“How lucky am I that Bob Ezrin thought I was a really good heavy rock player?” Tony Levin asks Bass Player . One of the more prolific session artists in history, having appeared on over 500 albums, he’s heard in the catalogs of Peter Gabriel, King Crimson, Alice Cooper, John Lennon, Stevie Nicks, David Bowie, Tom Waits and Warren Zevon, among others. “Bob asked me to play on Alice Cooper albums,” Levin says.
“Then he asked me to join the rhythm section for this unknown guy named Peter Gabriel. I didn’t know Genesis – but how lucky I am that Bob heard that in my playing? Because from then on, it was pretty much non-stop.” Born Anthony Frederick Levin in Boston, Massachusetts, he’s preparing for a 65-date tour alongside Adrian Belew, Steve Vai and Danny Carey, playing the ‘80s music of King Crimson under the Beat banner.
Cross-genre four-stringers like Les Claypool, Nick Beggs, Zach Cooper and Juan Alderete de la Pena cite him as an influence. “It’s not something I think about,” he says. “I just try to find something good for the piece.
” “It might end up with me playing a very sparse, low thumpy thing, or interceding with melody or playing chords. I’ve done that quite a bit by playing double stops, which helps the melody. I don’t have rules.
When I react to a piece, I don’t approach it in terms of what a bass player ought to do. I just get a sense of what I’m going to do.” He continues: “Bass players automatically listen and learn �.