Photo: AFP
King Crimson could continue in the future, despite numerous suggestions that it would disband following tours it wrapped up last year.
Band leader Robert Fripp called the band's final show in Japan in December of 2021 "a significant moment in time as King Crimson 'moved from sound to silence,'" yet drummer Gavin Harrison isn't entirely convinced the band is done.
Harrison, who joined King Crimson in 2008, noted in conversation with Metal Injection that he's been down this road before with Fripp. He notes that Fripp disbanded King Crimson at the end of its 2008 tours.
After the tours, Harrison said he didn't hear from Fripp for five years, when the guitarist/composer called to talk about a new idea he had — a band with three drummers.
"He could see it all in his mind and the project in Robert's mind lasted from 2013 [until it] completed in Japan in 2021," Harrison said.
But it doesn't "necessarily mean that's the end [of the band]," he continued. "It's just we achieved what we set out to achieve. That project completed itself. Now, whether it needs reiteration or it needs to come back or a new King Crimson comes back or King Crimson never comes back, all those things are possible.
"To just say, 'Oh, the band's over,' doesn't really fit the way Robert thinks."
Harrison conceded, however, that the final Japan show of 2021 did feel different than other tour finale's because the band had no future plans.
As he prepares to move forward this year with the reunited version of Porcupine Tree, Harrison praised Fripp's stewardship of King Crimson through so many different iterations and eras.
"King Crimson, it's always been King Crimson — but it hasn't always been the same people," he concluded. "It's a sort of idealism in a way that I've never experienced with any other band. Most other bands are pretty black and white: We're finished or we're starting, or it's off or it's on."
During King Crimson's North American tour last year, singer Jakko Jakszyk told Ultimate Classic Rock that the trek was likely to be the band's last in America. He said that due to a booking glut caused by pandemic postponements around the music industry, King Crimson wouldn't be able to return to the U.S. until 2023 at the earliest. And that's a bit far down the road to expect anything.
"I think Tony [Levin, bass] and Robert will be 77," Jakszyk said. "I'm not sure they want to be on a tour bus for hours on end. Touring the way we do is tiring for a young man, much less people our age."
The career-spanning King Crimson documentary, In the Court of the Crimson King, premiered last month at the South by Southwest film festival. The film will presumably get a worldwide release later this year.