I never do anything to strictly satisfy a fickle, ever-changing commercial world. I do the music I like to play. It's the only way I feel comfortable existing in the industry.
I'm moved by a lot of different kinds of music, whether it's pop music or R&B or straight-ahead jazz or free or opera or music from all parts of the world.
It's so easy for anyone to deal with their own guilt of being a middle-class white music fan by pointing to other people who they perceive to be richer than them, whiter than them.
There was this discussion to know how long the human ear was really receptive to the music. A 74 minute CD is too long. We thought about making two CDs, 35 minutes each... But the songs need to breathe.
There is a lot of work just in terms of traveling and logistics and people and gear and all that kind of stuff. But I never really have problems playing music. That never seems like work.
It's much easier to work on other people's music and play in other people's bands as a guitar player instead of being the main songwriter and singer. That's a really big job to do that.
I think if you're able to make the music you want and you can do it in the right kind of context, you don't have to be a circus ringleader to be successful.
I've heard some tunes in recent years that were pretty close to that same idea. The idea was you turn on the radio and you want to hear some music and up comes a commercial.
I'm playin' music for a certain type of person. Fortunately, there are more and more of us. At least there are more comin' to see me than there were 30 years ago or so.
The main thing that those two albums have in common aside from my music, which of course, a sense of it, you can recognize, it is that the bass on Infinite Search was playing much, much less like a bass.
Everybody's not going to like jazz, let's just be honest about it. Everybody doesn't like everything. There's a disconnect in generations and some people just aren't going to feel that music.
Jazz is like a big secret club. The mainstream media doesn't pay any attention to it; it's, like, 1 percent of the music market - no one cares. Why? Because the majority of jazz is old.
One of my problems is I'm not really sure if I slot into rock or not. I've always tried to combine world music, folk, jazz, blues and rock, and have done since Traffic.
I think that most people who write about music just want to fill some paper. They're not really interested in getting to the heart of something. Otherwise, they wouldn't write what they write.
From my time in 'King Crimson,' I'd describe a Progressive band as one that keeps trying to break musical barriers, and keeps trying to do new music.
We were from totally different social backgrounds. This is what is very hard for an American to understand, but we could have been five guys from Mars.
Close to the Edge, Red, One of a kind, Discipline, Earthworks, The Sound of Surprise, all seem to me to be albums that captured the essence of the intention.
Politics goes in one ear and out the other. I don't even know the president's name for sure. That's how stupid I am.
I think things changed as a result of a certain perception of our politics. When we went through our zealous, self-righteous period it didn't exactly win us any friends.
We were raised with that discussion about violence and non-violence, and we all pretty much came up on the side of non-violence. That became my foundation with politics and my livelihood.
I was raised to speak out about politics and the world around me. I would do it whether I was in the public or not. It is the way I was taught. The American way.
