Eddie Prévost (born 1942 in Hitchin, England) is an English percussionist best known as a founding member of the influential free improvisation group AMM. Raised in postwar Bermondsey by his mother, he began his musical journey in skiffle and jazz, eventually co-founding AMM in 1965 with Lou Gare and Keith Rowe, later joined by Cornelius Cardew and John Tilbury. Prévost's approach emphasizes exploration and discovery over convention, central to both AMM's aesthetic and his long-running London improvisation workshop. Beyond performance, he has written extensively on improvisation philosophy, developed the Matchless Recordings label to document this music, and authored several books including The First Concert. His legacy spans decades of innovative performance, collaborative inquiry, and dedication to collective musical practice.

What draws you to the instrument(s) you play, and/or to composing?

My introduction to drums was part of my juvenile experience. My more thoughtful relationship to percussion arose through my experience of early AMM. In particular my association with: Cornelius Cardew, Lou Gare and Keith Rowe. They all helped me to acquire a more fundamental, and elemental, consideration of the materials I was using, and experimenting with. Just as the question 'what is music' has to be addressed, so, the existence of 'a drum', 'a gong' and 'a stick' etc. needs examination. I think our attendant interest in facets of Buddhism, and the thoughts of Gjurdieff also informed this general exploratory approach. The generative objective was to experience (get to) the grain of sound. Meanwhile, so-called compositions (of any kind) are ideas produced, subsequently to being re-produced. The kind of improvisation envisioned by my closest associates was first articulated by Cardew as 'searching for sounds'. It meant embracing an ethos of exploration: not in the mind, not solitarily in the studio. So, instead of a presentation of previously developed scenarios, the players risked all — in 'the search' — even within public performances.

What deceased performer(s), improviser(s), or composer(s) would you most like to have a conversation with?

(in alphabetical order) Eric Dolphy and Edgard Varèse.

What musician most influenced your approach to music?

My AMM colleagues: especially (and, in alphabetical order): Cardew, Gare, Rowe, Tilbury. It was my good fortune to have known, and worked intensely, with them.

Who or what influences you most outside of music?

G.I. Gjurdieff, The Buddha, Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Paulo Freire, E.O. Wilson, David Graeber, Steven Mithen, etc. etc. etc.

What advice would you give to a young musician entering your field?

Question all your assumptions — i.e., your cognitive biases, and know that you have them! Keep an open mind and a generous heart. Examine Adorno's assertion that: 'Style is a surrogate identity'.*

What do you hope audiences take away from experiencing your music?

Audiences may not know what motivates a musician, nor are they necessarily aware of some of the implication of any particular philosophy determining the practice of the kind of informal sound-making I hope to create. I am not concerned with making a presentation for an audience — although they may experience it as such. My modus operandi is exploring the materials, and the relationships (of contrasting stuff, and associate personalities of the other actors) within the moments of playing. One hopes that our audiences — as I think some already do — perceive this shift away from the practices and priorities embedded within so-called formal music. And, in doing so notice, what some of my London colleagues call social-virtuosity. To this, I would encourage a constant curiosity about the material world (in micro-cosmic practice — the stuff we use to generate sounds) and a more general environmental awareness. Thereafter, maybe it is the audience's responsibility to encourage, and hold practicing performers to account on these tenets.

Where are you currently located or musically associated with?

I live in a small village c.25 miles from London. My general music associates are those who live in or around London — especially those who have been part of the weekly workshop I first convened in 1999. My agency is restricted due to failing eyesight (i.e., I cannot drive). So most performances and connected activity is dependent upon friends helping me, or expensive taxis!

What is your musical education or background?

The 19th Bermondsey Boy Scout Troop band, skiffle, American Bebop, and AMM.

What is your favorite recording by another musician or group?

I do not have a favourite. But, I cherish the memory of listening to an album that a close trumpet-playing friend gave me on my 21st birthday. Often, thereafter, we sat immersed and mesmerised by Coltrane (and quartet).

What is your favorite recording that you have made?

This is difficult to answer. For, after working on an album I rarely go back and listen much afterwards. (On the whim of this moment of writing) I'll select: AMMMUSIC (1966) and Unearthed with John Butcher (2023). Tomorrow, or in the next minute, it could be a different selection.

Is there any comment not covered here that you would like to share?

Only that most of the responses above are (of course) inadequate and provisional. A bit like I feel when making the sounds!

Oh, and one further caveat: People of this generation have (if often only vicarious) access to a wealth of sonic expression produced historically, and currently, from all the world's cultures. Arguably, never has this condition existed before — and never could so many people have had such an opportunity. The immediate response may well be a pick-and-mix conspicuous consumption. Or, a possible feast of tempting imitative responses. There is, of course, so much to listen to, admire, and to learn from. Experimentalists might even be tempted to lift tonic sol fa and tempi into our investigations. It is all there, why not use it. Do so. Though it is risky. Heed the Adorno warning that: 'Style is a surrogate identity'.* Our objective, surely, must be to find our own meaningful identity. One fit for a more positive future than we face at the moment.

^* See additional freely downloadable material as an addendum to his polemical memoire An Uncommon Music for the Common Man . These include a response to: Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer, Dialectics of Enlightenment, Verso, 2010. In particular, the chapter: 'The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception', which was written c.1944.