Adrian Belew

Adrian Belew is not your typical rock star. With a career that spans nearly 40 years and guitar-slinging and vocalist appearances with artists like King Crimson, Talking Heads and David Bowie, anyone would think the man, at nearly 60 years of age, would be slowing down and taking life easy. But taking a break is the last thing on his mind; the guitarist headed down under for a string of shows in Australia with The Adrien Belew Power Trio (with Eric and Julie Slick). Calling from the last leg of his European tour in Lithuania, Belew is happy about the positive reaction audiences have had to his new band, the success of which he attributes in part to their improvisational approach to music.

"With the Power Trio we do a lot of improvisational stuff," he says, "the band is very in tune with improvising. You've got Eric and Julie... and they've played together since they were little kids, so they have that intuitive ability to just look at each other and do things off the cuff... We play King Crimson stuff, and we do some other songs, but we open them up in places. That's one of the things I love about the Power Trio, every show is exciting and different. "

Having self-taught himself the guitar, Belew recalls his earliest musical inspiration.

"My biggest influence musically really was the Beatles, and even their guitar playing was essential to me. They did a lot of interesting things with chords and sounds and things."

He recalls, however as a fledgeling guitarist, inspiration truly came from some of the legends of the instrument.

"When you get to the pure guitar player guys, it has to be Jimi Hendrix and Jeff Beck that taught me the most. They came into my consciousness when I was just starting to play guitar, learning chord changes and stuff, and all of a sudden here are these two gigantic impressive virtuoso guitarists. Right alongside Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton, and even today Jeff Beck is one of my favourite guitarists. His style is just so smooth, it's incredible."

Speaking of legends, Belew himself has since played with his fair share. His big break came when he was playing in a cover band at a nightclub the very night Frank Zappa was in town. "Frank found me playing, flailing around in a nightclub," he recalls, "He got my name and number, auditioned me and I became the guitarist and lead singer in his band... I spent a year travelling around the world learning five hours of material and soaking up every little bit of knowledge that I could from Frank because he was so brilliant."

Lacking tuition in his early years, having Zappa as a teacher came as a godsend for Belew, who remembers, "Up to that point in my life I had learnt everything myself from listening to records and seeing other players, just the way you would figure it out if you didn't have anyone teaching you. All of a sudden I had a teacher for one year, I had the best teacher anyone could imagine." And he insists that Zappa's tuition covered many areas. "It was a great and very necessary year of my life. I needed the discipline and the instruction that he had and it wasn't just musical. Some of it was life itself. He taught me how to be a professional touring artist and recording artist travelling around the world... I really owe him everything."

Ever since, Belew has been an institution, playing guitar for some of the most influential bands of the last 30 years, including Robert Fripp's 1981-to-present incarnation of King Crimson, something he is modest about. "I just kind of go crazy and play wild sounds," he says, comparing his style to Fripp's. "He is almost the opposite to me as a guitarist, his main thrust is to make everything very structured, but because of the complexity of the music, everything has to be. It's like we're two sides of the same coin... it's a musical and cultural exchange that is unique. I wouldn't have expected it to work in all honesty."

As for moves in the future, Belew plans on expanding his repertoire around the globe and blowing some minds on the way, something that should go without saying.

Dane Hiirsinger

Adrian Belew plays at the Rock Concert in Elder Park on Friday 5 December and the We Salute You: A Tribute To AC/DC in Elder Park on Sunday 7 December during the Adelaide International Guitar Festival.