This week Ellen is sitting down to talk bass with a true legend of bass guitar: Tony Levin.

Talking Bass With Tony Levin

This week Ellen is sitting down to talk bass with a true legend of bass guitar: Tony Levin.

Tony has been a first call session bass player since the 1970s having recorded with artists such as John Lennon, Paul Simon, Lou Reed, David Bowie and many many more but he’s most well known for his pioneering work with Peter Gabriel and as bass player with the progressive rock giants King Crimson.

In this interview Tony discusses his background in classical music and how he eventually came to work with Peter Gabriel and Robert Fripp. He also provides an insight into his recording of the classic bass line from the song Sledgehammer and gives some tips on working as a professional bass player.

Interview

Talkingbass:
It’s been a weird year and a half. So how have you been dealing with lockdown?

Tony Levin:
Yeah, can’t complain. It’s easier for me than for some others. I had music I could do at home from my home studio.

Of course, I miss touring, and it’s especially hard on the crew of the band. At least the musicians could make their music at home. But it’s hard on everybody. And we’re readjusting to this interesting 2021. Of being able to re awaken. But are we up to it? And all the rules are changed. I’m about to go on tour with King Crimson and find out.

Talkingbass:
So what all bass players always want to know is, how did it all begin for you? Were you from a musical family?

Tony Levin:
I didn’t know anybody wanted to know that! But since you asked, I’m very lucky. I grew up in a musical family, and my older brother Pete is now a keyboard player. He was French horn when I was a kid, so I always followed my older brother. He got the records. I listened to them. I didn’t follow him on the instrument.

I played bass from a young age, and I played classical. I was kind of obsessed with classical bass when he was a French horn player, but I (also) played some jazz as a kid. Then then after I pursued that (classical) career, I was playing in the Rochester Philharmonic in Rochester, New York and I realized that’s not what I really want to do. I was happier in the jazz bands. I began to play Rock around that time, maybe when I was 20 years old.

So I had a classical training, which I don’t have much use for anymore, but I still have a great appreciation of classical music, and I’ve been touring this month  playing jazz. But I feel that I’m a a rock player who visits jazz and has a lot of respect for it and I do my best to play it. But  I haven’t been a jazz player as much as a rock player.

Talkingbass:
So to go from that rigid world of classical into jazz is a complete juxtaposition of genres. What was that like?

Tony Levin:
I was extremely lucky, as I have been many times in my career. I was in classical music school with this drummer guy named Steve Gadd, a great drummer. He was great even then and Steve basically had nobody to gig with. No bass player to join him in the many gigs he was doing at night in Rochester, when we were going to school in the day. So he enlisted me to join him and he subtly kind of mentored me.

I learned about time and things like that from just being with Steve and hearing him play and trying to be a tight rhythm section with him. At first, being a classical player, I played right in the middle of the beat, no matter what. I didn’t play on top of the beat, or lay back, or anything like that. And it’s a big adjustment when you haven’t done it. To learn to play on top of the beat, as we do in most jazz or on the beat, or on top of the beat. In years later, I had to learn to lay back behind the beat, to play rock and blues and some kinds of music that call for that. So it was a very big adjustment musically, but the path was laid out for me. I was playing with a great drummer and learning as I went, and nobody was judging me too much, so it was a good experience for me.

Let me add that I’ve always felt that, now that I play mostly rock, the ethic of the of the classical player is something that I think is pretty special, and I try to carry some of that with me. By that, I mean that the classical players really revere and love the greatest of the greatest.

The greatest composers and the whatever symphony or whatever they’ve written and they admire them. We would say, “Well, Beethoven’s Second is not so great.” So even the Beethoven symphonies aren’t good enough to qualify to a real classical snob like I was. The reverence carried to an extreme may be tedious, but the respect for really great music can be carried to other genres. That’s what I try to take from classical, the respect for really great music and really great players in jazz.

When I first went to jazz, I was super aware of how jazz players have what we in America called ‘Big Ears’. They really hear everything that’s going on. They hear what the other players are playing. They react to it. Jazz players in general have great ears and know what’s going on and do jokes or references that maybe the audience isn’t aware. They reference great solos when they’re playing solos and things like that.

That ability to really hear everything that’s going on, whether you react to it or not, is something I treasure that jazz players do. I try to do it as best I can in my playing when I’m not playing jazz and it particularly comes up in a group like King Crimson, when we totally improvise. We haven’t done that in the last tour, but sometimes it’s just complete improv. Nobody knows what’s going to happen.

I also do that with the band Stick Men. It’s really a lot better if you have players who are really aware of where the other players are going and what they’re doing. Instead of just playing riffs that they practiced and going off in directions, they also react to what the other players are doing. When that happens, the improv can reach a more sophisticated height. Whereas, if you have even one player who is just really focused on what they’re doing and not a big listener, then that total improv can be okay, but it can’t be as good.

Talkingbass:
So how did you get into the New York session scene? Was it with Steve?

Tony Levin:
No, Steve came after I did. Steve went in the Army, and I went down in New York. Just by coincidence, I had a gig fall through. We’ve all had that at all levels of our career. We have gigs fall through. And I found myself a little bit lost and didn’t know what to do. So I thought, Oh, I might as well go to New York. If I’m going to be lost and out of work, I might as well be with the in the big pond, with the with the great players who were there. And I, Gee, I don’t know how. I don’t remember exactly the path, but through things were very different. In the 60s, there was more than enough work in studios for for the 100 or so players. I don’t know where they had total how many, but 100 or so players and sessions day and night. And so before long, I met guys who I was playing in a rock band with, and I fell into, Oh, I think I was playing in a rock band that never really worked called, aha, the attack of the green slime beast. You probably haven’t heard of that band because we, I think we only did two gigs ever, uh, but through one guy in that, that named Joe Beck, a guitar player, he got me on some jingles, which are commercial, what we call commercials. They’re, they’re a craft. They’re not the most exciting thing to play, but, uh, helps to pay the bills. And from that, I got on some record sessions, and I couldn’t do that now, if I went to New York, there are so many so few sessions compared to then. So it was a little bit lucky to arrive at that time. And at that time, the community of musicians in New York was very welcoming to another, a new player, this guy from Rochester, and later Steve Gadd when he came to join me in New York. Oh, I hear there’s a good player. Let’s try him on a session again. That’s a product of the time of quite a while ago. It was exciting. And I did a lot of records in those days, maybe one or two a day record sessions of however many songs you could do in the session, and I liked it. But when I had the chance later to tour, well, actually, I toured a little bit during that, but when I had the chance to really go out and tour, which was with Peter Gabriel, mostly, and Luke, and give up the sessions and play live, and said, I fully realized that I’m much more happy playing live and touring and sharing the music with people in real time than I am recording. I still like recording, but I’m really happy when I when I tour, and so 2021 is a good year for me, because I’m going back to what I most love to do.

Talkingbass:
Oh, absolutely. I can’t wait. I can’t wait to get out there myself. I. So how did the Peter Gabriel gig come along?

Tony Levin:
Luck again, the producer called me to play in Toronto. This is in 1976 I happen to remember that year with this singer, Peter Gabriel, who had just left this band called Genesis. I didn’t know Peter, and I didn’t know of Genesis even. And incidentally, on that same session was a guitar player named Robert Fripp, the founder of King Crimson. I met him the same day I met Peter. And it’s pretty extraordinary that I’m still making music with both of them. Pretty, pretty darn extraordinary and pretty lucky. So I met Peter. There was I met the other guys on the session. That’s the way some record sessions go. We spent quite a few weeks working on Peter’s music and and made a very fine album. And luckily, Peter liked what I did and said, Hey, I’m going to tour with this. You want to come and do it? And I thought for about a second and a half about that, about the studio sessions that I would miss because of that. And I said, Absolutely, let’s do that. And Peter’s his music is unique, of course, and wonderful and special, but also his, his personality and his his his personality, which forms the attitude of the tour, is also very special and very warm and welcoming. So having done that tour for probably less than a year, on that first album, I was my life was changed. I was anxious to do more tours with Peter and be part of that family. And gradually or slightly, the family the members changed through the years, but still, the experience of touring with Peter to this day has been remains exciting and challenging, musically and fun. And who wouldn’t want to do that? So very lucky to be part of Peter’s band.

Talkingbass:
Obviously, you created one of the best bass lines of all time in Sledge Hammer. It really is one of the most badass bass lines!

Tony Levin:
Peter has a way. He has his way of recording and working on his songs, which it’s been a while since I was in the studio, within quite a few years, but through the years, it it kind of became that we would spend a lot of time, maybe a month together, the rhythm section, doing, doing tracking, and maybe a year later we would come back and do another few weeks. Very time consuming. Sledgehammer was different. Sledgehammer we had finished the album that was to be called. So I think that album and really packing up Mano cache, the drummer and I were pretty much starting to pack up one night when Peter said, Well, you know what, I got this really nice piece for the next album, which made me smile, because it takes a while in between albums for Peter or for anybody, would you mind having a go at this? And it was sledgehammer, and it we did it. I think, I can’t say it was one take, because I don’t exactly remember the night, but pretty quickly, you know, we did a few takes, thinking, Well, five years from now, we’ll come back to this and do it. And I don’t know the truth of this, but I heard that somehow the record company heard that and really liked it and insisted, or urged him to put it on that album. And he basically didn’t have time to mess with it and make it 10 minutes long, or 15 minutes long, as he sometimes did. And sometimes Peter would do a really cool piece and then take the intro to the piece, which would be long, and just the intro became the piece. Peter really has a creative and outside the box way of doing pieces, and that was an exception, that one came down, went down quickly, and came out pretty much like it was, and with great musicians added to it. And so it became what it was. Oh, by the way, as a bass player doing tracking, I’m there at the rhythm section sessions, and I do my part, and I hope for the best. I hope I’m still I’m not talking about Peter now, but every record, one hopes one is still on the record when it comes out, and one hopes one sounds good, and one hopes one played one’s best. And I’ve had all variations that I’ve been on not on the record. I’ve had to sound kind of screwy later. Usually, engineers get it right and it sounds good later. But anyway, sledge hammer, wow, when I heard it, they had pushed the bass way up. We weren’t playing with that kind of mix in the studio at all. Even I didn’t have that much bass, and they had recompressed it, I think I come I had two compressors on it, and I later found out they compressed it a third and maybe a fourth time to get it pointed this in a subtle way, distinctive sound. So I was really wowed when I heard the track that it had so much bass, and the bass was the kind of one of the main things in it. And that happens sometimes when one is recording, and the opposite happens sometimes. So so that was a good news track for me.

Talkingbass:
So how do you emulate that sound live?

Tony Levin:
how do I get that sound? Well, I’ve been doing it ever since 86 so I guess I’ve got it. Yeah, I use one or two compressors. It’s close enough, and that puts. Particular bass sound was unusual to me, that it was a fretless but with a pick and with an octave divider. So so the trick always has been to find an octave divider that that doesn’t glitch, that catch, capture the attack of the note, and even the ones that I like that I use some some they have good nights and bad nights, maybe, like I do, so on a good night, the thing is just right there with me and getting the note. And then there’s other nights and fretless music. Man, bass, and really cool one, I don’t think I play it anymore on the original, same bass that I first played on, which was a cutlass, Cutlass style music, man, bass, and now I play it on a sting ray, threatless, and sounds very close to the same to me. I got to admit, I haven’t really gone back and listened to the original in a while, and neither has Peter. You know, we go things gradually change, sometimes quickly, but gradually music changes on the road, tempos change. Usually they move up. Sometimes they don’t. And you the artist and the band, or the whole band, gets used to that and is happy to go in that direction. I haven’t been in many situations where a band or anyone is referencing the original to try and get it exactly the same,

Talkingbass:
yeah, well, you want to keep it interesting as well on the road playing the same song every night. Sure,

Tony Levin:
it’s a different life. And in my opinion, if the music is really good music, it deserves to have have its life. And the life of that song, sledgehammer or King Crimson pieces are much more complicated and get recorded well, but it has its life, and it’s fun to be along for the ride to give it that life. And there are some Sledgehammer I tried to play pretty much like the record. I don’t know every note that I played, but some King Crimson pieces. After all these years, I’m still trying to really get the part as good as it can be. I’m really trying to refine the part and changing it night tonight, and that’s far more fun and more challenging than just playing. Playing Sledgehammer is great fun. It’s not challenging because I can play it maybe, can I dance the steps right? And can I sing the words right while I’m doing it? Okay, that’s a little bit challenging, but there’s all kinds of production things and, well, dancing, literally dancing. So it’s a different kind of vibe, but, but it’s a lot of fun, and a lot I like. I love the challenge of changing up music night tonight within the framework of the music has to it has to work for the music. I do not like to just impose, like I’m bored with this part. I’m going to change it. I don’t go with that. On that subject. Let me add about something you didn’t ask you. Most tours I do, there’ll be one or two pieces that are my, my least favorite. They’re my, they’re not, not that I dislike them, but they’re not, you know? And what I’ve done through the years is, when I find myself getting to that part of the set. And I look at the set list, I think, oh, it’s that piece. Instead of playing it, I think, Okay, this is a new challenge. I got to make. I have to change up that bass part in some way, even if it’s a ballad. I don’t have a specific song in mind for any bands, but playing it on a different string, or making it fat, or somehow work on the song. So I look at, I look at it as a challenge for for me to get the bass part better and to have that process kind of captivate me for the next 20 shows of doing that song. And I thought I would share that with you. That’s the way I I face when, once, sometimes especially on long tour, especially on a tour that’s longer than a month when there’s one or two down things in a set that aren’t exciting me. I

Talkingbass:
want to go back to what you were talking about, about the sound you used on, you know, songs like sledgehammer and the front of space and all that. I kind of noticed that in songs of that era, you know, the 80s bass lines. I don’t know if it was a fashionable thing, but it seemed like a lot of bass lines were at the forefront of the songs. And it was, it was getting a little bit more experimental. It was like fretless. It was boss OC two pedals and all this kind of crack. Did you have you noticed that now

Tony Levin:
that you say it, I noticed it, but I was not, uh, paying attention to it is a good way to put it. Actually, I listen to probably a little bit. I love to listen to music, but I listen to probably less than a lot of players, partly because in a good year, not this last year, but in a good year, I’m out touring all the time and busy playing and after sound checking for three hours and play in a concert for two or three hours. I don’t really go to my room and listen anymore, so I’m not oblivious to what’s going on. But likewise, in the 80s, I heard some of what was going on, but I wasn’t I wasn’t captivated, and especially, I wasn’t aiming at it. And when you play in progressive groups like King Crimson, for sure. And Peter Gabriel, maybe even more so Peter doesn’t want anything that’s current. He doesn’t want me to play what’s happening. If he even knows that, then he’ll say that’s not maybe once or twice. I think when the police came out, I did a i My first reaction to a Peter piece was to play a reggae part. And he was like, Oh no, no. And bless him, you know, he really is outside the box. And if I do something that’s never been done, he responds to like, Oh, that’s good. And the more unusual, the better. And so couple that with King Crimson, which is trying, at least to to even do what we didn’t do before, let alone what other bands do. So when those are in your in your your work schedule, those kind of bands, one doesn’t start listening say, Okay, here’s the happening. Here happening. Synth bass sound this year is really cool. I’ll try and put that in. I won’t say that. I’m not guilty of sometimes doing that, and I’ve heard recordings of myself, especially in the 70s, playing very, very stylistically like the 70s. And I’m embarrassed by it. I forgive myself, so I’m good at that. Yeah. So I’m in a couple bands that try to, well, stick man also tries to really think out, try to think outside the box. I’m not one to take credit for succeeding in it, but when we’re trying to do that, we don’t focus on here’s what’s happening now, going

Talkingbass:
back to that session that you met Peter Gable, session where you met Robert Fripp, and it led on to you joining King Crimson. Can you tell us a bit about that

Tony Levin:
story? The sessions were in Toronto. This is back in 76 we’re jumping between 85 and 76 two big years in my career. I guess, unfortunately, there have been other years too. We were up there almost a month. Bob Ezrin was a producer, a wonderful producer. I had done a few Alice Cooper albums with him and a Lou Reed Berlin, part of playing on that, and maybe I don’t remember if I had done other other sessions with with him, but he had a process of really working hard, long days and for weeks or a month. Peter was this young guy, or exciting guy, playing music different than I had heard, and we were trying to react. The whole band was trying to react to that in a creative way. I wasn’t a progressive rock player at that time, but I could hear that the normal stuff. Well, I could just play the bass part that he was playing his left hand. And that was odd enough, that was unusual enough, but I was not lending new sounds to the music at all. I had my Fender bass at the time, Fender Precision. And let’s see, I met Larry fast, a wonderful keyboard player at the same time, whom I’m still making music with when I get the chance, and Steve Hunter, an amazing guitar player, whom I still have play on my songs and I play on his when we get the chance. Okay, so that led to we toured with that same band, and then sometime after that, I’m not sure of the year, Robert Tripp did a solo album called exposure, and asked me to play on that. And that was Robert’s personal music, but essentially it was very much like King Crimson music. So I think that was where I got used to his style, but also he he wasn’t auditioning me, but he must have been happy with the way I reacted to his music, because later, when he formed the band, first called discipline, it wasn’t called King Crimson, but in 80 or 81 I think 81 they had me in to try to play bass with Bill Bruford and Adrian balew, and Robert and I met those guys, Bill and Adrian that day, and still making music with them and loving that. So that was pretty seminal. So I think for me, I hadn’t thought about this till now, is maybe why I’m so confused talking about it. It was Peter’s album, then Robert’s solo album, and then asked to join this band called discipline. And after the first short tour, we changed the name to King Crimson.

Talkingbass:
You’ve also got the Liquid Tension Experiment. How did that come about?

Tony Levin:
back Oh, I’m not good at years now, little but more recent years I’m not good at in the 90s, at some point, I think the record company idea was to put us together. The other players knew me. I did not know Mark Portnoy or Jordan Rudis or John Petrucci. I was aware of Dream Theater, the band, but I really hadn’t heard it, and we went in to the studio and did it. Maybe it’s not an unusual way of writing, but just get in and start playing. Here’s an idea I have, and the other guys learn it, and then say, oh, that leads to an idea I have. And so we compose at the same time as we’re recording and and that’s the way we did it in the 90s, and that’s the way we did it last year, when we just decided, well. Almost on the spur of the moment. Well, nothing’s going on this year. What if we got together? Let’s, let’s take a chance and try to work out the logistics. This was in August of 2020, sorry, July, July and August. July into August. We spent, I think total, three weeks together in the studio and with hotel rooms and stuff. That wasn’t easy to set that up. And the process was, we’re all laughing, because the process went down exactly the same. It had been 20 years since we had been in the studio. We played together plenty and seen each other. We’re friends, but 20 years later, and the process was the same. One guy, John Petrucci, would play this, an amazing guitar riff, long, one too, very complicated. And Jordan Rudis, on keyboard with his left hand, would play it immediately and memorize it immediately. And I would be, okay, can you just play that again slower? And I’ve been with my pen and paper trying to write it down. And they’d move on. Jordan said, Well, what that could lead it to this? And Mike port and iron drums would say, Well, wait a guy, what if we put that in five instead of in four? And what that thing you played? And the piece is zoom the composition is zooming ahead. And I’m, I am used to, I used to be used to being the fastest guy in the room at memorizing things and learning things in that band. I’m, I’m, for sure, the the retarded guy that everybody tolerates and doesn’t mind having in the room. They must really like me. And also, I make espresso for them. So, so there you go. Keep that’s my job security. My coffee is very good. That was, that was the experience in the 90s, and it was exactly the same last year. And we came up with a lot of music, and very good. We’re very happy with the music that band likes to improvise. Also there’s, there’s the fast composition, for sure, and then when we get that piece, maybe late, maybe night, at night, we say, well, let’s just play some and record that. And someone later will pick the best parts of those recordings and either use them for more material, or have it be a piece on its own, or have it be a bonus piece for the bonus CD of improvs. So we know what we are and when we do what we do, and it’s good fun. One, one hopes there’ll be a tour that the the complex element of, I know it’s a band liquid tension experiment, but it’s also a kind of a project band. It’s a band of guys who are in other bands, and the other bands are their priority, Dream Theater King, crimson Mike, Portnoy, at least in a dozen bands, he’s really busy. So all great. That’s great, but you can only tour. How do you tour? You got to book it at least six months ahead of time, hopefully eight months, nine months ahead of time. You have to wait till it’s a period that none of those bands are booked and everybody’s willing to commit and tell Dream Theater and tell King Crimson and tell Peter Gabriel, okay, next September, I need that two weeks. So one hopes we will. I’m sure we will, if we’re able to, but it won’t be for a while, because we have all these commitments with the other bands, and sooner or later, we’ll hopefully tour, and that music will will hopefully get what it deserves and grow from being played in front of people every night

Talkingbass:
That must be a lot of headaches trying to organize all that, like, “who get’s first priority?”

Tony Levin:
It’s a good problem to have, isn’t it? There are many years when I don’t have that problem. The problem like every musician of chi, I wish I had a tour. I wish I had something to do. Frankly, last year, yeah, darn well, last year was stands alone and being free for anything and nothing to do. You know, it’s not hard. I change it. I remember when I joined King Crimson discipline and told Robert My priority is Peter, because I had been touring for a long time with Peter at that point, and I didn’t want to suddenly tell Peter No. And so he said, Oh yeah, fine. It’ll be fine. So for a few years, we juggled the method I did the two managements would talk to each other, and they were juggle tours. So I was able to do both. Then really this century, Peter has toured a lot less, and King Crimson has toured a lot more. I still wouldn’t say that. I could say the king frankly, I don’t think about it. I don’t have it on the list, but King Crimson has been my priority. And if there were to be a Peter Gabriel tour, and it were to conflict with Crimson, I don’t know what would happen, but I would try to talk both managements into that not happening. However, with Crimson books, as they have this year, it’s booked a number of months, and that’s booked. Then I next look to stick man, the band that I have quite a bit of control over, and it’s just a trio, so a little bit more manageable to Bucha tour, and more flexible. And by the way, Pat masala, one of the drummers in King Crimson, is also in stick man, so with two of the three of us in King Crimson, where there’s. A break from King Crimson, we can look at that and get our agent on. Hey, what if there was a stick mentor? And then closely after that, I’m in a jazz band with my brother, 11 brothers, and still more flexible, because we can just do a local jazz gig with two weeks notice or one week so there you go. There’s probably a few authors that slip in once in a while or not, not full tours, but maybe a week with somebody. And I don’t really spend time prioritizing them. I think I’m the same as every musician, you want to have work, and sometimes too much work comes in, and it’s conflicts, and you try to work it out however

Talkingbass:
So what’s your plan post COVID?

Tony Levin:
You think I’m a musician with a plan? I plan to happily do all the tours that are coming in. And hope, dearly, hope that my health, because I’m not the youngest guy, that my health is very good. And I hope I continue to be lucky on that front, and that my health just allows me to do them, because the nature of tours is the music is the reward. King Crimson has a lot booked this year, so does Stick Men, and right up until through spring of next year, Levin brothers and Stick Men and King Crimson have bookings. So that’s good. All good on that front,

Talkingbass:

That’s great. Well, obviously we want to read more of your road diaries on your website. Tonylevin.com has been around since 96, even before the term blog came about.

Tony Levin:
You know, you did your homework. Yeah, it’s true. I started a website early because I’m a computer guy and a web guy. It was called papabear.com. Papa Bear  Records was a record company I set up. And I started up pretty early to try to sell my CDs online. That was back when you had to ask somebody to write a check and trust you and send it to you. It didn’t sell much, but because of the comments I would have on the website, I realized that people really liked the incidental thing of mentioning what it’s like backstage and on tour. And so it became obviously to me that’s that’s what people like.

I like doing that. In fact, I love that. One of the great things about the internet, that’s not appreciated much, is it helped take down some of the barrier between audiences and bands. I’m sure I’m not the first person to do a blog from the road, but the there was no word for it, and it was fine.  I was busy taking pictures in those days, as I am now. The PIC, unfortunately, the web pictures I put up then were 220, pixels wide. Was the widest you could do back then, because people’s browsers couldn’t handle it, and their their computer screens, they don’t want to be this big, things have changed a lot, as has my photography. I want to mention, since you mentioned my website, I spent a lot of last year putting together a book of my photos, all those photos through the years of King Crimson and Peter Gabriel once around somewhere. And that’s available on Tony levin.com it’s called images from a life on the road, and I, I feel really good about it because had it. I don’t I’m not glad that 2020, was what it was, but that was on my list of I really got to do this someday, and I would never, ever have had the time to do it, because it takes a lot of hours to collate photos, especially when you have 10s of 1000s of them, and pick the best ones and organize them. And so I feel good that I did that and was able to get it out. It would not have happened in another year, or probably would have never happened, and checked it off the list. Really, when you take the web diary is great, and I do get to put photos up there plenty, but when you take get some lucky pictures that are really great in my feeling, and some of them are go back to the 70s and 80s too. It feels like it wants to be shared with at least the fans of that band, Peter Gabriel, fans ought to be able to see the pictures that I took of him floating through the audience doing what later became called crowd surfing from the vantage point to the stage, and I would take the pictures every night. So it’s, you know, I take a sigh of happiness and relief that, okay, it’s out there and people can see those pictures. Now, that’s brilliant.

Talkingbass:
That looks great. Do you think there’s something about being a musician that lends itself to something else in arts?

Tony Levin:
Maybe. There are a number of bass players who are very good photographers. You have a lot of time on the road, a lot of time traveling and photography works for that. I know a few musicians who are actors also. Some actors have tremendous respect for the career of being a musician.

I think it’s hugely rewarding, and I’m very lucky that it’s what I’m able to do. But I’m also aware there’s something about music, live music especially, where it exists in the moment. What’s the word… ‘Ephemeral?’ It’s there and then it’s over, and it can never be captured in recordings. So that can make you crave something like “Here what I do. Here’s a picture I drew. Here’s a poem I wrote. Here’s a book I wrote.”

Maybe some of us are drawn to something that’s tangible. Where you can just say “Okay, that’s it”

Talkingbass:
What advice would you give for bass players who want to be touring session bass players? What are the requirements?

Tony Levin:
That’s a very good question and a rough question. I’ve been asked it before. It’s rough because I don’t have the playbook. I didn’t follow the playbook. I just kind of fell into a lot of stuff and the things I’ve learned through my career have mostly been about music. About how to try to play better.

It’s worth pursuing. I think those who are not cut out to do it, won’t pursue it. But if your passion is to do that, it’s worth pursuing.

Probably the most useful thing, I can say is not the most positive thing. There will be discouraging times. Every musician, who you would call very successful, every one of them, has been at some point or other, rejected from for an album, or from a band, kicked out of a band, auditioned for something, didn’t get it, thought he had a tour, the tour fell through. It just happens. It’s very unfortunate that that happens. But at least you can say, “Hell, that that old guy, Tony Levin, who’s been around, said, Yeah, that happens to everybody!”

That doesn’t mean it won’t hurt, but you’ve got to factor that in and keep going, because there are a lot of good times to have that more than overcome the rough aspect of the business of music.

Talkingbass:
Thank you so much Tony for being with us today.

Tony Levin:
Thank you all, and I loved your questions. Thank you.