TALKING GUITAR
An Interview with
ADRIAN BELEW
What are your current plans for the Adrian
Belew Power Trio? You seemed to be very
excited about the group at NAMM this year.
I’ll be recording a new record with Eric and
Julie Slick. It’ll be the first record of new
material that we’ve done. We’ve only done
project before; that was a live record. I’m
so excited about it, I’ve been playing guitar
every day, waiting for them to get here!
I’ve heard that the upcoming record will
have five distinct sections, or movements
that are unrelated.
Well, it’s a piece that I’ve written over the last
two or three years. It’s called “e” and yes, it’s
in five different sections. Each of them could
stand alone as a piece of music, but they do
interact in the sense that some thematic things
weave through all five pieces and tie them
together. I’ve not been able to put much of
this down on tape correctly, so I really don’t
know what I have on my hands, but in the end
it’s probably going to be 40 or 50 minutes
long—a power trio playing something almost
symphonic. And there are many different sides
to it, so if you don’t like one section, hopefully
you’ll love the next! [laughs]
How would you compare this to the Side
series you released, in terms of its sound?
How musically different is it?
It’s different in the sense that it’s more symphonically based, and it’s all instrumental.
In terms of the Side records, it cuts out a
lot that was great for the orchestration, you
know, like the electronica sounds and things
like that. Of course, there are no words or
voices in there to humanize it. I think it’s radically different really, from what I’ve put on
a record before—except that in one sense
it has the sound, overall, of something that
King Crimson would do.
The beautiful thing about the Power Trio is that
we’ve gone everywhere, all over the world, and
we’ve had so many experiences. We’ve played
every type of venue, every type of event, and
we’ve grown so much musically because of
that. It’s perfect timing to finally do something
brand new and original with this lineup.
Both Julie and Eric Slick—the other members of the Power Trio—have pretty impressive backgrounds and experience. What is
it like creating music with their combined
talents, as opposed to other acts you’ve
worked with in the past?
I’m bringing material to them and expressing the different ways I’d like to see them
approach it. What’s nice about it is that they
naturally play their instruments the way that I
wish I could play those instruments. [laughs] I
mean, the kind of approach or orchestration
that Eric might do for drumming in a section is
quite often exactly what I would have tried to
do, and the same goes for Julie’s bass playing.
I think it’s because their growing up and studying music involved a lot of things that I was
involved in. They learned a lot of the Frank
Zappa and King Crimson catalogs, David
Bowie’s stuff, Talking Heads… so it turns out
that they are really familiar with a lot of things
that I do. That’s what will make this record different from most of my solo records. On those
records I played all the instruments; this time
around I’m going to have a better bass player
and drummer than me.
You recently continued work with Trent
Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, notably on the
Ghost I-IV record. That was a massive
instrumental record, and your playing is
very expressive. What was your mindset
during those recording sessions? What
were those sessions like in terms of your
artistic freedom?
BY JORDAN WAGNER
Well, I’ve done three records with Trent now,
and all three have been alike: I walk in the door,
get my equipment working properly, and he
starts playing me pieces of music. He’ll say,
“If you find something you want to play, stop
us and we’ll record you.” [laughs] It’s usually
easy for me to find something to play in his
material. It really fits my styles—my sounds and
the things I like to do—very well. When you
play with Trent Reznor, you don’t want to pull
out your normal things; you go do the most
extreme things that you can. It’s a lot of fun,
because it puts me on the spot to do what I
really love to do, which is be creative with the
guitar. The sky’s the limit. Nobody is saying
“No! No! No!” Everyone is saying, “Yes!”
I really enjoy working with Trent, because it
gives me that type of freedom. In a way, it’s the
same kind of freedom that I had working with
David Bowie. He was also very encouraging,
asking me to do more wild things. The same
was true with the Talking Heads. Trent Reznor
is, to me, a major inspiration in the world of
production. I really like the way that his records
sound. I’m always keeping my eyes open on
the process, so I can maybe learn something.
A lot of people, including musicians, have no
idea that you contributed heavily to Zappa’s
Sheik Yerbouti. It was in fact your break into
the music business. How intense were those
sessions? Was it gradual or did you just hit
the ground running when you arrived?
The entire Sheik Yerbouti record, from my
perspective, was done live. Everything you
hear of me on the record is live, mostly
recorded in New York—or other places,
because Frank would record things all the
time. I didn’t get to go in and play on the
record. From what I can tell, there wasn’t
much that had to be played. I think Frank
just added some little things of his own. It’s
mostly a live record, in other words.
