Jakko Jakszyk

It’s been 50 years since King Crimson released seminal album In The Court Of The Crimson King and so, as they prepare to blow out the candles on their celebratory cake, we enlist the services of Jakko Jakszyk to give a personal overview of the legendary band’s half century…

- David Mead & Jamie Dickson

Jakko Jakszyk joined King Crimson back in 2013, but spiritually he’s been with the band for longer. At one time he even formed a tribute outfit with some Crimson alumni – The 21st Century Schizoid Band – to play the band’s music, little thinking that one day he’d get the invitation from Fripp to join Crim’s division one.

“I was about 11, I think when my next-door neighbor played me …Schizoid Man,” Jakko says. “It completely blew me away. He’d been playing me music from the 60s, which I liked, and then this came out of nowhere.”

Many fans of the band remember where they were when they heard the opening riff to 21st Century Schizoid Man followed by Robert Fripp’s aggressive fuzz chords and Greg Lake’s distorted vocals. It was music designed to make an impression, as was the album’s closer, The Court Of The Crimson King, with the Mellotron fanfare and Pete Sinfield’s otherworld lyrics.

Much of the music that came out in the late 1960s was different, but Crimson was something totally new. “This was from a completely different place,” Jakko tells us. “The way Robert played the guitar, the tone he had, nobody was doing that.

It was completely unique to him, I think. His influences and inspiration were from a more European classical tradition than a blues-based American one.”

Since those days, the band has been through various line-ups with landmark albums such as Larks’ Tongues In Aspic, Red, Three Of A Perfect Pair, Thrak and The Power To Believe. But it’s only recently that the current touring band have begun to embrace the back catalogue as a whole. These days, if you get to see the band live, you’ll witness the band’s sonic history unfolding in front of your ears.