwise they can’t fulfill their commitments. So, there are business reasons for releasing these things from the past—the Frank Zappa way.
Discipline is also responsible for several excellent, non-Crimson releases. Clearly, the reasoning transcends the financial realm too.
Yes, I agree. There’s some very nice stuff indeed and I hope the quality keeps up, which I'm sure it will. We've had some huge problems getting records distributed. Distribution in the States is becoming an increasing nightmare and distributors tend to go bankrupt overnight—you need a new one every nine months because the last guy runs away with the check. He sells the records and doesn’t pay you—it's a bit like the early days of bootleg liquor in that it’s highly unregulated and difficult to get the records in the shops for people to buy.
I understand Discipline now has a distribution deal with Rykodisc.
That's correct, and something that occurred after we took a terrible hit when something called INDI Alliance, a huge conglomerate of distributors, went bankrupt recently, leaving a huge unpaid bill. For a minute, I didn't think any of us were going to survive with Discipline Records incurring that huge a loss of money. But we're a resilient lot and we're still in business, but you must understand the American distribution system operates on a bit of a knife edge.
Quality music gets out there despite the system, not because it.
I don't think people quite understand that. The reason the end consumer gets what he gets is because of financial reasons—good, bad or indifferent. It might be a good reason or bad reason. Musicians are usually embarrassed to talk about money, but I'm not afraid to talk about it at all.
Can you be more specific about how the bankruptcy of INDI Alliance almost finished-off Discipline?
They had just released and sold a large number of Epitaph—a boxed of set of the very first, 1969 King Crimson and it was a very expensive item. They sold many thousands of them and failed to pay Discipline because they went bankrupt. So, that was unpaid money to Discipline, which is a problem. You've got bills and salaries to meet and if the distributor doesn't pay you, you're in real trouble. That was a bad time, but we've recovered from it.
Describe the Discipline philosophy.
You know, there’s a parallel with the Duke Ellington orchestra when thinking about the buying and selling of these records today. What King Crimson and Discipline do is look at a different way of doing things. The old system of getting a million dollars, then having the record company screaming at you to make a hit record and then going on tour for five years is really a nightmare for musicians—this rock and roll style of album, tour, hit, recovery is a structure set-up that benefits the record label and not the musicians at all. The musicians simply lose all creativity, tend to be permanently exhausted and end up loathing music. The idea of trying to detach the record from the endless tour and the hit problem is a good one. It’s much more like the older jazz orchestras in a way. I presume the fans of the Duke Ellington Orchestra didn’t necessarily always buy that orchestra’s latest release. They may have bought an earlier one. They might not have bought one at all. You see what I'm saying?
Indeed. And the pop machine imposes a similar structure on consumers too. For them, it’s follow pre-release hype, watch the video, listen to the radio single, buy the album, concert ticket and t-shirt, and start over. In the traditional jazz realm, the structure is far less linear. Real jazz aficionados are forced to piece the puzzle together themselves at the expense of conformity and fashion. There’s no media choke chain forcing them down a specific path.
Absolutely. I don't think any of us know how many records the Duke Ellington Orchestra released or sold. You didn't necessarily have to have the latest one. It was less organized and there was less merchandise value. King Crimson also has a long recorded history and listeners have to fit the bits of the puzzle together themselves. I think that’s quite nice—that a 1973 record should come out after a 1986 record. That amuses me. I like that.
There’s potential for criticism of King Crimson too though. One could argue there has been an inordinate amount of recycling going on between Vrooom, Deja Vrooom, B’Boom, Thrak and Thrak Attak.
Yes, I agree—too much recycling in my view. Again, I'm not the chief of the organization. Robert Fripp is. I don't wish to speak for him. And there is a double-edged sword to this. The more you clutter the place up with old releases, the less room there is in general for new releases and on the whole, a band has to look ahead. But then there's the problem of the other countries that make records and don't pay you for them and those are called bootlegs. There’s the idea that maybe you'd release an official bootleg of your own and the royalties would flow back to you rather than the guy on the street who made the record. And you would offer that bootleg with guaranteed quality sound, proper liner notes and the whole thing in general would be a much better deal than the horrible, little shitty cassette that was recorded at the concert. So, the idea of averting bootlegs by doing them yourself has something going for it. But something like B’Boom, the bootleg that came from Argentina directly from the recording desk that King Crimson certified and put out there, could backfire and clog up the system because it seems like just another concert recorded with some different tunes and so forth. I think in general, the sheer weight of material will slow up in a year or two—the reason being that the '70s, '80s and '90s King Crimsons will be fairly documented by that time. There will really be nothing else left that would have a logical case for being released as an album.
Do you believe the sheer volume of material also acts as a testament to the quality of the music?
Merely putting it out isn't a testament to anything I don't think. [laughs] But if it's well-received and people like it, and it stands up against current music, there's something to it certainly—it has a charm. We listened to some King Crimson at a media event at a club last night and it was backed up by some programmed Levi’s-advertising-type, modern, light, jazz-funk. The King Crimson material had a terrific, youthful intensity and push about it. The innocence of the music of 25 years ago really shone through rather nicely.
Your new solo record If Summer Had Its Ghosts with Towner and Gomez also stands in stark contrast to modern, light jazz-funk.
Yes, and it's very close to my heart. Towner is surprisingly unknown in the States. When looking at the record racks, you don't see him so much. In Europe, he's quite a big guy. He's on ECM, and the label is more prevalent in Europe than here. He’s a lovely man and it was ever a rather intelligent idea that someone said "Bruford and Towner." In fact, that was sort of a fan's idea. We were talking earlier about suggestions people make when you're signing autographs and those horrible napkins people give you and stuff. Well, one guy said "Why don't you play with Ralph Towner and Eddie Gomez?" At the time, I said "Hmmm. Yeah." So, I mulled it over for a couple more months and thought that idea sounded really good. Ralph is a bit of an outsider too I think. I also thought it made sense for this release to be on the Discipline label—a guitar label. A little bit of acoustic guitar wouldn't be amiss in that blend of things, so it made sense. So, I gave him a call and off it went.
It was that simple?
It took a long time because Ralph is a very busy guy. You know, it comes with the job that you have to cold call other musicians and say "Hello, my name is Bill Bruford. You may have heard some of the King Crimson stuff. Maybe you haven't. Regardless, I'd really like to work with you on a record and so forth." I don't care to have to do that, but do it we must if you want to play with the people you want to play with.
My assumption is Towner and Gomez had heard of you prior to the call.
[laughs] Yeah, both did. They knew King Crimson has a solid reputation amongst musicians for at least trying to do things reasonably honestly.
What approach did you take to working with Towner and Gomez? In general, they’re playing your compositions, despite both being prolific composers in their own right.
I approached them and said "I'd like to lead the record and use it as a vehicle for some of my writing. Of course, we’ll probably have a Towner and Gomez track on there as well." Primarily, I like focused records that are about something or someone and if your name is at the top, it should be about you and the way you see things and do things. Both said that sounded fine. Ralph is not known as an interpreter of other people’s music because he's such a good writer and composer himself. He doesn't really do other people's stuff a lot, so I was a little hesitant about that and he was too. But he really gave it his best shot and spent a lot of time on the music. I wrote a lot of charts, did some cheesy demos with a laughable fake 12-string guitar sound and said "I'd like it to go a little like this Ralph. What do you think?" And they were both very good because with drummers and composing, there's that phrase that says "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing." [laughs] For a drummer to write on a melody instrument is another ballgame for them. The piano is that thing on the other side of the room that you've got to get up and walk to and figure out what you're going to play and how the chords and harmony go. I think if you spend your life on piano or guitar, composition just becomes a side function of practicing—your fingers fall upon interesting things and ideas that you like and you say "Oh, that would make a nice tune" and you continue on a bit. But for a drummer, you've got to break from the kit and move to this melody instrument, so it’s kind of tough. I think I probably produced one or two harmonic howlers along the way, but they were very sweet and didn't make me feel too shitty. [laughs]
Was this the first time you composed for 12-string guitar?
Certainly, and I'll tell you, 12-string is a beast. It's a very cumbersome instrument. It doesn't go 'Biddly, biddly, biddly, biddly—bonk!' I thought Ralph could play anything on it, but that's not true. It's a very difficult instrument, so some of the things I'd written didn't work terribly well, but he was very gracious about that.
Was your last experience composing for guitar with Bruford? [the band]
Yes, I had Allan Holdsworth in mind for that. It was equally challenging. You write one note and Allan's gonna play 12. [laughs] So, you want to write quite simple melodies and allow him to embroider the approach to the note—that's the important thing for Allan. If you've a got a note that goes 'Bing!' he goes "Bedibbly, bewiddly, bewiddly, boowiddly, boodibbly-dibbly—bing!' It's the way he approaches the note that is breathtaking.
Describe the chemistry that developed when working with Towner and Gomez. Did it transcend the idea of being a studio session?
It did, and I don't really subscribe to that idea anyway. Of course, there was a high professional standard because the players write and read very well—in fact, Eddie can read anything on sight. But it takes a little while to find the tempo all three of you move at and I suppose we were fairly slow on the first day—we were trying to find the thing that made us all swing at once. It's funny, you don't talk about it much—you just do another take and then eventually it clicks. In this case, it did by the end of the first day. And really, you only have three or four days, so you’re looking for that spark. When you have three or four guys who have never played together play together, something will happen and that's the thing to record. If it’s going to run much longer than those few days, you're going to run out of money or you re not going to finish on time or it’s going to turn into a rock record or something. [laughs] So, the album is the spontaneous recording of three guys who sit down and start playing. It’s a very simple, yet very sophisticated mechanism that goes on without a lot of talking. There was a lot of playing, then people listening, then people saying "Let's do another."
The new album is probably the most subtle and intimate record you’ve ever made.
I quite agree. And it's a reflective record for me too. It may have had something to do with the fact that I had reached 30 years in the industry and was looking back to the thing that made me tingle in the first place—the thing that made me want to set-up a set of drums and made me want to practice when I was 16 or 17 years-old. In my case, that happened to be jazz and acoustic music, and that viewed from 1998 is a very simple form of music in the sense that there was no outboard processing or huge industry or armament of sound tacked onto the original acoustic sound as there is now. There was no digital processing. There was none of the hollandaise sauce—the gunk, the make-up that goes on a record now wasn’t present in those days and you can hear that when you listen to the Cannonball Adderly group or something. I did love it and I love it even more now, 30 years further in the future. Looking back at that stuff, it was terrific music and something about the intimacy of an acoustic trio or quartet on tape is really lovely. So yes, for me, this is most intimate record I've made. It’s also kind of an anti-testosterone record. Drumming, particularly in the States, is really an athletic, Olympic support now with furious power and technical ability, all of which is breathtaking, but I found myself wondering if there was a more poetic and lyrical side to this. And there is of course. If you know anything about Paul Motian for example, there is a delicate side to drumming too and I think I wanted to touch on that. None of the drumming on the record is terribly loud. There's no slogging on the record.
After the fury of the recent King Crimson records, that may come as a surprise to some fans.
Yeah, it does. And some of them won't like it and that's because it's not overtly flashy. A lot of the young guys need to reconsider this—a lot of young guys. Many of them only like it if it's unbelievably obvious. Whereas I think on the record, none of the notes are hit terribly hard. That even holds true for the three-or-four minute drum solo on there. In my mind, the record is reflective, effortless, intricate and subtle. I really wanted to get that side of my musical personality on the record. And with Eddie and Ralph inside that 12-string guitar and bass, there’s nowhere to hide. It’s completely scary—you just touch something, and that’s that. It’s there on the track.
It’s a unique record in that it can be played very loudly or very quietly. It works on several levels.
I agree, absolutely. It's not an irritating record. Also, it’s in response to Crimson which has released two or three 'bootleggy' records of enormous six-piece electronic sound with banks and banks of equipment. All of that is fantastic, but the new record is in relief to that sound. I really like this kind of musical watercolor painting thing with Towner and Gomez.
Earthworks, your other jazz enterprise, has recently undergone a metamorphosis.
Yes. Earthworks is fine, it’s in good health but it’s changed itself because a couple of guys became pretty famous. Django Bates is flourishing in England. He's commissioned to write for symphonies and stuff. He's in great shape and doing very well as he should do and as I intuitively thought he would do. But he's no longer the kind of guy you can call for a week’s worth of gigs in Germany. You need to book him out way in advance and it doesn't work that way. So, Django quite reasonably moved on as did Iain Ballamy and the group has been reconfigured with yet more of the people from where they came from—the fantastic, young London scene which is in really good shape. [laughs] I suppose Earthworks is sort of turning into the Art Blakey Jazz Messengers of the London scene with this grand, old grandfather—me—playing the drums. [laughs] What listeners get to hear is me, which is okay, but you also get the guarantee that you'll have the best young guys in town in the band. I like that a lot and in a way Earthworks is getting to be seen in that way in London. For young musicians, it’s "We'll play in Earthworks for awhile because it has the reach to get to Japan and America and it has global record releases." Neither is always the case for British musicians.
Are you playing music from the new album with Earthworks?
Yes, I've reconfigured the material. Earthworks 2 is a trimmed-down version that has cut down on electronic drums and fancy things. It really is a traditional bass, tenor sax, keyboards and drums outfit. So, we have tenor sax instead of solo guitar as a voice—it's not the end of the world. In fact, "Forgiveness" from the new album was played by Earthworks 1 before it was played by Towner and Gomez. You’ll notice Django and Iain in the credits for that one.
The new, all-acoustic format of Earthworks 2 will certainly affect how the band’s old repertoire sounds.
Some of the repertoire will live on, but some will be unplayable because it really stemmed from the electronic drumset. The original purpose of the group was trying to use the electronic drumset in some sort of imaginative and expressive way. So, to a degree, some of the material will be unplayable, but we're reconfiguring and regrouping and also using some new material from the new guys in the band. I'd like to eventually bring the group to the States. I'm determined to have these young guys come to America a little more often than they do, and that should be possible, because at the jazz level, you're not dependent upon record releases. However, you're somewhat dependent on overhead. If you have specialist equipment, travel costs become untenable. For instance, if your bass player insists on carrying around huge amounts of equipment, there's a problem in that you can’t make the money work. But a regular jazz quartet can make trips to the States work.
The career of Earthworks 1 was nicely wrapped up in a compilation titled Heavenly Bodies.
That's a really nice record—a best-of or greatest hits package with some live material that was previously unreleased. It was released by Virgin, which is the band's European and Japanese label. It came out during the summer of 1997 and sold fairly briskly like these things do. That’s because people want a band the minute the band isn't there anymore. [laughs] It came to be known that Bates and Ballamy had moved on and suddenly people wanted what it couldn’t have anymore. And you always feel like saying "Where were you when I needed you?" [laughs] It didn't get released in the States, the reason being that the Earthworks 1 catalog continues to sell reasonably well here. If you put out a best-of or greatest hits disc, often the record store won’t stock the basic records—in a way, you kill the market you've got here. I'd like it to have it come out here, but I couldn’t convince Caroline Records to do that. You never know about the future though.
After Earthworks 1 disbanded, rumors were swirling that a new band featuring Bates, Holdsworth and yourself was being considered.
There are always a number suggestions flying around at any one time. For a brief time, Allan Holdsworth and I were going to share a group again. That was record company-driven. I wasn't particular keen on it and I sensed that Allan wasn't either. The record company was pushing and it didn’t happen and I'm quite glad it didn't happen. But, I don't think I recall a time when Django and Allan were involved together. I don't think that would be a wise combination actually. [laughs] There are various combinations that come up and people make suggestions and so forth. Sometimes it’s even the musicians that talk about people they'd like to play with! [laughs] How these things occur and how they don't occur I'm not quite sure. It's a strange process.
You're involved in more line-up rumors than any other musician I’ve encountered.
I'm not sure whether that's a good thing or not! [laughs] I find that a bit objectionable really. Why don't they just listen to the music that I try and produce? You know, I don’t leave groups for any perverse reason. I'd like to stay in one group for the whole of my life, but if the music becomes dull, it becomes your obligation to move on and do something more interesting and fresh. And it’s certainly not me that precipitates these long pauses in King Crimson’s career either—it's always Robert [Fripp] who wants to stop and have 10 years off. [laughs] We do move along in a rather torturous manner.
I recently spoke to Joe Zawinul. He believes America is in cultural decline and pointed his finger directly at the machinery of the corporate entertainment industry. He said the result is a dearth of genuine storytellers, particularly in the jazz realm.
I find his choice of the word ‘storyteller’ a very interesting one.
My take is Zawinul sees instrumentalists as the ultimate storytellers—those who create aural art that transcend the barriers of language.
Very interesting. That's a very ancient and very lovely idea, and it’s a totally correct idea. Modern technology has streaked ahead and led us to believe we don't need storytellers. But the fact is, we're very simple souls and very underdeveloped in some ways. So, I immediately agree with him although I can't think up an intellectual reason for that. I feel his idea is right and I'm not sure it applies to America alone. Europe's not far behind. There's a traditional five-year gap. But I understand and empathize with that view—absolutely, yes. What a lovely idea and a terrifying one isn't it?
Certainly, your adventures in the music industry must give you a unique perspective on it.
The more you get to learn about the business about music, the more terrifying it is. I particularly came across this with Arista Records, during the time of Whitney Houston, Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe, Clive Davis, and all that. I was near the top of things and somebody made a fantastic thesis about how shareholders and stock market analysts are the chief captains of the music industry. Once your record company is publicly quoted on the stock exchange, it has to deliver the goods at a furious speed. There’s not a lot of time for development, or storytelling of any nature. The whole thing turns into a horse race with millions of dollars—you back 10 horses and nine of them will lose. But the one that wins will pay enough for the nine losses. Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe lost badly, but it didn’t matter, because Whitney Houston was huge. And when you’re talking at that level, the idea of any cultural dream as a nation, society or collective with stories that need to be passed down to children goes out the window. It’s brutal isn’t it?
It sounds like you’ve given this quite a bit of thought.
Your mind dwells on this last thing at night because it’s so bizarre. I think any musician has to agree with what Joe says and I have no solution to that. But obviously, people like me feel comfortable in the company of people like Joe Zawinul, and to a degree, Discipline Records and all that stands for. Robert Fripp has a similar take, but he would say it in a completely different way to Joe Zawinul. But ultimately, they’re all saying the same thing. It's a big question—a huge question: What do you want your musicians to do in society? Right now, we're paid to sell Levi’s jeans—it's just advertising. Well, I’m afraid some of us feel we could do more than that—obviously Joe thinks we should be telling stories, not advertising. And there’s a lot of truth in that idea that musicians are just advertising agents. It’s a drag.
Well, at least there’s little danger of Levi’s enlisting Projekct One or Two’s assistance for future ad campaigns.
[laughs] Indeed, that’s true. No-one’s gonna dream up that idea. The story of those groupings is that last year, we nailed together enough music to make a new King Crimson record. And had we been working for Arista or Virgin and had received a large advance, we would have had to release that record, because that’s the way the system works. Now, because we are independent—happily so—everyone thought "This is a good record, but it is not the right record." Because the right record wasn’t there, what we chose to do is pause. A lovely word has appeared over the horizon to describe what we’re doing called fractalize in which we explode a little bit into duos, trios and quartets— funny, little groups of people who go off to play to see what comes out and if they can shift the log jam that way.
How successful do you feel Projekct One’s output has been thus far?
Well, it's kind of a hit and miss method of making music. [laughs] But when it hits, it’s terrific. I love improvising. I feel like an improviser by nature and that’s part of the jazz thing. That’s also something that irritates some other musicians who work with me—the fact that the drummer doesn't play the same thing every night. That can cause irritation in the pop and rock circles of course, but I have no problem with improvising and indeed we improvisd in the 1973 King Crimson line-up, mostly because the band never had enough material. [laughs] They say "necessity is the mother of invention" and if you don't have material you're gonna have to find it somewhere and improvising is as good a place as any. It just comes from a different place in the brain.
How do you believe Projekct One and Two will enhance future King Crimson material?
I couldn't be specific—I just don't know. I don't think Robert [Fripp] knows either and I think not knowing is really okay. We're all supposed to know everything and often muscians don't know. So, it’s a period of not knowingness. I don't think Robert knows what the next King Crimson album should be. But he knows what it shouldn’t be and it shouldn't be the one we had last summer.
Describe the King Crimson music you had last summer.
It was a little too much of more of the same. It's a question of more of the sameness. There's a feeling that there are so many records released today that when you do release one, there should be something different about it. It should be a bold leap and go further.
How do you look back at Thrak?
Thrak I like a lot. I think Thrak’s a nice record, although it has connections back to the 1974 Red band. So, in a way, you could say it’s forward looking and backward looking.
Tony Levin told Innerviews that he didn’t think the double trio line-up hit its potential during the Vrooom and Thrak period.
Yeah, I agree. These things are sent to try us and often Robert [Fripp] throws these ideas up in the air and it's up to us to try and figure out how to do it. Now, I think some sections of the band figured out how to do it better than others—in other words, I’m very proud of the drumming. [laughs] Pat Mastelotto and I spent a lot of time woodshedding parts and figuring out interesting ways to present things. I think that aspect of the band was very strong.
We spoke in 1992, right after Fripp announced that King Crimson was reforming without you. I asked for your thoughts on that at the time. Here's what you said: "The reason I'm not involved is because of course, I'm a little difficult for Robert. Robert is better with sweet, smiling Americans, who don't really know what he's talking about. Unfortunately, I know exactly what he's talking about, and I'm not invited." What exactly was the problem between you and Fripp and how was it resolved?
[long pause] Nasty stuff. You caught me on a bad day! [laughs] I'm not sure I resolved the problem—Robert did. And there was a problem, yes. It was that I’m so associated with King Crimson and having another guy—I would pity him—go around the world playing my parts would be deeply unpleasant. The way Robert resolved it, and the way to accommodate Bill, is to have two drummers. The sextet started out as a quintet, and the question was "How can we accommodate Bill?" We have Mastelotto—the steady time keeper, and that's nice. [very dryly] What Pat does is specialize in steady, prosaic time—rock style.
Was that a compliment or an insult?
[laughs] Uh, I think he does it extremely well, so that's a compliment. But there is also another aspect to drumming—the ferocious, changeable side of it, the terrorist element of it if you like. And in a way, Robert’s suggestion was to have Bill, but encourage him to go even further out because you have the connection through Pat [Mastelotto] to the tempo and beat. It’s a good solution and it worked very well. In simplistic terms, we have the Ringo [Starr] and Elvin [Jones] thing. Elvin is one of the best drummers to play with Ringo, because Elvin opens it up. So, I think Robert resolved the problem, and he only cared to resolve it when there was a general sort of outcry that Bruford wasn’t going to be involved.
You’ve explained the solution, but what was the problem?
It's a big question and a difficult one to discuss, even if I knew the answers to it, but the problem was probably that Robert [Fripp] found that the drumming was too restless and not steady and simple enough, but Pat [Mastelotto] would be too steady and simple. You know, people turn to me and ask "You must know Robert and his attitude to rhythm," and I really don't. I haven't the slightest idea and I've ceased trying to find out. I just do what I do, but I have the vague suspicion that he'd prefer life if all drummers just kind of disappeared—which is quite probable. [laughs]
Let me indulge you in a word game. I'll toss out a bunch of names and you tell me the first thing that comes to mind.
Ooh. Very dangerous. Okay.
Tony Williams.
The wind and the waves.
Spice Girls.
Stock market.
Brian Lane.
[laughs] A blaggart who would sell his own grandmother if he could.
Electronica.
Does it tell any stories? Question mark.
The Internet.
Oversold. I think we're all looking to it to do or deliver something wonderful. I think it's just another small tool. I am the relentless kind of technophobe in King Crimson. I don’t own a computer and barely know how to spell ‘Internet.’ Every now and then I ask Trey [Gunn], Robert [Fripp] and Tony [Levin] to keep me advised if anything happens that I should know about. Since they never talk to me about it, I assume there's nothing happening that I should know about. [laughs] There's endless trivia, gossip and static just cluttering up the place.
A Love Supreme.
Very good value for money in the sense that Spice Girls are poor value for money. A lot of people buy a record, play it once and somehow think that's what it was. Whereas with a wonderful work of art such as A Love Supreme, you look at, read or listen to it endlessly and everytime you do, it tells you something different.
