Playing Favourites

What's not a lie is that Mastelotto shreds on the drums and Australian fans are soon to get the chance to see him perform alongside fellow King Crimson players guitarist Adrian Belew and bass player Tony Levin as part of The Crimson ProjeKCt.

Here's what you need to know about The Crimson ProjeKCt: it's a show where King Crimson affiliates get together and put on a three-hour performance of the lauded prog outfit's catalogue. And that the tour was announced a few months after Robert Fripp announced he was reforming King Crimson as a seven-piece – with  three drummers, naturally. So you've got a show of Crimson material being played by active members of King Crimson that isn't a King Crimson show. Lost yet?

Mastelotto laughs. “Yeah, I can see the confusion... Basically, Adrian Belew, Tony Levin and I enjoy playing the King Crimson material, so that's what we've been doing. And Robert [Fripp, King Crimson's founding guitarist] had basically retired when I talked to him a few years ago and he had no interest in playing any more gigs, but then he changed his mind. So we're gearing up to start with Crimson again.

“King Crimson stopped in 2008 and then maybe three years ago, the three of us [Mastelotto, Belew and Levin] were asked to do a music camp, Adrian brought Julie [Slick] and Tobias [Ralph] and formed that power trio and we brought Markus [Reuter] who rounds out the trio called Stickmen that Tony Levin and I play in and booking agents got wind of what was going on and immediately there was a thirst to put us on, so they booked gigs before we even had a name.

“The mindset of King Crimson has always been that the music is always played like it's the first time. You don't just go into a routine of playing the same songs. If you're on a Cher tour, you play the song the same every night. That's not us… If somebody decides to go left, we all follow. And that makes it flesh and blood. Like Crimson, these shows are about bouncing ideas off of each other in the moment.”

Though Mastelotto is quick to clarify that that doesn't mean The Crimson ProjeKCt is a jam band. “We don't just go up there and jam, if you know what I mean. That's not how we improvise. What we do is basically spontaneous composition, a lot of times the songs have been composed years or decades ago, and when these songs were written they started as an improvisation or an exploration of a feeling, so with The Crimson ProjeKCt, you're just witnessing that same thing, but it's just happening right in front of you.”