Interview with Pat Mastelotto in Lollipop
Date Submitted: 20-Nov-1996
Submitted By: David Kirkdorffer (SayAaahh at aol dot com)
An interview with Pat Mastelotto
by Nik Rainey
Lollipop Freezine #30
Boston, MA
October 1996
Q. This is more or less he third incarnation of King Crimson – how does
Mach III compare with the 70's / 80's lineups?
PAT -- I'd put them in three categories – song based category, the poppy
stuff with strong lyrics and melody; the instrumental aspect, which is
something Crimson's always done; and third, something that 70's and 90's
Crimson have most in common, improvisation. "Thrak," for example, is
wide open. It could go anywhere -- from string quartet to a wild
Burundi drum excursion, what ever happens. It's a question of reacting
to the person standing next to you. Whoever takes the lead, the rest
fall in place behind him. That's the premise behind THRAK ATTAK, which
just came out on Robert's Discipline label. It all came from our
improvs last year.
Q. How did you hookup with Crimson in the first place?
PAT – Specifically, I came to work with Robert on his tour with David
Sylvian following their "The First Day" album. Jerry Marotta, who
drummed on the album, kind of fell out before the tour. I heard about
the gig, flew over to England, auditioned, then wound up on the tour
that resulted in "Damage," the live album. Afterwards I kind of stuck
around, and here I am.
Q. What are your musical influences? You and Bill Bruford obviously
have different approaches…
PAT – Yeah, I don't have proper credentials. I don't read music or know
proper drum rudiments, I'm more a seat-of-the-pants bar-band kid who's
played in bands all his life. Bill has much more of the jazz/symphonic
percussion background. My roots are more in he Beatles, Zeppelin, the
whole 60's side. It works well in terms of Robert's two trio concept;
the others sometimes joke that Bill's Elvin Jones and I'm Ringo Starr.
So together we're Elvo and Ringvin.
Bill and I came up with a strategy pretty quickly in that we don't try
to play unison parts, like the Doobie Brothers, or the Jim Gordon/Jim
Keltner "Mad Dogs and Englishmen" thing. We're more like the Coleman
approach were one guy plays electric and the other acoustic, only Bill
and I both play hybrid electric/acoustic kits – so we don't try and fall
on the same beats in the bar or the same timbre. If Bill jumps into
something that relies on a lot of cymbals, I'll jump into something that
relies on a lot of skin sounds; if he goes into metal tones, I'll go
into wood, and so on. I basically play in his holes. He play a lot
faster and with more finesse that I do, so it usually comes down to me
playing the bombastic heavy shit, and Bill skittering around inside it,
like wheels turning within wheels. It tends to be very polymetric –
we'll pull different meters. He could play in 5 and I'll play in 7, and
there's always a bit of math involved where you figure out where we'll
coincide again. It might sound like chaos but there's always a strategy
that'll lead us back home
Q. One thing I'm really curious about is why you played the H.O.R.D.E.
Tour. It seemed like those other bands appeal to a different crowd that
you.
PAT – What sort of crowd do you think that would be?
Q. Uh… Well, hippies. I mean even in the hippie era, Crimson was not
exactly embraced by those people.
PAT – Yeah, we'll scare some of 'em. I played H.O.R.D.E. last year with
my friends, The Rembrandts (no comment -- ed.). I'd played on all of
their albums. It was kind of my last hurrah with them because Crimson
keeps me pretty busy. Anyway, when we were trying to figure out where to
tour this year, I suggested H.O.R.D.E. because it would mean playing o a
different crowd that usually comes to our shows. We have a very loyal
fan base, the kind tat buys the record the day it comes out, sees every
show, and that's fantastic, but what about the people who would never
hear about our band? We don't et played on MTV or the radio, we don't
do pop singles, so I though the H.O.R.D.E. crowd would be good for us.
I always thought they were nice,
receptive-to-anything-across-the-board-type-kids – not a purely metal or
a world beat crowd, they like diverse stuff. And it would be a
challenge – we'd be going on early in the day, so we'd have no light
setup. It'd be a different atmosphere than we're accustomed to. And
yes, some put their fingers in their ears and walked out, but some an
back to the stage to check us out, so it was actually pretty fantastic.
And Robert enjoyed it, too. We were worried that he couldn't deal with
the lack of privacy. He's a very withdrawn, private man, and here he is
sharing a dressing-room with Neil Young and navigating through hallways
full of people – and he dug it! Surprise, surprise! There he is
sitting in the wings, checking out Lenny Kravitz and liking it! Wow!
Q. So I guess the H.O.R.D.E. m.o. is kind of like what you do with
music itself – go against the norm.
PAT – Well, I'm jaded. I've loved King Crimson since I was 13, but I've
always thought that if you give 'em a chance, they'll love us. Now I
know that's not entirely true after some of the reactions we got at
H.O.R.D.E., but to my mind, the more diverse, the better. That's he key
and that's why I'm here.
THE END