BILL BRUFORD

Every month we get inside the mind of one of the biggest names in music. This issue it’s Bill Bruford. The celebrated drummer has played with the UK’s most influential prog bands, including King Crimson, Yes and Genesis, and launched a series of solo and collaborative experimental projects. Although he announced he was retiring from live performance in 2009, two years ago he made a very special guest appearance behind the kit at a John Wetton tribute concert, which rekindled his passion for playing. He recently released The Best Of Bill Bruford and is enjoying being back onstage again with the Pete Roth Trio. Here, he looks backwards and forwards to a long and varied career.

Words: Sid Smith

2024’s The Best Of Bill Bruford: The Winterfold & Summerfold Years.

In 2001, Bill Bruford’s Earthworks released an album called The Sound Of Surprise, and it’s fair to say the drummer has delivered more than his fair share of surprises across a career that’s now in its seventh decade and has included some of the most significant groups in progressive rock along the way. Yet the biggest eyeraising moment for many was his retirement from live playing, which he announced to coincide with the publication of his autobiography, Bill Bruford: The Autobiography. Yes, King Crimson, Earthworks, And More, in 2009.

He decided to follow a path into academia, and after several years of hard work he received a PhD from the University of Surrey in 2016, and in 2018 his treatise on creativity in the context of popular music instrumental performance, Uncharted: Creativity And The Expert Drummer, was published by the University of Michigan Press.

From there he might have continued to explore the halls of learning but for a pivotal experience when playing the drums for just one number at Trading Boundaries’ John Wetton tribute concert in 2023.

“It was fun playing the drums. I realised I could still play a backbeat in 4/4,” he says with a wry laugh. The excited speculation that this unexpected appearance might herald a return to live performance was ultimately confirmed when Bruford was spotted playing several shows in the south of England in a trio led by guitarist Pete Roth and bassist Mike Pratt.

While his work in progressive rock has been well-documented in previous editions of this magazine, Prog got on the blower with Bill to explore some of his less well-known work, which is now the subject of a three-CD set entitled The Best Of Bill Bruford: The Winterfold &Summerfold Years, released last autumn by Cherry Red. Along with this, Bruford was especially eager to talk about his work as a member of the Pete Roth Trio, or PRT as he often refers to it, and with whom he’s planning more live dates in the UK and Europe for 2025. As he talks, he’s filled with a rampant enthusiasm that belies his 75 years.