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The RealStoryBehindELP's'Tarkus'

AUGUST 30, 2016

Greg Lake and Emerson,Lake & Palmer

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Emerson, Lake &Palmer cracked theUK top five with theirself-titled 1970 debutalbum, but it wastheir 1971 follow-up,Tarkus, that went allthe way to the top ofthe charts. The

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The Real Story Behind ELP's 'Tarkus' | Music Aficionado

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record is generallyregarded as theband's masterpieceas well as amilestone inprogressive rock.

Mention the word"masterpiece" tobassist/guitarist andsinger Greg Lakeand he accepts itgood-naturedly (heprefers the band's1972 recording,Trilogy), but hereadily admits thatthe term 'progressiverock' makes himbristle. "I just don'tlike it," he says."'Prog' or 'progrock'—it all soundsso elitist andpretentious. I prefer

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The Real Story Behind ELP's 'Tarkus' | Music Aficionado

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the word 'original.'When we made'Tarkus,' we weretrying to be different.You can't categorizea band that wasgoing its own way,as we were."

Along withthe debutalbum andPictures at anExhibition,

'Tarkus' has recentlyreceived theexpanded,remastered and re-issued treatment (abatch of other ELPdeluxe discs are tofollow in the comingmonths). In an in-depth interview withMusic Aficionado,Lake reflects on thewriting and recording

TarkusEmersoLake &Palmer

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The Real Story Behind ELP's 'Tarkus' | Music Aficionado

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of thegroundbreakingrecord.

ELP and Yeswere the twoprime movers ofthe—I'll say it—"progressiverock" scene ofthe early '70s.Did the twobands mix?

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The Real Story Behind ELP's 'Tarkus' | Music Aficionado

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Funny you shouldask that, becauseChris Squire and Iused to live together.We shared anapartment inLondon, althoughfunnily enough, ourtwo bands didn'treally mix. But Chrisand I were closefriends for a longtime.

Did Chris mindbeing called"progressiverock"?I don't know. Itwasn't even a termthat was used at thattime. And when wedid hear it, it just leftthat feeling of beingsmart-ass. That's notwhat we were about.

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The Real Story Behind ELP's 'Tarkus' | Music Aficionado

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I just don't like theword. I don't like theconnotation of it.Like I said, we weretrying to be different.We didn't want to fitin. We wanted to beseen as an individualentity. That was thestruggle.

One way that weattempted to beoriginal was, insteadof looking to theblues or Motown orgospel or countryand western—basically, Americanmusic—as the rootsfor our rock music,we tended to lookmore towardsEuropean-influencedmusic. Both Keithand I liked classicalmusic as a hobby,so that became a

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The Real Story Behind ELP's 'Tarkus' | Music Aficionado

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real avenue ofinspiration. Beyondthat, we just tried tomake music thatdidn't sound likeanything that hadgone before it.

I'm not tellingyou anythingthat you don'tknow—thecritics were notkind to ELP.No, they were not.But you know,you've got to breakeggs to makeomelets. ELP playeda lot of live shows,and we had thepublic's reaction togo by. We knewpeople enjoyed ourmusic. No matterwhat the critics said,we knew that whenwe stood on that

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stage and performedour music, thepeople loved it. Itwas that simple. Andto be honest, wedidn't care what thecritics thought.

You should neverbelieve your ownpublicity. If someonesaid something niceabout ELP, yeah,that was great—weloved it. But youhave to rememberthat if some peoplelike you, otherpeople won't. That'sthe way of the worldand one has toaccept that.

I spoke withKeith severalyears ago, andhe mentionedthat 'Tarkus'

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The Real Story Behind ELP's 'Tarkus' | Music Aficionado

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was his favoriteELP record.Where do youplace it in thegroup's canon?It's very difficult,because all therecords we madewere very different,although the first fiveor six were made inthe same way—Iproduced them all.For me, my favoritewould be 'Trilogy.'The reason I saythat is because that'swhen the band hadreally developed itsartistic identity. Itwas also a time inwhich there was ahuge movement inthe development of

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The Real Story Behind ELP's 'Tarkus' | Music Aficionado

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musical technology.

These two thingscame together, andthat's why thatparticular albumwould be myparticular favorite.On the other hand,'Tarkus' was acomplete conceptualsound and a feelingall its own, so I canunderstand whyKeith liked it somuch. I also thinkfrom a keyboardplayer's point ofview, it wassomething thatchallenged him. Hefelt pride at beingable to play thosethings. It meant a lotto him.

Was 'Tarkus' aneasy record to

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The Real Story Behind ELP's 'Tarkus' | Music Aficionado

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make?It's a strange word—"easy." It's like"work." Was it work?Not really. Weenjoyed doing it somuch. Did wesweat? Yeah, wedid. Did weencounterfrustrations? Yeah.Was it challenging?Yes, it was. Therewere moments ofdifficulty that we hadto overcome, but atthe end of the day itwas a tremendoussense of satisfactionthat we'd ended upwith this completework that we feltproud of. The bandwas a unit, a family.They were happytimes. We reallywere riding on the

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The Real Story Behind ELP's 'Tarkus' | Music Aficionado

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crest of a creativewave

'Tarkus' followedthe debut recordin a very shortperiod of time.Did the labelpush you guysto work fast?Well, see, ELP hitthe headlines veryquickly. Even beforethe band was formedit was getting quite alot of publicity—therewas rumors aboutwhat we were doing.As soon as weactually made adebut album andcame out with it, thevery next thing was,"Well, what next?"Then we played theIsle of WightFestival, and veryquickly there was

The Real Story Behind ELP's 'Tarkus' | Music Aficionado

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demand for anotheralbum. The pressurewas on, really. Soyeah, we workedfast.

The 20-minutetitle track is avery complexpiece of music.Keith told methat it filled youwith some

TarkusEmerson, Lake & Palmer

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angst, that youthought it wastoo much of aclassical piece.No, no, no. WhenKeith played theinitial riff to me, theopening 5/4 riff, Iwas really againstwhat some bandswere doing at thattime—they weretrying to establishtheir prowess andhow clever they weremusically. Theywould play things in9/4 and theseridiculous timesignatures, whichwere really just toimpress people. So Ihad this inherentdislike fordemonstrative timesignatures.

That was my

The Real Story Behind ELP's 'Tarkus' | Music Aficionado

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problem initially with"Tarkus." Keith wasvery keen on it. Ithink he felt it was ademonstration of hisindependence, hisleft and right hands.Indeed it was, but atthat time I reallythought that weneeded to make analbum that wasconceptual, and tome, "Tarkus" wasn'tenough to hang aconcept on.However, he liked itand we went alongwith it, and it grewout of there. Thesong has a lot ofdifferent sectionsthat were editedtogether, and thenwe would go andcreate the next pieceand then edit that on.Not much of the

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album relates to theopening. It's a veryvaried album.

Is it true thatyou and Keithwould sit aroundand playrecords for eachother—youplaying Simonand Garfunkeland JoniMitchell, andhim playingclassicalalbums?Yeah. We used toexchange a lot ofmusical ideas. Thatwas one of thethings, because inorder to moveforward you've got tohave some sort ofplan. It doesn't justhappen. You don'tjust walk into a

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rehearsal room andall of a suddenyou're making newand original music.You have to reallyfigure out whatyou're going to do tobe different. Wewould do a lot of, notreally research, butin the sense ofexchanging what wethought was goodand different andstuff that could beinfluential in the rightway.

Another thingKeith told mewas howconcerned hewas when yourecorded thevocals to TheOnly Way(Hymn) and yousang the line

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"Why did helose six millionJews?"

I think it wasquite aprofoundthing to say—obviously. Onthe surface of

it, any mention of theHolocaustimmediatelyprovokes a reaction,and sometimes not agood one, but Iexplained to Keiththat in the context ofthe song, really,what I was doingwas asking aquestion about God.If he's so good, whydid he lose sixmillion Jews? Thatwas the question Iput. When heunderstood that, I

TheOnlyWay(Hymn)

EmersoLake &Palmer

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think he was finewith it.

A real change ofpace is the '50srock 'n' roll ofAre You ReadyEddy?—yourlittle tribute toengineer EddyOfford. Is thatthe kind of thingyou guys wouldjam on to blowoff steam?

Yeah. It was

instantaneous, justsomething we did forfun. This puts what Isaid before into theright context. Werealized we neededa balance to themore serious and

Are YouReadyEddy?

EmersoLake &Palmer

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complex things wedid. We didn't wantto come off as somesort of highbrow"look how clever weare" band, so wepurposely went outon every album to tryto do at least one ortwo things that werevery simplistic -humorous stuff thatwas lighthearted.And I must say,Eddy Offord wasfantastic. He was abig component in thequality of thoserecords.

The bandworked prettyexclusively atAdvision Studiosin London. Whatdid you likeabout the placeso much?

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It was a friendly andprofessional place.Once we got set upthere, it was likeAbbey Road with theBeatles. They wouldwalk in and theyknew where theywere. They knewhow it sounded.That's the big thing:You get to know theroom and you knowwhat sounds good.You also know whatdoesn't sound goodbecause you havethat meter ofjudgment. If youkeep changingstudios, you losethat. All of a suddeneverything soundsdifferent.

What was theband's reactionwhen 'Tarkus'

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went to numberone?We were pleased, tosay the least. Thesuccess was lovely.It's always lovely. It'sa form of recognitionthat you've done well—that's the mainthing. We makemusic for people'senjoyment—we'reentertainers—andwhen someoneenjoys our stuff,that's the reward wewant. It's moreimportant than themoney or anythingelse. It's just thatsomebody actuallylikes what you did.

The reissuecontains theSteven Wilsonremix disc. Didyou have any

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input into that?What do youthink of theremixes he'sdone to yourwork?I didn't have anyinput on them. I didlisten to them. I don'treally… It's likesomebody taking aphotograph of anoriginal oil painting.Yeah, it's fine. That'show it feels to me.Often photographscan enhancesomething, but at thesame time they canruin it. Is it as good?I don't know. I prefervinyl, to be honest.When you go backand you listen tothose records onvinyl, it really is aneye-opener.

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Last question:Even thoughyou don't likethe term"progressiverock," did theband feel asthough it waspushing musicas a wholesomewheretotally new?Yeah, I think so. Wewere conscious of itbeing different.Before ELP, verylittle rock musiccontained anyEuropean influence.After ELP, there wasa torrent of bandsthat did so—likeQueen. There weretons of them. To thatextent, we knew thatwe had createdsomething new,something that was

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unique, and a lot ofpeople picked up onthat. I'm pretty proudof that.

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