Interview with Robert Fripp in Reflex Magazine
Submitted By: Dave Mandl (dmandl at panix dot com)
Robert Fripp, interviewed by Dave Mandl
(Interview conducted on February 5, 1991 - originally appeared in Reflex
magazine).
It would probably be only a slight exaggeration to say that _In the Court
of the Crimson King,_ King Crimson's debut album, changed the face of rock
music. Appearing (in 1969) at the tail end of the psychedelic era, the
record almost single-handedly ushered in the era of British Progressive
Rock. King Crimson combined blood-curdling dissonance, spacy free
improvisation, and majestic, woodwind-and-mellotron-laced orchestral
passages with stunning virtuosity and extremely high volumes; the brains
behind the group, guitarist/composer Robert Fripp, coaxed strange and
terrifying sounds out of his instrument, and was widely admired for his
blinding speed, technical precision, masterful control of feedback and
distortion, and studious noncompliance with the blues-based norms of the
day. In the band's relatively short but productive lifetime, Crimson
recorded eight LPs, survived innumerable personnel changes (famous alumni
include Bill Bruford, Mel Collins, Boz Burrell, and Greg Lake), and saw its
influence and following grow considerably.
In late 1974, Fripp, the only remaining original member, decided to disband
the group once and for all. The ensuing nine years saw Fripp participating
in a multitude of projects. He collaborated with Brian Eno on the
minimalist crossover LPs _Evening Star_ and _No Pussyfooting_ and
contributed to or produced records by everyone from David Bowie (most
notably the exquisitely understated guitar lines on "Heroes"), to Peter
Gabriel, to New York folk group The Roches, to Daryl Hall. He also recorded
several albums of his own, developed the tape-loop system "Frippertronics,"
and (in stark contrast to most other former Progressive Rockers) eagerly
picked up on the new energy and musical forms of Punk, forming and touring
with the quasi-new wave band The League of Gentlemen (which included former
members of The Gang of Four and XTC). Mainly in reaction to the unwieldy
beasts that big rock groups had become, he also conducted low-key solo
tours as a "small, mobile, intelligent unit" with nothing but a guitar or
tape recorder. In the early '80s, he reformed King Crimson, reincarnated
this time as a more lyrical, even dancable, ensemble. Several tours and
three LPs later, he again split the band.
Since 1985, Fripp's time has been devoted almost completely to Guitarcraft,
a unique guitar instruction program designed by Fripp himself; he has also
performed extensively (and recorded a live LP) with The League of Crafty
Guitarists, a group of nineteen students hand-picked from the Guitarcraft
courses. After seven years out of the public eye, Fripp is now "returning
to public life as a working musician." His return is heralded by no less
than three new recordings: _Show of Hands,_ the second League of Crafty
Guitarists release (a studio recording this time); _Kneeling at the
Shrine,_ by his new band Sunday All Over The World; and _Ophelia's Shadow,_
by Toyah (Fripp's wife, and also a member of Sunday All Over The World),
which he contributed to. Far from the dark, aloof, and reticent figure
that he has been rumored to be, Fripp was cordial and open when I spoke to
him recently . . .
DM: I've always liked to refer to King Crimson as the greatest heavy metal
band of all time.
RF: "Schizoid Man," [from _In the Court of the Crimson King_] for me, was
intelligent heavy metal. It was very very hard to play (in its
time--technical standards have come forward now, of course). It was so hard
to play, and it was so terrifying. In early 1970 I saw Black Sabbath doing
_Paranoid_ (and this is without in any way criticizing Black Sabbath--they
were excellent in their field), and it didn't frighten me. And I had
thought that this new breed of music, with Black Sabbath, would viscerally
affect me in the same way that, for example, "Schizoid Man" did. And I was
not moved in the same way. I think "Red" [from the Crimson LP of the same
name] was a beautiful piece of Heavy metal--in 5 [the unusual time
signature 5/8]. I mean, I hadn't heard heavy metal in 5 before, but for me
that was it.
DM: I always found King Crimson _much_ more terrifying than the music that
was supposed to be.
RF: The interesting thing about the heavy bands is that the weight is in
the volume. For me, the weight is in the structure of the music, the
tension in the music as it's written and played. And if you _then_ add
enough volume so it's visceral, it doesn't have to be deafening to rip you
in two places.
DM: The stylistic range of the music you've made is about as extreme as it
gets, from New Music and "serious" composition all the way to the "heavy
metal." When you first started, at the time of the first King Crimson
record--1969, 1970--it's hard to imagine people listening to both genres;
they would have been two completely separate audiences. Do you find that
there are now a lot of people showing interest in both?
RF: If you go back to 1969, the business was not so much a business, and
the audiences were very open to all kinds of music, so if you'd go to a
"rock music festival," you would have a number of categories (as they'd now
be seen): folk, rock, progressive rock, hard rock--they'd all be there. And
what you would now call New Music would then be New Music, and the audience
would take the whole gamut--lots of different artists, lots of different
backgrounds. In 1969, if you went to a festival and you found them all on
there, there would be the same audience. However, rock music [eventually]
became more of a profession, more of an industry--between 1968 and 1978,
the rock industry had growth charts that no other industry compared with.
So things got a little more organized, strait-jacketed.
DM: More specialization.
RF: But for me in 1981, King Crimson was as eclectic as ever, and my work
today is as widely spaced as it's always been. I do believe that we don't
give audiences--we don't credit them with the intelligence they have.
DM: I was curious about your views on the record industry. You're in the
enviable position of doing music that's commercially successful, and then
having the freedom to do things like the League or _No Pussyfooting_.
RF: I have the same limitations and restrictions as anyone else at all.
Part of my return to public life--I'm representing three albums at the
moment as a return to public life. The first of them is _Ophelia's Shadow_.
If I just briefly tell you what the albums are, we'll then talk about why
it's no easier for me than anyone else in the position. _Ophelia's Shadow_
by Toyah: I will express a personal interest in this--this is my wife. I
helped her mix it and I played guitar and helped write a couple of the
tracks. The musicians on this record are almost the same musicians on
Sunday All Over the World, except the guitarist is different. The guitarist
on this is Tony Geballe, who is one of the more experienced Guitarcraft
students. Which segues us into the third record, The League of Crafties.
The difficulties we've had making it--Sunday All Over the World, and this
record [Toyah]--are the difficulties any young band faces. The budgets on
these things--the budget for this album [Toyah] is the same as a
mainstream single.
DM: A single? A 45?
RF: Right. The budget for this CD is the same as for a single in England
right now.
DM: So it doesn't matter to them how successful [King Crimson's] _Larks'
Tongues in Aspic_ was.
RF: No. You would not know that listening to it. It means you have to rehearse more, work quicker, a lot tighter, and the guy that has the studio got in the spirit of things--Tony Arnold--and gave us breaks because he was involved, in a way that you wouldn't otherwise get from most studios. But no, we have the same difficulties and the same restrictions as anyone else. In terms of the record industry, I haven't really been very involved for the past seven years, so I can't give you a detailed, up-to-the-minute concern other than: getting these three records together was not easy for anyone.
DM: So you do think that audiences are no more or less open--do you find
that having done music that's more accessible, people are more inclined to
pick up things like the League, _No Pussyfooting_--more extreme stuff that
they wouldn't have otherwise?
RF: Would you call _No Pussyfooting_ accessible or not?
DM: Honestly? I probably never would have noticed it or picked it up if I
hadn't been exposed to your and Eno's more "pop" stuff.
RF: The release of _No Pussyfooting_ was delayed for a year and a half by
the record company and the management, who thought that Eno's associations
with me would damage his commercial credibility, and that the record would
spoil his commercial career. It was then released in America on Antilles,
which is the next best thing to burying it. So the release of _No
Pussyfooting_ was actually delayed for a year and a half, nearly two years,
and effectively delayed for nine years in America. In terms of Crimson and
so-called accessible music, every album which Crimson brought along we were
told "This is not accessible." _Every one_. [The Crimson LP] _Discipline:_
"This is not accessible." Now you look back, and you say "Oh, 'Elephant
Talk' [from _Discipline_]--that's accessible, whereas the League of
Crafties is not accessible." All I can say is, everything I've ever done I
have been told, "This is not accessible," until it's still selling ten
years later.
DM: So the record companies just generally underestimate the audience.
RF: I would say yes. It's not underestimating the band, because generally
the people I work with and the work I do have a measure of respect within
the industry. But I do believe, yes, the audiences aren't given credit. I
will say that Crimson is not going to match the figures of lots of bands,
but it's certainly going to be on the high side of professionally
respectable.
DM: To a certain extent you mix different elements--King Crimson was not a
straight "rock band" by any measure--but there does seem to be a pretty
clear separation sometimes between your rockier material and your more
experimental material. Do you see it that way? Do you consciously focus on
one direction or the other? Or do you go out of your way to try to mix
elements and blur the lines between the different worlds?
RF: It's more to do with "This is what the music demands." It's not a
question of sitting down and pre-figuring out a whole potpourri of
different styles. It's, "In order to express this idea, that's what it has
to have." Some ideas have to have drums and bass, and some ideas cannot
have drums on them. You cannot use the League of Crafty Guitarists with a
drummer. There may come a time when we can, but the percussion is so built
into the instruments that the timbre would [be destroyed]. So it's what the
music needs in order to serve the music. Do I miss playing with Tony Levin
and a rocking drummer? You bet! That's part of what I need as a player
right now. It's not _everything_ that I need as a player, but it's part of
it.
DM: I'm sure you've heard all kinds of opinions, positive and negative,
about the League. The way that the League operates, the way your gigs are
organized, seems very unusual, even controversial--no talking to the
audience during shows, everyone sitting down in unison. Why have you
organized the band the way you have?
RF: First of all, Why the League of Crafty Guitarists? The Guitarcraft
courses have been running for six years, in America (both coasts) and
England, where we had a house for three years. I've just come from the
thirty-fourth American course, we've had courses in France, Germany,
Holland, Switzerland, Norway, Italy, New Zealand, with more requests to go
back and have courses than I can actually deal with. Most of the training
of young musicians [normally] is away from the public. But a musician plays
an instrument to play music, to play music to people. So in Guitarcraft,
learning the instrument, and learning music, and learning to play to people
occur simultaneously. A musician's problem is the same as an actor's when
finding work: you can't get work until you have experience, and you can't
get experience until you have work. So, the League of Crafty Guitarists is
a means of gaining performance experience. The League of Crafty Guitarists
is a performance vehicle for the students and Guitarcraft in a professional
context, which most of them would not be exposed to for a while. So that's
[the background]. Why do we not talk to the audience? Well, sometimes we
do. It varies. Sometimes, I feel it's helpful or useful to talk to the
audience, but generally I would rather not, because I would rather the
music spoke. But sometimes, a few words help, so . . . Why stand and sit
together? Because a group, a real group, is one individual in a number of
bodies. So Guitarcraft training is aimed at developing a sense of the
group. Brilliant individuals probably would find this very restricting.
But we're very good for people without very much in the way of musical
talent.
DM: Do you see the League as some sort of model or paradigm? Would you like
to see more people doing this kind of thing? Do you see it as a good model
for future training or performing?
RF: The quick answer is yes. In terms of, would I like to see other people
doing it: that one doesn't bother me. So far, about a thousand people have
been through Guitarcraft or related courses---
DM: Are you the only person who teaches?
RF: Some of the more experienced students help the newer students. But if
you said, "Am I the only Guitarcraft instructor?" in the way in which I
believe you are the asking the question, yes, although we have Alexander
teachers who would have an equal authority in their field, and we have now
some experienced Guitarcraft students who in their own background are
professional teachers and players, for whom I have considerable respect.
But in terms of Do I want to see more people take the courses?, that isn't
the question for me. Guitarcraft is a response to a need: When I was first
asked to give Guitarcraft seminars, I said No--
DM: So the initial spark for the idea wasn't yours?
RF: No. When I was asked six years, seven years ago to give a guitar
seminar, I said No. But I was asked again, and this time I said Yes. And
the program as such has been a runaway success. It's reached the point now
where I don't have enough time to actually go to all the countries that
want me to go back and do it. Were I able to, I probably would, but now
after seven years of not really being a working musician, I must play music
again.
DM: So you're just taking a hiatus completely from the League?
RF: No, it's not so much that I'm not doing Guitarcraft anymore, but that
I'm returning to public life as a working musician. And putting the onus on
the Guitarcraft students to continue to practice and develop their
discipline, so that with them having greater experience, there may come a
time in the future when, if I continue to work [at] my own discipline,
perhaps I can help them again. So I'm not leaving Guitarcraft as such; it's
just that I'm returning to my life as a public musician for the next
period. If there is a need in the future, [I may return to Guitarcraft].
But this isn't something I'm selling.
DM: The slogan "Discipline is not an end in itself, just a means to an end"
is printed on the back of the album _Discipline_. It seems to me that
there's an obvious connection between that and the approach you take with
the League.
RF: You're quite right.
DM: So you place great importance on discipline?
RF: The word in our culture can sometimes have a pejorative feel to it.
[But] to me, discipline is liberating; it's not constricting or restricting
at all. Discipline is the capacity to be effectual in time. That is: we can
make a commitment, we can say "I _will_ do this," and know it will be done.
And this is a remarkable freedom. Because if you make a commitment, it will
be honored; and if you're working with other people who say, "I will do
this," and you can bank on it, [a lot] becomes possible and your life takes
a quantum leap. So it's liberating, not constraining or restricting.
DM: What you're doing with the League seems to be almost the complete
opposite of your idea of the Mobile Intelligent Unit, where you sometimes
just sat and chatted with the audience and played very little, you played
in tiny venues . . .
RF: I played in record company canteens, offices, record stores, rock
clubs, galleries--just about everything. I would say that the League of
Crafty Guitarists is probably one of the smallest, intelligent-est, and
most mobile large performance ensembles I know. For the number of people
involved in it--generally an entourage of about twenty--it's remarkable
efficient. So to me the League of Crafty Guitarists is not a dinosaur at
all.
DM: Not all that far removed from the Mobile Intelligent Unit.
RF: No. It's actually a specific demonstration of that idea.
DM: What sort of music have you been listening to lately? What do you find
to be some of the most interesting things that are being done now?
RF: Because I've been out of public life, and working with the students for
so long, I've just come back to listening again. And my preferred listening
is always in a live context. I don't _really_ like records. I like to see a
musician at work. I like to see what happens when they make a mistake and
how they get out of it. And that's when you can tell a [great] musician. It
doesn't matter to me that a musician makes mistakes; that can lead
somewhere. But how do you recover from the mistake? That's how you see
someone really on the ball. But because of where I live in England, my live
music capacities are limited. Here's examples of people I've been listening
to: Keith Tippett and Andy Shepard (because I've just produced an album for
them). [Tippett is a] superb guitarist. Living Color--Vernon Reid and Steve
Vai both excite me tremendously. I've been listening to Joe Satriani, Chick
Corea's electric band, Bartok Violin Concerto #1, the Bartok String
Quartets. What I've also done is buy in CD format the music that excited me
twenty years ago, and see how it is now to me. Joni Mitchell _Blue,_
Mayall/Clapton Bluesbreakers, Hendrix _Electric Ladyland_. All that and
quite a bit more besides. So my listening is as always fairly eclectic.
DM: What do you think of the idea of "World Music"? Is the term becoming
meaningless? The world is becoming so much smaller, and parts of the world
that were seen as "exotic" in the past seem much closer now--it seems that
there was more of a distinction before (like the separation between rock
and non-rock that I suggested before). Do you think this is all changing
now?
RF: I first heard what we call World Music around 1975-76. Now, in my
subsequent listening, part of what I would call World Music would be Thomas
Tallis, sixteenth century England. Which to me is not far removed from
Japanese classical Koto playing. Since I'm the character that I am, with
very broad interests in music, I welcome the term "World Music" because a
greater diversity of sound and formal approaches of music becomes available
to the ordinary person. So, in 1972 you didn't have access to that palette.
Now you do. Now, Javanese and Balinese gamelan are not strange stuff. My
concern is that the formal contribution of America, which is in rock and
jazz, is not somehow being revitalized. Something is perhaps missing in
terms of our body of music, so we have to--not quite steal--to me it
indicates there's a poverty in our own culture. Well, that's fair enough,
fine.
DM: So you think it's a good thing?
RF: By and large, yes.
DM: Just a natural cycle. Things are drying up here, so we'll just look
elsewhere for new ideas, inspiration?
RF: Yes. If your own music isn't setting you on fire, you tend to look
elsewhere. And I would suggest one practical reason why this might be: In
1968 and 1978, the record industry was _the_ growth industry above all
others. And the common cultural musical product available to listeners in
America is governed and decided by a very small number of people--it's
called "format." It's like Hollywood movies, it's like American television.
DM: And radio.
RF: Sure. I would suggest that if you wanted emotional fulfillment or life,
some kind of experience, you're not going to get it as readily available;
you have to go look. You're going to find it in rock clubs, you're going to
find it in jazz clubs. You're not going to find it on radio, television, or
on records very easily. So the obvious thing is you look somewhere else.
You don't look to your own cultural product. So for me, that would be a
large explanation for the interest in so-called World Music. What you then
get, and I think this is what you're suggesting, World Music becomes
something which is merchandised and packaged, and restricted in the same
way. But, at least now you do have a whole body of music which is available
and artists travelling internationally--the WOMAD festival in England was a
very new thing in its day. So by and large, I think its a good thing.
DM: So you think that in general, people will always get itchy and look for
new things, new places to find new inspiration and ideas.
RF: I think how it goes it this: Music tends to move in seven-year cycles.
'56: Presley, rock 'n' roll; '63: Beatles; '70: progressive, psychedelic;
'77: punk/new wave; '84: on one hand, New Music, on the other, World Music;
1991: something is going to happen, we don't know. But there is a need for
something new, which as a musician I have a sense that something is about
to emerge. I can only trust my musician's bones.
DM: Any idea what it might be?
RF: No idea, other than: when it appears, it will be quite new, and we'll
say "Where did that come from," and then, immediately as it's appeared,
we'll say, "Well, that was obvious, it had to happen like that." There'll
be this sense of inevitability. Before the Beatles, in England, as a young
musician playing covers of Cliff Richards and The Shadows, you knew it had
run out of steam, but we didn't know what was going to happen next. Then,
one year later, there were The Beatles. How could that not have happened?
"She Loves You": it _had_ to be like this. So I think people that listen
require a nourishment from their music. After a period of time, it runs
out, and they begin to look for more nourishment, whether it's within their
own culture or coming from somewhere else.
DM: Without even realizing it. It just happens.
RF: Yeah. You don't think, Let me consult another culture for musical
satisfaction. And there'll always be characters who lead the way: Allen
Fried with rock 'n' roll, Andy Dunkley was a DJ in London at the end of the
sixties who'd always say: "You should listen to this. You should listen to
this." And you have these characters whose antennae [tune in] to the
currents, and there'll be a character in New York who says later this year,
"We should be listening to this."
DM: Which of those revolutions you mentioned was the most exciting to you?
RF: They're all exciting. In England, when I first heard--I was ten--Elvis
Presley and Scotty Moore, Little Richard--Jerry Lee Lewis! I couldn't
believe it! [Lets out a scream] And at ten and eleven I'm not going to
articulate what it was.
DM: It's probably still hard.
RF: Then, when the Beatles appeared--[screams again]--it was the same. And
then when I was part of that particular movement--[scream]--it was alive.
And then when I came to live in New York in 1977, and there was punk and
new wave, it was alive! So, it's always that sense of, one has come to life
with this music. It's always that feeling of being alive.
DM: You were one of the few people from the "progressive rock" or "art
rock" world who grabbed on to what was good in punk/new wave and used it,
did something with it. A lot of the others just fell by the wayside,
disappeared. You seem to have seen it pretty early on--
RF: It's a question of what nourishes you in music, what is alive. In terms
of eclecticism, musical form is secondary. The sense of being alive in that
creative moment is the primary experience. Now, as a guitarist working,
making the transition from 1969 and its formal aftermath, and 1977, there
was one formal characteristic which you had to learn in order to play that
music with those musicians, and it had to do with time and timing. Firstly,
where you place your note in relationship to the beat moved from just
behind the beat to exactly on top of the beat [imitates metronomic punk
beat]. That was to do with timing; the second part of it was the actual
tempo was faster. And unless you grasped that formal expression of how
music was reflecting that vitality in that period, you were not with that
movement.
DM: You've been producing records for as long as you've been playing on
them (though your production work has received less attention than your
work as a musician/composer). What do you think makes a good producer, or a
well-produced record?
RF: There's an American approach to production which is quite different
from the European. In America, the producer is the ally and the extension
of the record company. The producer is the man who will guarantee the
record company that they will have this product to this budget regardless
of what the artist does. And if the artist is a problem, they'll make it
without them. The producer is more or less an expression of the record
company's intentions.
DM: And it will sound more or less within the parameters that the record
company wants?
RF: That's right. The European approach, certainly as far as I'm concerned,
is that the producer is the employee of the musician. Quite clear
distinction. My approach to production is: This is an album which reflects
the musician, and the producer should be invisible to all intents and
purposes.
DM: A midwife.
RF: Yes. The producer enables this to happen, as far as possible. And to do
that is very hard. A good producer is as hard to find as a good performing
and recording artist, and I am not, let me say, putting myself in that
category. But to me it's quite clear that the record is not my record, as
producer. It's the musician's record. And some of the producers I've worked
with it's quite clear that the artist is the excuse for them to make
_their_ record. Quite clear.
DM: A lot of producers working with bands see the studio as their
instrument, and the roles are almost completely reversed: the final product
is theirs, and the musicians are helping them deliver it.
RF: But recording an album is a process, it's dynamic. You can't guarantee
the end result. If you _do_ guarantee the end result, it's going to be
dead. If you say "This is what's going to happen," the end is given.
There's no process. It is not creative. A creative event, by definition,
involves something new, so it's not going to be format, it's not going to
be playing by numbers. So, you may notice that I don't produce many
chart-breaking albums. The album should reflect the artist and mirror them,
mirror the music they're playing. The Keith Tippet/Andy Shepard album, I'm
very proud of my work on it, because you can't see or hear me. There's no
producer in the way, so the music is transparent. one hundred percent live
and improvised. They didn't talk, they didn't say "What key should we play
in?"
DM: How do you see your role in a situation like that? There are no
overdubs, very little processing, or Production with a capital "P."
RF: Quality of recording, enabling the process to keep moving,
discriminating and feedback, so if the musician says "Is this happening?"
you say yes or no. "Is that any good?" Yes or no. And then mixing. But
mixing it in such a way that the proportions and the geometry of the event
are mirrorred in the sound. And you can't draw that up on a graph, you
can't read that out on an oscilloscope, you have to use the seat of your
pants and your bones. If your back tingles, you know it's right. For me
mixing is a visceral event, and when a certain geometry and a certain
architecture in sound falls into place, there's a resonance which you know
is right. When a group works together, a lot of the most effective
creative work is not functionally expressed. In other words, you have one
character sitting in the room, present in a certain kind of way, and they
may not be seeming to do very much. For example, the way Eno works. Eno may
not be doing very much. Good. A good producer will do as little as
possible. But it doesn't mean that the contribution is not as much as a
person who appears to be physically busy.
DM: Did you ever use the Oblique Strategies [oracle cards] when you worked
with Eno?
RF: Actually, no. When I worked with Eno and Bowie on _Heroes,_ they'd pull
out Oblique Strategies, but I can't remember actually using Oblique
Strategies in my work with Eno. It's quite possible that he pulled them out
or he had them going--
DM: unbeknownst to you--
RF: but I can't recall actually following Oblique Strategies. The
difference in approach is this: Eno doesn't have a background in musical
thinking. His background is in the fine arts. And his set of procedures is
different. His set of procedures is not as formally defined as a set of
procedures which a musician would use. Which is one reason why Eno is very
refreshing to work with. Musicians tend to know what they're doing, and
sometimes that's terrible. So Eno's approach would break up the
associations which a musician would use, and because I'm the character that
I am as a musician, I was very happy to work with that way of doing things.
DM: He wouldn't be inclined to say "Wait a minute, you can't play that
chord there . . . "
RF: I once said that to Eno, actually, on a chord which came out on _My
Life in the Bush of Ghosts._ And he was very distressed that I told him
"You can't use that chord." To my thinking, the chord was not a musical
chord, because I was thinking musically.. Eno had a different approach, not
governed by musical thinking; in his parameters, "I can play any notes I
like in this chord."
DM: Do you ever wish that you could shake some your pre-conceived ideas as
a trained musician? Do you ever feel that they restrict you from trying
things that "aren't right"?
RF: I'm torn between not knowing enough and knowing too much. So, I hope
that I know enough to be useful, and not enough to get in the way. But the
player in me, if an idea is getting in the way--not blossoming--the player
in me rejects it. Because if you're playing music which has a formal
satisfaction, there's an ease of playing, however difficult the music might
be, and the player in me recognizes that there's something wrong with the
idea.