Peter Giles has looked back on his earliest memories of Robert Fripp, as their psychedelic songwriting escapades — and muso side quests — helped lay the foundations for one of the most important bands in progressive rock history.
Together, alongside Peter's drum-pounding brother, Michael, they produced one record, 1969's charmingly titled The Cheerful Insanity of Giles, Giles and Fripp before expanding their palette and personnel in an early, unofficial iteration of King Crimson. Peter didn’t stick around long enough to play on their 1969 debut, In the Court of the Crimson King, but his name is woven into the band’s formative years.
Across a career-charting interview with Prog magazine, Giles reflects on those early meetings and how Fripp’s nerdy musicality was already baked into his brain.
“He had a nice, droll sense of humor,” he recalls. “And his chops were really good — his chords and stuff. He was hot.”
The Giles brothers were no strangers to the stage, having racked up hundreds of gigs in the U.K. and Europe as part of the boy band Trendsetters Limited. They relocated to Bournemouth, approximately 100 miles south of London, in the mid 1960s, putting them on Fripp's turf.
It wasn't long before they crossed paths. Fripp responded to their advertisement seeking a singing organist, despite being a guitarist.
“The thing was, we auditioned every piano and keyboard player we could get our hands on,” Giles developed, “and they were all fucking useless.”
Fripp had other assets to offer.
“He’d been playing with some older musicians at the Majestic Hotel in Bournemouth, and you learn a lot from those people,” Giles adds. When Fripp eventually left that gig, he was replaced by future Police guitarist Andy Summers. (Fripp, who recorded three albums with Summers in the 1980s, believes the pair share an inexplicable “cosmic connection.” )
The trio relocated to London, and their whimsical songs soon earned them a deal with Deram Records. Their sole record together wasn't a commercial masterpiece, but it has since garnered a cult following given its place as a precursor to the pioneering King Crimson legacy.
While in London, Peter Giles and Robert Fripp struck up a slightly left-field hobby.
“We used to go to the La Gioconda Café in Denmark Street, where all the music publishers were,” Giles explains. “We’d go into some of them and ask if they had any old sheet music. We used to get handfuls of this bloody stuff and then go back home and stick it up, with Fripp reading the top line and the chords, and I used to read the bass parts. We’d have a go at it.
“We used to spend hours doing this! That’s what we did all day apart from writing and recording. Whenever one of us had a song or an idea, the three of us would chip in. My brother is a very good ideas man, not just a drummer. I mean, he has a lot of brilliant ideas, melodic, harmonic and rhythmic.”
Working under the guise of the expanded King Crimson project, their relationship would ultimately sour. Fripp, having seen the band Clouds perform at the Marquee Club, became inspired to integrate classical melodies into his songwriting, and creative differences led to Giles' departure. Michael, however, would stay put.
A gig supporting the Rolling Stones at a free concert in Hyde Park, said to be attended by 500,000 people, earned the band vital exposure before their debut album was released just months later. Peter later returned to the fray to contribute bass to their sophomore record "In the Wake of Poseidon" as part of a temporary lineup, alongside his brother.
He would also become part of the 21st Century Schizoid Band in 2002, which featured King Crimson alumni and guitarist/vocalist Jakko Jakszyk, who would go on to join the band proper in 2010.
Earlier this year, Jakszyk got King Crimson fans in a frenzy when he said that a new record was well underway. However, the band's management has since said that such comments, and the fervour caused, were “premature.”
Fripp is currently recovering from a heart attack he suffered in April. In true Fripp fashion, while his wife, Toyah, tearfully relayed the news on their YouTube channel, the guitarist was more concerned about why a nurse had to shave his balls during his time in hospital.
