(SOUNDBITE OF PETER GABRIEL AND KATE BUSH SONG, "DON'T GIVE UP")
ERIC DEGGANS, HOST:
Tony Levin is one of the most influential bass players in pop music, appearing on hits by David Bowie, Seal and Peter Gabriel, where he recorded the iconic bass line for Gabriel's duet with Kate Bush, "Don't Give Up."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DON'T GIVE UP")
PETER GABRIEL: (Singing) In this proud land, we grew up strong. We were wanted all along.
DEGGANS: But Levin also has an experimental side, which fans have heard in his work with King Crimson.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
DEGGANS: Now, Levin has just finished a 64-date tour, featuring songs from King Crimson's pivotal 1980s period in a series of concerts called the BEAT Tour. And we've got him here to talk about everything. Welcome, Tony Levin. Or should I call you Uncle Tony, like Peter Gabriel calls you?
(LAUGHTER)
TONY LEVIN: Thank you so much for having me, Eric. And you can call me anything you want.
DEGGANS: I did want to start with talking about the BEAT Tour. Now, that's named after King Crimson's classic 1982 record, right?
LEVIN: Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF KING CRIMSON SONG, "NEAL AND JACK AND ME")
LEVIN: Adrian Belew, the lead singer and part writer of the '80's King Crimson, decided a few years - five years ago - to assemble a band - not King Crimson but a different band - with Adrian and myself from the original and to play that music. And he was able to get two super players, Danny Carey on drums and Steve Vai on guitar, to do justice to that special music that we wrote in the '80s.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "NEAL AND JACK AND ME")
KING CRIMSON: (Singing) Les Souterrains. Strange spaghetti in this solemn city.
DEGGANS: Even though Steve Vai is a virtuoso, who played with Frank Zappa and done a lot of complex music; Danny Carey plays with Tool - these are super-complex arrangements. They've got interlocking guitar, bass and drum lines. How exactly did that work?
LEVIN: It wasn't easy. I wouldn't describe it as easy, going back through that material, trying to get myself up to speed on it.
(SOUNDBITE OF KING CRIMSON SONG, "FRAME BY FRAME")
LEVIN: What we did that you don't usually do with a put-together band of very high-level players, we booked a lot of rehearsing time - more than we would have normally. And it was good that we did that.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "FRAME BY FRAME")
KING CRIMSON: (Singing) Frame by frame (suddenly) Death by drowning (from within).
DEGGANS: The first time I saw you perform live was with Peter Gabriel on the tour for the album "Security," way back in 1983.
LEVIN: Way back.
DEGGANS: And you've worked with Peter Gabriel since his first solo album in 1977. So that's an incredible amount of time to work with an artist. And I'm wondering, what do you bring that you think has led to this multi-decade collaboration with an artist like Peter Gabriel?
LEVIN: Wow. Well, thanks for reminding me of all those years.
DEGGANS: (Laughter).
LEVIN: He's such a special performer and artist. I have not thought about what I bring to it. I'm a bass player. It's what I do. I play the bass as well as I can. And obviously, it's working out well enough for Peter, because he does keep calling me to come back for the next tour.
DEGGANS: Well, and you come up with these bass lines that are the core of the song. I mean, "Sledgehammer" - that song is the bass line.
(SOUNDBITE OF PETER GABRIEL SONG, "SLEDGEHAMMER")
DEGGANS: How do you pull together these parts?
LEVIN: What I do as a bass player, when I come in, I just listen to that piece of music, and I kind of become a fan of it. You know, I just am there to bask myself in that piece of music. Hopefully, it's good. If it's not good, there's problems. But still, I'm a fan of that. And then, in some sense - not really an intellectual sense - not the front of my brain, but I try and get a feeling of what bass part I might come up with that would work for that piece - maybe even just a bass sound, maybe a thump or a singing thing or a high thing or a low thing.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SLEDGEHAMMER")
GABRIEL: (Singing) I want to be your sledgehammer.
LEVIN: I will also listen to what the artist has to suggest. And in the case of Paul Simon, he used to sing me bass lines that were very high and melodic...
(SOUNDBITE OF PAUL SIMON SONG, "LATE IN THE EVENING")
LEVIN: ...Not what I would have played, and somehow we'd end up with the bass - the low guy, the simple guy - from me and the melodic part from him. And in fact, that influenced my playing, after playing with Paul, that I became more of a melodic player.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LATE IN THE EVENING")
PAUL SIMON: (Singing) First thing I remember, I was lying in my bed. I couldn't have been no more than 1 or 2. And I remember there was radio coming from the room next door, and my mother laughed the way some ladies do when it's late in the evening...
DEGGANS: While the BEAT Tour was going on, you released your solo record, "Bringing It Down To The Bass," and you've got tons of great musicians on that one as well. How did you pull that record together? And is there a unifying theme beyond the fact that you play bass on all of it?
LEVIN: (Laughter) These are great questions. You're making me laugh. I think most of the pieces, but not all, began with the bass line or a bass idea. Usually, I get a rhythm section to do the whole album. This one, I decided to take a different route. And for each piece, I thought, well, who's a drummer who would understand where I'm going with this piece and surprise me with what they do? And I picked seven different drummers for the different tracks. That's not usually what you do on an album. You want to have the same drum sound and some consistency in that sense. And I decided this time to not put those parameter - usual parameters on it.
DEGGANS: I'm wondering, is there a particular track on this new solo record where you can talk a little bit about how you made it happen?
LEVIN: Oh, gee. Well, let's take "Bringing It Down To The Bass."
(SOUNDBITE OF TONY LEVIN'S "BRINGING IT DOWN TO THE BASS")
LEVIN: I'm using on that not a distinctive bass sound but a distinctive bass technique of hammer-on style or touch style - in other words, not playing with fingers or pick, something I started doing, really, a long time ago - I think maybe a little bit on John Lennon's record, on "Double Fantasy." And because it's titled "Bringing It Down To The Bass," a few times in the piece, I decided to have the band stop. It's a large band with horns...
(SOUNDBITE OF TONY LEVIN'S "BRINGING IT DOWN TO THE BASS")
LEVIN: ...And guitar and keyboard and drums and bass - to have it stop...
(SOUNDBITE OF TONY LEVIN'S "BRINGING IT DOWN TO THE BASS")
LEVIN: ...And for the bass to start up with a different groove...
(SOUNDBITE OF TONY LEVIN'S "BRINGING IT DOWN TO THE BASS")
LEVIN: Even though the piece doesn't speak about the bass, in a way it's built on bass riffs.
DEGGANS: Tony, you are so unassuming. I love how you just say, oh, yeah, I think I did that on John Lennon's "Double Fantasy" record.
LEVIN: (Laughter).
DEGGANS: Oh, yeah, and Paul Simon used to sing me bass parts...
LEVIN: (Laughter).
DEGGANS: ...You know? You've had the kind of career that most musicians would dream of.
LEVIN: With John Lennon, his first words to me were, they tell me you're good. Just don't play too many notes.
DEGGANS: (Laughter).
LEVIN: And I got a big kick out of that because he was a New Yorker at the time, and I was a New Yorker at the time, so that kind of in your face, here's the way it is, made me laugh. I agree with you that I'm super lucky. And that is if you love playing music, if you love playing bass, then, yes, your dream is to get to play really good music with really good people. The fact that these are very famous records and famous artists that we're talking about - that's nice, but that's not the main thing. The main thing is how good the music is. That's why we go into it, most of us musicians. And that's the reward. That, in itself, is the reward.
DEGGANS: That is legendary bassist Tony Levin, speaking with us about the BEAT Tour and his new solo album, "Bringing It Down To The Bass." Tony, thank you so much for joining us.
LEVIN: Thanks for having me on.
(SOUNDBITE OF TONY LEVIN'S "BRINGING IT DOWN TO THE BASS") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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