Was Eno already controlling the small details back then?
No, I had total freedom of input. I mean, the whole thing about Eno’s studio approach was not that he was controlling people at all; he was creating a situation in which we could do what we did, as far as he could see to our best advantage, and afterwards manipulating it. I had no control whatsoever of what he used of mine, how he used it, or what he did with it. But in the studio session I could really literally do whatever I wanted. I recently came across an interview Bill Laswell gave back in 1981 to Downbeat magazine, and one of the questions was: “Who are your favourite employers?” and he replied: “Fred Frith and Brian Eno because of the freedom they give me.” From my point of view, with Eno that was certainly the case. It was the first time somebody had trusted me to do what I do, which is a little leftfield, in the context of what was ostensibly some kind of pop music. But you had the same kind of freedom in Henry Cow… But it was a very different kind of orientation, and also
