Talking with Tony Levin: A bass playing legend who has supported legends

What a pleasure to discover the bassist behind Peter Gabriel, King Crimson, Paul Simon and many more is also a wonderfully warm person

Long before I ever thought the time might come when I could actually talk to him, I learned to look out on album covers for the name of bassist Tony Levin.

This was back in the days when studio musicians were legends for music nerds, inspiring us to seek out and collect performances by our favorite players on various records like kids trading baseball cards.

In the late ‘70s and 1980s, that meant snatching up albums featuring Levin holding the bass chair for Peter Gabriel and King Crimson on some of their most important records – Gabriel’s “Melting Face” record (he didn’t have official titles for his first solo records, so fans had to distinguish them by the cover art) and Crimson albums like Discipline and Beat.

So imagine my delight last week, when I got to spend time talking about creativity and supporting great artists with Levin himself for NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday morning, picking his brain about the supergroup he formed with ex-King Crimson bandmate Adrian Belew, guitar virtuoso Steve Vai and monster drummer Danny Carey from Tool.

He admitted they weren’t sure if BEAT was actually the name of their band or just the name of the tour they scheduled. But Levin acknowledged their recently-concluded, 64-date tour to play signature Crimson songs – especially from the 1980s period – was a success, and had a good chance of leading to future dates. But they have not yet addressed whether they will create new, original music with this band.

Levin also talked about learning how to play more melodically after Paul Simon sung basslines to him while they worked together. And he revealed John Lennon said something really impactful to him while they were working on the former Beatle’s classic solo record, Double Fantasy. There were also cool stories about working on his new solo album, Bringing It Down to the Bass.

I seriously urge you to listen to the radio version of this story, because Weekend Edition’s producers did such a great job of blending music from Levin’s career into parts of our conversation where we talked about key moments.

Best of all, it was wonderful to meet a talented player who inspired me as a drummer, occasional bassist and performer when I was just learning the craft decades ago, and discover he is just as amazing a person as he is a musician.