Interview with John Wetton in Big Bang Magazine
Date Submitted: 1-Feb-2000
Submitted By: Aymeric Leroy (calyx at club-internet dot fr)
John Wetton interview by Aymeric Leroy, March 17th, 1998 for issue 25 of Big Bang Magazine
Aymeric Leroy: My first impression on "Arkangel" is that it's a more European-sounding album than "Battlelines" which has this typically Californian production...
John Wetton: Yes, it's quite true. "Battlelines" was made for an American record company. Actually, a British record company, but an American version of, it was made for Virgin Records America. And it was made under the strict supervision of Virgin Records America. And it was done within... Los Angeles, with an American producer, predominantly American musicians, and co-written predominantly by myself with Americans. So it ended up very American. I wanted to avoid that this time around. There's nothing wrong with the guys that played on it, there's nothing wrong with the production, the production's really good on "Battlelines", but I wanted to do something that was much more personal, more emotional, and much closer to home.
AL: I would say it's more stripped down...
JW: More stripped down, yes, but it actually has more classical... connotations than "Battlelines". "Battlelines" fits very neatly into the American A/C category, whereas I'd think with "Arkangel"... it has much more diversity. One minute it's orchestral, the next minute it's hard-rock, the next minute it's acoustic...
AL: There are a couple of tracks which sound like "Battlelines", though...
JW: Well, you know... A lot of people say all the time that I sound like Asia some of the time, but... it's the same voice, it's the same guy, it's the same writer... It's gonna sound a little bit like it, you know. There's no way that I'm gonna change my voice or my writing overnight. I think just the flavour of the album is different on "Arkangel", I think it's a lot more daring. It doesn't sit neatly between the tracks, you know, on the railway line. It actually goes a long way either side of the road. And for me that's much more satisfying. 'Cause as good as "Battlelines" was, each track really sounded the same as the previous one, it was the same people playing, it was the same production, and... Ron Nevison, he's a great producer, but he plays it very very safe. With "Arkangel", I was allowed to do what I wanted, so I took everything to different extremes. I hope that people will appreciate that, I hope that they like it.
AL: Can you say a few words about John Young. I think he was in Asia when you reformed the band in 1989?
JW: Yes, he was, that's correct. He's been a friend of mine and... It's very few people that I can write with in this world. There have been maybe two or three people in the past, Geoff Downes being one of them, where we sat down and we knew immediately that we had the same connection. And John Young is another one. He came along at the right time for me. I think I met him about... in '88, when I did an MTV... he was part of the MTV house band, he was just playing about inbetween songs, and I said oh, I like that. And when it came to replacing Geoff Downes in Asia in '89, I called him immediately and said will you do it, and he said yes. And there's a couple of songs that we wrote during that period, of which the title track from "Arkangel" is one. We came up with the musical idea, we played it on the road, but it didn't actually make any sense until... I think that was in Italy, about two years ago. There was a thunderstorm, I was up in the mountains, in the North of Toscany, and suddenly the whole of the thing, the lyrics... I was able to put them with the music... And really, John and I have been friends for a long time, he now plays in the band that I use on the road. I have the greatest respect for him as writer, he's tremendous, and he seems to be able to just come up with stuff that I like. I mean, I try to make records that I would buy - and I am a record buyer, I do go out and look through the stores. And most of the records that I buy nowadays are by female artists, Tori Amos, Annie Lennox, and a few obscure European and American writers, because I don't find mainstream rock very satisfying. I think everyone is trying too hard to get airplay, you can smell it a mile away.
AL: The fact that you tend to write with others would suggest that you are more of a lyricist nowadays, which is quite the contrary to what you did in the early days with Richard Palmer-James...
JW: That's right. I do write some music, though. Usually I write all the lyrics, and about 50 percent of the music. And I go to people like Bob Marlette and John Young like you would go to the doctor (laughs). "Doctor, there's something wrong with this song, it doesn't seem to work, and I think it needs someone else's perspective on it", and they go "Ah, this is what you need. If you change the verse to being something like this". And then "Ah!", I go, "thank you very much, that's what I needed, doctor" (laughs). That's very much the way it is, like, I get stuck, it takes me either twenty minutes to write a song, or twenty years. Some Asia songs wrote themselves very quickly, they were just given to me, you know, they came out of the blue from nowhere. There's actually one on "Arkangel" called "Emma", which came very very quickly...
AL: Do you have an example of one that really took twenty years?
JW: Yes, I can give you a very clear example, there's one called "Walking On Air", which went through four or five different incarnations before it ended up on "Battlelines". It just took forever. I could not quite nail it, you know. And I think I eventually nailed it by going in completely the opposite direction. There's a version which we did with Asia, which is just completely different. Completely different. And I just kept hammering away because I thought that it was a very good title, and there was something about it that I really liked. And eventually I thought it came right with the version that ended up on "Battlelines", which is in fact a demo. We took the 24-track analog tape, I put it over onto digital, redid the vocal and that was it, we just left it as it was. But... it's just weird, people say, you know, how do songs happen? And I don't have an answer to that, they just do. Sometimes it takes forever, sometimes it's over very quickly. All I know is that with certain people, I stand a much better chance of getting a good result. And I know instantly whether a relationship is going to work or not, within an hour.
AL: As a lyricist, it took you a long time to emerge, and reading your lyrics, in particular those relating to your childhood, it seems it's a somewhat painful process...
JW: Precisely. One of the biggest steps, for a lyric writer, is to write in the first person, to actually take that step and say "I", "this is how I feel", "this is me". It's a really kind of dangerous territory because you are opening your emotions up to everyone to examine. So for me, all the way through the seventies, I would contribute lyrics to King Crimson, did the lyrics to UK, and very rarely did I use the word "I". Because... along with a lot of English people, and writers, I have an inborn embarrassment about talking about myself. I had to overcome that. And the first time I really started to express emotions was with Asia, in 1982. In fact the first word of the first song is "I" : "I never meant to be so bad to you...". It started to become autobiographical from then on. But by 1991, when Asia was touring in South America, I was standing on stage and I realised that I was 41 years old and that I really wasn't getting the satisfaction out of the music that I wanted to. And there were other people who doing it much better than I was, singers-songwriters who could just write songs like they were reading out of a diary, you know, very personal stuff that they could come out with. And I felt the burning desire at that point to do that, and I think "Battlelines" was a kind of halfway step. I think I went the whole hog with "Arkangel". And I think "Arkangel" is the most personal statement from me that I've ever done.
AL: In what way wasn't Asia the right place to do these kind of songs?
JW: I think that basically it has to come from a solo artist, it can't come from a group. A group is too much of a democracy, although I pretty much had the freedom I wanted with Asia, it was very difficult to convince the other guys that this was the way that I thought we should be going, in the nineties. We were stuck totally in the 80's. I think, looking at what Asia's done since 1991, they're still stuck in the 80's. As far as I'm concerned, they haven't progressed at all.
AL: What would in your opinion be a modern Asia?
JW: Well, I can't think of a better combination than the one we had during 1991, which was myself, Geoff Downes, Carl Palmer and Pat Thrall. For me that was the best touring band we ever had. But what I'm really talking about is the content of the music, and I felt that we were to a certain extent... constipated. Geoff and I first started having trouble writing together in 1991. Before that, it had been so easy, we'd sit down and within one afternoon, we'd probably have three totally separate ideas for songs. And roundabout that time, we started to slow down, it started to become more difficult for us to put music together. I think that's maybe just a cycle that one goes through. My suggestion at the time, in 1991, was that we take a couple of years away from each other, do different things, work with different people, and then come back together and see if it worked again, which I'm sure it would have done. But in fact no one else wanted to do that, so I decided to get out and go and do a record on my own. And the rest stayed together... sort of.
AL: Could you say a few words about each of your solo albums, starting with the Jack Knife album. What always striked me about it was that you'd actually done it at the same time as the first UK album, which is amazing...
JW: I know (laughs)... Maybe it was the other side of the coin, you know. But it was... Really, what it was, Jack Knife was an excuse, because I had a record deal, it was an excuse for me to indulge myself and a few friends who had been at school with me, and to do an album of the songs that we used to play when we were at school together. It was never meant to be a serious career move. But in fact it still sells okay, it's not a bad seller. And people I speak to say, oh I hated it when it came out, but I kinda like it now (laughs). I went straight from UK to Jack Knife, and then back to UK again, it was coming out of the sauna getting into an ice bath and then getting back into the sauna again, that's what it was like for me. It was an indulgence to do that record...
The next solo album, which was "Caught In The Crossfire", in 1980, was as you can probably guess the stepping stone between UK and Asia, where the songs got to be more direct, shorter songs... Eddie Jobson and myself had two completely different ideas of what UK should be doing. I was heading more in the direction of shorter songs, more accessible, and he was heading more in the direction of long instrumental extravaganzas. And I guess the reason why UK worked to a certain extent, was that it was a combination of the two of us that had these conflicting ideas, which is where the tension, the edge was in UK, the constant conflict between the four-minute song and the fifteen-minute instrumental extravaganza... So there must be some kind of validity to what happened with UK, but it's very obvious when you look at what happened to the two of us after UK split up, or rather we separated, in 1979, I went on to do "Caught In The Crossfire", which was the stepping stone to Asia, and... In fact, it is even more explicit than that : I chose the letter "A" to go with, and Eddie Jobson chose the letter "Z" to go with. His project was called Zinc, mine was called Asia. It was about as far apart as you can get. And he went for the progressive stuff, and I went more for... well, still progressive, but more on the pop side, I guess. That's what I always wanted to do, and it was very satisfying. And it had its obvious repercutions, that is, when you do get that successful, then a lot of people want to see you fail, even people within your own community want to see you fail, you know... The reason why I'm very happy now, doing what I'm doing, is that I don't have to answer to anyone else, I don't have to go into the studio and do battle with three other guys and a producer. It's a much more civilized way of life for me now. In Asia it used to be a battle, and in UK too, a battle just to decide on what the title was going to be, for a track, you know. And now I don't have that problem.
AL: You don't see yourself being in a band anymore...
JW: No, I don't think so. I did some shows with Steve Hackett, just over a year ago, in Japan. And he's very much in the same position that I am. He came out of a band, and he's been on his own now for about twenty years, except for GTR, and we thought that it may be dangerous for us to work together other than a few days in the studio. 'Cause the studio tracks went down very quickly. Then we decided to do five shows in Japan, and I realised after two shows that it wasn't right for me. Again, I started to get the feeling that I'd have with Asia that I was just... trotting out the tunes, you know. We'd do "Watcher Of The Skies", followed by "In The Court Of The Crimson King", followed by "Heat Of The Moment", and... I started to get the same feeling again, you know, that this wasn't right for me. So, without having a bad word with Steve, we both agreed that it wasn't right for us, you know... either of us. So... We have since done some work together, and we remain very good friends, so... I don't know. There was someone who said to me after UK, "why do you keep forming bands with famous people?". And it stuck in my mind ever since. It's difficult to work with famous people, because they already have their ego baggage that comes with them. Sometimes it's a lot easier to work with just regular guys. And that's pretty much what I do now. My band consists of a pool of maybe five regular guys - if two aren't available then I can use another two. It's been pretty much the same... The same drummer has been with me now for two years, Thomas Lang, the Austrian drummer. I use one of two keyboard players, which is either John Young or Martin Orford. The guitar player now is permanent, it's David Kilminster. And I find that it's a happy touring band, you know, we don't have problems. Everybody learns their parts, everyone gets solo and everybody seems to be fairly happy.
AL: Speaking of the Steve Hackett record, and I understand you've also recorded a cover of "Your Own Special Way" for another tribute album, how does it feel for an ex-member of King Crimson and UK to sort of pay tribute to a band like Genesis who were actually of the same generation of bands as yours?
JW: I don't really mind that. I don't want to get known for doing that. In fact I got a phone call last week for a label who is putting out a King Crimson tribute and they said, would I sing "Book Of Saturday"? And I said, if I sing "Book Of Saturday", it's no tribute (laughs)... At that time I said, I don't think I could do any more of these, because the more I get known for... You know, the thing is, it's so easy, to do those things, for me, it's really really easy. And if I've got an afternoon off, I'd rather go into the studio and be doing something, than sitting around doing nothing. So my option is always to work rather than not work. But I had to stop, because otherwise I could spent the rest of my life doing tribute albums, cause it's not that difficult for me. What I liked about doing the Genesis one was, Steve just called me and said, would you just have a go at this one, I think you could do it really well. "Watcher Of The Skies" or "Firth Of Fifth", one of the two. And at the end of the afternoon, he said "that is the best anyone has ever sung that song". And I was very very flattered (laughs). I mean, Peter Gabriel has sung that, Phil Collins has sung that song, countless Genesis tribute bands have sung that song, but for Steve to say it was the best he'd ever heard it sung was a big compliment to me. Then he called about three days later, and he said, "would you do another one?", and I said OK, but that's it, I can't do any more.
Then I did Progfest in Los Angeles in May '97, and the person who arranged Progfest was doing a Genesis tribute album and he said, please please please, would you do a Genesis tribute... and I said, I've just done two songs on Steve's album, I don't think I could do another Genesis song. And he said well, you choose one, just a song that you like that any of the Genesis guys have written. I said fine, and I just chose "Your Own Special Way", cause Mike is a friend of mine, and I happen to think it's a really good song, that's all.
I'm not going to make a career out of being a Genesis impersonator.
AL: My point was also that it was strange for someone who was in King Crimson to pay tribute to a band that was actually influenced by King Crimson, whereas it's normally the other way around...
JW: Yes, but you know, I always... I always do things because of a friendship involved. I've never done anything because of a boardroom decision. And it just so happens that I know Steve Hackett, you know, and we just enjoy working together, it was great. But I know what you're saying. Logically, they should be doing the tribute (laughs).
AL: One of your main collaborators in the last twenty years or so has been Phil Manzanera. You actually did an album together in 1986. How did that come about?
JW: It was after all the breakup with Asia happened. Phil used to have a studio, which is called Gallery, where a lot of Roxy Music albums were recorded. It's right in the middle of the country. I went over there one day to do some demos, just to put down a few songs that I had in my head. And Phil played me a half-finished track that he'd just started and said, do you think you can do something with that. And that track turned out to be the first track of that record. And at that time, I still had a deal with Geffen Records. Even though they didn't want me in Asia anymore, they wanted to keep me on the contract. So I said, how about we do an album with Phil and myself? Which is like, Asia meets Roxy Music. And they said, yeah, OK, get on with it. So we did, we spent about six weeks recording that album. And then at the end of it, I was asked to come back to Asia again. It was something which really, looking back on it, I shouldn't have done. If I'd had the experience that I had in '91, I would have started a solo career much earlier, probably about '87 or '88, something like that. Because I've been so much happier since that. It is hard to rebuild a career aged 48, you know, but for me it's still better than being in a band where I'm totally unhappy all the time.
AL: Can we talk a bit about the UK project that is underway? I understand you'll finally be finishing it in June, in Los Angeles?
JW: Yes, that's right... It's taken the best of three years to get about an hour's worth of music, to record it. And I've still got to do about two or three vocals to finish it off. It's really Eddie Jobson's baby. Bill Bruford and I are sort of in it as... supportive partners, rather than equal partners. It's not my main raison-d'tre...
AL: So you place yourself on the same level of involvement as Bill Bruford?
JW: A little bit more, because there's a lot of my writing on there as well. And Bill's involvement was four days in the studio, mine has been three years of writing it as well. All I can tell you is that it's very good.
AL: How would you compare it to the previous ones? I understand it's quite different...
JW: It's totally different... And yet, it still sounds like UK! The weird thing about it is that we have a sound that is somewhere between the Bulgarian Ladies' Choir and Nine Inch Nails (smiles). And yet it still has this UK atmosphere about it... What happened was, my live album "Chasing The Dragon" was released on an label called Masa in America. And one day I was in the office in Los Angeles, and they said oh, do you want to take some CD's? And I said yeah, let's see what you've got... And they're a very interesting label, they have lots of jazz, lots of classical stuff, lots of weird stuff that other labels won't take. And I said, oh, Bulgarian Ladies' Choir, what's that like? And the guy said ah, it's brilliant, you should really hear it, it's recorded live in Norway, and it's really really good, very passionate. So I took it home and I listened to it. And the next day I was having lunch with Eddie Jobson and I said, check this out, this would be a really off-the-wall way to kick UK back into play, but have a listen to it. And the next day I see him again and he says, this is absolutely brilliant! And he then set about orchestrating one of the pieces for choir, and he did it incredibly well. He flew to Sofia with the tapes, recorded the Ladies' Choir and... it's pretty weird. It's very Eastern European in flavour, yes. And most of their melodies have this kind of Eastern pentatonic thing.
AL: Did it actually influence the concept of the album?
JW: Yes. The lyrics are also very close to that sort of... you know, the constant boiling point that Eastern Europe has been constantly in, it used to be so unstable that it could explode in any minute. And then it has these centuries-long traditions of music. And also, Bulgaria in particular is a crossroads of Asia, African and European music, and we've kind of integrated that into the music. It's strange, it's not what you'd expect, but it is undoubtedly UK, and I think it's very good. As I said, I'm not pinning my career on it as much as Eddie is, you know, it's very much his baby. But I'm certainly proud to be a part of it, yeah.
AL: Would you do some gigs with it when it's released?
JW: I don't think that is a possibility, because it's taken us three years to get sixty minutes of music.
AL: But now it should be easy to go out and play them...
JW: No, no, no, no, no!!! (laughs)... That would seem the obvious thing to do, but... For me, it's very easy. At a moment's notice, I can get my band together and go and play in small club. I could play in Paris tomorrow night if someone would have me! But with UK, it would have to be so lavish that I don't think that we would be able to play in anywhere that the audience would be big enough to support the production. I just don't think it would work. And it would take too long to put it together. I've thought about this a lot, and I just don't see it happening. Mainly because I'm sure that Eddie Jobson would not be prepared to play in smaller places. That's probably the main reason why it wouldn't happen.
AL: Would you say the new album retains any of the hot playing that's on the first two albums?
JW: Yes, it does have band sound to it. It's not all Bulgarian ladies wailing in the mountains (smiles), there's a lot of quite intense playing on it as well. But we're still not sure whether Allan Holdsworth is going to be in or out, he keeps changing his mind, so...
AL: So the lead guitar parts are still not recorded?
JW: Hmm, some of them are, Steve Hackett did some. But some are not done, and maybe they won't be done. We might just keep it to the three of us.
AL: At the time of King Crimson you seemed to love improvising on the bass. Has that part of you completely died?
JW: No, no... In fact, when we play live, there's about 25 percent improvisation. With Crimson, it used to be about 55 to 60 percent improvisation and 40 percent arranged pieces. And... as much as it would be nice to do it nowadays, I don't think you can, I don't think audiences are prepared for that kind of improvisation, whereas in the 70's they were. I went to see Crimson two years ago, and I was actually surprised at how conventional they were. Because compared to when I was in the band, the mid-seventies, the band was much more outrageous. They played it very very safe. It was almost like a Yes or Genesis show, you know, which ironically is what Robert Fripp has been trying to get away from. I mean, the reason why he broke up King Crimson in 1974 was because he didn't want it to turn into a Yes or Genesis, cause it was about to get that popular. And now I go and see them, and what they're doing is really just a kind of pastiche of what we did twenty years ago.
AL: I think it sounds more like "Red" than it ever did, actually...
JW: Yes, that's right. Everything sounds like 'son of "Red"'... through a phaser, or a flanger. And their last title track, "Thrak", just sounds like "Red" with the whole thing put through a flanger. I'm not putting that down, cause Robert is a very good friend of mine, it's just an observation that I had that it just seemed really safe, you know. The band that I was in took unbelievable risks, every time that we walked out on stage, you know. And what I do on stage now is... yeah, sure I do about 70, 75 percent arranged songs, formal songs, and then there's a couple of songs that we do where the band just stretches out, and it gets quite hairy. It's not in the same way, improvisational, it's not as dangerous as King Crimson used to be, if you listen to, say "The Night Watch", it's quite hairy in places. It treads that dangerous line between jazz, classical and rock, and I think at that time we had a good technique of taking the audiences just about as far as they would go, and then bringing them back into a song again. I don't know whether you can do that anymore. I think you've either got to be Billy Cobham and improvise all night, or...
AL: I think David Cross is trying to do that, his music is perhaps the closest thing to the old King Crimson...
JW: Yeah, David played with me in London about a year and a half ago, and I sang a couple of songs on his latest album as well. But I don't think that he has the personalities in his band that can do it. I mean, it was a pretty specialised band, the '73-'74 King Crimson, you know. Everybody was pretty much at the peak of their ability. There's no way that I could play bass like that anymore at all. I don't have the hormones, you know (laughs). I don't have the muscle. It's just something you do when you're that age.
AL: You've been working a lot with musicians from the new generation of progressive rock bands in recent years, like Martin Orford from IQ, the guys from It Bites, or Mike Stobbie from Pallas. Do you feel linked to that scene at all?
JW: Oh yeah, very much so. It's strange now, because when I did progressive festivals, you are now getting third generation progbands who look up to IQ as being the originators. It's very odd, because IQ is actually second generation, maybe third generation... I would say Marillion is second generation, IQ is possibly third generation... Anyway, I didn't realise quite how much of a following progressive music had, and I certainly was not looking to jump on a bandwagon at all, because I just play what I play. If people want to associate that with progressive music, then they can. If they want to associate that with pop music, then they can. I just hate putting things into categories, because the artists that I truly admire, people like Joni Mitchell, don't fit into any category at all. She can come out with something which you'd consider folk music, she can at the same time come out with something that is pure jazz, and that to me is truly admirable. To me she's a goddess, she's absolutely brilliant. And I just hate this categorisation of music where it has to be prog music or it has to be pop. When you sit down to write a song, you don't think, oh I'm going to write a pop song. Maybe some people sit down and write prog tunes, but I don't. I just write tunes.
AL: It's hard to have a prog context at hand, when you write a song on your own, anyway...
JW: Yes, exactly so. Prog stuff tends to happen in the rehearsal room. You get a drummer and a keyboard player involved, and they start extemporising on themes. I mean, I think that prog probably came about somewhere where American jazz and blues hit European classical music. I think that's how prog was born. The father was European classical music, and the mother was American blues, and the offspring was something we call progressive music. I don't think as a generic term it works anymore. Because it's not progressive, in fact it's more regressive.
AL: It promised too much, I think...
JW: It promised too much, yeah. And also, now it's back to everyone... Everyone who wants to be progressive, in inverted comas, want to use mellotrons, Marshall amps and Rickenbacker basses, you know, it's all back to 1973, which is hardly progressive. So it's very much regressive. But it seems that progressive has become a generic term for a style of music which involves time changes, classical moods...
AL: Sophisticated rock, in a way...
JW: Yeah. I don't mind, I like sophisticated rock, you know, I like the fact that people can play their instruments. But to me, I think that music must change, it always has to change. We can't stand and try to turn the tide back, it must change. And you have to go with that, otherwise you're drowned.
AL: What do you think it will change to, ultimately?
JW: Oh, I don't know. I'm just going with it. I go with... however my writing feels like it's going. That's the way I'll go. I just don't think I should try and make a stand, and stick with what I've got. I think music has to change, it automatically has to change, otherwise it dies.
AL: You've been on the road quite a lot in recent years. What's your motivation for doing so much of it?
JW: Well, I'm just really enjoying it... There was a time during the eighties when a) I couldn't get a record deal, or I was being held to a contract that precluded me from doing it, and b) I was incapacitated, because I was 'out to lunch', you know, I really didn't have the inclination or the ability, or the motivation to go out and play. Either I was too drunk, or... Yeah, it just wasn't there for me. Now it's firmly back in place, and has been since... since the beginning of the nineties really.
AL: Would you say it's simply part of your nature being on the road and playing to people?...
JW: Yeah. I always used to think that if I was sitting at home on a Saturday night, that I should have been out playing somewhere. I always found it strange to sit and watch TV on a Saturday night, or to go to the pub, that I should have been working. Saturday night is when musicians go out and work. And... that's part of my nature, yeah. I just got very disillusioned, after the demise of Asia in 1984, I got very disillusioned, having achieved what I really wanted to achieve, which was commercial success... Because before that, with King Crimson and UK, we'd had critical success but no real commercial success... Crimson was on the verge of it, in '74, and UK was sort of on the verge of it in 1979, and then suddenly in '82 to have the commercial success, for me, got to put the lid on it. But then it all went wrong, and it hurt me a lot. I just retired into my shell for a couple of years.
AL: Last question, will you play live in France soon?
JW: I'm having a meeting this afternoon with the French promoter with a view to playing as soon as possible. I'm playing in Belgium and Holland in May, and I'd very much like to either start here in Paris, or end up here in Paris at the end of that. So I hope as soon as possible, but I have to wait and see what the promoter says. I would love to. The last time I played here was with Saga, and the reaction was tremendous... It was a tiny venue, I call it the cellar of death (laughs).