ROBERT FRIPP has a new solo series to promote, Music For Quiet Moments. But as Michael Bonner discovers, his candour knows no bounds. To be discussed: “Crimson metal”, advice from David Bowie, how to avoid provoking armed police officers, and why you should never, ever have a band meeting…

MOST mornings, you’ll find Robert Fripp in his garden. “Every day I can walk out of the door and see the season change,” he says. “It is the first time in the life of a touring musician that I’ve been able to do that.”

For Fripp, lockdown has presented a number of unique opportunities. It’s not just his daily perambulations round the grounds of his home in Worcestershire - or the home movies he’s made with his wife Toyah Willcox, “one of which I’m in a tutu at the end of our garden dancing to Swan Lake. And in another one I am in a bee costume with my wife, also in a bee costume, running through our garden.” Critically, though, the enforced postponement of King Crimson’s North American tour has allowed Fripp to take stock of his considerable archive of music.

“The life of the touring player isn’t so much what you do, like pack your bag, get in the car or bus and go, it becomes a state of mind,” he explains, sitting behind his desk in his wood-panelled office, dressed impeccably in a grey three-piece suit. “So my computer bag is currently open and ready to go, even though I’m not really going to need that for another year and two weeks. My life is a complete mess of contingency and preparation. You don’t quite unpack because next week you’re going to pack. So it’s a constant in-between, a

Robert Fripp: exploring his archive of improv pieces after a half-century of live performance

Photo by MICHAEL WILSON

“A constant in-between, a liminal space. This, for 51 years”

“My personal voice began to speak”: Fripp in the offices of Atlantic Records in New York City, October 21, 1974

Unlike a lot of other guitarists who came of age during the late ’60s, you weren’t adherent to the blues, were you? Yeah, that’s true. Whereas, for a comparison, Brian Eno’s background was art school, mine was as a player learning an instrument. Touched by early rock’n’roll, Scotty Moore with Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, all this aged 10 and 11, then trad and modern jazz. And then at 17, more classical, conservatory- based, European music. From 17 on, working in Bournemouth hotels and dance bands, working with some superb jazz musicians. My aim was to be able to play anything which anyone asked me to play.

What happened next? Moving to London at age 21, with a remarkable explosion of all these different forms of music: conservatory-based, Bartók, Hendrix, Beatles. All these different forms of music - but as if it were one musician playing them. So although not a conservatory-trained player, nevertheless as a musician beginning to work in popular culture with a fairly broad range of the vocabulary of music and different styles. But that’s on the surface. Below the surface we all have a musical impulse, and although loving Hendrix, essentially blues-based but far beyond that, early Clapton with Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, “All Your Love”… stunning! But we still have our own musical voice which leads us and we follow. When King Crimson began breaking up and continuing to break up, inevitably the response was that my personal voice began to speak and probably Larks’ Tongues…, “Fracture”, Red, all these came from my personal voice, Robert’s personal voice. Although they were very metal, Crimson metal, the vocabulary was more European than Afro-American.