Touring with King Crimson wasn’t a lot of fun for me. I had a lot of equipment, and when I was in improvised music I’d set it up myself, play the gig, and put it all away again.

He was very much concerned with logic and function, he always worked his solos out before playing them.

King Crimson were the only really famous band I’d been in.

Touring with King Crimson wasn’t a lot of fun for me. I had a lot of equipment, and when I was in improvised music I’d set it up myself, play the gig, and put it all away again.

Allan had come down wanting to do some sort of crucial music and I’d been involved in so-called Art Music and wanted to explore other areas – we were approaching it in some quite tongue-in-cheek ways and we had a lot of fun – we spent more time laughing than playing music.

The reasons why I left were to do with my interest in Buddhism. There were experiences over a period of about six months which caused me to decide to give up music, so one morning I felt I had to go to E.G. Management and tell them.

At the art college in Edinburgh someone arranged for some London groups to come up and play. I was in a supporting band, with Bernie Green I think. Derek Bailey was one of the visiting musicians. He seemed to like my playing and asked me to come down to London.

There wasn’t much work around at the time, I think I found a bit in Germany or something, but we played together and somehow the bassist Laurie Baker got involved as well – I can’t remember exactly how.

Anyway, it fell through because they ran out of money. That was when I learned not to waste your time getting your hopes up or to believe something until it actually happens. We broke up for various reasons, but it was a good band. Jim and Don produced some magical music.

I was a beginner again. I practiced hard and used to listen very closely to recordings of American jazz drummers such as Tony Williams and Kenny Clarke.

The first time it felt really dangerous, like the sort of thing you had to lock the doors and close the curtains on because if anybody saw you, God would strike you down with a thunderbolt. But I took to it like a duck to water.