Digital Interviews: Why did you choose the bass as your instrument?

Tony Levin: That’s an interesting question. I became curious about five years ago, having spent my whole life doing one thing -- playing the bass. I asked my parents, and they said they specifically asked me what instrument I wanted to play, and I said the bass. They asked me why, and I said I didn’t know. Remarkably, that’s still true. I still don’t know -- and this is an interesting thing -- I figured out after all these years that, having made that decision not intellectually but from some other part of me, it happened to be one of those very lucky decisions. Consequently, I’m still very happy just playing, thumping along on the bass. I’m not a guy who wants to be a lead guitar player, who wants to be at the front of the band. I have no motivation in my career aside from doing what I’m doing. It turns out this was a very lucky decision.

DI: But you have dabbled with other instruments.

TL: Oh, yeah. I’ve got a bachelor’s degree in music. I can play a bunch of instruments. But I’m very happy playing the bass, playing what you might consider the normal function of the bass, being the low guy and playing with other guys in the band, as opposed to being a virtuoso soloist. I have nothing against that, but I am just not driven to do that. What I’ve decided after all these years is that I’m lucky, and whatever part of me made that decision was correct, and I’m glad.

DI: How old were you when you started playing?

TL: About 10. I’m glad I listened to that part, and I didn’t figure out something like, “Well, maybe I won’t make a living at it,” or “Maybe I won’t be as popular if I do that.” I like the bass. I still don’t know why.

DI: Tell us about playing for President Kennedy.

TL: I played at the White House -- on the lawn, anyway. It seems like I was about 15 years old. I went down there with an orchestra -- the Greater Boston Symphony Youth Orchestra -- and played at the White House for Jackie and John. People can hardly believe that I was around. I mean the earth had just finished cooling around then, and there I was already playing for a President, although with an orchestra, which is quite different. It was a pretty remarkable experience, even for a 15 year-old.

DI: You went to school with Steve Gadd. How were you influenced by him?

TL: I was primarily a classical player who played a little jazz. Steve Gadd was an excellent and renowned -- even at that age -- jazz player who also played classical. Because I had the luck to be the only bass player in school who wanted to play jazz at all, I lucked into being in bands with Steve. He kindly indulged me with my classical lack of a jazz groove, and he slowly taught me through the couple of years. By example, he taught me how to get the right feel.

DI: You’ve played alongside Peter Gabriel for his entire solo career.

TL: After school, I went to New York -- kind of fell into New York, it wasn’t my intention -- and carved out a job playing in studios, which paid well. I actually didn’t like it all that much. I wanted to go out and play with guys more. I started to get called to play on heavy rock albums - like Alice Cooper and Lou Reed, and then Peter Gabriel. That’s how I met Peter -- on his first album. The producer had asked me to do it, and when Peter asked me to go out on the road, I said, “Absolutely. That’s the kind of thing I’ve been hoping to do.”

DI: The rock stuff was a different direction than jazz or classical. What made you decide to pursue that?

TL: I liked it. In fact, after classical, and a little bit of jazz playing, I wanted to be a rock player. I didn’t want to play jazz or classical anymore. When I went to New York and started doing studio work, that was rock studio work. My jazz career was very short. [laughs] A year or two back in Rochester, while I was in school. It isn’t that I don’t like jazz, I just didn’t feel that comfortable playing it. I far preferred playing rock.

DI: How is playing the Chapman Stick different from a regular bass?

TL: Very different. The stick is an instrument that’s played by hammering on, tapping, finger tapping. An easier way to describe it is that it only takes one finger to play a note, like a piano, even though the strings are visible. So most stick players play the stick as both a bass and a guitar instrument. However, being a bass player, I usually only play the bass side of it. I play it in a bass function. There are a few exceptions to that -- when I’m doing something for King Crimson, or for one of my own albums -- but basically I play the bass side of it and use it as another tool, with a slightly different tambour and a slightly different attack.

DI: What are Funk Fingers?

TL: That’s even further afield from the norm. Peter Gabriel’s So album had a song called "Big Time" on it. When we were recording that in England, I thought, this would be a nice time to have the drummer come over and play drums on the bass strings while I finger with the left hand. Not a completely unique idea, but not a common way to play the bass. We did the track that way. About a year later we were on the road, and I was pathetically trying to play that part with a drumstick in my right hand and having to finger in the left hand. I was getting through it, but it wasn’t “killing” anybody. Peter Gabriel walked by me one day at sound check and watched me practicing with that one stick, and said, “Tony, why don’t you try to figure out a way to put two drumsticks on your fingers?” It was one of those brilliant ideas from a guy who thinks left-handed. Peter has a very alternative way of thinking. So, with the help of my road tech, I got some things going later. I named them Funk Fingers. First we called them Freddie Fingers, because a lot of people referred to Freddie Krueger, or Fu Fingers, because Fu Manchu was kind of what they looked like. The first ones were a bit off. The sticks were a little too heavy and they’d break strings -- I could break a string just with one note -- or they were too tight around my fingers, which would turn purple. [laughs] Or they were too loose, and the stick would go flying into the audience in the middle of a fast riff. So there was some adjustment. I spent a couple of years on it on the road, slightly adjusting it. And when I finally got it right, I was so pleased with them, I asked that same tech to make a few hundred pairs, and just for a hoot, I put them on the Web site to be available to adventurous bass players. Through the years, hundreds of bass players have gotten them. I don’t know how they’re doing with them. I applaud their courage. [laughs]

DI: You were one of the last people to play with John Lennon. How did that come about?

TL: As usual, I was called to do it by the production people -- that’s usually the way it is when I do a record. John didn’t know me. He came up to me the first day and said, “I don’t know you. They say you’re good. Just don’t play too many notes.” I said, “Don’t worry. You got the right guy, John.” It did work out very well. I loved playing with him, and he seemed to respect my parts. It was a treat for me that later he doubled a lot of my parts with horn parts and stuff. Clearly, he was listening to my bass parts. It was one set of sessions, but later they made two albums out of it -- Milk And Honey and Double Fantasy. It was a pleasure, of course, and an honor for all of us musicians who were involved in it. There was to have been a world tour with both John and Yoko. It’s just one of the many things the world was robbed of by his sad death.

DI: Then there was a new incarnation of King Crimson. How did the decision come along to bring you on board?

TL: I had met Robert Fripp on Peter Gabriel’s first album. When he was playing on it, I was playing on it. We got along great musically. He subsequently asked me to play on his solo album called Exposure, which I did. He decided to reform King Crimson, although he was leery of using that name. In about 1980, he called me to come and play with Adrian Belew and Bill Bruford and him, and just see how it worked out, and I did. We all were very happy immediately. Then we decided to record and tour. We weren’t even sure for that first six months whether to call it King Crimson or give it a new name, because King Crimson’s a wonderful name, but there was a little bit of baggage attached. Robert used to only do one album with each line-up, and then he would break the band up -- and none of us wanted that to happen. Also, Bill Bruford and Robert Fripp, together, almost was King Crimson. So in the end, that logic prevailed, and we decided to call it King Crimson. And at that point, we were able to start doing some of the old Crimson repertoire, although it was a little bit different. Until then, we weren’t sure we wanted to do any old Crimson repertoire.

DI: Did the members of the group think that this line-up would be as successful as it was?

TL: When you’re in a group -- in my experience, anyway -- you never get to stand back and see it in perspective. The same with your own career. We players are very good at focusing on what we’re doing. In the short term, in the studio, when you’re doing take 22 of the same piece, it takes a certain kind of talent and ability to just focus in and ignore the fact that 21 times you made the same mistake [laughs], and you better not make it. It takes a certain kind of concentration. In the same way, long-term, I tend to just focus on what I’m doing. I can’t speak for the other guys, but probably all of us never stood back and thought about where we stand in the history of King Crimson, or where King Crimson stands in the history of rock. The only time you think about that is when you’re doing an interview and you’re asked about it. [laughs]

DI: Exactly!

TL: It’s what you do. Like a plumber doesn’t really read books about the history of plumbing and think about its significance in a house. He’s just doing it.

DI: Yeah, how was that drain you fixed 50 years ago?

TL: Even though I’m thrilled to be in the arts and doing it, I’m just focusing on doing it and doing it the best I can. That encompasses all of the niches of my little brain day to day.

DI: You’ve been referred to as a member of King Crimson in absentia. You’re doing your own thing. Is that something you may go back to in the future?

TL: Oh, sure. I consider myself a member -- a full member -- of Crimson. With Crimson, the situations are never simple. [laughs] Anything you ask me about Crimson, I’ll probably end up saying, “Well, here’s the way most bands do it, but we do it a different way.” Even in 1980, when they wanted to do that, I’d been busy with other stuff. I was on a Peter Gabriel tour, and they had to wait for me to finish that. I’m sorry it’s that way. I’d rather just be around. Sometimes, indeed, they’d ask me at a time when I said, “Sure, I’ll do it.” But, especially with Peter Gabriel, that was my first commitment, and I was never able to make myself pull out of a Gabriel tour for anything else. Adrian Belew is the guy with the solo career and solo albums. In the ‘80s, I never had that. Even Robert didn’t. It was just Adrian. Even though I might have been the busiest guy doing other projects, it was Adrian who actually had two careers going on -- his solo thing and King Crimson. In the ‘90s, we’ve all made solo albums, and it’s kind of equal for all of us. I think I’m probably still the guy who gets called most to do other projects, but I’m always very thrilled to do a Crimson thing.

Which brings us up to this year. Crimson is recording and touring this year without me and without Bill Bruford. Almost exactly a year ago, when Robert decided to do a “King Crimson” project instead of a “ProjeKct,” he called and asked me, and I had just started a Seal tour. I was committed for 14 months, so I sadly had to say, you know, once again, “You can wait for me, but, if I were you, I’d go ahead without me.” Which he did. They went ahead without me. Subsequently, the Seal tour ended, and I felt [laughs] that familiar feeling you have when you’re a freelance musician, that somehow you’ve gone from too much work to none. [laughs] I felt bad that I wasn’t able to do the Crimson thing then, but life goes on. In fact, the free time that I had because of that enabled me to do something I’d been wanting to do a long time, which was to sit down and write, and to compose a CD. I’ve done a bunch of CDs on my own, but I haven’t had time to do one where, really, it was based on my compositions. So, last summer I began doing that, and that’s the album Waters Of Eden, which just has come out. It takes quite a while to write the music and then get it recorded, and then get it released. I wouldn’t have had that time if I was out with Seal or King Crimson.

DI: Tell us about your interest in photography.

TL: I’ve always taken pictures on the road. I do it less now, and I do it digitally now, but I’ve always taken “black and whites” on the road. In the late ‘80s, I released a book called Road Photos. Sadly, I’ve sold out of them and I’ve lost the plates, so I’m not able to reissue that. There are no books of Road Photos, which was a musician’s perspective of the guys back stage and clubs -- pretty interesting. Mostly it was Crimson and Gabriel photos. Subsequent to that, I’ve been asked to contribute my photos to exhibitions in different places. I did a photo essay on the Woodstock Festival, not the last one, but the one before that. I played it with Peter Gabriel. I spent the whole two days taking photos. I’m planning another “road photo” book, one that’s specifically of King Crimson. I will accompany that with my journals of being on the road with King Crimson. In about a year I should have that book ready.

DI: You’ve also released the book Beyond the Bass Clef.

TL: Beyond the Bass Clef is the kind where you write words [laughs] instead of just using photos. Many years ago I started work on that, on the road, combining essays about music, about my thoughts about music, with anecdotes -- a lot of funny anecdotes. A lot of stuff happens when you’re on the road with a rock band. I’m not the guy with the best memory, but I’ve always been the guy who writes it down in these situations. Finally, after a number of years of that, I felt like I have enough here to do it, and I cast around for a title, a title and concept aside from the anecdotes. I wanted it to have a sense of what it was about, and I felt it was about the life and the art of bass playing -- not really instructing on how to do it, but the real full story, including a lot of my cartoons of funny situations that show up.

DI: What was the motivation behind your own record label?

TL: I wanted to do my own music. I know the feeling of going to a record label with a project that’s off the beaten path -- or a book, for that matter -- and the downtrodden feeling you get when they look at it as how much income it’s going to bring to them, and you’re looking at it as the music you want to do. I felt that, since I earn my living as a bass player, when I do my solo projects, they’re really not going to ever be about selling a lot of records. I thought, why don’t I save myself that humiliation and just start a record company? [laughs] It’s been quite a bit of work. It seemed like a good idea at the time. If I had it to do again, I would still do it, but I would know a lot more. Even selling a small amount of CDs takes a lot of skill and a lot of work. It’s been easier since I’ve had the Web site, but it calls on me to pour a number of hours into it. I know about myself that, if I have some hours free, I want to spend them on creative things first, and then, if there’s a little free time at the end of the day, okay, I’ll do a little homework with Papa Bear Records. Consequently, the releases on Papa Bear Records are what I consider a well-kept secret. Those people who find them on the Web write to me. They really like it. They feel like they’ve found something special, and, indeed, in a way they have, because it’s a very small circulation. The first three CDs I made, I designed the package and I did all the artwork, so it was a very personal thing. I like that. I like when you can get the feel of the artist or musician totally throughout the product, and that’s good, but now I understand why record companies don’t like that, and why they like to do jewel-cases and things like that. Each of those first three albums, I had to finish a road tour that paid well, to use that money to finance making the next CD. It’s just not a way to keep doing a lot of them.

The momentous point came last summer when I started writing this new album, and Narada Records -- who had come to me before and asked me if I’d be interested in doing something with them -- approached me through a producer, and asked if I’d like to put a record out. I just suddenly thought, I wouldn’t have to be the one to call up all the newspapers. There’s still a lot of work for me to do, but I could be spared some of the tough business, so I can put more time into the creative.

DI: Tell us about a few of your recent projects.

TL: They’re all pretty different. There’s a record company called Magna Carta Records that likes putting together progressive players for projects, and I’ve done two series of them -- Black Light Syndrome with Bozzio-Levin-Stevens, and Liquid Tension Experiment with the guys from Dream Theater. I’ve enjoyed both, but I must admit, I’m more satisfied when the band stays together and does a little touring. I’ve learned that the music, if it’s good, wants to have a life of its own. It wants to have some growth after it’s been recorded. I feel, somehow, incomplete and cheated if we do the album and then we never tour. My plan is to do less of the thrown-together projects, even if they’re good musically, and when I do them, to make sure we can tour. There is a new Bozzio-Levin-Stevens one coming out, we recorded last December -- Bozzio-Levin-Stevens II, I think it’ll be called. It should be out in July or August, and we hope to tour with it. Logistically, nowadays, it’s not so easy. Three busy guys. But, ideally, if everybody is free, we’ll tour sometime in the fall with that band.

DI: And you're always doing something with Bill Bruford.

TL: That’s the same as these other situations, but instead of me being the busy guy, it’s Bill. So, whenever I can tempt or lure Bill away from his other things…Bill’s favorite thing to do is Earthworks, his own group. One thing I love to do is Bruford - Levin Upper Extremities, the group that we did an album with. It’s really a wonderful band, and wonderful live. We could tour a lot, and would be quite successful at it, except Bill is over in England and he’s busy. Yes, when I can tear him away from England to do that, we’ll do some more. Probably not on a big scale. Bill, because of his other commitments, won’t free six months for touring for that band. It has to be King Crimson, I think, or Yes, or something like that.

DI: You’ve been touring with the California Guitar Trio, and you’re also doing a new project, Waters Of Eden.

TL: Well, this tour is an unusual one, in that I’m the guest of the California Guitar Trio. We’re separate groups, but we’ve combined forces in a way that really works musically. I toured with them a bit last year, and played on their live album -- which is just out, called Rocks the West -- and it just seemed auspicious that they wanted to tour the season, and I wanted to tour. I think our tour started the day my album was released, and we do a few songs from Waters Of Eden, but mostly we do songs of theirs, which is great. We do some other things, just for a hoot, as a treat for the audience. We do a couple of Crimson songs, and go out into the middle of the audience and play unplugged. It’s been very nice. Then I tour playing only the music from Waters of Eden with my own band. I say “my own band,” not that I own these guys, but I was very lucky to get two of the guys who did the album, who are also alumni of the original Peter Gabriel band -- Larry Fast on synth, a good friend of mine, and Jerry Marotta on drums, neighbor and, probably, my closest friend. Jerry and Larry and I, we’ve toured together, literally, for a decade with Peter Gabriel. Maybe more than 10 years. What a treat for us to tour again. The fact is that the name on the marquee will be Tony Levin, but I don’t care about that so much. [laughs] The guitar player is another friend of mine named Jesse Gress, who hasn’t toured with us with Peter Gabriel. We’ll be playing the music from Waters of Eden, and maybe a Crimson song, and, of course, a Gabriel thing in some way. The spirit of it will be similar to the spirit of those early Gabriel tours. A lot of Peter’s music came from him, but some of the sound of it came from Jerry’s drumming and Larry’s synth playing, so we’re going to have fun with that. We’ll do things like marching in from the back with drums, the way we used to on the Gabriel tour. I’m very much looking forward to that. A momentous occasion for me, too, because I’ve never in my life as a musician toured or even done one show as Tony Levin, with my own band. It’ll be a challenge for me, and I do love challenges. That’s one thing I’ve had consistently -- I love challenges. [laughs]

DI: Usually a performer plays as a side person, then when they play with top billing, they don’t go back to the side position. That doesn't seem to be the case with you.

TL: You’re right. It’s not a matter of “going back.” I’m a bass player who loves playing bass with other people. The albums where I put together the band, I am the “front man.” But, even as the front man, I share the microphone and the attention with the other guys. To me, that’s where the music comes from. This is instrumental music and it doesn’t all come from one guy being a virtuoso, at least if I’m the guy. It’s a band, and it should be considered as such. I think that’ll make it an interesting show. I’ll have Larry do a piece -- at least one -- from Synergy. He’s had his own band and his own CDs and output for decades now. So, there’ll be a Synergy thing, and I’ll feature each of the other guys on different things.

DI: You have a love for coffee, don’t you?

TL: My love for coffee is the same as anybody else’s. I’ve toured in Italy and played with Italians for many, many years. It’s just accepted that espresso has to be exactly right there. I was kind of fussy about espresso way back, when you couldn’t get it right in America, so I started carrying my own machine on the road, and I designed the road case for it. My Web page has a coffee page with various essays I’ve come across, and pictures. I’m like anyone else who loves it. I’m a little bit obsessive about getting my espresso right. It’s easier and easier as more of the world likes it a lot, especially in America. There are still many countries or continents where you just have to accept their version of espresso. Still, the best by far is in Italy, I’ve got to say. [laughs]

DI: Do you ever get too wired to play?

TL: I don’t. I don’t drink a lot in a row, and I only drink very short espresso -- solo shot or single shot. There’s the Seattle jargon and then there’s the Italian way, you know what I mean? A very small amount has less caffeine than a cup of regular coffee. If I drink a cup of coffee, if there’s no espresso around for a few days, I’ll drink regular coffee, and then I get totally buzzed and uncomfortable. It doesn’t work for me well -- my eyes hurt and stuff like that. The same as if I had a diet Pepsi. I can’t handle the caffeine in that. Espresso has caffeine, but not a ton of it. A very interesting essay on coffee is on my Web page, written by Balzac. He’s totally a nut case about it. He goes into how it’s necessary to drink more and more of it as you get into a writing project. He has a recipe for making it stronger and stronger. But after a certain point…like you’re good for 27 days and then you die from it. [laughs] Then he has a recipe for how to recover right before you’re going to die from it. It’s very funny. One of the funny things is his recipe with milk and chicken soup to wean yourself off of it. Then somewhere he mentions -- I’m paraphrasing badly -- he says, “And my friend Rossini (because he was a contemporary of Rossini) tells me that the way he has coffee is perfect for 21 days, which is exactly the amount of time necessary to write an opera.” [laughs] So you had this guy Rossini writing about 100 operas, basically buzzed on coffee until he finished his opera, and then he would recover for a month, and then sit down and write another one. I have an interesting page. It has things like that, but it also has an essay that I read in Modern Maturity about how bad caffeine is for you, and how it’s going to kill us all, eventually, if we don’t stop drinking it. [laughs]

DI: You also have pictures of your dog Sherlock sitting in the studio with the musicians.

TL: Sherlock’s an older dog now, and he’s a puppy on that page. We have two dogs, Moe and Sherlock. Moe’s picture is on there, too. Sherlock, when he was a little, little pup, was coming to sessions with me. He has been in studios a lot. Indeed, not as much as me -- I don’t take him in all the sessions. One of the studios named him Inspector Sherlock, because as soon as he came around, he would sniff around in the corners and find little odd pieces of tape that had been dropped, and things like that, which is a very useful thing in the studio. So his full name is Inspector Sherlock.

DI: So now you turn your attention to Waters of Eden.

TL: I’m really immersed in the Waters of Eden, the music of it. It’s so new. It’s only been out a couple of weeks. To rehearse with the band and play this stuff live -- like I said earlier about good music, hopefully it’s good, and it’ll take on a life of its own and change. So I’m really looking forward to that. I’m very much immersed in that one now.