Guitar God Adrian Belew discusses his new project Flux and more
Musician Adrian Belew might be best known as one of the worldâs great guitar players but fans also know heâs a great singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and record producer. He was discovered by Frank Zappa in the late 1970’s and has worked with the likes of David Bowie, the Talking Heads, The Bears, and most notably King Crimson. He has also produced several successful solo albums and contributed to an array of albums ranging from Paul Simonâs Graceland to Cyndi Lauperâs True Colors to Nine Inch Nailâs The Downward Spiral. The Adrian Belew Power Trio is currently on tour and I was able to catch up with him before his show at the Highline Ballroom.
It seems like music is a language that you just seem to have taken to early on, I know you taught yourself guitar right?
I taught myself everything that I play. I play a lot of instruments and I taught myself to produce records and so much technology has come down the pike in the years I’ve been making music, so yes, Iâm totally self taught. I never tried to learn to read music even when I played with Frank Zappa whose music is super complicated. I learned it by rote. Thatâs the way I work.
I think that thereâs an intrinsic value to music, even if youâre not a great player. What was your experience with music like before you really played?
Oh, I’ve always had a love for music, even when I was a child with my aunts and uncles by singing along with the jukebox trying to emulate all the singers of that era and I kinda knew. From age 5 on I could just understand things musically, I could understand harmonies and odd things that I donât think many 5 year olds can understand. At age 10 I got into the school band. I wanted to march around in parades and play drums and things and at 13-14 the Beatles came out and I played drums in my first band and realized thatâs what Iâm going to do with my life.
I have to ask you about some of the bands you played with because they are some of my favorite bands ever. Frank Zappa discovered you and you spent a number of years with David Bowie, then you played with the Talking Heads and Nine Inch Nails. These different types of musicians have a consistent creativity about them, but who was your favorite collaborator?
Thatâs a tough one, I donât know if I can say a favorite. Iâll just say that theyâre all different. Every time Iâve certainly been involved with a collaboration, I come to it with an open mind. The only thing that they all seem to have in common mostly is theyâre all innovative in their own unique way. Trent Reznor making a record is totally different than say Paul Simon, or you know someone else. I love the collaborations because they keep me kind of sharp. Like I say, you go in, and you might only be there for 4 days making a record with someone, you have to get right down to knowing them and knowing what their needs are and what theyâre hoping to get from you and you have to give it to them. Itâs different than having a band, like being in King Crimson, that took me 33 years to be able to express all the things I wanted to or the solo career with 20 albums. When youâre playing, youâre just in the studio with someone for a few days, itâs just a different dynamic. First of all, I love it because you make all these new friends and connections, theyâre always some of the most amazing people. Just to be around David Bowie. I played with David Bowie all around the world so heâs an exception because I did tour with him. I didnât tour with most of the people I made records with but just to be around someone like that, itâs mind blowing. My year with Frank Zappa changed my life so much I canât even explain it and I feel really really fortunate that I have in my mind my own little home movie of all the faces he made and all the stories he told and I was there.
Well, Iâm envious! Youâre so known as an innovative guitar player and one of the best, I wanted to ask you what you think makes a great guitar player?
I think the guitar is one of the most expressive instruments with a few others. You can bend notes, you can affect the guitar in so many ways electronically, thereâs so many different guitar approaches, acoustic guitar, bluegrass guitar, jazz guitar, itâs really such a great expressive instrument. I feel like that best guitarists are the ones who figured out how to express themselves best. And so I would say overall my favorite guitar players are all the ones who found their own way, their own voice. And thatâs not easy to do and thatâs rare. Most of the time, most guitar players are doing things they learned somewhere else and they are just kind of reshaping them a little bit or combining them with something else and thatâs the way I started because that is the way you start. You learn it but at some point you have to break away from it and when you do that and you find your own way of doing something, those are the people that I think rise to the top because they’re the ones that sort of make something new for other people to learn.
Over the years you’ve been working with creative people and then working as a solo artist creatively and Iâm impressed with Flux, your new project, and the whole concept. How did you come around with that idea?
Well, itâs really a strange story. In 1979, I first toured Europe with David Bowie and we had a day off in in Marseilles, France. Itâs a harbor town and so I went down to the harbor and was sitting there outside enjoying a Coke or whatever and there were 2 cafes behind me, each of them had their door open, each of them playing a different radio station. The music was kind of intermingling in the air with the harbor, people walking by, laughter, seagulls, boat horns, wave sounds and I just realized thatâs how I wanted my music to be. Over those decades since, Iâve been trying to figure out how to do that and eventually came to the realization it would have to be done in a matter that didnât repeat itself. 5 years ago I decided Iâm going to try to make this work even though I donât know how technically to do it. I thought it would make a music form that would change quickly, randomly, in short bursts, just like the internet does. Just like people process information. Originally, Flux was a music concept only. I thought it would be some âway onâ record that it would be different every time you heard the record but as it turns out its an app. There has to be some visuals so it makes it even more intriguing. Now, even when youâre listening to music, which always comes at you in different ways and so do the visuals and they never lie, they never come up the same way either. So for people who really still want something more common process, you can favorite anything you ever hear and it automatically gets put into a playlist and you can go back and hear that anytime you want, so over time you can build up a playlist of your favorite bits. Itâs like a big jigsaw puzzle.
I love the merging of art, technology, music in that way and you are really giving people an experience thatâs really unique and itâs really innovative.
Well that’s what we try to say, it is a Flux experience. Itâs a different half an hour every time you press play. And by the way, no one will ever hear that half an hour the same either, so it makes it quite unique. One other thing about it that I really love is it’s never done because I can continue to add and update and change things if I want. It gives me like a lifelong painting that never stops.
For more information on Adrian Belew and his new project Flux, please visit www.adrianbelew.net.