BEAT bassist Tony Levin talks about revisiting the ’80s work of prog giants King Crimson

Bassist Tony Levin recalls that John Lennon once told him “don’t play too many notes” as he prepared to cut a session with the former Beatle. But Levin already knew that was expected of him.

A musician’s musician, Levin has drawn praise for extending his instrument’s function and stretching the boundaries of what’s possible. But — and this is important — he tries not to go beyond what the song requires.

Levin is currently touring with BEAT, a project that revisits the music that he made with progressive-rock luminaries King Crimson in the 1980s. The tour stops at San Antonio’s Majestic Theatre on Saturday, Dec. 14.

As a studio musician, Levin may have played on hundreds of albums backing legendary artists including Lennon, Stevie Nicks and Peter Gabriel, but King Crimson — and, by extension, BEAT — offers what may be the best showcase for his work.

Levin checked in via Zoom from the tour’s stop in Denver to talk enthusiastically about BEAT. But the Current couldn’t let him get away without asking him about his unusual choice of instruments and his new solo album, Bringing It Down to the Bass.

King Crimson, the brainchild of British guitar maestro Robert Fripp, went through many evolutions during its more than five-decade lifespan, though its DNA is encoded with progressive rock.

The ’80s era of Crimson celebrated by BEAT shifted away from the band’s ’70s focus on skronky avant-garde compositions and improvisations. Instead, a rhythm-centered world vibe took center stage, owing much to guitarist-vocalist and songwriter Adrian Belew’s time as a touring member of Talking Heads.

That ’80s integration of Crimson — which also included Levin on bass and Chapman Stick (more on that momentarily) and Bill Bruford on drums — released three tightly wound records, the best regarded being the 1981 debut, Discipline.

Though the lineup split before the ’80s ended, Belew wanted to revisit its music again in recent years. Fripp, now retired at 78, gave his blessing, and BEAT was born. In addition to Belew and Levin, BEAT’s lineup is completed by guitarist Steve Vai and drummer Danny Carey, who also pounds the skins for Tool. Fripp approved both choices.

BEAT is a four-headed beast, allowing each virtuoso player to contribute something unique thanks to divergent approaches and experiences. Even though the lineup is something of a dream team for prog fans, Levin revealed the tour was years in the making due to the individual members’ demanding schedules and the COVID-19 pandemic.

The following interview with Levin was edited for length and clarity.

What made Steve Vai and Danny Carey so good for the open spots?

Well, first of all, it was Adrian who chose them, not me, but I was thoroughly thrilled to have them. Steve Vai is one of the few guitar players that I’ve known of who would even want to tackle or be able to tackle playing Robert Fripp’s parts of the 1980s. Steve also has his own style, and I’m thrilled when he veers off into sometimes the same notes [from the original recording] but with his own style. Likewise, Danny is just a great musician and able to do a whole lot of things. In the case of Danny, he grew up sort of a fan of Bill Bruford in that era. And he actually owns a couple of drums that were formerly Bill’s. So, what could be a more fitting thing? I think it was just a labor of love that made him want to revisit — well, not revisit, revisit in my case. Made him want to visit.

I knew what you meant. Revisit his youth and love of the records.

There you go. Well put. And I think that’s why he’s doing it. I think it’s just really fun for him. And, certainly, the way he’s attacking it and playing fits in with that.

Danny’s manager had said he’s had a huge grin on his face ever since this was all figured out. What’s the difference performing this material with the new guys as opposed to with Robert and Bill decades ago?

It’s very different, if I can even pretend to remember what it was like. But it’s similar in ways. We’re not sticking exactly to the record the way it was. And that was the same when we first toured. However, these are different musicians, and the way it goes is very different. It’s a little wilder and maybe less in control. I’m having trouble finding the words, but extremely different. We kind of locked in in the ’80s to a way to do the live versions. It had room in it to wander, but not a lot of room. And, this time, we didn’t start out with that. We started out with “Let’s see where this goes.”

Given that we’ve all aged, is it challenging to revisit the older parts? King Crimson’s music has always been regarded as highly technical.

My bass parts and my Chapman Stick parts were not particularly technically difficult. I haven’t quantified how my technique has faded a little bit as I got older, but I’m sure it has. I used to be fairly fast, but I was never the fastest guy. And now I’m not the second-fastest guy, but I’m not usually trying to play fast. I have no difficulty finger-wise and technically playing the instrument. There are a few places in the set where a piece has very complex parts, where I’m playing on one side of the Chapman Stick, I’m playing in one time signature on the other side, and I’m playing with the guitars in a different time signature. But then Adrian is singing in a third time signature, and I have the option of singing background vocal with him, or maybe not. In the first time around, I was a hotshot, and I did all three of those time signatures. Now I have tried a few times on some shows, but most nights I think about it and I say, “I’ll just let that go.” I don’t know if it’s my age or if I had to be so immersed in those counter-rhythms that my fingers could do them. My hands could do them on their own without me having to pay attention to it.

Can you explain to our readers what a Chapman Stick is? It’s one of those I-know-it-when-I-hear-it things for a lot of listeners.

I ought to be good at answering that. I’m not sure I am, but I have been asked a lot of times since 1976. It is both a bass and a guitar. It has a stereo output. My Chapman stick is 12-string. They’re all either 10-string or 12-string. I have six guitar strings and six bass strings, and I can play them both at the same time, one finger on each. There’s a lot of possibilities that are a little bit like playing a piano. The bass strings have a very percussive sound, which made me think, “This is going to be appropriate for some music I do.” But then in 1981, I found myself in King Crimson, looking to play my bass parts not in the usual find-the-groove-and-make-it-a-good-bass-part but in a progressive way of, “What can I do to reinvent the way I even look at the instrument?”

Your new solo album is varied, despite being all bass-led tracks. “Road Dogs” has a sort of ZZ Top flavor.

I wasn’t trying to be ZZ Top at all, but yes, the end section sounds like ZZ Top. There are worse ways to sound! And I will tell you an interesting story about that: there’s no guitar on that track. That’s me playing the cello.

Really?

Yes, amazingly. I’m playing the electric cello. I had a good riff, and that went into a B section of what I would call a little bit of a progressive rock thing that’s not in 4/4, and then back to the theme. And then it kind of did a thing — maybe Hendrix did it once — where it [feels like] eighth notes, and suddenly you realize it’s a shuffle. I think one of his Woodstock tracks. Anyway, so now I’m in a shuffle, and I’m playing along the bass part. I’m writing the piece at this point. Playing the bass part and some Chapman Stick to simulate the guitar part. I have a thought in the back of my mind. I’ve often wanted to play fretless bass through a vocoder. A vocoder is a pedal effect that you can combine somebody’s words with an instrument. I haven’t heard it with a fretless bass, which really sounds like a human voice anyway. And then I thought, “Well, I’m going to forget this. I’m going to dinner. I’m going to just put a marker down on the tape.” And I pulled over the microphone and I sang “road dogs.” And I tried to make my voice sound like I thought the vocoder fretless bass would sound. And I just used the words “road dogs” just because. Fast forward, and I kept trying different vocoder type things, and it sounded like crap. It just didn’t sound any good. And I thought, well, you know what? That strange voice, I’ll just go with that. And then I’ll write a few more words, just humorous ones about rigging and trucking and busing and what we do on the road. It took me to ZZ Top Land and it took me to being a vocalist when I was planning on playing the bass through a vocoder.

Wikipedia says you’ve played on 500 albums. Is that correct?

Sounds about right. I’m not counting.

Let’s say there was an apocalypse and only one of your records could survive, maybe in a bunker or something. It survives and it’s dug up in a thousand years. The one album Tony Levin played on. What is it?

Wow. First of all, Tony Levin is not good at hypotheticals. My mind is wandering all over the place. And also not good at favorites. I don’t have favorites. So, it’s a little bit of an exercise in just whatever pops into my mind. I’ll say John Lennon’s Double Fantasy.

Do you have a fun or interesting story about John or the making of that record that you can share with us?

There’s not much about it because it was very quick. Everything was cut short, of course, by the tragic death. It was really two weeks in the studio. I can tell you what I’ve said before, which is that when he first met me in the studio, he said, “They tell me you’re good. Just don’t play too many notes.” And I smiled because I knew I wouldn’t play too many notes. And I understood that he wouldn’t know that. And we got along great — and great musically. He clearly liked my basslines and doubled them in some cases. I later learned he hadn’t been making music for a while. And he kind of wanted to jam, and have fun, and play Buddy Holly riffs and things like that. But then he would hold himself. He would catch himself and say, “Hey, let’s do the album and play the song.” It was very easy, as you can imagine. First of all, I was just lucky to be the one bass player who was called to do that album. It could have been any of hundreds or maybe even thousands of guys and gals that could have played that. What could be nicer for a bass player than to have John Lennon in front of you, playing a new song of his and saying, “Hey, can you find a bass part for this?” Well, yes, I can.

That’s interesting that his instruction was “don’t play too many notes.” He had a different collaborator you may be familiar with, Paul McCartney. While Paul isn’t a busy player, exactly, he also doesn’t stick to playing the root of the chord. Do you think John wanted something consciously different from that?

I don’t think that, because when I would play him a lot of things, which I did, he was fine with it. Somebody had recommended me to him. And, as you can imagine, he thought, well, that person who thinks this guy is good, maybe this guy is like a super-fast virtuoso. And he’s going to step all over my music. Why wouldn’t he think that? He had never heard me play, or if he had, he didn’t know it. I smiled because I knew that I’m not that kind of bass player. And he’s about to find out when we do the first piece and I don’t solo over it or do some wild, innovative, great bass stuff that’s inappropriate. So, that’s my interpretation of why he said that. Also, he was a New Yorker at that time. And I was a New Yorker at that time. Saying it all right up front is a completely normal thing in New York. So, that made me smile too, even though he had come a long distance to be a New Yorker. Let’s not beat around the bush. Don’t play too many notes.

$69-$362, 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 14, Majestic Theatre, 224 E. Houston St., (210) 226-3333, majesticempire.com.

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This article appears in Dec 11-17, 2024.