Carl Palmer first gained attention as drummer with The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown, and then Atomic Rooster, before securing immortality with Emerson Lake & Palmer. He’s also a co-founding member of Asia and spent three periods with the prog supergroup, the most recent ending in 2022.
In 2011 he answered Prog’s questions about the previous year’s ELP reunion at the inaugural High Voltage Festival in London, his feelings about Keith Emerson and Greg Lake (who both died in 2016) and his longing to play heavier music.
Your solo group is about to undertake its first tour of the UK in six years. Why so long?
I’ve been pretty busy with Asia and the solo band has been to US twice with a third visit a few days away. We used to tour here once a year but it’s becoming harder to do that. We still play a lot in Italy because ELP were bigger than the Sistine Chapel over there.
The solo band is a three-piece, with guitarist Paul Bielatowicz interpreting the keyboard parts with which we’re so familiar.
At the beginning of ELP we looked around for a guitar player but we couldn’t find one with the technique or capabilities. In some ways, I still wish we’d had a guitar in ELP. It would have given us something more – which isn’t to demean Keith – but it might have taken us down a different road.
Paul Bielatowicz has been with me for seven years. I didn’t go down the route of using keyboards and having a vocalist again because why copy ELP? I went completely the other way. It’s younger, fresher and more exciting; it’s prog rock with a strong metallic streak, which I love.
On this tour you’re revisiting Pictures At An Exhibition.
It’s something I’ve loved since the age of seven and I’m really looking forward to playing it with a prog-rock-metal power trio.
Hearing you talk with such affection of harder music is interesting!
I’ve always wanted to be a bit harder-edged. I love classical, rock and pop music, but heavy metal is great. I’ve never been in a metal band; this is the closest I’ve ever come to that. A lot of those bands bore me, but Pantera and Dream Theater are great.
Talking to us after ELP’s reunion show at the High Voltage festival, which marked the band’s 40th anniversary, you said it seemed like “a great way to finish things.”
As somebody to work with he’s quite laborious… just a very slow person
Carl Palmer on Greg Lake
I still feel that way. After 12 years away it was great to come back – but people get older and some don’t do what they did as well as they used to.
I’ve listened to the High Voltage CD and I know it’s not up to the standard at which we stopped. Had it been so, I’d have happily continued, but it wasn’t. That was quite hard for me to swallow. But we’ve left a great legacy.
Did you enjoy playing the show?
Yes, but we had to use sequencers for things that couldn’t be covered. It worked – in part. For me, it was a bit of a shame to see people so nervous about playing. We’d done five weeks of rehearsal, which for me, as someone that plays 90 concerts a year, was ridiculous. I was ready to roll. But for others, six days a week for five weeks in an aircraft hangar at Shepperton Studios was insufficient rehearsal time – I know that now.
A DVD of the gig is about to be released. Was some ‘fixing’ done?
Yeah, there was some serious fixing up. Keith went in and did what he could do to his keyboard parts.
Can you describe your relationship with the two ELP bandmates? Firstly, Greg Lake?
As somebody to work with he’s quite laborious. He’s slow; very slow. Just a very slow person. There are quite a few bass players like that – except John Wetton, who’s the opposite.
He doesn’t care about the business side of things, so he gets confused
Carl Palmer on Keith Emerson
And Keith Emerson?
Keith’s very entertaining and jovial. A funny guy. He’s very much into playing music but doesn’t care much about the business side of things, so he gets confused because musicians these days need a complete understanding of everything that goes on.
Despite being 61 years old you’re incredibly well preserved. What’s the secret – some kind of pact with the Devil?
You should see me first thing in the morning; it’s a bit of a struggle! I’m definitely getting older but I’ve stopped dying my hair after seeing some recent photos of Paul McCartney. I don’t drink a lot of alcohol and I’ve never smoked. I’ve done a fair amount of drugs, nothing heavy, but I tried most things. I eat well and I run and swim, which definitely helps.
