By ERIC SCHELKOPF
Frank Zappa once referred to guitar legend Adrian Belew as the person who “reinvented the electric guitar.”
With a new album in tow, Belew will perform at 8:30 p.m. July 15 at the Arcada Theatre, 105 E. Main St., St. Charles. He will also perform at 7:30 p.m. July 18 and July 19 at City Winery Chicago, 1200 W. Randolph St., Chicago.
More information is available at arcadalive.com and citywinery.com.
I had the honor of interviewing Belew about the album and his career.
Q – “Elevator” is your 25th solo record. What did you want to do with the album? Did you have any specific goals in mind?
I certainly did. I wrote most of this material during the COVID lockdown and that kept me alive during that.
And during it, I realized that when this is all said and done, whatever happens in the future, I want this record to be uplifting, I want it to have things that make people feel good about life again – an elevating feeling.
Q – And you are also on a new label.
It’s the first time I’ve been on a label in a long time, because we’ve always done everything ourselves since sometime in the early ‘90s. And that works really well in the climate today. But there are some things that can be done by other people better than me.
We finally found the right people that we thought would help us out. And we actually put out a single for once, "a13." We never do that either.
Q – And I understand that this is actually your first solo record released through streaming. What made you want to go that route?
Well, I’m trying to do all the different things you can do to get your music out to people. You can still buy the CD if you want it. I recommend it, because if you buy the CD, then you get the artwork.
Over the COVID time, I also taught myself to do digital artwork. And there’s 38 of my paintings included in the CD.
I’ve done several hundred by now. I just fell in love with doing it. It’s the same form of expression as writing a song or playing music is to me. It taps into the same part of your creativity.
There’s 12 new songs on the album. I played everything and sang everything as I’ve been doing on most of my records. And this is the 25th solo record. That amazes me.
Q – You seem to be a real musician’s musician. Everybody wants you to play with them. Was it an honor to hear Frank Zappa say that you reinvented the electric guitar?
Yeah, what an honor that is, to have someone like that say that. I would have never guessed it.
I sent him one of my records. I sent him my third solo record.
I didn’t even know if he’d even listen to it. But I guess from that, he managed to make that quote.
Q – I understand that he was your first and only mentor.
Frank was the first person that I actually sat down with and who taught me how to do things, in particular how to play in odd time signatures. And there were so many other things that Frank taught me, stuff you need to know about being a professional musician, touring the world and making your own records.
One year under his tutelage was like worth 20 years to me. It was like going to college.
He taught me a lot.
Q – When you joined King Crimson, you helped take the band in a different direction and gave them a new audience. Do you feel like you did that?
Oh, sure. I was a huge fan of the original band and I knew their music really well.
But it’s really a different brand of music. It’s very English, it’s very prog rock and sort of flowery kind of thing.
And then by the time we started, it was a whole different thing. You know, Robert Fripp called me and asked me to join the band with him and Bill Buford, which is an incredible offer in itself.
We kind of reinvented the wheel a little bit with that first record, “Discipline,” and everyone’s told me that.
Q – It seems like you are an innovator in everything you do. What was your idea in creating the FLUX by belew app?
Well, the idea of it was to have a way to make music that’s never quite the same twice. So we set up an app – it took 2/12 years to do all the computer work behind it – in which every time you press play, you’re going to get a half an hour of stuff and it’s never going to be in same order.
It has kind of an engine in it, that’s what they call it at least, that randomly picks things every time you press play. And the visuals will do the same thing. The visuals are connected to the music.
It’s meant to be a different listening experience. Currently it’s not available because Apple changed its operating system, but I’m working on it being available again.
Q – Are there any projects that you are itching to do that you would like to tackle in the next few years?
I have a lot of different things that I think will happen. I’d like to take this new band around the world, for one thing.
And I already have half of the new record recorded, so they’ll be more records of mine coming out. I’m always up for a new adventure, though.
Doing a symphony piece, which took three years to write, was one of the biggest things I ever did in my life. And I never really expected that would happen.
Doing the Pixar film, “Piper,” which also took three years to complete, I never thought that would happen. And that won an Oscar and everything.
So I think there are things that are sitting out there. I don’t know what they will be. I don’t know what those collaborations are.
I just wait until something presents itself and hopefully it will be great and I’ll make the best of it.
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