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Record Mirror JULY 7, 1973 - by Roger Greenaway

THE BACKROOM BOY MOVES OUT FRONT

When Pete Sinfield played Sadler's Wells last week it was something of a departure. Pete's a backroom boy. One of the country's best producers and lyricists, he's not the most expressive of performers. Yet somehow despite his bad head cold the gig worked, and with a single penned by Pete and ELP's Greg Lake on the way, Pete could soon find himself on the superstar trail.

"I'd hate it if that happened," said Pete as we talked in the plush Curzon Street offices of Manticore, the label formed by ELP.

"At the moment, my name's known, and that's cool, but being a famous face is something else. Look at Marc Bolan, he has to drive around in a limousine all the time. He can't walk anywhere. I'd hate that to happen to me. I can walk along the street and I don't get even a glance and that's really nice.

NIGHTMARE

The single, as yet untitled, will be released in the autumn and if it's a success, Pete could be faced with a "nightmare situation."

"It would be horrible to appear on Top Of The Pops." He pauses for a moment to think about it. "No, it would be TOO horrible. I wouldn't do it. Not unless they let me make a film and played the single over the top.

"I mean, it's all right. It does its job but the vibes are all wrong."

For Peter, a Capricorn, it's a time of changes. He started out life as a computer programmer before joining with Mike and Peter Giles, Robert Fripp and Ian McDonald in 1968 to form King Crimson. After many changes, Pete finally split from Crimson about eighteen months ago and is now re-emerging thanks to a brilliant debut solo album called Still.

Looking back on his days with Crimson, surely one of the most powerfully inventive bands this country has produced. Pete has few bitter memories.

"It was never easy for Rob Fripp and I to work together. He was writing city music and I'd had enough of that scene. I didn't want him to put music to my words. The final split came after we got back from the second US tour.

"Rob rang me up and said: 'Pete, I can't work with you any more,' so I said, 'All right Rob, that's cool' and that was it."

STUDIO

Since then, Pete has concentrated on his studio work, producing the first Roxy Music album and the new one from the Italian superkids PFM.

"Roxy don't need me any more. They did on that first album. I had to lay a lot of varnish on that and Bryan Ferry now reckons it was overproduced. They're not incredible musicians but that doesn't matter. They have amazing ideas."

INCREDIBLE

And PFM: "Now these guys are absolutely incredible. I did a tour with them through Italy, France and Spain, where I'm very big, and they have superb technique. The trouble is they just don't know when to stop.

"I produced their single and tightened it up a lot because I think it could take off. I hope so, because I'm doing their second album this winter."

BOOK

Pete also has a book of his lyrics out soon called Under The Sky and there is his pride and joy, Still.

"I've been waiting for a long time for the right moment to tackle this album, as you can tell from the material, some of which dates back to 1968. I tried to keep it very simple, accessible. I'm sick of being called a studio intellectual and I hope it works."

LYRICISM

I think it does. As Pete says, he's no musician, but on the new album he's surrounded himself with men who are and managed to find exactly the right vehicle for his tender lyricism. Pete Sinfield is a busy man now, but in the next few months he's going to be even bigger. It could be that England is about to wake up to one of her most astounding writers.