Pat Mastelotto of King Crimson on his approach and influences

JLTT: Are you up for a Q & A with a non-drummer?

PM: Sure.

Are you looking forward to the Summer dates with King Crimson? Are the band visiting any new cities or venues?

Hell yeah, I’m looking forward to it. Crim drumming is a gas, so very much looking forward to playing and yes lots of new cities and venues, in fact, a new continent for this version of KC will finally be going to South America. And we get great venues, Crimson tends to do beautiful seated theatres for instance Crim will be playing Royal Albert Hall again for three nights in June, We’re also doing several larger outdoor venues like the Roman arena amphitheatre in Verona, ale Pineda Gould near Lyon where we will play with Magma, Teatr Roma in Warsaw, also doing festivals like Rock in Rio in Brazil with Muse, and the Spanish doctor music festival in the Pyrenees with. . Wait for it. . Frank Zappa Hologram !?!?

Which KC numbers are you particularly looking forward to performing?

Our catalogue is huge and I dig it all. There is so much material that we don’t get to play all the material at every show so somethings come into rotation less often, for instance, It’s always exciting to play Fracture, Larks 4 and a newer trilogy called Radical Action since these really require each player to be spot on for all the pieces of the puzzle to hang together. When we do a three day festival in the Pyrenees mountains and I expect we will play a different set each night, actually I’m certain of it because Crimson always plays a different set every night… Robert Fripp makes up a unique setlist each day and gives it to the band and crew about an hour before soundcheck.

How is the three-drummers element organised? I can’t imagine Robert would make precise demands of you…

No Robert does not make precise demands, while he expects focus and commitment he does not demand but rather sets an example that encourages us to make the demands on ourselves. The three drummers are organized with care and constant awareness of each other.

Is it likely that the tour setlist will evolve? I’d selfishly like to hear Cat Food again!

Me too. Love Cat Food. In fact, it was the first King Crimson song I ever heard. As a youngster growing up in a small Northern California town I would go to the public library and put on headphones to hear music I wouldn’t have found on top 40 radio stations and one day it was Cat Food, holy }*^%%€?! That same day I also discovered Tony Williams Lifetime. Mind-blowing music for the adolescent me.

As I mentioned King Crimson play a different setlist every night and the touring repertoire continues to evolve and grow each year. Crimson meet for rehearsals in England just after Easter and have five new old songs in preparation plus some new drum pieces and modifications to some of the songs currently in our playlists. Of the five older songs Robert asked us to prepare there is one more from the first record, one from the second, one more from the Discipline CD, one from Beat and one more from The Power to Believe.

The original King Crimson featured what I would term very musical drumming…does that feature survive in today’s KC?

I would hope so! It’s a prerequisite to breathing.

What’s the Mastelotto Road Diet?

Depends on where we are, always looking for local Specialties, like local Fish if near the sea, insects if we’re in Mexico, goulash or wild game in Eastern Europe, I gravitate towards things I haven’t tried or won’t see back home. I do try to avoid the breads, chocolates and desserts and that can be painful, painful to see those incredible treats at catering or backstage, usually, I start with best intentions but by the last week of most tours all bets are off.

I will add this useful quote – “Never eat Mexican food East of the Mississippi or north of Dallas.” ~ Lyle Lovett 

On your own style, It seems to me you absorbed electronic percussion and almost treated it as your friend? Correct me if I’m wrong.

Yep definitely electronic percussion is my friend, a friendly creative tool to help boost my drumming – I’m an ‘ends justify the means’ guy when I’m making music so electronic tools help fulfil my imagination.

My view is that if you put a jazz drummer in a rock band, it will head towards jazz…do you ever feel that dynamic?

Yes. The drummer defines the band. When a rock drummer infects a jazz group it ain’t jazz no more. I’d like to think of myself as an ambiguous drummer, I usually try to find a new place to go and my electric drumming helps with that. If you look back at my catalogue I’m genre-jumping all the time, that wasn’t planned it’s just That I like good creative music, any and everything, Country klezmer punk Prog pop I like it all as long as it’s sincere.

What two things have you learned NEVER to do on stage?

Don’t eat quaaludes.

Don’t try the Keith Moon dismount.

Who are the Stick Men?

In my case it’s a band with Tony Levin & Markus Reuter.. we have completely unique elements unlike any other band..probably best if I check the web and give you some info

What outfit are you currently touring with? What’s the musical style?

Currently in the back of the van with O.R.k. on a European tour then over to the UK for the final week.

What’s the style? Fans and reviewers call us a mix of modern rock, prog, grunge, techno and soul. We play compositions, unlike many things I do that are sometimes completely improvisational. O.R.k. Has a lead singer, LEF, with amazing range- he’s an award-wining Italian film composer but grew up singing opera as well as NIN, Bowie and contemporary music of his generation ( he’s about 15 years younger than me) most people acknowledge he has a timbre like Chris Cornell at one extreme or Tim Buckley at the other. Our bassist Colin Edwin, known for being a founding member of Porcupine Tree and involved in many ambient trance projects has that fat funk I love and being well-spoken and British he adds lots of nuance to our lyrics. Our Sicilian guitarist Carmelo Pipitone is a fireball on and off stage and gravely influenced by Dime Bag Darrell among others and he sings with a gravel voice reminiscent of Tom Waits or Captain Beefheart. While our songwriting is epic we try to trim the self-indulgent lard and present the music in compact somewhat pop format.

I pointed out to Jamie Cullum’s drummer after a show that he was a fan of Jack de Johnette…not denied! Did Jack OR Tony Williams have any influence on your style at all?

Sorry, I don’t know Jamie or his drummer. But yes Jack DeJohnette and much more so Tony has influenced me. As I mentioned I was fortunate to hear Tony’s Lifetime band at an early age and I saw Tony play several times, WOW! Million Dollar legs was a desert island drum record for me.

How well do you think you know Robert Fripp?

Better than most

Many classic English groups had drummers who loved jazz – Kenney Jones, Ric Lee, Clive Bunker…is that era gone? Do you hear jazz in newer acts? 

Acts or drummers? If it’s acting then it ain’t jazz and probably wouldn’t pass the bullshit test. But drummers there are many! Lots of younger drummers are immersed in jazz. By the way, since you mentioned Kenny Jones and since I see you recently interviewed Kenny Jones you might find it interesting that when I first was invited into Crimson we had our first brief get together to play over at Bill Bruford’s home and he borrowed his neighbour Kenny’s drums for me to play – a three-piece kit of Kenny’s big single-headed grey Yamaha tubs. If you speak with Kenny again please tell him thank you for loaning his kit and that I grew up playing along to several of his, and Mickey Waller’s, recordings.

Ringo Starr’s finest moment on record? (For me it’s Rain!)

RAIN! Yeah, I’d agree with that.

Beck-Ola or L Z 3? Any reason?

Both winners but Beck-Ola had a much bigger impression on me. The drumming on Rice Pudding was a real challenge for me at the time.

The radio is on in the kitchen…what would you cross the room to turn UP?  And what would you race to turn off?

Turn up – Probably need to turn up everything because I’m an almost deaf drummer.

Turn off – any Billy Joel.

Phil Brown – my American ‘brother’ – let me hear the MPTU recordings, wow! Any memories? You seem adept at framing the vocal…

Thanks. As a drummer/producer that’s generally the highest priority, to frame the singer or soloist in a complementary atmosphere.

I made the MPTu record in an unusual way. I’ve known Phil for a long time, I met him on a session with Jimi Haslip around 1978 and always loved Phil’s guitar tone and voice, I even tried to get him into Mr Mister after the departure of Steve Farris. So when Phil ended up in Austin and took a Monday night residence at Nuno’s on 6th I joined in as often as possible as did Mark Andes and eventually, Malford Milligan would usually pop in as well as Pine Top Perkins and others. After several months of doing that I had the idea to record us but I knew I’d want extra time to work on bass parts with the somewhat shy Mark Andes to let his ideas focus and unfold… so I took a live show board tape and put it into my pro tools, spent some time to get it on a grid or make a tempo map to follow its late-night beer-infused tempos and then using those parts as guide tracks For me to recorded entirely new drumming and then invited Mark over to get high and play along.

No deadline, no agenda, just forage for joy and play and rearrange as he felt comfortable- I even surprised him with a swampy “I Got A Line On You”, The song made famous by his teenage band Spirit, starting with me scrubbing the same LP I would have played along to when I was about 12 years old, I pulled out an acoustic guitar and encouraged Mark into playing a Creedence ‘Proud Mary’ vibe… Once these rhythm tracks were satisfying I rang Phil and Malford to come out to hang and take a swim at my place and surprised them when I put up a track and had them do their thing, then surprised them with another track and another and had them back over a few more times. Phil started taking the tracks back home to his place to do his solos and redo bits till he was happy. – for most of the vocals I asked them to sing together around one mic (set up in my bedroom next to my drum room/studio).

One particularly effective trick I pulled was for our version of The classic Sam Cooke song “A Change Is Gonna Come’, I edited to make a coda section but when they we’re doing the vocals I repeatedly stopped tape before that coda ever played and waited all afternoon until we got what I thought sounded like THE TAKE and then let the tape play on Into my coda experiment as I opened the bedroom door and motioned for them to keep going whilst I grabbed headphone to sing along a la Hey Jude. I think it’s got a great vibe.

Name us a record that we will know that you played on, please?

This list is about 10 years old but maybe there something on it that you will know

Is there a book you would love to create the score for? What style or instrumentation would you tap into?

The Bible. Tribal.

(Many thanks to Pat Mastelotto for his answers, time and access to images)

For more information on Pat Mastelotto visit his official website here: http://bit.ly/2JgaNp3

For more information on King Crimson  visit their official Facebook page here: http://bit.ly/2YpqzRJ

In addition, King Crimson will celebrate 50 Years by performing three headline shows in June 2019 at The Royal Albert Hall, London, the United Kingdom on the following dates:

Tuesday 18th June 2019 – The Royal Albert Hall, London, United Kingdom http://bit.ly/2p2IG2t

Wednesday 19th June 2019 – The Royal Albert Hall, London, United Kingdom http://bit.ly/2p2IG2t

Thursday 20th June 2019 – The Royal Albert Hall, London, United Kingdom http://bit.ly/2p2IG2t