Adrian Belew
Adrian Belew | |
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 Belew in 2022 | |
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Robert Steven Belew |
| Born | December 23, 1949 Covington, Kentucky, U.S. |
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| Years active | 1977–present |
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| Member of | Gizmodrome |
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| Website | adrianbelew |
Robert Steven "Adrian" Belew (born December 23, 1949) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer. A multi-instrumentalist primarily known as a guitarist and singer, he is noted for his unusual and impressionistic approach to his guitar tones which, rather than relying on standard instrumental tones, often resemble sound effects or noises made by animals and machines.
Widely recognized as an "incredibly versatile player", Belew is perhaps best known for his long career as singer and guitarist in the progressive rock group King Crimson between 1981 and 2009. He has also released nearly twenty solo albums for Island Records and Atlantic Records in a range of blended or alternated styles including art rock, New Wave, Beatles-inspired pop-rock, progressive rock and experimental noise. In addition, Belew has been a member of the intermittently active pop band the Bears, and fronted GaGa in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Belew has worked extensively as a session musician, guest and touring musician, including periods with the Frank Zappa and David Bowie bands, Talking Heads, Laurie Anderson, and Nine Inch Nails, as well as contributing to hit singles by Paul Simon, Tom Tom Club, and others. He released a top-10 single in 1989 with "Oh Daddy", and his 2005 single "Beat Box Guitar" was nominated for a Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. Belew has also worked in instrument design and multimedia, collaborating with Parker Guitars to help design his Parker Fly signature guitar, and designing his own iOS mobile apps, "FLUX by belew" and "FLUX:FX, the multi-effect audio processor app."
Musical Career
Early beginnings and Frank Zappa (1965-1978)
Belew actually started out learning drums when he was a young man, but switched to guitar following a sickness that left him bedridden for weeks as a teenager. He would begin playing live shows on the guitar shortly thereafter.
When Belew joined Zappa's band in late 1977, he was playing a natural-finish Stratocaster, that "never made it home." Belew would replace this guitar with another Stratocaster that he bought in Nashville that was "kinda ugly." Looking to improve the look of the instrument, Belew contacted his friend Seymour W. Duncan, who proceeded to spray lighter fluid on the guitar, set it on fire, drag it through the grass, sanded it, and spray painted it. This new unique looking Strat would become one of Belew's signature instruments.[1]
Work with David Bowie (1978–1979)
On the recommendation of musician/producer Brian Eno, after seeing a Zappa concert in Cologne, Germany, David Bowie offered to hire Belew once the Zappa tour was finished. Belew accepted the offer, as Zappa intended to spend four months editing the film Baby Snakes. Belew then played on Bowie's Isolar II Tour in 1978; he played on the double-live album Stage, and also contributed to Bowie's next album, Lodger. Twelve years later, he returned to working with Bowie, acting as musical director on the 1990 Sound+Vision Tour, while also playing guitar and singing.
Talking Heads, GaGa and the Tom Tom Club (1979–1982)
In 1980, Belew formed a new band, GaGa (based in Urbana, Illinois, where he resided at the time), for which he served as the singer, guitarist and primary songwriter (as well as, via backing tapes, the drummer). By now a frequent visitor to New York City, Belew had also become friends with the up-and-coming new wave/art-rock band Talking Heads. Invited to join the band onstage for performances of their signature song "Psycho Killer", Belew impressed them with his wild and unorthodox guitar soloing and became an occasional guest performer at live concerts. Around this time, Belew also met King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp at a Steve Reich concert. In July of that year, GaGa was invited to open several New York City-area concerts for Fripp's band, the League of Gentlemen.
At the same time, Belew had been tapped by Talking Heads and their producer Brian Eno (with whom he'd worked on Lodger) to add guitar solos to several tracks on the Remain in Light album. He was subsequently added to the expanded nine-piece Talking Heads live band for tours in late 1980 and early 1981. These concerts were documented in the DVD Live in Roma and in the second half of the band's 1982 live album, The Name of This Band is Talking Heads. Belew's involvement with Talking Heads extended to playing on the band's spin-off projects. He played on keyboard player/guitarist Jerry Harrison's debut album, The Red and the Black, and on several tracks on David Byrne's soundtrack to the Twyla Tharp dance piece, The Catherine Wheel (with his guitar noises credited, amongst other things, as "beasts").
At the time, the internal relationships in Talking Heads were particularly strained. The band's married rhythm section, Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz, allegedly approached Belew with the suggestion that he should replace Byrne as the band's frontman, an offer which Belew immediately but politely turned down. (In his book Remain in Love, Frantz denied that this offer was ever made.) Belew did, however, go on to work with Weymouth and Frantz on their own spin-off project, Tom Tom Club. Joining them for recordings at Compass Point Studios in Nassau, Bahamas, Belew played rhythm guitar on the sessions for the band's debut album, as well as adding his trademark processed solos (and even performing the entire instrumentation for the track "L'Elephant").
Unfortunately, Belew's experience with Tom Tom Club was less harmonious than his previous work with Talking Heads. Tom Tom Club's recording engineer, Steven Stanley, was vocal about his dislike of distorted guitar and erased the majority of Belew's solos during the mixing sessions. Worse was to follow when Belew queried Weymouth about songwriting credits, having co-written several of the album's songs in addition to his playing. He was apparently "ghosted", with Weymouth no longer returning his phone calls. Belew did not play live with Tom Tom Club or contribute to any further sessions. Recalling the situation when interviewed twenty years later, he claimed that he had opted to pursue other work rather than involve himself in legal or personal struggles with Weymouth and Frantz, and that he had chosen not to let it bother him, as several other, more promising projects were happening for him at the same time.
Discography
Studio albums
- Lone Rhino (1982, Island)
- Twang Bar King (1983, Island)
- Desire Caught By the Tail (1986, Island)
- Mr. Music Head (1989, Atlantic)
- Young Lions (1990, Atlantic)
- Inner Revolution (1992, Atlantic)
- The Acoustic Adrian Belew (1993, Adrian Belew Presents)
- Here (1994, Adrian Belew Presents)
- The Experimental Guitar Series Volume 1: The Guitar as Orchestra (1995, Adrian Belew Presents)
- Op Zop Too Wah (1996, Adrian Belew Presents)
- Belew Prints: The Acoustic Adrian Belew, Vol. 2 (1998, Adrian Belew Presents)
- Salad Days (1999, Thirsty Ear)
- Side One (2004, Adrian Belew Presents)
- Side Two (2005, Adrian Belew Presents)
- Side Three (2006, Adrian Belew Presents)
- e (2008, Adrian Belew Presents)
- e (2009, Adrian Belew Presents)
- Adrian Belew's E For Orchestra (2011, Adrian Belew Presents) studio recording CD
- via iOS application: "FLUX by belew" (2014) continuous morphing compositional program
- Dust (2014, Adrian Belew Presents)
- Sixteen (2015, Adrian Belew Presents)
- Twenty (2015, Adrian Belew Presents)
- FLUX Volume One (2016, Adrian Belew Presents)
- FLUX Volume Two (2017, Adrian Belew Presents)
- FLUX Volume Three (2018, Adrian Belew Presents)
- Pop-Sided (2019, Adrian Belew Presents)
- Elevator (2022, Adrian Belew Presents)
Contributions (selection)
with David Bowie
- 1978: Stage (recorded Apr–May 1978) [2CD]
- 1979: Lodger ("Fantastic Voyage", "Move On", "Red Sails", "DJ", "Boys Keep Swinging", "Repetition", "Red Money")
with Talking Heads / Tom Tom Club / Jerry Harrison / David Byrne
- 1980: Remain in Light
- 1981: Tom Tom Club
- 1981: The Red and the Black
- 1981: The Catherine Wheel
- 1982: The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads
with Ryuichi Sakamoto
- 1981: Left-handed Dream
- 1990: The Arrangement
- 1994: Soundbytes
- ↑ Reed, Ryan. ““Seymour Duncan Went to Work. He Dragged It through the Grass. Put Motor Oil on It. Chipped It. Frank Zappa Said, “If You Wanted to Ruin Your Guitar, Adrian, Why Didn’t You Loan It to a Friend?”” Adrian Belew’s Number One Stratocaster Has Lived a Life.” Guitarworld, 11 July 2024, www.guitarworld.com/features/adrian-belew-number-one-fender-stratocaster. Accessed 23 July 2024.