It’s often been said that the three of you in ELP never got on. He wrote the fucking song!” It made me appreciate what Greg Lake had to do for all those years. Anyway, I managed to bumble through the song.Īs I left the stage, some guy who obviously didn’t recognise me said, “You just ruined a classic song.” But another chap replied, “He’s allowed. There were a couple of lines the club thought would be offensive, so they’d been cut. When the lyrics scrolled up in front me, they’d been changed. I looked at the list of songs they had on their list, and there was Karn Evil. My girlfriend recently persuaded me, against my better judgement, to go to a karaoke club with her in California. My father, who was an amateur musician himself, got me a guitar and I spent eight months trying to become proficient at playing the instrument. At one point I thought I would stand a far better chance of making it in a band. But when a good friend dies, as happened recently with Chris Squire, then it does hit home and make you appreciate that you have to ensure every second in your life counts.ĭid you ever consider giving up playing the keyboard and taking up the guitar?Īctually, I did go through that stage. And when you’re up in the air sitting at a piano, it really is more exciting than frightening. Oh yes, but I’ve always loved to challenge myself by doing things that others would call ‘dangerous’.

It was a dangerous thing for you to do at the time, wasn’t it? I said to Dave that he shouldn’t even think about attempting it at his age! I met him a lot of times, but when he finally asked me about the flying piano, he was close to 90. Dave Brubeck, the pianist who is one of my heroes, was keen to know how it was done. That was such an exhilarating experience. Yes! The fact that I could play while suspended in mid‑air made me the centre of attention. Well, when you’re stuck behind a keyboard then you have to do something to attract attention to yourself. Yet you did become a showman, and that has certainly helped to define your career. But I would like to be known as a composer before anything else. If I had to choose between artistry and entertainment, then I would have to say that I am more of the former. When I think of entertainers in music, I think of people like David Bowie, who created characters onstage. Would you regard yourself as an artist or an entertainer?įirst and foremost, I’m a composer. So, they thought I was kind of cool and left me alone. That was because I could also play Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard songs. However, I was very good at avoiding being beaten up by the bullies. I used to walk around with Beethoven sonatas under my arm. I never knew what to do with a woman until I was 22 – after which there was no holding me back! But I was a very serious child. I was very studious at school and really kept in the background. Carol Smith, who was one of those teachers, once said that I was a very quiet boy and she couldn’t understand how I became a raving lunatic! But I had three piano teachers when my family lived in Sussex. Unlike some of your keyboard contemporaries, you never went to music college, did you? Carl Palmer always told me I should have gone for John Wetton… I wanted Chris Squire but he was too busy at the time. Greg Lake wasn’t the first choice for bassist in ELP, was he? So one day Lemmy came to me and said, “If you’re gonna put knives into the keyboards, then you’ve got to do it properly.” And he gave me some German army ones he had, which were much bigger. I had already begun to stab knives into my keys, which I found helped the sustain. He played an important part in your developing knife act on the keyboards, didn’t he?Īh, Lemmy, yes. Talking of Hendrix, you and he did have one thing in common: Lemmy was a roadie for each of you. But by then I’d had enough of working with guitarists! I had toured previously with Hendrix, which might be where that story originated. They thought the idea of a band called HELP was funny. This was a myth invented by the music press when we started to become well-known.

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