Emerson, Lake And Palmer drummer Carl Palmer has admitted he thought bandmates Keith Emerson and Greg Lake had been “petty” when they replaced him with Cozy Powell in 1986.
Palmer says he’d been ready to get involved when ELP wanted to reunite for the first time in nearly a decade, but he had previous commitments with supergroup Asia.
The drummer tells Metal Express Radio: “I would have been very glad to go back with Greg and Keith, but I needed four weeks, as I’d been contracted to make an album.
“I had three weeks of recording left, so I told them it would be four just in case things ran over – which they did. They decided they wouldn’t wait four weeks after we hadn’t played together for ten years.
“So they got in Cozy Powell, which was fine by me – the way I looked at it was they were promoting my back catalogue. I let them use the logo and I didn’t stop them doing anything. But I thought it was a little petty that they couldn’t wait.”
Palmer adds that he had no problem with “good friend” Powell, who died in a car crash in 1998. ELP got back together a handful of times after the episode, the last being their headline appearance at Classic Rock‘s High Voltage festival in 2010.
The drummer reflects: “I think it was good that we did it and we said goodbye to our audience. It wasn’t the greatest gig we’ve done, as we hadn’t played together for over twelve years, but the crowd seemed to like it.”
Palmer is currently gearing up for the release of new Asia album Gravitas, which was recorded with 26-year-old guitarist Sam Coulson in place of Steve Howe.
