Decoding King Crimson: Steve Vai on the BEAT Tour

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97.1 FM The Drive presents the Behind The Song Podcast. Taking you deeper into Classic Rock's most timeless tunes. Here's your host, Janda.

Janda (0:55)

I'm Janda, and in this bonus episode of Behind The Song Podcast powered by Chick-fil-A. I'm so happy to be joined by Steve Vai to talk about Beat, the live project performing the music of King Crimson. Out on tour this fall with the show coming up October 21st, here in Chicago at the Copernicus Center. Welcome, Steve Vai.

Steve Vai (1:17)

Nice to be here. Thanks so much. Chicago.

Janda (1:19)

Chicago. So just to give a little backstory to listeners of this podcast. Beat is a super group and the line up has evolved since it was announced in 2024, right? You got Adrian Belew and Tony Levin from King Crimson in the group. This fall's tour, we'll see Terry Bozzio on drums, who replaces Tool drummer Danny Carey.

How did this thing come about?

Steve Vai (1:49)

Well, it came about with Adrian. He had the idea and he had the desire to celebrate those 80s King Crimson records and he called Robert Fripp. Robert was booked up at the time, but he gave it his blessing.

Adrian was looking for somebody who replaced Robert and Bill, Bill Bruford who wasn't touring at the time.

He called me and I loved that music and I thought it would be a great little respite from 35 years of touring my own music.

I just felt that it was a great match because this music, it's interesting because it's very high information music. I mean, it's based in the ideology of prog rock, but it's very accessible. I heard these records on the radio back in the 80s.

So it really takes a particular type of musician and you meet a lot of musicians and everybody has some kind of a gift. Sometimes it's for songwriting, sometimes it's for power chords, sometimes it's blues, but stuff for the kind of things, the tools you need to perform this King Crimson music. It's a little different.

There has to be a real understanding of the infrastructure of music theory and whatnot. To a degree, it has incredible timing challenges. There's a lot of polymetric stuff going on. But it's very accessible and beautiful and melodic. So that's why when you're looking for people to play it, you got to narrow the playing field. And Danny was just perfect. Danny was a fan of the band. We had great tours and he's a real, he's a family member. But Danny's in tool and they have obligations. And we wanted to do one more tour because the last tour we did, it was so successful and there was such a demand. We were surprised. So we thought we're going to do this one more time through America. And how do you find a drummer to replace Danny? Wow. So you need somebody very special and Terry Bozzio, he's historical. I've toured with him, I've recorded with him, I played with him. He's just something else, man. And we were just so fortunate that he was interested in doing it. And we're changing up the show a bit, adding some different music. And yeah, we kick off rehearsals in a week. We're ready to go.

Janda (4:26)

Well, we're ready to see it. I mean, when I think about King Crimson's music, it's muscular, it's intricate, it's precise, there's so much detail. You yourself take on Robert Fripp's role in King Crimson, tackling these songs. And I believe he said that you, Steve Vai, was the only guitar player who could play his parts.

So I wonder about Robert Fripp, if he's given you any input along the way, since you joined up with Beat, or is it more of a hands-off kind of a thing?

Steve Vai (5:01)

I know, Father Robert and I go back. We toured together with G3. I mean, he is one of the most extraordinary people. I know, he's so interesting.

He's so brilliant. He's so brilliant. And he was there. I kept in contact with him quite a bit, and he was very helpful, very generous. I mean, there was this one song where there's like a chord solo, where you go mad on these diminished chords and stuff. And he had a particular way of doing that, and I asked him about it, and he was so kind, he sent me a video. He made a video showing me what he was doing, but then he says, but don't do any of it. If I went to a beat concert, I want to see Steve Vai go crazy being Steve Vai.