Time & Perspective Quote by Fred Frith

There is a quietly radical shift embedded in Frith's offhand tour anecdote: the moment a "group" becomes a "band" is not about matching outfits or a shared van; it's about becoming writable. For a composer who has spent decades treating ensembles as living laboratories, this is a declaration of creative trust. "Something I could write for" implies more than competence. It suggests a stable, legible personality made out of the players' habits, risks, and instincts - a collective instrument with predictable quirks.

The repetition of "really" does important work. Frith isn't polishing a myth of instant chemistry; he's admitting how long it can take for experimental musicians to stop sounding like talented individuals orbiting the same material and start sounding like a single, strange machine. Switzerland, with its string of gigs, provides the necessary pressure cooker: repetition in public, small adjustments night after night, the way an audience forces decisions that rehearsal can postpone.

There's also a subtle inversion of the usual rock narrative. Bands are supposed to be democratic engines and composers are supposed to impose order. Frith frames authorship as responsive rather than authoritarian: he can finally write because the band has given him constraints worth honoring. The subtext is flattering and demanding at once - you've become distinctive enough that generic parts would be an insult. In the experimental world, that's the highest compliment: you are no longer replaceable, so the music has to be specific.