As anyone who has ever
been in a band can likely attest to, the complexities of creative personalities
working in close quarters can often lead to tension, argument, and outright
dissolution if the situation gets out of hand. Steve Hackett knows this all too
well. From 1970 to 1977, Hackett was a member of one of progressive rock’s most
influential and enigmatic bands—Genesis.
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| image by Armando Gallo |
Hackett brought his unique
brand of musical vision to the mix, and was eager to contribute more of his own
material to the band’s studio albums. To his dismay and eventual disgust,
Hackett found two insurmountable obstacles which prevented him from achieving
his goal: keyboardist Tony Banks and bassist/12-string guitarist Mike
Rutherford exerted a form of control over the band which ultimately led to not
only Hackett’s departure in 1977, but also (according to Hackett) Peter
Gabriel’s exit two years earlier and, in 1996, the loss of Phil Collins.
Steve Hackett is the only member of Genesis who has warmly embraced the band’s
musical/historical record, and has toured the world several times performing
selections from the seven-year period in which he was involved with the group.
The global success of these tours bears witness to the enduring popularity—and
importance—of the music to millions of fans. Hackett returns to the Long Island
area on November
8 for a performance at the Westhampton Performing Arts Center and on November 11 at
The Space at Westbury. This time around, fans are in for a multi-course feast
of both Genesis gems from 1970-1977 and material culled from Hackett’s solo
career which now spans 40 years and 24 albums, up to and including his
brand-new release, Wolflight.
The current tour is dubbed From Acolyte
to Wolflight with Genesis Revisited—the Total Experience … which may be a
mouthful but it’s an accurate description of what to expect when Hackett and
band take the stage.
I first spoke with Steve
Hackett in October
2014, not long after a much-covered incident concerning a Genesis documentary
DVD which, to the majority of viewers, turned a blind eye toward Hackett’s solo
career, resulting in a public demonstration of indignation during which Hackett
vowed not to offer the documentary DVD for sale on his website. In
conversation, Hackett’s tone was neither bitter nor petulant; rather, his voice
conveyed mature wisdom interwoven with a dry sense of humor. Not only is the
man a creative genius, he also possesses a keen intellect that encompasses art,
literature, and science in the true form of a Renaissance man.
This year, I had the
opportunity to speak with Steve Hackett twice during the past few months—once
at the end of August and again in mid-October—to cover even more ground than
our expansive conversation of last year. Hackett was friendly, candid, and
eager to talk; in other words, an interviewer’s dream subject.
Once again, for his candor, friendliness, and most
importantly, time, I thank Steve Hackett for spending part of his time with me.
Read on and enjoy!
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| image by Tina Korhonen |
PART ONE: AUGUST 20, 2015
Roy Abrams: The title of
this upcoming tour speaks to the enormous volume of art you have produced
during the course of your career. Given that sheer volume, what were the
logistics like in terms of putting a set list together?
Steve Hackett: Well, I
think people have been aware, they’ve been following the stuff I’ve been up to
in recent years, but I devoted two years or so to doing exclusively Genesis
work again, the stuff that was created in the ‘70s, mainly with Peter Gabriel
and myself. The thing about that is, a number of other people who were
interested in my Genesis afterlife were disappointed that I wasn’t doing
anything from Spectral
Mornings or Voyage of the Acolyte or
Please
Don’t Touch, all of those albums, so the tour, for me, is how to
celebrate 40 years as a solo recording artist, and at the same time, promoters
and agents (were) asking me to do Genesis Revisited (tour) again, because it
did very good box office. So the solution to that was to divide the past up
into two separate sets, one of which is vocal solo material, and the second set
(is) Genesis songs, ones that I haven’t performed before in recent years, such
as “Can-Utility and the Coastliners” and “Get ‘Em Out by Friday”, “The Lamb
Lies Down on Broadway”, “Cinema Show” … so I’m trying to celebrate both halves
of this history and make it totally immersive by giving them surround sound. We’ll
be using surround sound; it’s part of the flight back of audio, I keep thinking
(of) a kind of audio crusade, I ought to really go for that with people who are
prepared to accept narrow bandwidth and the kind of disposable aspect of music
these days, (I wanted to) celebrate it ever more so. It’s the equivalent of the
wide screen.
RA: Personnel-wise, are
you bringing the same people out who accompanied you on last year’s (Genesis
Extended) tour?
SH: It’ll be Nad Sylvan singing the Genesis stuff; I’ll be
singing the solo stuff, and it’ll be harmony singers with the band. (Keyboardist)
Roger King works
as my collaborator and musical director. We also have Rob Townsend
on saxes, flutes, and additional keyboards, percussion, and various other things.
We have Gary O’Toole on
drums, who is a singer as well, and on bass this time it’s going to be Roine Stolt, formerly
of Flower Kings and Transatlantic.
For lack of a better word, he’s going to be doing the Mike
Rutherford parts, the double neck bass and 12-string stuff. He’s also part
of the harmony-singing team. I’m hoping to hand over some of the bass duties so
he doesn’t get saddled with them all, so that he and I can so some twin lead stuff,
and kind of get the best of the whole team.
RA: “Wolflight,” the title
track of the new album, is a marvel that I cannot stop listening to. It
combines virtually every element of what makes Steve Hackett a unique artist,
highlighting what, to these ears, is compositional genius, instrumental
mastery, and stellar arrangement and production skills. Can you talk about the
process of writing and recording that piece, as well as the rest of the new
album?
SH: My wife, Jo, we wanted
to lyrically celebrate the early history of the tribes that eventually (spread
across) part of Asia and even part of Africa; the people for whom the Great
Wall of China was built, in order to keep; them out, the Golden Horde; the
people who brought down the Roman Empire eventually; the early guerilla
fighters. They didn’t play by the rules, but they were great survivors. The
more and more I read about their history, I find it fascinating. So
“Wolflight”, the title track, was really designed to celebrate that. Those
people used the wolf as a totem, very often they befriended wolves and
(developed) a symbiotic relationship between those animals and humans, which
formed the basis for their mutual survival. Compositionally, I wanted to work
with a guy called Malik
Mansurov from Azerbaijan, who plays an instrument called the tar, and
working with him is a bit like working with a guy who’s a cross between Ravi Shankar and John McLaughlin. (He has a) wonderful
spiritual quality to his playing and a fluidly fast technique; quite
extraordinary. I worked with him, first of all, live, with a Hungarian band
called Djabe, and I was thrilled to work
with him in Hungary, get him into a studio, fly him in from Azerbaijan, and I
have much more stuff recorded with him. So that was part of it, the world music
aspect, I thought, how can you have acoustic music, folk music, world music,
regional stuff, and rock, and orchestral stuff all in one piece? So that kind
of pan-genre approach, working almost like a wrestling tag time where as soon
as the energy might start to flag, the other guys kicks in, another team takes
over. These different genres, I wanted to be able to fire salvos from one to
the other.
RA: It’s one of the most
remarkable pieces of music I’ve ever heard.
SH: Well, thank you! I’m
glad you like it! I followed my instincts on it, and I really didn’t know
whether people would like it or not, but it has had a great reaction. This
aspect of something Slavic and Nordic and elemental with the orchestral bit … I
always thought, what would it be like if guys like Tchaikovsky
and Grieg and Borodin, what
would they do if they got hold of a rock group? I was thinking along those
lines, those dark elemental forces that they were so clever at conjuring with
orchestras, where the orchestral stuff that they did rarely sounded flaccid; it
retained that tension and that interest, it seemed to be highly charged
emotionally, and very exciting. Having an orchestra is exciting; that’s the
real challenge for us rockers. All of those elements came to bear on it.
RA: You have mentioned
that songs will often be conceived out of dream experiences. What are some of
the most notable examples of this?
SH: Funnily enough, on the
first Genesis
Revisited album I did, there was a track called “Valley of the King”
where the music came complete in a dream, and I thought, I’ve got to try and do
something like that. I had this sound in my head that sounded like a cross
between the string instruments of the orchestra, and what the guitar could do.
It makes up another kind of hard-edged sounding orchestra; a bit distorted, a
bit raucous, but it’s got the size of an orchestra. It’s kind of cinematic
rock, in that way.
RA: What are the
similarities and differences between writing from the dream experience to
writing from inspiration through books, films, fine art, or nature?
SH: I think what happens
is, in my case, I work on paper; memory is fallible. I like writing things down
in books, and I hope to God that I don’t finish the book before it’s time to do
the album. I think to myself, God, if I spread this out over a number of books,
I’ll never go back to Book One. It’s actually a diary, this thing. It’s got
that idea of 365 pages (and) some of those things might be of relevance, if I
update them as I go. It’s crawling around in the dark, really, and catching
chinks of light, and stitching those into a pattern, working out which pieces
of the jigsaw puzzle bear relevance to each other. Or, if they aren’t relevant
to each other, how might they work ….
I found out many years
after the event that John Lennon
worked in that way. He said, you have ideas, and you join them up later.
[laughs] That’s a very good way of working! It’s nice to know that The Beatles didn’t get it all at
once. It’s very easy to assume, “It’s written from beginning to end.” Neither
do filmmakers work in that way. If things don’t happen sequentially; you
arrange that, that’s part of the arrangement of a song. No one can teach you
how to write a song, and I don’t think you can even teach yourself. If you’re
going to surprise yourself, you’re going to have to allow a certain amount of
passive gestation.
RA: You have collaborated
with an astonishing array of artists during your career. Two in particular I am
most curious about: Richie Havens,
who appeared on “How Can
I?” and “Icarus
Ascending” on 1978’s Please Don’t
Touch, and (original Genesis guitarist) Anthony Phillips, who appeared on “Emerald and Ash”and “Sleepers”on 2009’s Out of the Tunnel’s Mouth. Can you talk
about how those collaborations came to be, and what the experience was like
working with each of those artists?
SH: Genesis were great
friends of Richie Havens and we used to listen to him on the way to gigs.
Particularly, with Richard MacPhail (former Genesis tour manager); sometimes I
used to travel with the road crew, and he had tapes of Richie Havens. I was
struck with what a marvelous voice he had, and I remember seeing him live at
Jimi Hendrix’s last big gig at the Isle of Wight in 1970 and Richie was on a
couple of acts before Jimi, and there was a thunderstorm raging at the time,
and his voice just raised above the storm, and I said, “My God, this guy has a
voice that has the power of the storm!” It all became one to me. If I can
mythologize this slightly, it seemed as if the thunder and lightning were his
percussion, almost Godlike. He was an immensely nice man. By the time we were
playing arenas in London, we were doing three nights, sellout shows, to 18,000
people per night in London. We invited him to be the opening act.
Unfortunately, the audience was keen on seeing Genesis. I went backstage and
met him via his keyboard player, Dave Lebolt,
who also worked on Please Don’t Touch.
We shook hands and I said, “I’m sorry that the audience reaction in no way
parallels the quality of your performance.” And he held my hand and shook it
for a very long time. And I said, “Look, would you like to come to dinner at my
home?” My mother was living there at the time; she had just broken up with my
father. He helped her wash up; that’s the kind of guy he was. That was just
great! At the end of the evening, he suggested, “Why don’t we work together?” I
phoned him up three months later and said I’d written something with him in
mind and he said, “I can hear it already. It sounds great, man.” He was so
positive—he was the real thing. One of the most positive, wonderful characters
I’ve ever worked with.
RA: What a great
description! I had the pleasure of meeting him many years ago—
SH: It’s unforgettable,
isn’t it?
RA: How did you cross
paths with Anthony Phillips?
SH: Although we never
played in Genesis during the same era, he and I became very good friends. We
see a lot of each other, we have some mutual friends. He’s also very humorous,
very talented, and a very nice man. I’d been trying to get him to play on
something for quite some time. He said, “What do you need me for to do this?” I
said to him, “Because I’ve got a feeling that you’ll come up with something
that I wouldn’t think of!” Sure enough, that leap of faith was recorded. He
showed up at what he thought was going to be a rehearsal at my home. I happened
to have Roger (King) there, who was recording, and I said, “Look, I’m going to
get out of the room, and if you record anything you’re happy with, just tell
me, because you don’t need another guitarist looking over your shoulder when
you’re doing that.” Ten minutes later, he’d come up with this gorgeous double
12-string part which fitted with my guitar part, this arpeggiated picking thing
on the chorus of “Emerald and Ash” and it brought it alive, totally. He used
open tuning because he figured it would make the notes ring on more. (He was)
absolutely right and had done the thing I had predicted, which was something
that I hadn’t thought of. That combination of chiming guitars was very much
like Genesis; it very much captured that Genesis spirit. And then he did the
same thing on “Sleepers” and I thought it was lovely. Over the years, I’ve
tried to talk him into doing an album, with the two of us; so far, I’ve failed.
He might just say to me one day, “Hey Steve, maybe it’s time we should do
that!” [laughs]
RA: Listening to “Wolflight", my wife
and I were struck by how eerily akin to Peter
Gabriel’s atmospheric aura, if you will, the track was in parts. You and he
seem to possess much in parallel in that regard. In all the years since you
left Genesis, did the two of you ever talk about working together? If not,
would you consider it now?
SH: It came close, at one
point! At one point, we were sharing the same phone book with regard to Latin
musicians, and I’d recorded some stuff in Brazil and he wanted to go there and
said, “I guess you’re the guy I should get in touch with” with regard to that.
I did an album (in Brazil) called Till
We Have Faces. Funnily enough, I got Pete a copy of that, and I was
hoping to play harmonica for him on one of the tracks, because he was also
interested in blues harmonica. He was another Paul Butterfield fan,
so we had that in common. It hasn’t happened so far, but maybe at some point that
might happen. Again, we have friends in common and we’re interested in several
of the same issues that concern the world, not necessarily in purely musical
terms, but in other aspects as well.
RA: In the video
presentation for the Tribute album which
you released in 2008, you voiced your love of Bach’s music, saying “It’s like
Beatlemania to me.” What lies at the root of that relationship?
SH: I think, if you were
criticizing it, you’d say the complexity of it, but it’s not that, it’s the
completeness, the self-sufficiency, that fact that you can conjure a world, with one instrument. Bach’s music is
entirely indifferent to whatever instrument it’s being played on. It sounds
wonderful on guitar, cello, violin, any number of keyboards, be they
steam-driven or electronic.
RA: 1999’s Darktown
seemed to have been a watershed moment for you as a lyricist. You were quoted
as saying, “It was the beginning of a new way of looking at things.” Many fans
view this as your Plastic Ono
Band album. What forces coalesced to make this album such a pivotal
experience for you?
SH: Darktown was kind of a hiatus for me. I was dealing with the fact
that, in the 1980s, there was a high level of creative restriction for guys
like myself who had grown up as an album artist, and I still felt that what was
most commercial wasn’t something that record companies were necessarily going
to understand. What (record company) people thought of as esoteric in fact was
the very thing that was going to fire up fans. So there was this divide between
the two. I’d like to think it was the first of many albums where I decided to
go my own sweet way and let the publishing be damned. It was an album that was
bringing me back fully to myself. I thought, the pursuit of excellence is
really what it’s all about.
RA: You were credited with
orchestration on that album. Is that area still under your exclusive creative
domain?
SH:
No, not at all. These days, I’m happy to either do it all myself or collaborate
on it. I’m very open. I think it’s always a team that makes an album, even with
composers of yesteryear (like) Max Bruch, doing his
violin concertos, being influenced by the violinists that were playing it.
There’s nothing wrong with having a musical conversation. (It’s not confined)
to just the world of jazz. Listen to your collaborators or however you deem it!
There are certainly ways of doing this. I understand that a thoroughly
democratic process doesn’t always work. You’d have anarchy in an orchestra!
There are times when I think it should be open.
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| image by Armando Gallo |
PART TWO: OCTOBER 12, 2015
(A day off between shows in Southampton and
Basingstoke, UK)
RA: Thank you so much for
speaking with me again! How’s the current tour going?
SH: It’s my day off today,
but I’ve got interviews! [laughs]
RA: Well, thank you for
taking some time on your day off and speaking with me! I’ve got a few more
questions for you to wrap it up, OK?
SH: Sure thing!
RA: Fans of your music are
not casual listeners; this music matters
to them in a way that is more the exception rather than the rule in today’s
everything-is-disposable environment. You have made it your business to connect
with your fans throughout the world, from your personal involvement with your
website to your global travels to perform for your fans in far-flung locations
well off the beaten path of most tour itineraries. There is obviously a deep
level of commitment displayed towards your fans. Can you talk about that
relationship and the role it plays in your life?
SH: There was something a
while back when I first met Jo, who became my wife. Basically, we started to
run the business as a couple. I’d worry that she hadn’t really had experience
in that area. Suddenly, we were self-managing, and I would say to her, “Oh, we may
have to be a little careful here about the way we go about this.” But in the
end, it proved to be the right thing. I’m
talking about making no distinction between fans and friends; as much as
possible, to let the people in. All those social networks that you talk about, (they
all shared with us that) it’s really cool, what you do. Basically, before
shows, we do a meet-and-greet; there’s an after show, there’s a few people who
get invited to that, and I sign things for people outside the theater on the
way in, and on the way out. There are more things besides meeting the crowd
proper, (by) doing the shows. Largely, I owe it to her. She hasn’t really had
any experience at this, and I thought, first of all, that we wouldn’t be able
to maintain that level of accessibility. It’s completely opposite to this sort
of Greta Garbo/David Bowie kind of approach. You know what? It’s actually
worked really well for us. It’s increased the fan base and it means I’ve got a
lot more friends! It’s actually worked out very, very well.
RA: I’ve seen your website and your Facebook page;
you are continually dialoguing with people from all over the world.
SH: We get back to people,
inasmuch as is possible, and it’s been extraordinary. We’re about six weeks in
to what is basically a three-and-a-half-month stint on the road and I’m still
standing! [laughs]
RA: Hopefully, because
it’s your day off, today you can sit down!
SH: I’m actually sitting
down; you’re quite right! [laughs] It’s an interesting time, all of it.
Everything I’ve been up to has undergone this resurgence of interest. I think
ever since my wife and I became a full-time couple, it made things a lot
easier. It’s been an extraordinary ride. I don’t know at the level of interest;
I suspect that part of was due to the fact that I started doing Genesis
re-records and shows of exclusively Genesis material, so that put me in touch
with fans that I once had with the music, with that band, but then we’ve
extended it beyond that to several albums I’ve done since then. I’m doing a
show that’s part Genesis, part solo, (having) very modern, up-to-date stuff
with the old solo stuff, and the band stuff. So it’s a bit like I’ve become my
own support band, it’s crazy. The doors of the museum are wide open again for
the much-loved numbers of the 1970s, such as “Cinema Show”, “Get ’Em Out By
Friday”, things that were kind of romantic, a little bit Gilbert and Sullivan, I think. But
it’s been growing and growing and growing, and I think that’s extraordinary.
There's a box set
which is about to be released on the 23rd (October), a collection of
all my Charisma (Records) stuff, the years 1975 to 1983 including live shows
and, of course, Wolflight, which has
done very well. The response … maybe it has something to do with having
embraced the Genesis catalog again, and it’s probably influenced my writing
style, to a large degree, but I think that I stopped making a distinction
between what Genesis did and what I did, so if I wanted to do long songs, I
went for the detail, which tended to be story-telling vehicles, then I worked
on that. There’s something about the songs that stay with me of other people’s
that I’ve enjoyed that tend to have this story-telling quality to them. Whether
or not they are love songs, or they’re about other subjects, as far back as the
Greek myth referenced stuff that Genesis stuff. They’re the ones that really
worked for me.
RA: You frequently refer
to “a film script in miniature” or “a film for the ears” … it’s such an apt
reference, given your almost otherworldly ability to create visuals with sound.
Is this an after-the-fact observation on your part, or does that concept play a
role in the creation of the sounds themselves?
SH: The way I write things
these days, there’s a whole ton of ideas, and I write them down in a black
book, and I wait for them to haunt me. I wait for the strongest ones to
surface; the ones that I can’t ignore. And I will go back and study every page
and test out every melody. On a day when I come up with an idea, I’ll be
telling myself that it’s the strongest thing since sliced bread, but the
reality is that I can’t hold allegiance equally to all new ideas. They’ve got
to have something about them; even instrumental melodies, they seem to conjure
some kind of setting for me. I can’t put it into words properly, but there has
to be some otherworldly or magical quality, as you say, to it in the first
place. There’s got to be some kind of alchemy there, and I don’t really know
why it works, but I suspect I’m probably taking a leaf out of several people’s
books who write things. When you’ve been trying to write original stuff for as
long as I have, I used to be very concerned, worrying about whether people
would notice if I borrowed a style here, or stolen something from some other
genre, but these days I’m only concerned about authenticity rather than
originality. I tend to think that those kinds of things --- originality – it
really has all been done. It’s just a case of how are you going to do it
yourself?
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| image by Armando Gallo |
RA: As a lyricist, it is
immediately apparent how much of a student of history you are. Has this been a
lifelong interest, or something that developed as you grew older?
SH: It’s a growing thing.
I think in my early life I did a lot of sleepwalking, to be honest. I was
adrift on a very apolitical and non-historical sea. There was so much that went
on (on the news) that drifted past my head and I really didn’t have an opinion
about those things. And then there comes a point where you go, Hang on a minute
– that shouldn’t be happening! And it draws you in, and I think that current
events have their (roots) in history, and it’s nice to be able to trace back,
and not just look at some of the situations which you have some idea of how
things are going to pan out. They often say that if Hitler had been more aware
of history, he would have figured that Napoleon met his nemesis on the Russian
wastes, and how come Hitler made the same mistake? Looking back is a way of
having a surer future. (I’m not suggesting that you go and invade the rest of
the world, of course!) So there’s something of that and the fact that Jo, my
wife, is very literary; she’s written a couple of books, made films of various
things, and she’s a great historian and a great detective. Wherever we travel,
she tends to make it an event. She uncovers what’s going on in a particular
place, and she’s a great teacher!
RA: In our
last conversation, we discussed your creative relationship with Chris Squire and Steve Howe, but did not touch on your
experience working with Brian May. What are
your remembrances of that time?
SH: I met Brian May in
South America. This is ironic; he told me that he was influenced by the guitar
work I did on a Genesis track called “The Musical Box” … I
realized that at the end of that track, there’s a three-part guitar harmony. I
thought, I don’t believe what I’m hearing! I mean, he’s the master of
three-part guitar harmony as we know it. I had no idea I was an influence on
him. I discovered that he was a very modest, very bright guy, and the driving
force behind Queen. We became pals,
and shortly after I did GTR
with Steve Howe, which was a fruitful guitar pairing, we were talking about
doing something together. After the initial enthusiasm, it seemed obvious to me
that he had so many commitments and the stuff that I started (recording) with
him, I kind of claimed it back, and said, “Are you happy to be on that?” and he
said, “Oh yeah, fine.” There was also stuff we did called Rock
Against Repatriation back in
1989-1990 [a charity project formed by Hackett to help stop the repatriation of
the “boat people” in Hong Kong]. It was great working with him. (Material)
resurfaced many years after the event in the guise of Feedback
’86, which was roughly the time I started working with him and Bonnie Tyler, a great Welsh singer. I
noticed that Brian was very quick on the uptake whenever we were in the studio
together. Ideas with him came thick and fast; I was amazed at his speed! I
tended to be more the kind of guy who would mull things over a bit and then try
them. He seemed like a whirlwind, and that was terrific, because we had a
limited time together so we threw (out) as many ideas as we could. It was like
an impressionistic painting, really, getting as many ideas down on the canvas
as possible and refine them later, bring them into focus later. There are some
really lovely things that came out of that.
RA: Sketches
of Satie, released in 2000, is a beautiful collaboration between you
and your brother John. The symbiosis
is striking. Can you discuss that musical relationship and if/how familial ties
influence it?
SH: That happened many
years ago. John, who is five years younger than me, started to not only play
guitar, but he became interested in the flute. There are a couple of things
here that were important: We saw some stunning King Crimson gigs at
the Marquis Club in London, and I think he really fell for Ian MacDonald’s
work with that band—his flute work. We ended up buying a flute together and
whilst I continued on pretty much exclusively guitar and harmonica at that
point, John was basically taken up big time with the flute. There was another
album I bought at that time; if you remember, what tended to happen in Britain
in the 1960s or possibly even the early part of the 1970s, when you bought records,
it tended to be in electrical stores, or it might be in a bookshop which had
its own section for records; just cardboard boxes with albums filed
alphabetically, so you literally had to thumb through until you found Elvis
Presley under “P” … it’s extraordinary to think of the way records were sold in
those days! I found an album that had an intriguing cover, and it turned out to
be a classical album and I discovered a piece on this that I’d been looking
for, for a long time. I knew it was a classical piece, didn’t know who wrote
it, I would hum the melody to people, and I eventually bought it. I realized
that it was Erik Satie’s
work. This stuff had been arranged for orchestra; it was a bit of a variation
on some of the arrangements that Debussy had
done of Satie’s work. They were great pals, Debussy and Satie. There was a
flute player on it called William
Bennett who was a big influence on John, so I have to jump ahead a few
years now to 1975 and my solo record, which John got to play on professionally,
for the first time. I was about 24-25, John was about 19-20 and he’d just gone
off to Cambridge to study languages; he’s very bright and got a scholarship
there, but he decided that it was really music, after all, that he wanted. He
didn’t really feel that he fit into the whole Cambridge thing, the whole kind
of snobbish thing; I guess that would be the equivalent of your Princeton or
Harvard. I think he just really wanted to get his hands dirty with music.
John’s done lots of flute and guitar albums; he’s just done a rock album; his
second rock album under his own name. It’s in the shops here. He’s also going
through a resurgence. His album is on Cherry Red (Records). So we both got on
board with Satie, we loved the melodies. I wanted to be able to produce
something of John’s. I actually wanted it to be a John Hackett album, as the
flute was taking the lead on most of these tunes, and I thought I’d play backup
to him. The record company we had at the time was Camino Records. An ex-manager
(involved in running) Camino Records suggested strongly that it would probably
sell more if it was a double-header that had my name on it. Reluctantly, I
agreed to that. It’s quite a good album, that’s all l can say.
RA: During last year’s
conversation, we talked a great deal about Genesis, your dissatisfaction with
the recent film documentary, and your relationship with Tony and Mike.
Have you ever received feedback from them on the Genesis Revisited albums and tours? What is your relationship like
with them today? With Phil? With Peter?
SH: Socially, absolutely
fine! I think, when it comes to professionally, you have to remember that
there’s a competitiveness about the core of Genesis. I haven’t heard
any comments how they feel about that, I think the last time I did a Genesis
Revisited in the 1990s, before I’d done a bunch of re-recordings, a double
album—now there’s a Volume Two of Genesis
Revisited. I think when Tony was
asked, he said, “I haven’t been involved in it, therefore I don’t think I can
comment on it.” It was no comment. In
a way, it’s a politician’s answer … it’s in the nature of the way the band
functions. I know that people find it very strange, but I was involved with a
very strange band. Very creative—and if you speak to any of those guys, you may
get a comment or [laughs] … or not! It’s very difficult, isn’t it? It’s like
one guy said, “Well, I couldn’t comment on the presidency of Barack Obama
because I wasn’t responsible for world events at that time!” So, funny, isn’t
it, how all that works. Since the Genesis
documentary—there’s been a documentary in which I was involved that we started
filming five years ago that’s just been released, so I’ve kind of got my own version out there. I think it’s easier. You can try and do things in
tandem, but at the end of the day it’s much harder to function as a group, and
you get representation. The Americans know all about that, don’t you? “No
taxation without representation,” you said, and here’s dear old England going,
“Grumble grumble.” But the fact is (that) independent autonomy has to be at
reach if you’re going to be a serious contender!
- Roy Abrams
Long Island, NY
