“I saw a recent video on YouTube on the 10 precursors to heavy metal, and Schizoid Man wasn’t among them. That’s absurd”: Robert Fripp explains how King Crimson paved the way for heavy metal

Robert Fripp’s genre-amalgamating prog giants, King Crimson, might not have had the same rough-and-tumble aggression as the heavy metal bands that followed in their wake, but there was a heaviness to their music that helped bridge the gap between rock and its louder, angrier cousin, Fripp believes.

The guitarist has scoffed at the fact that the band doesn’t always get its due for helping set the scene, despite Ozzy Osbourne’s well-documented love of the group.

By 1971, Fripp began to butt heads with their chief lyricist, Peter Sinfield, who, inspired by a holiday to the Spanish island of Formentera, envisioned a gentle, Miles-Davis-goes-Mediterranean sound moving forward. It influenced their fourth album, Islands, but with its follow-up, 1973’s Larks’ Tongues in Aspic, Fipp tells Guitar World that his “metal voice” was beginning to find its volume.

One man’s simple question is another’s mind-boggler, I suppose.

King Crimson does get their share of love from certain factions of the metal community – a cover of Larks Tongues in Aspic, Pt. 2 is a bonus track on Dream Theater’s Black Clouds and Silver Linings, for instance.

Voivod have also covered Schizoid Man, and Between the Buried and Me’s take on Three of a Perfect Pair is another standout. But just how much their harem scarem heaviness is acknowledged in the genre’s folklore is often understated at Fripp’s behest.

For the full interview with Robert Fripp, pick up a copy of Guitar World issue 600, on sale now.

A freelance writer with a penchant for music that gets weird, Phil is a regular contributor to Prog, Guitar World, and Total Guitar magazines and is especially keen on shining a light on unknown artists. Outside of the journalism realm, you can find him writing angular riffs in progressive metal band, Prognosis, in which he slings an 8-string Strandberg Boden Original, churning that low string through a variety of tunings. He’s also a published author and is currently penning his debut novel which chucks fantasy, mythology and humanity into a great big melting pot.