John Wetton: (Not) Lost for Words

Story by Bill Kopp

John Wetton has an impressive pedigree. Depending on what sort of musical style you’re most fond of, you may know Wetton as the bass-playing vocalist/frontman of Asia. If your tastes run more toward challenging progressive music, you may think of his groundbreaking work with what many consider the best lineup of King Crimson. If you were a headbanger in the 70s, you might have dug his work with Uriah Heep. You say that English folk-rock is your cup of tea? Family. Art-pop? Roxy Music. And that’s only part of the man’s pedigree. He’s as busy as ever these days, and Wetton’s most recent project is a new solo album called Raised in Captivity. I asked him about that – and much more – in a recent interview.

Bill Kopp: Many tracks on the new album seem to take a production and arrangement cue from your Asia work, especially in the overdubbing of your voice multiple times to give it a “Wetton chorus” sort of feel. Was that a conscious decision, to sort of follow in that proven-effective style?

John Wetton: It’s something I did before Asia. It’s something I did way back in King Crimson, actually. Back through the sands of time; it started for me around 1972. And it’s an effect I like, the chorus. Of course, “chorus” means to sing along, doesn’t it? I kind of like multiple-layered harmonies. What attracted me to pop music in the first place — Beatles, Beach Boys – is that I’m a big fan of harmony. And the block voices of a choir; that’s where I came into music as well, through church music.

So it’s what I do; it turns me on. If it happens to be what people identify as me with Asia, it’s only [laughs] because Asia sold more records than King Crimson or my solo albums. It’s something that I do; I don’t even think about it. Funnily enough, you’re the first person to mention that. But it’s very rare that I do a vocal straight through without tracking in the chorus. It has been known to happen, but not often.

Thank you for mentioning that, because it hadn’t even dawned on me that I do that.

BK: Was the album put together in a traditional studio setting, or was it more like Steve Hackett’s album Out of the Tunnel’s Mouth (which you played on) built piece by piece on a computer console?

JW: Well, we made it to sound like a live band. Which it does: it sounds like a group. But in fact it was just the two of us. Billy [Sherwood] played all of the drums and the guitars, and I played the bass and some acoustic guitars, the vocals and some keyboards. And somehow we managed to make it sound like it was being played by a band. Mainly that’s because Billy does the drums in one take. So it’s not sort of under the microscope. Unlike in the past where you analyze every kick drum, every fill; it wasn’t done like that. It was done where Billy played it once through. And usually that was it.

BK: I’ve long been a big, big fan of Robert Fripp’s work. I have noticed, however, that often when he guests on others’ work, his contributions — though important — are sometimes subtle to the point of being almost inaudible. On the new album’s title track, however, his distinctive sound is front and center. How would you articulate what Fripp brings to your (and others’) work?

JW: First of all, he’s a really good friend. I’ve known the guy for nearly fifty years now. And we actually get on better than we ever have done in the past. I think we have a relationship that’s grown.

But I would not like to get any closer…I wouldn’t like to put our relationship under any further stress. A lot of people say, “Why don’t you get King Crimson back together?” He’s retired, Bill Bruford’s retired. I have a carpal tunnel in my right hand. So you’re not looking at a full ticket, y’know.

So, Robert guesting on my album — which is what he’s done on three of the albums – that’s as close as I want to get. I love the guy, and I don’t want to sacrifice our relationship. Because I know that if we worked in any closer organization, there would be a flash point.

When he guests on a song, I think he likes it like that, that he’s almost mixed out of the damn thing! [laughs] That’s the way he prefers it. I remember when he was onstage with David Bowie; he was almost invisible. I think, in fact, at one point he was invisible. He kind of likes that; he hides his light a little bit. And then, tells you afterward what he was playing.

But I love the guy, and I love what he plays. But now he’s retired; it’s kind of an end of an era. I’m glad to have some dear friends on this record.

BK: Speaking of which, every track on Raised in Captivity except the bonus track features a guest spot of some sort…

JW: Yeah, it does. We kind of engineered it like that. When I left England to go to California to record, I sort of had certain songs earmarked for certain people. These are people from throughout my career; usually the guitar players. I chose Alan Holdsworth, and when I got to California, I asked him if he would do the solo on “The Last Night of My Life.”

He said yes. But he said, “I’ve got a priority, a solo album. It’s the first one I’ve done for eleven years.” And it got closer and closer and closer to the deadline — when we had to stop recording – and I still didn’t have it. So I thought, “I’m not going to get this. And I don’t want to be overdubbing it at the mastering session!” [laughs] So, I called the guy that I was about go on tour with, Alex Machacek; he’s a good friend of Alan’s. I didn’t give him any brief; I just said, “Here’s the chord sequence; just play a modal solo, please.” Which he did. And it sounds remarkably close to what Alan would have done. It’s exactly what I wanted. Alex did a great job, and I didn’t have to wait for Alan to make up his mind whether he was going to do it or not.

I love Alan – wish him all the best — but I just couldn’t wait. We were running out of time. I had a record company barking at me, management barking at me. They were all saying, “We’ve got to have a record. It’s got to be wrapped up.” And I still didn’t have the solo. So Alex Machacek stepped in at the last minute and saved the day.

Apart from Alan, all of the other soloists were fine, and they knew what to do. I hardly had to ask them to do two takes.

BK: By my count the only bands not represented on your new record are Family and Wishbone Ash.

A lot of people look at my track record, my history, my CV, and point out that I pop from band to band. And in fact that was [true] only in the early seventies. I have a fairly strong work ethic. Which I share with Carl Palmer, actually. We both think that if we’re not working on a Saturday night, something is terribly wrong.

So, what I did when I first went professional, I hopped from band to band just to keep myself in work. I went from Family to King Crimson. King Crimson ended before I wanted it to…

BK: Me too!

JW: I would have liked to have been in that band for twenty years; that would have been my ideal. But it didn’t go like that. So when it ended, I was in the same office as Roxy Music. And they said, “We can’t find anyone to do this tour. Will you step in and do it?” So I did a UK tour with them, and it was great fun. They were at the height of their popularity, and there was some very high-class underwear being thrown onstage.

They’re lovely guys, and I really enjoyed myself. But musically, it wasn’t the be-all-and-end-all. So I moved on and went with Uriah Heep. And then after that, we formed UK. And that was all, really, in the first ten years of my professional existence.

And if you look at Wishbone Ash, it was just a session. It was six weeks in Miami; a nice session, but it was not a career move for me. They didn’t want all I had to offer. So when people say, “You did some hopping around,” I say that I did, but it was some high-class band hopping. That’s what I did. And then as of 1978 when UK was formed, it’s either been Asia or solo.

BK: One of the things that I especially like about the new album is that the guest spots aren’t gratuitous; they make sense within the context of the songs. Every one is better — brought more true to its core, you might say — by what the guest musician adds.

JW: Absolutely correct.

BK: In particular, Eddie Jobson’s violin work on “The Devil and the Opera House” is a prime example. How did you approach the guest parts: did you give them demos and say “come up with something cool for this” or did you give them more specific direction?

JW: They got a demo, or they got a backing track, and they knew what the song was about. It had a guide vocal on it, and was pretty much a rough mix. They would overdub their solo onto that. In some cases I got a choice of two or three solos, but I’d very often took the first one.

They had a brief; so, on “Lost for Words,” we — and I say we because it was me and Billy – said that we really wanted a shredder on that one. Billy approached Steve Morse, and said, “We want a high-energy, street, go-for it solo.” And that’s what we got: a fantastic solo from Steve. And as you say, it adds to the track. In no way is it inappropriate. It doesn’t sound like it suddenly wandered into the studio.

Eddie Jobson, the same thing. When Richard Palmer-James, Billy and I wrote the song — it’s about an actual place in the town where I live – when we thought of the Devil, the automatic thought was: fiddle. And there’s only one person I can think of. The thought went: Devil, fiddle, Eddie Jobson. And he said, “God, am I playing the Devil again?” [laughs] And he did exactly what was required. More, really.

It seemed like there was a greater hand guiding what we were doing, at times. Everything worked out so well. There wasn’t one, really, that we got stuck on. It was fairly plain sailing. And I’m really pleased about that.

BK: Two tracks on your new album, Raised in Captivity, feature Tony Kaye. Have the two of you worked together before?

JW: That came straight from Billy Sherwood. [Ex-Yes members Sherwood and Kaye have a band called Circa; look for a review of their new album And So On in this space, soon. – ed.] We needed some Hammond organ. As you may have noticed, the album is guitar-driven; it’s not keyboard-driven. Most of my stuff is written on keyboard; that’s my first instrument. So usually my stuff is ninety percent keyboards, and ten percent guitar. And on this one, the ratio is exactly opposite. And it’s really because I tend to write…I live in a very kind of semi-rural situation where I’ve got a piano and a guitar. I will end up on my own writing dreary folk songs. And unfortunately, my record company is not overly fond of my dreary folk songs.

So what happens is, I take those dreary folk songs to Los Angeles, where life is on the edge. Helicopters, police all over the place. Lots and lots of action going on. And I work with a guy who probably drinks too much caffeine. So I get that edgy energy going into my hideous folk songs, and end up with what you’ve got in front of you now. This sort of high-energy soup contains — somewhere in there – my little old dreary folk songs.

You get a song like “Goodbye Elsinore” stuck in the middle of “Lost for Words” and “Raised in Captivity.” For me, if I were a record buyer and not making records, that’s exactly what I’d want to hear from me. I would not want to listen to fifty minutes of John’s dreary folk tunes. I’d love to hear that, but I want something else as well. I want that energy; I want that rock’n’roll. And that’s what Billy provides. That’s what the setting provides, and that’s why I went to Los Angeles.

BK: Is there anyone you’ve not worked with, that you’d like to collaborate with on a musical project?

JW: Yes. I’ve always wanted to do a duet with Agnetha Fältskog, the singer from ABBA. I worked with her in the eighties on one of her solo albums. She’s got such a beautiful voice.

The great thing about having a solo album is that you can do what the fuck you want. And with whom you want. The thing I can’t do on Asia records…if I want to write something intensely personal, I don’t feel I can drag the guys into my corner and say, “This [character] is at the lowest point.” Because they’d say, “We don’t relate to that.” They also feel that, with Asia, I’m the spokesman for the group. If I’m singing, I’m the spokesman. And I don’t particularly want to get my stuff involved with…I don’t want people to think I’m representing the group [with that kind of material].

So I don’t drag them into my corner, and a solo album is the place where I can do that. One of the first people I listened to, ever, was Joni Mitchell. I was shocked that she could come out with lyrics that were so intensely personal. She would always write in the first person; it changed the way I thought about songwriting.

There was a whole wave of songwriters like that: James Taylor, Carole King. And I had always thought in the prog-rock way, where you’re making an observation. It got me into writing more and more personal stuff. Whereas now, I don’t mind spilling my diary onto the pages of the rock tune. But there are certain places I can’t go with the band. So Raised in Captivity was a good outlet for me. There’s a lot of stuff on there that’s intensely personal. And it’s a good way for me to get it out.

Life is not a bowl of cherries all of the time. And people can listen and realize, “Yeah, my life is like that, too.” The feedback that I get from fans — from people who buy this stuff – is that they love reading about that someone else’s life isn’t so perfect.

BK: I understand what you mean; some things work in one context but not in another. Though history proved him wrong, Mike Love famously told Brian Wilson, “Don’t fuck with the formula.”

JW: Brian Wilson is one of my biggest influences in terms of making records. I will forever remember the day when I was listening to my transistor radio under a pillow – you know, Radio Luxembourg – and “God Only Knows” came on. I just freaked. I thought, “This is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard.” And, it also told me that anything is possible. You don’t have to be afraid of doing anything in the studio.

BK: “God Only Knows” is Paul McCartney’s favorite song.

JW: Seriously? Well, if he thinks it’s good, it must be good!

BK: Last year Fripp and Steven Wilson did what I thought impossible: they made King Crimson’s Red even better than it was.

JW: I went to the playback of that. And Steven Wilson said to me, “Great, isn’t it?” And I said, “Yes, but it did sound great in the first place.” It’s got better with age, though, yes.

BK: On that record you set the standard for bass playing, one that other players have spent their entire careers trying to catch up to. Do you agree with people like me who hold that work — and your contribution to it — in such high regard?

JW: Yes. In a certain way, I was at the peak of performance on that record. I was young, muscular and full of energy. And I didn’t have all of the jaded stuff that goes with middle age. The whole thing was that we captured that record when we had just come off tour. We’d been playing a lot of that material on tour. We walked into a studio in south London, and it was a gorgeous summer. We just laid it down. We laid it down as we would if we were playing it live. Then we proceeded to overdub onto it.

The sound that comes out on that record is as it was, played live. We were in the right studio at the right time, with the right engineer. And it was fabulous; we were all at the top of our game. I was really knocked out with the album; I thought it was great. No one else was that keen on it at the time, but since then, it’s blossomed. Nobody liked the fact that we had our photograph on the cover…

BK: Meet the Beatles!

JW: Three Beatles, yes. And we did a few things on there that King Crimson didn’t normally do. At the time, there was a bit of, “Whoa, not so sure about that.” In retrospect, I’m glad we did the whole thing.

And I’d agree that the 5.1 mix is fantastic. It’s as clean as a whistle. But it was pretty good to start with.

BK: I’d argue that you’re equally known in progressive and pop circles for both your bass work and your voice. And in fact you’re one of few artists — especially on the progressive side — that is renowned for two things; usually an artist is lucky to get even one. Both when you started out and now, who influenced your playing style?

JW: Basswise, Johann Sebastian Bach, Jack Bruce, Ron Carter, Miroslav Vitous, Paul McCartney, Chris Squire, John Entwistle, lots of others. I’ve been influenced both basswise and vocally by pretty much everyone who’s any good. I always try to take something away when I see a great concert or hear a great record. So inevitably we end up an amalgam of everything that we want to be. Everything we see, we take little bits of.

My roots are in church music, which is probably why I identify so strongly with Brian Wilson. Because he thinks in church harmonies. The way he uses an organ bass pedal instead of a bass guitar.

So, all of those people I mentioned. And vocally, everyone from the Beatles, Eagles…Don Henley is one of the greatest singers ever. He also performed one of the best concerts I have ever seen — ever, ever – in my life. It was in Los Angeles, ‘round 1991-92. It was an invited audience to the soundstage at A&M lot. It was a coliseum show, but for about three hundred people. Unbelievable. Full band, full lighting rig, everything. He did a fifty-minute show, and his encore was “Hotel California” and “Desperado.” [laughs] I was practically in tears!

BK: I bought Caught in the Crossfire when it came out and was surprised at how — in a good way — conventional it was; having at that point heard you mostly in Crimson and UK, I expected something a bit darker. In retrospect it pointed the way you would bridge progressive and mainstream rock with Asia. The constant, of course, is your voice and thundering bass. You’ve explored a lot of different styles on your own records; is there a style or sort of music you’ve yet to take on, that you’d like to explore?

JW: I don’t think you’ll be getting any trumpet solos out of me.

I say this with pride: my roots are church music, and I love orchestral music. I grew up in the middle of progressive music, and I try never to forget the little bit of rock that separates it from being a mishmash of orchestral and prog stuff. For me, it always has to have a little edge of rock. Sometimes it has a big edge.

It wasn’t church music that made me join rock bands. It was rock. For me, progressive music — as it was in the 70s and 80s – is purely an amalgamation of classical and rock music. Putting those two together, you have melodic rock music. From there springs the Beatles, Beach Boys, Procol Harum. Everything comes from that amalgam. And it’s a beautiful marriage; I think classical music and rock music were made for each other.

BK: Will you be doing any live dates in connection with Raised in Captivity?

JW: With any kind of enterprise, there has to be desire. And at the moment, I’ve just come back from three months on tour. And I am so loving sleeping in my own bed, and making a cup of tea in my own kitchen. I am just adoring being at home at the moment.

Give me another month, and it will be the easiest thing in the world for me to put a band together and go out and do some dates. But right now…mmm…I’m enjoying my creature comforts at home. But…just for the moment.

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