Steve Vai says he had underrated Adrian Belew’s “brilliance” before teaming up with him in Beat, the prog-rock supergroup devoted to performing King Crimson's 1980s output.
Crimson’s music has always been defined by intricate guitar partnerships between Robert Fripp and whoever his counterpart happened to be. Vai knew that to make the Beat tour a success, he needed a sizzling chemistry with co-guitarist Adrian Belew.
It was never going to be an easy task, thanks to the sheer complexity of the music at hand. Belew himself has admitted he struggled to lock in with Fripp when he joined in 1981 while Jakko Jakszyk has spoken of how their knotted polyrhythms could quickly turn into a “car crash,” if someone slipped up.
However, Vai is full of praise of Belew, telling Music Radar that he “can't say enough about Adrian,” who gave him a small dose of inferiority.
“I knew about his work with Zappa, but that didn’t show me all of his brilliance,” he waxes lyrical. “You need to hear him flexing his muscles in different situations to discover the breadth of the man’s abilities.
“There are his contributions to David Bowie and Talking Heads,” he adds, “but what he did on those ’80s King Crimson records was monumental.”
“I would say Adrian is underrated in the echelons of guitar. Nobody plays like anybody else, nobody can play like me, but they can get sort of close. Honestly, there’s no one close to Adrian.
“There’s a special way he’s crafted his own dimension of sounds,” he maintains. “To see him play this complex polymetric music while singing at 75 is unbelievable. He still hits the notes with that silky voice. He’ll talk and joke around while I have to keep my head down. The man is a marvel!”
He’s also spoken fondly of the partnership they have forged, stating: “Together we’ve merged our sounds in a way that creates a really dynamic show.”
The Beat tour hasn’t been without its teething problems, though. In the much-covered build-up to the tour, Vai admitted that, in the wake of shoulder surgery, playing “Frame by Frame” had proved particularly challenging.
Then, several nights into the tour, he received an email from Robert Fripp, offering him some sage bits of advice to improve his playing on that song, and it made all the difference.
Having trailed across North America last year, Beat will tour South America in April as the King Crimson love-in continues, with Vai still in awe of his bandmate.
Vai is also set to tour with Joe Satriani as part of the SatchVai Band, having tapped up Pete Thorn as a rhythm guitarist.
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