{"id":805641,"date":"2020-03-24T20:38:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-25T02:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=972751"},"modified":"2020-03-24T20:38:00","modified_gmt":"2020-03-25T02:38:00","slug":"bill-rieflin-drummer-for-king-crimson-r-e-m-ministry-dead-at-59","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/music-news\/bill-rieflin-drummer-for-king-crimson-r-e-m-ministry-dead-at-59\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill Rieflin, Drummer for King Crimson, R.E.M., Ministry, Dead at 59"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Bill Rieflin \u2014 the versatile drummer and multi-instrumentalist who performed with R.E.M., Ministry<\/a> and most recently King Crimson<\/a> over his 30-year career \u2014 has died, Rolling Stone<\/em> has confirmed. He was 59.<\/p>\n

\u201cBill Rieflin flew from this world c. 18.50 Pacific, 18.50 UK,\u201d King Crimson founder Robert Fripp wrote on Facebook<\/a> following receiving a phone call confirming Rieflin\u2019s death. He added, \u201cFly well, Brother Bill! My life is immeasurably richer for knowing you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rieflin was renowned for his work in Nineties industrial bands, performing in groups including Ministry, Revolting Cocks, Pigface, KMFDM and Swans.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday we lost a wonderful artist, tremendous human being and an integral part of Ministry\u2019s developments and success,\u201d Ministry wrote on Twitter<\/a>. \u201cSafe travels my brother on the way to your next universal gig.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rieflin\u2019s versatility as a drummer and multi-instrumentalist and the respect he had from fellow musicians led to him contributing to a diverse array of groups. He served as R.E.M.\u2019s touring drummer beginning in 2003 and contributed other instrumentation to their recordings until the group disbanded in 2011, and also performed with the Minus 5. In 2013, he joined King Crimson and was one of three drummers, and after a hiatus in 2015, he continued to contribute to the band until he took an indefinite hiatus from the group in 2019. He had also played with Peter Murphy, Chris Cornell, Nine Inch Nails, and many others.<\/p>\n

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The respect he gained was evident after his first hiatus with King Crimson, who said they\u2019d make room for him after his sabbatical. Prior to embarking on King Crimson\u2019s North American tour in 2017, Rieflin spoke to Rolling Stone <\/em><\/a>about his return to the band after his first hiatus and his new role as keyboardist in the group.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a question of four drums up front, which is still in the world of possibility. However, for this tour, I said, \u2018Why don\u2019t I just play keys?\u2019 My skill level is not at the highest, but I\u2019m capable,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd so we said, \u2018Yeah, sure, do that.\u2019 Basically, I\u2019ve made my own job after my other one was taken over by the exceptionally capable Jeremy Stacey. It\u2019s unprecedented that I was brought back in, and unprecedented again that I now fill a completely different role.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beyond his contributions to numerous bands where he often served as an auxiliary member rather than an official full-time band member, the Seattle-bred artist also launched his own projects, including Slow Music, which included Fripp and Peter Buck, and he was also part of a music collaboration called the Humans, which included Fripp and Fripp\u2019s wife, Toyah Wilcox.<\/p>\n

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Popular on Rolling Stone <\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bill Rieflin \u2014 the versatile drummer and multi-instrumentalist who performed with R.E.M., Ministry and most recently King Crimson over his 30-year career \u2014 has died, Rolling Stone has confirmed. He was 59. \u201cBill Rieflin flew from this world c. 18.50 Pacific, 18.50 UK,\u201d King Crimson founder Robert Fripp wrote on Facebook following receiving a phone […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-805641","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-18 11:08:42","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=805641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805641\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=805641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=805641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=805641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}