As a guitarist, Adrian Belew has made his mark as the go-to ‘string man’ for Frank Zappa, David Bowie, and most notably, the supremely eclectic King Crimson. Along the way the affable Kentuckian also wracked up serious cred as a critically acclaimed solo artist with his group The Bears, as an in-demand multi instrumentalist, songwriter, producer, and more recently, visual artist and app creator.

Belew will bundle all that up as he heads out on his latest tour with Power Trio colleagues, School of Rock prodigy and bassist Julie Slick, and drummer Tobias Ralph. The tour, which hits 22 states and two Canadian provinces, will borrow from his entire body of creative work, while shining a light on his inventive new musical listening concept called “FLUX: never the same twice.”

Belew and the Power Trio hit the Ridgefield Playhouse stage Sunday, October 26, New York’s Highline Ballroom on October 28, and boomerang back to Bay Shore, Long Island, on December 10.

In a pre-show interview with The Newtown Bee, Belew said he started out playing drums in his junior high school marching band and moonlighting in a Beatles cover group.

He was famously discovered by Frank Zappa at a Nashville gig in 1977, and was summoned to audition for the whacky genius, securing a role in Zappa’s touring band and providing guitar, harmonica and some vocal work on the album Sheik Yerbouti.

His playing style attracted the attention of Brian Eno, who recommended Belew to David Bowie, who was lining up talent for his Heroes tour. Belew accompanied Bowie on that tour, and his work ended up receiving international exposure on the subsequent live album from that tour called Stage.

He made such an impression that Bowie called Belew back for guitar support on his 1990 Sound + Vision tour.

During his early period with Bowie, Belew also drew the attention of the Talking Heads, who occasionally invited him to supplement their live shows. It was around the same time that Belew met future King Crimson founder Robert Fripp. In 1981, Fripp signed Belew on for what would be a celebrated 30-plus year partnership in that band.

Flashing forward to 2013, Belew was signed as a supporting guitarist for Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails, and then notoriously withdrew, although Reznor gave Belew credit for his work on NIN’s Hesitation album.

According to his website, Belew’s inspiration for his latest project - FLUX, a Kickstarter supported application and companion guitar effects system - came to him in 1978 when he was visiting Marseille, France. As Belew sat in a riverside café, the energy infused sounds and sights washed over him.

“I remember closing my eyes and listening to this beautiful cacophony, the sound of life, and I thought, this is how I want my music to sound someday,” he writes on his site. “Music being interrupted by life being interrupted by music. From that moment on I began working out how that could ever be possible.

“Over time I added in other ideas — what if, just like life, the music never repeated itself? What if it was always different, surprising? How could you do that?,” he continues. “Over the decades since May 28, 1978 I returned again and again to this idea until it became a mild obsession. I knew sooner or later it would be something I had to do.”

During his chat with The Bee, Belew talked a lot about FLUX, and how he was looking forward to launching the idea worldwide; his unique style of guitar playing; his pioneering work with Illinois-based Parker Guitars; and of course, his humble beginnings on a high school drum line.

Newtown Bee: So your first exposure to music and playing in groups was as a drummer in your junior high marching band. Do you think developing your musical foundation in rhythms versus melodies has served you well in your career?

Adrian Belew: I think I would probably never made it in Frank (Zappa’s) band if I didn’t at least have some background like that. To further that notion, I probably wouldn’t write the kind of material I write, especially back with King Crimson. And I still play drums, and I love it. I think it’s something that is great to have in the musical tool box.

Bee: And with your knowledge of technology, I’m sure you have spent many hours creating cool stuff on drum and rhythm machines.

Belew: There’s a lot of interesting software now that lets you do some really whacky things with rhythms. But it does help for you to understand rhythm really well.

Bee: Your musical bio is well known. But when did you introduce paining into your repertoire?

Belew: Well, it’s kind of a sad story, but I guess it was about nine or ten years ago. I have this old pick-up truck, and I accidentally ran over a dog. So when I went back and saw this horrible scene, it was so upsetting that the only way I could respond was to go paint something. It struck a nerve and my creative energy kicked in.

I guess I figured if I went and painted an abstract painting I wouldn’t feel so bad about it. So that very day, I went down to the art store, got some paint, brushes, canvas and a lot of advice, and started away with no idea really of what I was doing.

Bee: So you worked out your post traumatic stress on the canvas.

Belew: It was very stressful. I remember it clearly, there were two dogs and they ran out right in front of me. I was in this old farm truck, so I didn’t really have the ability to react like if it was a normal car, it wasn’t the easiest thing to manipulate, so there was nothing I could do.

In a sense it was a good cathartic thing. In fact, I thought at some point later in my life that I would like to try painting. I had no real reason to believe that I could, but I guess I’ve always been visually-minded in the context of my music and my imagination.

Bee: Are you starting to get feedback from other musicians who have also taken up painting like Peter Wolf or Joni Mitchell?

Belew: I’ve had a few tell me they like it. And I think most musicians understand that creating something like a painting is so much like creating a piece of music.

It’s the same tools you are using mentally and creatively. For me, music deals with depth and dimension, tone and coloration the same as painting does. So I think the two go hand in hand. It doesn’t surprise me at all that a lot of people who are musicians can probably paint, too.

Bee: It also gives you a way to combine the best of both of your creative worlds with your passion for technology in this new project, FLUX. How do you plan to see this roll out for both musical creators and consumers?

Belew: I suppose those questions will be answered down the line.

When I first started this, it was because I had this burning desire to express my music in this creative way. That ultimately meant that I had to use an app, and visuals, and a lot of other things I hadn’t originally planned on. Originally it was just a musical idea. But as we worked on it for going on five years, a lot of people have realized that there are a lot of things to use this concept for — it folds very neatly into our current lifestyles where we are using a lot of hand-held devices for communication, information, and entertainment.

Bee: Did you draw most of the background sounds you hear in the FLUX app from your body of published recordings?

Belew: No, most of what you hear behind the constantly changing visual patterns was created for FLUX. I did draw many of those from recordings and samples I had created and never published or included in my album material. I had a ton of those. I was always in situations where I’d come up with a particular sound, record it and say to myself, ‘What are you going to do with it?’ But I really loved those ten seconds of noise. And now because I can weave it into the app, it’s great that I came up with them and saved all those clips over the years.

Newtown Bee: Let’s switch gears to this upcoming tour. How long has it been since you put The Power Trio together?

Belew: We had been touring as the Power Trio for several years, along with joining Tony Levin, Pat Mastelotto, and Markus Reuter for larger gigs as something we called The Crimson Project. But earlier this year we decided to take the Power Trio back to the states for a few gigs, and it quickly turned into a much larger tour, along with coinciding with FLUX coming out.

Bee: Does that mean the upcoming Power Trio Tour will be breaking out a bunch of your long-lost noises and samples as part of the show?

Belew: Well we didn’t plan the tour around FLUX, because we originally thought that would be out in early summer. But we wanted to get it right, so it took those extra few months that pushed it up against our planned tour. So I have some ideas that I’m going to be trying this week ahead of the tour when the band comes in.

We have about five or six days of rehearsal, and we’re going to attempt something FLUX-like. Whether or not you see it on stage will depend on making it work in rehearsal. I think I’ve come up with a way to take the basic concept of music interrupting itself and translating it on stage.

Bee: I can’t let you go without talking about the Adrian Belew Parker Fly guitar.

Belew: The Parker Fly probably changed my guitar life more than anything else has in the last two or three decades. It’s the guitar that suits me in every way. I love everything about it — but primarily it plays so beautifully. The neck is so well crafted and very thin, which lets me play smoother and faster. Anyone who picks one up will be surprised at how light it is, it’s just four or five pounds, which is pretty cool once you get used to it.

I think Ken Parker took everything lacking in all the other conventional designs of electric guitars, addressed every little thing, and got it all right. There were always intonation, tuning problems, tremolo bars that would not come back in tune — none of these issues are a problem with the Parker Fly, especially for someone who abuses the tremolo bar like I do. There are times I can hold the guitar by the tremolo bar and bounce it up and down and it stays perfectly in tune.

The Fly was originally going to be a midi guitar, and it’s designed right for that — it resonates perfectly, there’s never any buzzing or intonation problems which is perfect for midi — a midi guitar wants the cleanest possible information from the note you’re playing.

The one you will see in concert, I can get so many things out of it — and my rack system can reproduce the sounds of 30 other kinds of guitars. It’s really the Ferarri of electric guitars, and it feels like part of my body. I enjoy playing it more than anything else.

For more information about the release of FLUX and its companion guitar effects system, FLUX:FX, and to obtain tickets to see Belew on tour, visit his Facebook page or adrianbelew.net.

See a video of Adrian Belew playing his Parker Fly with the Power Trio here.