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Interviewed for this feature: Mel Collins, Pat Mastelotto<\/p><\/div>\n
Among the most notable musical acts in the latter category is King Crimson. Founded in the very late \u201860s by guitarist Robert Fripp, the original King Crimson was at the forefront of progressive rock. Combining a classical music sensibility with bone-crushing riffs and dramatic soundscapes, tracks like \u201c21st<\/sup> Century Schizoid Man\u201d signaled that the London-based group wasn\u2019t interested in following trends.<\/p>\n And it didn\u2019t. But the first-album lineup of band \u2013 featuring future Emerson Lake & Palmer bassist\/singer Greg Lake as well as future Foreigner multi-instrumentalist Ian McDonald \u2013 fell apart within months. Fripp soldiered on, making In the Wake of Poseidon<\/i> with temporary members. For perhaps the only time in its career, King Crimson made an album that sounded like its predecessor.<\/p>\n Yet for its five subsequent \u201870s-era releases, King Crimson navigated wild, jarring shifts in both its lineup and musical style. The music took a jazzier turn on Lizard<\/i> (1970) and 1971\u2019s Islands<\/i>. Those two albums featured Mel Collins on saxophones, flute and bass flute. He\u2019d be gone by the following release, but Collins would return to the King Crimson lineup in 2013, after a 40-year break. \u201cI\u2019m a much better player now,\u201d he says with a warm chuckle.<\/p>\n By the time of the mighty Red<\/i> in 1974, the group was a trio: Fripp, bassist John Wetton (later of Asia) and drummer Bill Bruford. The latter had quit Yes in 1972 because that progressive rock band didn\u2019t present enough of a challenge; he\u2019d find that challenge in great quantity with the demanding, knotty proto-progressive metal of tracks like \u201cFallen Angel\u201d and \u201cStarless.\u201d<\/p>\n The boundary-pushing Red<\/i> looked to be King Crimson\u2019s breakthrough album, one that reached a wide mainstream audience while remaining steadfastly uncompromising in its musical values. But the ever-idiosyncratic Fripp had other ideas: he announced the group\u2019s dissolution two weeks before the record\u2019s release. It looked as if the era of King Crimson was over.<\/p>\n It was, and it wasn\u2019t. After spending time as an in-demand journeyman guitarist collaborating with some of the more innovative artists of the era (David Bowie, Peter Gabriel, Brian Eno), by 1981 Robert Fripp was ready to return to King Crimson. But the reactivated band was even more different than it had been before: while Bruford returned, the other two members \u2013 guitarist Adrian Belew and Chapman stick wizard Tony Levin \u2013 were Americans. And the \u201880s King Crimson made progressive, polyrhythmic music that (in part) shared some of the musical concepts with which Talking Heads had toyed, taking them in radically different directions. That lineup would go on to do something no previous configuration of King Crimson had done: it made three albums.<\/p>\n Then King Crimson went away, again. This time it stayed away for nearly a decade. And when King Crimson returned in 1994, it didn\u2019t resemble previous incarnations: the band was a \u201cdouble trio\u201d featuring two guitarists, two drummers and two stick players. The music was even less commercially-inclined than ever before, combining metal, prog, modern classical and industrial in a singular manner that only vaguely resembled the few other artists exploring similar territory (Tool, Nine Inch Nails).<\/p>\n King Crimson, 2021<\/p><\/div>\n With the by-now-expected lineup and configuration changes, hiatuses and stylistic shifts, King Crimson has more or less persisted since then. The group released its most recent studio record, The Power to Believe<\/i>, in 2003. The band members have remained busy collectively and together, though for the last several years King Crimson has functioned primarily as a live entity. Asked if a studio album is likely to figure in King Crimson\u2019s future, drummer Pat Mastelotto is forthright. \u201c\u2019Probably no\u2019 is the quick answer,\u201d he says. \u201cI don\u2019t see us going into a studio.\u201d He does make the point that the band \u201ccarr[ies] a studio with us at every show; everything’s being recorded.\u201d But for now, live music is King Crimson\u2019s raison d\u2019\u00eatre<\/i>.<\/p>\n The current lineup is known colloquially as \u201cthe seven-headed beast,\u201d and slightly more formally as King Crimson IX. With the exception of the departure of drummer Bill Rieflin in 2019 (he passed away in 2020), the group\u2019s lineup has remained essentially the same for more than eight years (an eternity in Crim-land). Joining founder Fripp are guitarist-vocalist Jakko Jakszyk, longtime member Tony Levin (bass, Chapman stick) and sax\/flute man Mel Collins, who was a member way back in 1970-\u201972.<\/p>\n And this King Crimson has not one, not two, but three<\/i> drummers: Mastelotto (involved with all of the group\u2019s activities since 1994), former Porcupine Tree drummer Gavin Harrison and Jeremy Stacey (the latter also plays keyboards). In concert, the three drummers are set up out front at stage level, with the rest of the band behind them on risers. As with most everything involving King Crimson, things are done differently, and not simply for difference’s sake.<\/p>\n That do-it-differently approach applies to the music, as well. Even though there has been little in the way of new compositions from King Crimson over the last two decades, the live arrangements of songs from its deep back catalog are often strikingly different than the recorded versions. Taking full advantage of the group\u2019s stunningly high level of musicianship \u2013 and those three powerhouse drummers \u2013 the seven-headed beast King Crimson executes its music with what might be called brutal finesse.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/kc21_all.jpg\")