The Tapes Archive

Marc Allan: What brought you to King Crimson?

Adrian Belew: Well, I had a previous experience with Robert when I, my own band was touring as the opening act for League of Gentlemen, that band was called GaGa. When the Talking Heads went to Europe, I received a call from Robert asking me if I was interested in forming a band with Robert and Bill. So I said, “Sure, let’s check it out.” That’s how it all got started, and then the first leg of the, of King Crimson, which of course was originally called Discipline, was about an eight-week period of rehearsing, writing, touring and recording.

Marc Allan: What’s your position with the Talking Heads now?

Adrian Belew: Well, I’m hoping to do some more work with them whenever they’re ready to. I’ve done all their solo projects and basically I’m just waiting to see what they’re gonna do next. And I hope that it’ll work out, we can do some more work together ’cause I really enjoyed that.

Marc Allan: Were you interested in, in King Crimson back in the other incarnations?

Adrian Belew: Yeah, I really liked that band. I was very turned on by that band.

Marc Allan: It’s interesting, I saw the last performance they ever did which was in Central Park in 1974, and the band was, it seemed to be taking itself extremely seriously, and one thing that I noticed was a pretty stark comparison, was you up there kind of leading the band, and kind of taking it a lot less seriously, do you–

Adrian Belew: Well, for me, that’s kind of important at this point. Basically that I’m expressing my own personality, which I believe everyone should do with music, and you know, I’m just not, I’m not your serious intellect. I like to play serious music, I like music, it can be complex, it can be fun, it can be whatever. I like all kinds of approaches to it. But basically when I get on stage I’m, I’m excited by the fact that I’m on stage, you know, and I get pretty exuberant, and I like to jump around and laugh and have a good time while you still make a hundred percent commitment to the music.

Marc Allan: It’s not only the performance so much but, you know, the lyrics for example, Elephant Talk I think is a good example, especially when you get to the Ds, and you say–

Adrian Belew: I always liked the D section best. It was a pretty, a pretty crazy section, man. That was, I had gone through the dictionary, writing down all these different words or underlining them. And then when it came time to record it, you know, by then I’d realized that I had, I had sort of an alphabetical order to the whole thing. So I decided I’d just go in and try to do it in one or two takes and just use whatever words I could remember. So, you know, I left out quite a few, such as confabulation or something of that nature. But it was more spontaneous that way.

Marc Allan: Does that song have anything to do with interviewing?

Adrian Belew: It just for me meant meaningless talk, is what it amounted to. You know I, I obviously don’t think all talk is meaningless, but the final ending of it, coming up with the phrase elephant talk was kind of the signal that it was kind of a, just a spoof on lots of words. It’s just not a real serious statement or anything.

Marc Allan: How much hand did you have in writing the music on that album?

Adrian Belew: Oh, I think everyone has an equal hand in it because we just go at it together and we try to make it an equal collaboration. And then the music gets to a certain point where we’re agreed upon the outline, the shape on it. And then I can determine whether or not I wanna write some lyrics and sing something.

Marc Allan: Before I go to the other songs, what is it that you use on your guitar to get that elephant sound?

Adrian Belew: I use a flanger, which I set the flanger so that it, it wavers the pitch fairly quickly, sort of like ♪ Da da da da da da da da ♪ kind of like that, up and down. And then I use a fuzz tone. So if you just turned those two effects on at the same time, it would just go ♪ Da da da da da da da da da ♪ over and over, but what I do is then I slide the note up the neck of the guitar, kind of like a sound bow, and that’s how it sounds like that. It’s very simple, it’s just, I like to fool around with all these kinda crazy sounds. It’s my favorite thing to do with guitar.

Marc Allan: Moving on to other songs on the album, I guess Discipline, did you write the words for that?

Adrian Belew: You mean Indiscipline.

Marc Allan: Yeah.

Adrian Belew: Yeah, uh-huh.

Marc Allan: Now is that an artist looking at a piece of work? Is that what it’s supposed to represent?

Adrian Belew: It’s actually about a painting my wife did, and her feelings about this painting. She wasn’t sure she liked it and she didn’t know what to, what to think about it. So I extracted these phrases from a letter that she had written me, and added some other ones, like, “I repeat myself when under stress,” and so on. And it just, when you took it all out of context out of the letter, without having any idea of what the actual subject matter was, it made a whole different thing, which I, I liked that.

Marc Allan: I felt pretty clear that it was an artist looking at the, you know, his or her work after.

Adrian Belew: Really, that’s amazing. You’re the first person that’s said that.

Marc Allan: Well no, ’cause you know, I’ve talked to Robert a few times and you know, a lot of artists that interview just say that you get so involved in your project, that you don’t know what to think about it. Even if you come back and it’s like, almost like somebody else’s work.

Adrian Belew: Yeah, I’ve had a lot of people suggest what they thought it might be and no one had, had gotten that close to it. You’re the first there. Most people think it’s about a Rubik Cube or whatever that thing is called.

Marc Allan: You know, Matte Kudasai, is that how you say it? That’s probably the, my favorite song on the album. I think it’s–

Adrian Belew: Really?

Marc Allan: A really pretty song.

Adrian Belew: That’s great, yeah, I like that. I mean, that was more a collaboration between Robert and myself. He had the chords and I just suggested a melody.

Marc Allan: That’s very much like North Star, isn’t it?

Adrian Belew: Yeah, the chords I think are very much like that. And I don’t know about the melody I, I don’t see it as being like North Star, but I do understand why it sounds a little bit like the same kind of thing. It’s, you know, the basic guitar part is very much Robert a Fripp ballad.

Marc Allan: The leads almost sound like Steve Howe of Yes.

Adrian Belew: Well that’s me, that’s my playing, the slide guitar stuff.

Marc Allan: Is there any influence, do you ever listen to him?

Adrian Belew: Steve Howe? Yeah, I listen to him, but that, that was not influence for that particular kind of playing. Yeah, I think Steve Howe is very good guitarist in fact. No, that style of playing slide guitar was just pretty much my own invention, I’m happy to say and I like it a lot, so.

Marc Allan: How about Frame by Frame? What is that supposed to be about?

Adrian Belew: Well Frame by Frame, actually is kind of an in-joke for the band, for me, because Tony and I, the Americans of the band we, we tend to have a different outlook than the, than Bill and Robert. And Bill and Robert like to analyze things a lot, and talk and talk and talk about it, you know? And whereas Tony and I just basically are more loose in our approach and we just kind of like to go at it, and I just said, “Come on, let’s play the music, you know. We can talk about it some other time.” So I don’t know, I just, that lyric came into my mind as kind of a poke at those guys, for all the self-analysis that goes on. And it also related to my personal life, ’cause I had been trying to analyze myself a little bit and it just, it just got to be ludicrous after a while.

Marc Allan: How much do you think your being a second guitarist in the band frees Robert to, to do what he does?

Adrian Belew: Oh, I think Robert could pretty much do what he does without me. I think of my role in the band as an equal guitarist who just adds other dimensions that Robert doesn’t have, and occasionally we meet on a common ground that we both have. That’s the, that’s the real joy of working with, you know, someone as good as Robert because I think you get, as a guitarist between the two of us, you get this giant realm, giant range of guitar playing. ‘Cause he’s got things about him, about his playing that, that I don’t have about mine and vice versa.

Marc Allan: Just comparing, saying it was a, let’s say a trade-off between your part in the band and David Cross, and I thought that having a second guitarist really freed up Robert to do a lot more playing, at least that’s what I could see during the show.

Adrian Belew: But that’s possibly true, I hadn’t really thought of it in that, in that way. I look at, I basically look at the new material and what’s being developed in the band. I didn’t really think about the old older material, I guess that’s probably true, in that case.

Marc Allan: Was David Cross or any other violinist approached to join the band?

Adrian Belew: No, I don’t think so. I think that Dylan and I were the only two people approached to join the band, and then for those players, we simply had to audition a lot of people.

Marc Allan: It’s a, you know, interesting band with a lot of diverse personalities. You know, Robert has said that Bill Bruford did not want to play on Red because he couldn’t understand what was trying to be done, and Bill has said that Robert is a man of contradiction on many levels. So I was wondering how do those two get along, as–

Adrian Belew: I think they get along very well because they communicate a lot and they, so to speak, they agree to disagree. They do disagree quite often. I mean it’s very, it’s, it’s very healthy. And sometimes if you didn’t know about it, you’d think that these two guys weren’t getting along well, but in fact, they get along very well. I think they have a lot of respect for each other and, and they’re both very opinionated, and that’s what you get when you put those two types of people together.

Marc Allan: Robert has also said that King Crimson was one band that had malice and ill will as a, as a constant part of its daily diet, and is that still true?

Adrian Belew: Well, Robert would tell you, I, I don’t know my own personal feelings yet, it’s too early for me to say. But Robert would tell you that there, there are a lot of people, negative-type vibes in the air. Just, he just considers that to be common in, in rock music now as the ’80s, because of the, this is history I’m telling you, you understand. In the ’60s people thought of musicians as people that were just like themselves, that they could trust and so on and so forth. In the ’70s that myth was erased, and now in the ’80s people are basically kind of in a, “Show me, prove it to me,” kind of attitude. Now as I said, I really don’t know how I feel about that, but it stands to reason that as much people are going to flatter you, there are also gonna be people who are going to want to criticize you, and it just comes with the territory.

Marc Allan: How about within the band, is there a lot of praise and criticism?

Adrian Belew: Within the band it’s, it’s a very good situation. Everyone likes each other. Everyone respects each other’s opinions. And I think it can continue on in that way because the band works together for say, eight or 10 weeks at a time, and then go, everyone goes off and does other things, and gets other input or, or output, you know, outlets I mean. So if you work a band on that level and your commitment to the band when you’re playing together is really 100%, it seems like it’ll work out that you can continue to, to work together. I don’t think I could be in a band 100% of the time all year long at this point, not even King Crimson or Talking Heads. It just would seem limiting to me, because sometimes I have my own ideas that I want to put up, put forth too. For me now I have, I’m going to start making my own solo albums, I’ve already made my first one, which comes out January. I mean that’s, that’s a big thing for me to be able to do that, and I wouldn’t wanna go without that. So, or for instance, with Tony is, you know, it’s very important for him to be able to, to work with Peter Gabriel or someone at that nature, you know. It just helps, it helps to have other outlets for your energies, and then when you come back into King Crimson and you work together it’s, it’s like it’s all fresh again.

Marc Allan: So the plan is to, to work together for a set amount of time, break up, go do what you will and then come back to it?

Adrian Belew: Yeah, exactly. So that’s the basic plan for the next year or two. So I think you can expect three, four or five albums out of the same group of people.

Marc Allan: Getting back to the album, the first song on the second side, which I will try to pronounce it, Thela Hun Ginjeet. Which means, does it mean anything?

Adrian Belew: Well yes, originally it was, it’s an anagram for the original title which was Heat in the Jungle. It’s kind of an analogy of a gun in the city, and it was basically me making statements about John Lennon’s death. I was highly affected by that, and I wanted to try and write something about someone who had been molested on the streets. Well you know the, the irony of the whole story is I went out into the street to make this tape about crime, and about 10 minutes time, I was doing my own sort of interview, like I was a person on the street being interviewed, who had been molested. And in the meantime I, I was ganged up on, nearly beat up by these guys who thought, mistook me for an undercover policeman. And then after that affair, after I’d nearly just barely escaped with my life on that one, I walked around the corner and two policemen tried to arrest me for drugs, which of course I wasn’t carrying any drugs. But they frisked me, searched me, took my tape recorder apart, filed a police report on me and everything. So I went back to the studio to tell them this whole story, this unbelievable occurrence that had just happened to me. And that’s what’s on the record, my telling of what had, what had just occurred.

Marc Allan: That’s wild.

Adrian Belew: That’s why it’s pretty nervous and, and real.

Marc Allan: Was that in New York?

Adrian Belew: No, that was in London. And I happened to just stumble into this district of London, around Island Studios, where there’s a lot of violence happening. Where there’s been several policemen killed in that area, and here I was walking along saying my little phrases in the tape recorder, and these guys ganged around me and wanted to know what in the world I was doing. Took the tape recorder from me in a very aggressive manner and turned it on, and it said, “This is a dangerous place,” “he has a gun against me,” and all that stuff. And so they really thought I was a policeman. These were some very aggressive people, a very dangerous place, as they say.

Marc Allan: The songs that you’re playing live, is there any discussion about doing Schizoid Man or, and some of the old favorites?

Adrian Belew: Yeah, there was some discussion about it, and we basically agreed we didn’t really want to do that. You know, maybe that’s upsetting to some of the die-hard fans, but I hope that they can understand that the band is really not trying to revive the past. We’re, we’re a new band that’s trying to make a new, a new noise. Personally, I don’t feel it’d be a good idea to do very much of that. I think that’s kind of a dead end street to, to repeat things as old as 1969 that’s, you may as well do a Beatle medley if you’re gonna do that, which I would actually prefer.

Marc Allan: So you are doing, from the old stuff, Red and Larks’ Tongues, right?

Adrian Belew: Yeah.

Marc Allan: is that the extent of what you’re doing?

Adrian Belew: Yeah, those are the only two. Red has never been performed live before, so that was kind of interesting. And Larks’ Tongues just, just seemed like a nice one to play. We were in agreement on those and we felt that’s, that’s a fair compromise for the part of the audience who wants to hear some old King Crimson.

Marc Allan: Yeah, the audience seemed to be pretty young, I think.

Adrian Belew: Well yeah, a lot of our audiences are younger than you would expect. And, and a couple of the most recent audiences we’ve played for are college audiences where most of those people don’t, don’t have any affiliation with the old King Crimson, didn’t even listen to the old King Crimson. And I find that particularly attractive to me. Don’t get me wrong, just as I said, I really like old King Crimson material myself. But it’s just easier if you can start out with a fresh slate and make your statements now in the light of 1981. So it’s a lot, lot better for us.

Marc Allan: Well, when you consider that, that this new band does not get, you’re getting some radio play, but not, not a tremendous amount. What do you think is attracting people to the new King Crimson?

Adrian Belew: Oh, I think it’s probably word of mouth more than anything. Everyone in the band has somewhat of a reputation, and I think it just spreads around. The people who remember Tony from Peter Gabriel will come and see, other people who remember Bill Bruford from Yes, you know, or me from David Bowie or Talking Heads, or Robert from all the various projects he’s done. Then I think the word just gets around that, that what you’re doing is valid and good, and that’s important.

Marc Allan: So you have–

Adrian Belew: That’s a guess. ‘Cause I really don’t know. With a band that’s not getting much airplay how you, how you can have the phenomenon of sell-out concerts, but it’s working for us.

Marc Allan: What kind of albums will your solo albums be? Is it gonna be–

Adrian Belew: It’s a pretty eclectic bunch of music. I feel it’s, it’s personally, it’s my personal statements and musical tastes. I don’t think it’s, it’ll be, I don’t think it sounds much like Talking Heads or King Crimson, or the other things I’ve worked with. It’s hard to explain, you know I can’t, can’t put my finger on what I would label it as.

Marc Allan: Who’s playing with you on it?

Adrian Belew: I have the same three musicians from the GaGa band, and that’s Christy Bley, who’s a pianist. Chris Mayhew the bass player, and Bill Jansen, pretty wild saxophone player that I have. And I’ve been doing all the drumming on the album, as well as guitar playing. Also my four-year-old daughter plays piano on one song, and it’s a very exciting album for me. I mean, I hope people like it, but it’s a bit premature to say a whole lot about it since it’s not coming out for three months.

Marc Allan: Do you know what it’s, have you titled it yet?

Adrian Belew: Yeah, it’s gonna be called the Lone Rhinoceros, which is one of the songs there that I wrote it, in fact, during the switch around with David Bowie. Basically, it’s just about the last rhinoceros in the world and it’s got a great rhino effect guitar piece. Of course in keeping–

Marc Allan: Why did you write about that?

Adrian Belew: Hmm?

Marc Allan: Was there anything inspiring you to write about the lone rhinoceros?

Adrian Belew: Yeah there was, I happen to be extremely intrigued with rhinoceroses. They’re my favorite animals, among my favorites, probably my very favorite. And I’ve had several kind of unique experiences with rhinos when I’ve gone to see them in zoos and so forth. And I don’t know, I just always, I’m just intrigued by them. I don’t know why, I can’t, can’t say why. And at the same time it’s, it’s more a social statement about the killing of animals, and extinction of things like elephants and rhinos, whales and all those, those things, that really bothers me, you know. So if I’m going to make any social statements, I may as well make something about something like that.

Marc Allan: Where are you from, if you’re technically–

Adrian Belew: I grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, and now for the last three years I’ve been living in Springfield, Illinois, just where the rest of the band members live. I originally moved there because I wanted a nice community for my family, and we had some friends there who eventually turned into my band and they had a studio there, and it was just a good situation. I didn’t want to be in a, in a New York City trying to raise a family. But I think maybe next year, I’ll move to New York outside of the city somewhere if I can. Springfield is kind of getting to be not so good for us now. It’s too hard to get to, and a number of other things.

Marc Allan: When were you with Bowie?

Adrian Belew: I started with David in 1978 in March, and continued through about a year and a half following that. I did a whole world tour with him, which lasted about 10, 10 months, I guess. And two albums, one called the Stage album, and the other is called Lodger. Which Lodger, I really liked a lot. Stage album is basically a live album, which didn’t appeal to me as much. But making a studio album, which also was, Brian Eno was producing also. So it was very much fun, you know. I was put in a position of doing some pretty experimental-type guitar sounds and things, and that, that is one of my great pleasures.

Marc Allan: How would you assess the show at the Metro? Would you say it was, it was good?

Adrian Belew: The show at the Metro I thought was, yeah, I thought it was good. Not the best we’ve done, but I thought it was very good. For me, you know, you always have something you remember about it. I remember that it was a night when I was having a particular problem with my guitar, which was, I changed bridges on my guitar and the new bridge I had put on it was breaking strings at a mad pace. So that’s my overall picture of the whole night. I can only remember thinking, “Oh gosh, I hope I don’t break another string.” I think the concert was good, I remember that afterwards I felt it had been a good concert with, with the exception of my problem that I was having.

Marc Allan: I think that the last three, the last three songs which were Elephant Talk, Indiscipline and Larks’ Tongues were just incredible. I mean, that was really probably the most energetic thing I’ve ever seen on stage, in terms of a whole band playing together and really, you know, being aroused and you know, really rousing the audience.

Adrian Belew: That’s great, you know, but it’s very hard for any musician to be objective about what, what’s happening there as you’re playing it. There are so many things involved.

Marc Allan: Especially just one, one part of Indiscipline. When you know, Robert was practically off his chair. And that was, in all the times I’ve seen him play I’ve rarely ever seen him stand up. And that just, I mean the energy level, I think it was the first lead on that, on that song. It was really very energetic, and you just, you don’t see too much of that.

Adrian Belew: Yeah, that’s a good one, I really like that song. That’s the one where Robert and I both kind of just unleashed this monster guitar duet. I like that.

Marc Allan: Has anyone ever told you kind of, this is not to, this is a compliment, not an insult. I don’t know how you’ll take it, but you kinda reminded me on stage and maybe look a little bit like Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits.

Adrian Belew: I could see why you would say that.

Marc Allan: And then again, I wasn’t that close, so I couldn’t really see you that well.

Adrian Belew: But I have the same receding hairline as Mark Knopfler. Probably maybe even the same kind of facial structure.

Marc Allan: Right, I suppose you have–

Adrian Belew: But no one has ever told me that. Yeah, I can see the resemblance though.

Marc Allan: Plus you were smiling a lot, which was another thing, that I don’t think too many people ever saw King Crimson members do. It just, it wasn’t a smiling band really.

Adrian Belew: Well as I say that’s, that’s a part of my personality. I can’t hide it, I can’t stay serious for too long. I’m just too, kind of exuberant.

Marc Allan: I heard Robert tell a story when he was on the radio here, that he wanted you and called you up when you were with the Heads. And he said, “Well, I can always call Adrian Below. He’ll always be straight, and prepared to, you know, speak intelligently on things.” He called you up and said you were, you were fairly blasted that night.

Adrian Belew: Oh yeah, it was the first night that we had arrived in England, with Talking Heads, and we went to a Russian restaurant where they were serving vodka, these hot vodka things, where this was a particular one called honey vodka. They had 15 different kinds, and each time they would serve you one of these, it would be lit and it would be hot. And it took so long to get down into the, the restaurant from the waiting area where they were serving the drinks, that by the time we got to the food part of it, we were all severely blasted. And that is a rarity, I don’t usually do that to myself, but it was kind of a, kind of a celebration, and I was in the spirit of it. And when he called, I think I was in the throes of one of the worst hangovers I can remember. In fact I, I received a message, “Urgent. Call Robert Fripp.” And I said, “No way, I can’t possibly talk to anyone. Not even Robert Fripp.”

Marc Allan: That’s pretty much the way he described it.

Adrian Belew: Yeah, oh boy, I was feeling bad. I felt bad the whole day, in fact. And then right before Robert called and I received this message, the oddest thing happened. It flashed on my mind very quickly. “What could he be calling about? Wouldn’t it be weird if he wanted to form a band?” And then I just kind of even took it a step further and I thought, “Yeah, we could get Bill Bruford in on drums. Oh, that’d be great.” You know, and then I just put it right out of my mind. It was just one of those thoughts where like, sure. You know, ’cause I didn’t even think he and Bill got along together, and I certainly didn’t think that that was why he was calling. When he did call later, and that was the first thing he said is, “I’m thinking about forming a band with you and Bill. Are you interested?” I almost fell over.

Marc Allan: Were you at all surprised that he wanted to form it and call it King Crimson? Was there any discussion about perhaps calling it something else?

Adrian Belew: Oh yeah, it was called something else the whole time for the, all the way up till about the sixth or seventh week we had been working together, it was called Discipline.

Marc Allan: I see.

Adrian Belew: And I didn’t think there was any chance of it being called King Crimson. I thought that was totally out of the question, it was, it was never even brought up until it was realized that well, for one thing, that Tony and I didn’t care for the name Discipline as a name for a band. I personally felt it was kind of an unfriendly name. And then Robert made his own realizations that it, that it was King Crimson whether you called it that or not. And that all kind of coincidentally came about in Paris. And we agreed at that point, “Hey, let’s do call it King Crimson.” And Tony just simply said, you know, “What’s a better name?” Because he had no, no knowledge of the old King Crimson at all. He’d never heard anything by them.

Marc Allan: Wow, that surprised me. It’s almost funny sometimes I guess when you’re in a position that I’m in, where you listen to a lot of music. Where if you’re playing it and you’re on the road a lot, you don’t get to hear a lot of music. It’s funny though, it’s kinda strange to imagine somebody not ever hearing the old King Crimson.

Adrian Belew: Yeah, well Tony was very busy in that period of time and with a lot of different kinds of artists doing a lot of things. You know, he’s worked with so many people over the past decade and I guess King Crimson really was a cult band. Whereas if you were still working with Paul Simon, you might not hear about King Crimson.

Marc Allan: Right, that’s true. How far back does your career go?

Adrian Belew: My career actually started at the time of the Beatles, and that’s when I really took up the drums and said, “I’m really going to go for it now.” And it was a real exciting time. It was several years later when I decided that I wanted to write songs, say when I was about 16 or 17, and then I started teaching myself to play guitar with the intent of being a songwriter not, not intending to ever play solos or anything that drastic. I just wanted a working knowledge of the guitar, enough to write some songs for the band that I was in so we could make records, pretty simple.

Marc Allan: And what what your first professional band?

Adrian Belew: The first professional band I had was a band called The Denims, we all wore these little denim vests and pants, of course. And it was, it was pretty funny. And that band lasted, oddly enough, for about four years. Doing real, real good at the, your basic English invasion group imitations. You know, we did the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Kinks, and so on and so forth, you know, and it was a lot of fun. That’s also the same band where I decided if that band was going to do anything, I should write some songs. When I was a junior in high school, I got mononucleosis and I had to stay at home for two months solid. So in that period of time, that’s when I started teaching myself to play. I borrowed a guitar from the guitarist in the band. I had a great little arrangement with him, where I would polish his guitar for him, if I could borrow it. So I sat there and my lone, little bed writing songs and polishing guitars.

Marc Allan: Where, where did you go to high school?

Adrian Belew: I went to high school in, in Northern Kentucky, which is right across the Ohio river from Cincinnati. A place called Boone County High School.

Marc Allan: Are you its most famous alumnus?

Adrian Belew: I sincerely doubt that anyone from, from my graduating class of 1967 has any idea that I’m even in music or anything. And they’ve all gone on since to be infamous plumbers or something. There was a class reunion, of course, in 1977. But in 1977, I was thoroughly on the road with Frank Zappa.

Marc Allan: Oh, right.

Adrian Belew: That was the first band that I, I was in, that actually did international touring, and famous people and all that stuff.

Marc Allan: Is it as bad to work with Frank Zappa as people say?

Adrian Belew: Oh, I totally look at it the other way. I think it’s great to work with Frank. It’s, it’s very regimented and disciplinarian and all that stuff, and he, you know, demands perfection from you, consistency. And there’s not much freedom in what you invent. Most of the parts are invented by Frank, but I liked it that way. I just thought that that was the way it should be for his music, and I thoroughly enjoyed that, you know. And it was kind of like finally getting my musical education, all my education up to that point had just been self-imposed by listening to records and figuring out what other people were doing on those records. And I finally got with Frank, not reading music or anything. You know, I worked with him very closely, still working on, on music by rote, sort of. And yeah, I got to know him real well. And I liked the experience, it was kind of like having a, a college professor at last, really telling me what it’s all about.

Marc Allan: I’m just looking through the Zappa albums. Now, are you with him on any albums?

Adrian Belew: Just this one called Sheik Yerbouti.

Marc Allan: Oh, right.

Adrian Belew: And on that, the most memorable thing I do is the Bob Dylan imitation.

Marc Allan: That’s right.

Adrian Belew: With the little harmonica and stuff. That was another great side of being with Frank. You know I, I was the only person who didn’t read. So he would bringing this heavy music for everyone to play and it would be written out and they would learn it that way. Whereas me, it would just be kind of thrown up to me to, to do some theatrics and all the crazy things that the other more jazz-flavored players wouldn’t, wouldn’t necessarily do, you know? So I was doing costume changes and imitations of Elvis Presley and Bob Dylan, and things of that nature, you know.

Marc Allan: That is a great imitation, though.

Adrian Belew: That was a lot of fun. So I really respect Frank and I have great memories of that time.

Marc Allan: What about the, the songs on that, during that period? The Sheik Yerbouti stuff is almost, I don’t know. He seemed to be getting to the point where things were getting a little silly and a little sophomoric, and you know the, kind of beating the idea of making fun of humanity into the ground.

Adrian Belew: Well I think that’s just, that’s Frank’s statement about, about the world.

Marc Allan: Did you have any, you know, did you have any trouble with that, or did you….

Adrian Belew: Well, I must admit, coming from the Midwest and being a pretty straightforward guy, you know I, I had a bit of a problem coming around to singing some of the dirty lyrics things, you know. But it was never, I didn’t know anything about Frank Zappa and that was probably one of the reasons I was never into that part of it. And it was a little embarrassing for me sometimes. I don’t know why, that sounds crazy, I guess. But I was thinking, “Gosh, if my mom was to show up here.” You know, I’m still working on that, that basis, the little Protestant morals and all that stuff. But you know, you get over that. Pretty soon and I enjoyed it so much it didn’t matter.

Marc Allan: Did you leave that for any particular reason?

Adrian Belew: Well, when I left Frank’s band, it was to go play with David Bowie, of course. David’s tour started a week after my commitment with Frank ended, and originally, I thought that I would just tour with David for a couple of months. And meanwhile, Frank was going to take a couple of months to put together the movie we had made, Baby Snakes. But neither of those things worked out as planned. First of all, Frank couldn’t get finance, financial backing for the movie, so instead he formed a new band took off again. And that, and then from my side of it, you know working with David worked out real well and I just continued on with him. There was no bad, bad time between Frank and I. We parted good friends.

Marc Allan: One other thing I’ll ask you, then I’ll let you go. And that is, you’ve been traveling quite a bit in the last, I guess, four years, with different musicians probably before that as well. But is it hard for you having a family and being on the road constantly?

Adrian Belew: Yeah, it is. I don’t know what to say about it, except that it’s the real heartbreaker of the whole thing. I have, I have a great wife who’s really supportive of what I’m doing and understanding about it. And you know, it’s just, it’s really hard on both of us ’cause, you know, I have two children. My little boy is 2 years old, his name’s Ernie, and then my daughter is 4 years old and her, her name is Audie. And you know, aside from missing my wife who is essentially not only my wife but my very best friend and closest person to me in the whole world, it’s very hard. It’s just as hard on them too, but it’s, it’s a part of the thing. There’s not nothing you can do about it. So you kind of have to have to, have to deal with it. I find that a lot of times I’m enjoying something, I could probably be enjoying it much more if, if my heart was not somewhere else. And there are a lot of times something really great is happening for me, and I’m still just thinking, “Boy I’d just be, I’d be tickled pink just to be sitting in my living room right now,” which is kind of strange to feel that way sometimes. It’s hard to be 100% into things, but I’m always 100% into the hour and a half that we spend on stage. That’s, that’s what it amounts to for me. I’m really glad and fortunate to have these kind of opportunities, and you’ve gotta do it while you can. I understand the music business well enough to know that it won’t last forever and you gotta do it while you can. I mean, I hope to be playing music all my life. I’m not saying that I won’t, but you know how it goes. You’re in fashion for a while and then you’re not for a while, and then maybe you are again for a while.

Marc Allan: How long is the tour gonna last?

Adrian Belew: This tour lasts through the middle of December, about December 18th. We have, the last two weeks are in Japan. And the rest of it is of course, across the rest of the United States, going down through most of the Eastern Seaboard then into, into the Midwest, down into the Texas area and all that, and then up to California. It is a good band to watch.

Marc Allan: Yes.

Adrian Belew: I think that it’s intense in that, so people can really watch what’s going on. It doesn’t exactly need theatrics or anything of that nature.

Marc Allan: Just tell me, where are you calling from?

Adrian Belew: I’m calling from the Holiday Inn.

Marc Allan: No, I mean what city.

Adrian Belew: Oh, oh this city is Washington, DC. This is our day off, our travel day. I didn’t know that this, this was supposed to be done a week ago. I had no idea of that.

Marc Allan: Yeah, I was a little surprised to hear from you, to tell you the truth.

Adrian Belew: Yeah I was just, they gives me a list here. And in fact, I’ve never done phone interviews before, but they gave me a list and I was wondering why in the world I, why in the world, first of all, this was a different area code, and why I was talking on the phone rather than just meeting you in person, as I’d prefer.

Marc Allan: Yeah, well, it’s a lot nicer to meet in person.

Adrian Belew: Oh, that’s amazing, I’m really sorry about that. Someone’s got their wires crossed here.

Marc Allan: No, I’m glad, ’cause I, you know, I did want to talk to, you know, I wasn’t sure if it was either gonna be you or Bill who called, I wasn’t sure.

Adrian Belew: Okay, Marc.

Marc Allan: Okay, bye.

Adrian Belew: Bye bye.