bonus belew

First week of August, I spoke with Adrian Belew by phone. As always, the conversation yielded more interesting information than a MP music feature has space for. Passing along these outtakes for folks who enjoy interesting people (Adrian, not me) discussing interesting music.

 

-- Barrett

 

 

cb: For someone who can apparently do anything musically, what challenges remain?

 

AB: The challenges are enormous. The day to day nuts and bolts of the music business has always been trying, to say the least. But I think it's even more so now, as everybody's belts are tightening, and the internet, and the way that people get their music has changed so dramatically, it's a new war. To get your music heard and to get people behind it and to buy it, it's a whole new war. It's not something I have to fight that much. I'm the artist so I can stand back from it a little bit. It's very hard on my manager, my wife Martha.

 

I think there's so much left. I sometimes feel like I'm just getting geared up, honestly. What's left is all the music that's still inside my brain, rattling around; waiting to get out, get heard and get recorded. There's a giant new flame under me with the new power trio, with Eric and Julie Slick. I just feel totally resuscitated, kind of inspired again and want to go out and play music for people. There were many years in my life when I dreaded it, because it just wasn't fun anymore. Now I get up and I've got a full day of things to think about and music to contemplate. And I love it.

 

cb: Have you ever had an idea that you weren't able to realize?

 

AB: There are a lot of things I would do onstage if I had the funding to make the experience even more memorable. I've had lots of ideas about how to present the show, but they're not the kinds of things you can do in the kinds of places that we play for the amount of money that we make. Musically, in the studio, there's never been something that I couldn't figure out how to do. And if I can't do it myself I import someone who can do it better than me. Most of the time it is the working out of the creative problems that so fascinates me. I like trying to figure out something a different way and make it unique.

 

cb: Examples?

 

AB: Just about anything in the King Crimson catalog would fall into that category. The entire 28 years I've spent in King Crimson has been one big problem solving exercise. The idea of the band has been to kind of re-invent the wheel. You're not supposed to do so many things, that you're only left with a few of what you could call your tools. I'm thinking of a song like "Construktion of Light." That was a very difficult song to try to figure out what to do with. When I finally got there, I just felt so good. I think it was one of those pieces of music that would have just ended up on the floor if I hadn't somehow figured out something to do vocally and lyrically to make it worthy of being a King Crimson song. And that's how a lot of them have been.

 

cb: I've been reading about the Adrian Belew signature Parker Fly guitar. How did that come about?

 

AB: I called them, but not to ask about an Adrian Belew model. I wasn't that presumptuous. I called Ken Parker, who took 20 years to invent that guitar. I told him that I loved that guitar and had wanted to be playing it for several years now, but couldn't because it didn't have several things that I utilize as my tools. A: It didn't have a sustainer, which allows each note to sustain as long as you want it to. B: It wasn't a MIDI guitar, which allows you to plug into guitar synthesizers and keyboards and everything. Without those two very particular tools, I can't do a lot of what I do. Ken said, 'Well. I've got a guy in California who does that, he modifies Parker Flies.' So I started a four-year relationship with Parker trying to create the guitar that I wanted. Along the way, it was decided by them that it should be the first signature guitar they ever released. It's the Ferrari of electric guitars. It stays perfectly in tune. It offers you just tons of possibilities. Apart from all the MIDI capabilities, it has the Variax, which allows to you emulate 25 other instruments, like sitar and banjo and every other guitar under the sun. And you can do all that with only three knobs.

 

And, compared to the 13-pound Les Paul, this guitar weighs four pounds.

 

cb: What's next for the Power Trio?

 

AB: I think we're going to continue to dig through my catalog, and try to find the right pieces that lend themselves to some interpretation by a power trio. That's been a lot of fun for me already, because there are songs that we play now that, almost all of them, were never played by a trio originally. So it's a challenge each time. The big challenge right now is to play the new record. [Entitled e.] Being a 43-minute piece of music, it's a very intense thing to play correctly. We've been playing the first and second sections, and fifth section. But my goal is to put it all together and play the whole thing. Beyond that, now that I've got an instrumental record out of my system, I'm already starting to develop a basis for some new material, that would include songs. I think there's just so much ahead of us if we can just manage to do it all.

 

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