In 1991, I was 14 years old and discovering the music that would help make me who I am. It was the year I discovered prog rock, first in the form of Yes, who I’d become a fan of in the early spring. Months later, as the year was coming to a close, I made my next essential musical discovery in the form of King Crimson. On a whim and with the recommendation of a record store clerk at a local independent shop, I purchased their four-CD box set Frame By Frame: The Essential King Crimson. I hadn’t heard a lick of music, I didn’t know a single song. It didn’t matter, though, because through three CDs of classic studio material and one disc of live recordings, I became an instant fan.
It was as an active fan that in 1993 I went out and purchased The First Day, a collaboration between King Crimson guitarist and sole constant member Robert Fripp and former Japan frontman David Sylvian. Produced by Sylvian, who also played keys, and David Bottrill, and backed by Stick player Trey Gunn, drummer Jerry Marotta, percussionist Marc Anderson, and vocalist Ingrid Chavez, The First Day wasn’t King Crimson music, though it was in the ballpark. How could it not be, with Fripp’s inimitable playing at the fore? Sylvian’s vocals were sensual and seductive, and though there were many moments that rocked, The First Day was focused more on extended and hypnotic grooves.
Some 30 years after its release, The First Day remains in regular rotation in my music library, no less enticing and captivating than it was when I heard it for the first time. In honour of its anniversary, I had the chance to talk to Robert Fripp about the album’s creation, his relationship with David Sylvian, and so much more.
Andy Burns: I discovered you and your music in late 1991. I was 14 years old and the Frame By Frame box set was released, the first large-scale retrospective of the band’s work. I’m curious what your headspace, musical and otherwise, was around that time. I wonder if the work that went into that project had any bearing or effect on what came next for you with The First Day.
Robert Fripp: I was in a battle for my personal, professional, and musical life with EG Management and Records. You’re asking me about my headspace and where I was at the time, and I think it impossible to exaggerate the effect of endless grief upon my life. Endless grief. This marked the end of my belief, or shall we say the end of my confidence in a certain kind of world that I believed myself to inhabit. The primary manager was Sam Alder, who was a chartered accountant, a founder of Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy, and advisor to the Palace work of good works and charity. In other words, as impeccable a figure you could imagine were you to seek out a manager. And what he did essentially was to lie and cheat in order to defend his own personal interest as a Lloyd’s name. My wife was also managed by EG. She decided to quit and go, and it bankrupted her. They owed her in the region of a third of a million pounds. And with me, I stood and fought for ongoing litigation for six years and seven months, and the effects of EG’s collapse was to prejudice all my business affairs, and because of that business affairs of record companies, publishers, and so on. And all of this also had an impact in my professional life, the repercussions of which lasted 21 years, and the secondary repercussions are continuing at this moment. So my headspace was one of survival.
Andy Burns: You use the word “survival.” What did your survival entail at that time?
Robert Fripp: I kept going. And what would this mean? It will probably mean beginning at eight in the morning and going on ’till 11 at night. Endless emails. They’re brutal. I don’t know if you’ve ever been in litigation on that level. I don’t think that you have. But when one musician goes up against the music industry, it’s essentially the end of your life. So my headspace in 1991 into ’92 was one of survival, and a key part for me in that was working with David Sylvian, who in his own life, I believe, was going through some changes. And rather than the nonsense of the music industry, working with David was going to a real place.
Andy Burns; I read a quote from from David Sylvian that said that the creation of The First Day came out of “traumatic experiences,” which you’ve just articulated. Having read that quote, and now having heard the story, I don’t hear the trauma in the music. As someone that’s lived with and really internalized this album for so long, I hear a lot of groove, and I hear a lot of sexiness, too. Not just in David’s voice, which is obviously so captivating, but in your guitar parts and in Trey (Gunn’s) Stick. It’s a very alluring album. Was that just a natural occurrence, to not put trauma into the music, and instead just explore what what you ended up putting together?
Robert Fripp: The thing is, music has an intelligence all of its own. Now, I’m 77. It doesn’t matter to me very much if people want to be cynical about that. Bearing in mind, one of the further abusive situations within the life of a working player of my age was engaging with the press commentary that I have done over the past fifty-four years, a lot of which was hostile. And if we move on to social media today, for me to make a bold statement like “music has an intelligence entirely of its own, and it’s not that the musicians create the music, but the music creates the musician,” that, for me, this is fact, And if this is not within anyone’s direct experience, that’s entirely fine. Please don’t believe me. Trust your own experience and interrogate your own experience.
How to do that? Find a piece of music that really speaks to you, that profoundly moves you and listen. And if we move, I don’t know whether it would be best to say inside the sound or completely outside the sound, but there is something utterly direct, and the music speaks regardless of the person that’s playing it, and becomes immediately available to the person listening to it. You put on the music, and it speaks directly, and that is to be trusted, and that is the experience that we interrogate and we follow it back. Now at a certain point in my life, if we follow it back, we arrive at silence. Silence is where the music is before it’s born. In my experience music moves from silence, and where do we find silence? We find silence in love.
Now this is a conversation which I can have today with David Sylvian. We remain in touch by email. I could have this conversation with David today. And I could have that conversation with David in 1991 and 1985, so that that is essentially the background I share with David. It’s not the background of most working players. It’s more the background of an artist, which David definitely is. My background is in the pragmatic side of making music where, if you’re working with superb professional musicians, you don’t sit down and talk about the origins of music are in love. You might shout out the key and have a count of 1, 2, 3, 4. David had rare sensitivities, and his background was not that of a working player like me. David was a more philosophical — reflective isn’t quite the word. But David is an artist, and an artist begins with a different set of strategies and questions to that of the working player and working with David was, and it continues to be, one of the high spots of my musical life.
Andy Burns: The notion of silence has stayed with me because it’s something that I’ve thought about when I’ve listened to you play, and when I’ve listened to to The First Day, and when I listen to your approach as a musician. I feel like you as a player know when to be silent. You know when to allow the music that you’re a part of, to let all of it just be. There’s not always a lead guitar part. Throughout sixteen minutes of “Darshan (The Road To Graceland)” you come in at really smart times, and what feels like the right times. But yet there’s times where everything else happens, and that seems to be naturally instinctive of you as a player to what you’re saying about silence, to incorporate that into your approach. Am I reading too much into it?
Robert Fripp: I hope you’re not, and I tell you why, Andy. Three specific factors are asked of a musician. They can lead or solo, they can support or accompany, and they can do nothing. That is, be tacit. So these are the three determinants for three functions for musician. Can you solo? Can you accompany? Can you do nothing whatsoever? And the the very finest musicians are able to do this, to move from the life of a good professional to what would be called a master musician, and I apologize for the gendered language.
Just an aside, I’ve discussed this with a number of women musicians. What do we do with the term “the master musician,” and the closest we come to is “the mystery musician” for the feminine aspect of this. That’s pretty good. But anyway, that’s an aside. A master musician must be able to lead, to follow and do nothing. (King Crimson drummer) Gavin Harrison could lead, support, do nothing. (King Crimson bassist) Tony Levin can lead, support, do nothing. So for me, if I have, as you kindly suggest, these three attributes, I’m grateful, because it’s certainly something which I’ve reflected upon. It’s certainly a necessary part of my playing, and I suggest anyone’s.
Andy Burns: On The First Day, Trey Gunn was involved, and on the subsequent tour Pat Mastelotto was on drums. How did they become involved?
Robert Fripp: My relationship with Trey began in 1985 through Guitar Craft. And in 1991, the end of ’91, David had some work in Japan. I think only one or two performances in Japan. I think he asked me first of all to work with him, and I suggested “maybe, let’s, let’s see if Trey works with this.” So the Sylvian-Frip-Gunn trio toured in Italy. I think this was in ’92, and also we worked in Japan. And that trio was stunning.
Now, what is interesting about David? He’s one of the very, very few singers who can walk on, and you have two musicians who are improvising, and David, he’ll join in, just sing over the top of it. Astonishing! And I do remember when we played in Japan with this trio format, we walked on stage. I think it was a 2,500 seat theatre, and nearly all the audience were female, and there was an intake of breath from somewhere between 2,000 or 2,500 young women. It was astonishing.
And from there the next question was, “Well, shall we take this a little further in terms of formalizing the situation?” So David and myself and I believe Trey went to Real World, Peter Gabriel’s studio to do some drum auditions. Michael Giles auditioned, from the first King Crimson, and also Pat Mastelotto, who, I think, put together some air miles and came in overnight and auditioned for us. Mike Giles, of course, was Michael Giles, but there was something about Pat. He came in for the gig very clear.
Andy Burns: Both Trey and Pat would become key parts of the next iteration of King Crimson, the Double Trio line-up. Did you have that in-mind at the time of Sylvian/Fripp?
Robert Fripp: I was giving it thought. This is when Sylvian and Fripp had essentially done their work together. And giving this thought, I was driving from the DGM office in Broad Chalke, and I was driving past the school on the right and the church on the left, and in a flash I saw King Crimson as a six piece with two trios – Tony, Adrian and Bill, and Robert, Pat, and Trey. So that was how the double trio came about in a flash, which was also how the final incarnation of Crimson came about, in a flash, in 2013. You hold the question, and something presents itself.
Andy Burns: All these years later, you have this amazing canon of work, and I rate The First Day quite high in in the Robert Fripp canon of everything that you’ve done. Now, one of the great things about King Crimson over the last decade or so are these magnificent box sets that have come out. I don’t think any other band, other than maybe the Grateful Dead have cataloged the different incarnations of (themselves), even your own Exposure box set. On that note, is there the possibility of The First Day being revisited in one of these amazing sets?
Robert Fripp: I think it’s possible. But there’s clearly not as much material.
Andy Burns: So maybe seven CDs instead of 25 (laughs).
Robert Fripp: Well, I don’t know if we get to seven. But yes, I think one that benefits of new technology, such as Atmos, I found Atmos really is stunning. It enables us to hear things that we couldn’t really before. And with Atmos, downsizing to stereo, there is still an aural benefit. So I think I think yes, it is possible. It’s not yet in the calendar, but it is the topic of occasional discussion.
Thank you to Robert Fripp for his time and generosity. You can keep up with everything Fripp and King Crimson related at dmglive.com. Many thanks to our friend Declan Colgan and Hik Sasaki at Panegyric for making this interview happen. Booklet images by Kevin Westenberg. This interview has been edited for length.
