Steve Hackett performing his Best Of Genesis & Solo Gems Tour at The Royal Concert Hall on Friday 16th October 1026.

Images and Review by Kevin Cooper

Steve Hackett and his band were at the Royal Concert Hall on Friday night and throughout their set they enamoured the crowd with catchy guitar hooks and precise playing of classic prog music from early Genesis songs along with some of Hackett’s successful solo numbers.

Hackett was supported by a fantastic band of outstanding musicians that brought an obvious reverence, respect and passion for the material that continues to mesmerise the crowd. Whilst not varying his shows very much means that the crowd knows what to expect, they still hung on every word.

Delivering a set that was split into two, the first half comprising his solo material and the second longer part being taken up by crowd pleasing Genesis classics from the Hackett era, he opened with the brilliant The Devil’s Cathedral, one of Hackett’s best solo compositions, which was followed up with the lovely Every Day showcasing its fabulous multi part vocal harmonies with Nad Sylvan taking the lead.

Other songs included a new release, The Sea Inside which went down really well as did Ace Of Wands and Camino Royale before the set climaxed with the ever present Shadow Of The Hierophant.

After the interval they only had time for six Genesis numbers beginning with Dancing With The Moonlit Knight from Selling England By The Pound album and Aisle Of Plenty from the same album. With the punchy and precise rhythms, bass and 12 string pedal duties were expertly delivered by veteran Jonas Reingold whose cool, calm demeanour seemed to set the entire crowd at ease, whilst Rob Townsend added his own edge with his sax, flute, keyboards and backing vocals.

Lalle Larsson nailed the classic keyboard lines that so many in the visibly older crowd have been clinging to for nearly 50 years, whilst Felix Lehrmann led the set with his excellent drumming. For the majority of the songs such as The Cinema Show and set closer the epic Supper’s Ready Sylvan provided vibrant vocals which accompanied the most intricate of solos and guitar work from Hackett.

Throughout everybody on stage was given their own time to shine such as Larsson’s keyboard solo and in the encore, Lehrmann’s drum solo, before Los Endos had the whole crowd on their feet in appreciation and admiration.

“The main thing is to keep a focus on the music which drives it all, but there will be some big changes in the band,” says Hackett. “Both Craig and Roger are amazing musicians, and I know Lalle Larsson and Felix will be equally fantastic. I’ve never worked with Lalle Larsson before but he’s completely brilliant and more than qualified for the job involving recreating Genesis circa 1971 to ’77. He’s a total virtuoso. We’ve already been working with Felix Lehrmann and listening to him with Jonas Reingold on bass is like a thousand iron girders coming at you at 100mph!”

Larsson and Lehrmann will take their places in Hackett’s touring band alongside Jonas Reingold (bass, backing vocals), Nad Sylvan (vocals) and Rob Townsend (saxophone, flutes, additional keyboards). “I have some extraordinary performers in the band,” Hackett adds “and I’m very happy with this level of virtuosos. These guys are all incredible professionals.”

TOUR DATES 2026

October

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Steve Hackett, an English guitarist famed for being a member of Genesis, chats with Kevin Cooper about his admiration for the late John Mayall OBE, the greatest Genesis albums ever, his latest album The Circus And The Nightwhale and his forthcoming 2024 tour of the UK.

Steve Hackett is an English guitarist who gained prominence as a guitarist of the progressive rock band Genesis from 1971 to 1977. He contributed to six Genesis studio albums, three live albums, seven singles and one EP before he left to pursue a solo career.

He released his first solo album, Voyage Of The Acolyte, whilst still a member of Genesis in 1975. After a series of further solo albums beginning in 1978, Hackett co-founded the supergroup GTR with Steve Howe in 1986. The group released the self titled album, GTR, which peaked at number eleven on the Billboard 200 in America and spawned the top twenty single When The Heart Rules The Mind.

When Hackett left GTR in 1987 due to financial and management squabbles, the group disbanded. He then resumed his solo career going on to release a further twenty-eight, the latest being The Circus And The Nightwhale in 2024. He continues to tour worldwide on a regular basis.

Whilst bust rehearsing for his forthcoming tour, he took some time out to have a chat with Kevin Cooper and this is what he had to say.

Good afternoon Steve, how are you?

I’m doing very well thanks Kevin, but more to the point, how are you today?

I’m good thank you and before we move on, let me thank you for taking the time to speak to me today.

That’s fine; I always enjoy it when you and I manage to speak to one another.

On that point, let me just tell you that this is our seventh time chatting with one another.

Is it really, well we really must stop meeting like this (laughter). I have to be totally honest with you and say that it’s always fun so here’s too many more.

I must ask just how is life treating you at this moment in time?

Well, we are trying to move house at the moment. We are currently shifting around large pieces of furniture, and stuff like that so, what can I say but we are now entering very interesting times right now. These are interesting times of change.

Before we talk about the forthcoming tour, can we go back to the 16th February and the release of The Circus And The Nightwhale?

Sure, absolutely, yes indeed proudly. The album has done really well I have to say. It charted in a lot of places and the fans seem to be very happy with it, which is just as well for me. I feel that it has had the strongest reaction out of all of the solo albums that I have done, and immediately so. Whereas back in the day things took longer to permeate, whereas these days things either catch on like wildfire or they sink like a stone. However, I am happy to report the former.

I have to ask, where did the title come from?

I have to own up and whilst I would love to take all of the credit for that, it was in fact my wife Jo who suggested the title (laughter). I had already recorded a couple of tracks which were autobiographical, and Jo said, “why don’t you record a whole album that is totally autobiographical but try and do it in a way which perhaps reels people in rather more with a story”. So, although the album is autobiographical, and it’s me, there is in fact another aspect to it, as if it went off in another dimension with another character called Traveller. Jo and I were able to mythologize things rather more, rather than having to keep them entirely grounded which enabled the whole project to become even more fantastical.

I have to say that the fans absolutely love it.

I’m absolutely thrilled by that, and I have to tell you that on the current tour I kick off with three tracks straight off The Circus And The Nightwhale which seem to be being greeted everywhere like old favourites which really is very nice. Of course, people like to have time to be able to sing along with whatever it is but I think that the energy of those three tracks is what fires people up live because there is something about the album and there is something about that feeling of travelling through time that you get with the very first track, the oral description of London back in the 1950s; it’s like the steam train meets the Ovalteenies meets the BBC, meets Listen With Mother, then a string orchestra, and then a rock band (laughter).

It’s like you are travelling through these various things like fast shifting scenery, which actually paint the picture. The album was setup in a way that is intriguing to people. I would be intrigued if I heard all of those things myself. It’s like a quickstep, or a foxtrot through nostalgia if you like.

Which three songs do you open the current tour with?

They are Children Of The Smoke, Circo Inferno and These Passing Clouds.

I currently have three go to tracks and they are; Wherever You Are, Into The Nightwhale and Ghost Moon And Living Love. I personally feel that those three tracks are fantastic.

I really am glad that you like those three tracks because I like those three myself. I really do feel that they are strong tracks. In fact, the very first one to be finished was Wherever You Are, and, ironically of course that track is towards the end of the album, but I felt that it really took off in not just an instrumental sort of way, but vocally as well. It seemed to be in a comfortable area although I’m reaching for high notes it seemed to suit and it is a cross between a rock song and a love song as indeed Ghost Moon And Living Love seems to be another favourite. Again, I had spent a lot of time trying to get the vocal and the vocals right on that, although having said that I really can’t complain (laughter). I personally feel that Into The Nightwhale really does fit well on the album and I am pleased with the way that the album has been received.

Now we must move on and speak about the forthcoming tour. Are you looking forward to being back out on the road here in the UK?

Yes, I am, I have just got back from Hungry, where I have been working with Rob Townsend, so yes, I am looking forward to being back on the road because domestic life can be rather complicated (laughter). Please don’t get me wrong when I say that as I don’t mean my romantic life with my wife Jo, which I have to say is absolutely solid and wonderful. When you are at home, I find that there are so many things to do, especially if you are contemplating a house move, there are a thousand and one things that you have to do, when you are at home. However, whenever you are out on the road on tour, I’m still making a noise for a living, and I am still living out of a suitcase (laughter).

I understand that really well, I understand that everything that I need is there in that suitcase and then there is a backpack for everything else that I need. Whereas domestic life, or civilian life shall we say, entails that you need to have relationships with doctors, lawyers, banks and car parks whereas when I am on the road this sort of thing is done for me. I get driven everywhere with the rest of the band; we show up, we check into a hotel, we do our sound check, then I will hang around the theatre for a bit until it’s time for the gig. Many years ago when I did a track called The Show, it really is a very simple life and as you know I am a simple man. I’m pretty good at that. I know exactly what I am going to get whereas when I am at home the tyres will need changing on the car; it’s all sorts of events (laughter).

The forthcoming tour is split into three parts. How will it run and how will it be split?

Basically, the three tracks which we spoke about earlier from The Circus And The Nightwhale kick off the evening. Then, the first half is some of my more nostalgic solo stuff, then we have a break. Then in the second half we have nine tracks from The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, not the whole thing, then we have three songs from Selling England By The Pound, and one track at the moment from A Trick Of The Tail. So, that’s pretty much it. I didn’t want to spend the time doing nothing but The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway. I know that there are other bands that go out there and do the whole thing in its entirety with bell bottoms, wigs, and moustaches (laughter).

I do what I feel is the strongest for me, the strongest tracks and where the guitar has got something to offer. That really is important to me. I do my favourite tracks. There are other tracks that I could include as well, but I want to give the audience a fair smattering of other things. There are people who like to hear the solo stuff, and who prefer the solo stuff. There are also people who would prefer to hear all Genesis stuff, so I try to address both the disenfranchised fans of early Genesis and the later fans of the more recent work and there are a surprising number of them.

Many Genesis fans regard The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway as the greatest Genesis album ever. Where does that sit with you?

Well, I think that the best Genesis album ever, in fact I have to say that in my opinion there are two which run back-to-back, Foxtrot and Selling England By The Pound. Please don’t get me wrong as I think that all of the albums are great but those two are my personal favourites. I don’t think that there is a weak track on either of those two albums. At the time that we first did Foxtrot I thought that it was all over; I didn’t think that people would be in to the idea of something that filled practically a whole side, and that was Supper’s Ready. I have never had any problems doing it live, it has its complexities and challenges but somehow, I think that they were both very strong albums whereas I have always felt that The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway was rather more radical so it tends to divide people.

People either love it or hate it. So I tended to specialise in the things that I think are perhaps more romantic; The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway itself, It, The Lamia, Fly On A Windshield, the more energised tracks, which I think are great melodise, so they happen to stick. I do what resonates with me, but overall, there is a feeling within the band that perhaps the band that was Genesis, all five of us, that perhaps it might have been better as a single album. Having said that, I suspect that you wouldn’t get everyone to agree, just what that strong single album would be. At that time the band were being very creative whilst being in somewhat disarray with the loss of our singer at the time, who was Peter Gabriel in the pre-Phil Collins front man days. I think that the album really is Peter Gabriel’s swansong. I know that he really did believe in it, he absolutely loved it and it very nearly got turned into a musical (laughter). It ain’t happened so far but you should never say die.

Picking up on what you said about Peter, was recording The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway the beginning of Genesis imploding?

I think that it was a start of a band imploding as a five piece, at that time, and gradually whittling it down to a four piece, and subsequently a three piece. Those implosions were implied if not literally.

You mention that you will once again be revisiting some of your solo work on the forthcoming tour, what can we look forward to hearing?

Right, here we go, off the top of my head let me see (laughter). People Of The Smoke, Circo Inferno, These Passing Clouds, The Devil’s Cathedral, Every Day, A Tower Struck Down, somewhere along the way there is a bass solo which is rather spectacular from Janus Rheingold followed by Camino Royale, and then most probably the whole of Shadow Of The Hierophant. So, as you can see it is quite an extensive solo half of the show.

Am I correct in thinking that you will have Amanda Lehmann joining you on this tour?

Yes, that’s right; Amanda will be joining us for all of the shows. That means that the show will include the full-length version of Shadow Of The Hierophant which come out as a substantial Genesis length piece. Also, for a couple of shows my brother John is going to join us on stage, so we might shift things around a little bit, in order to play Hands Of The Priestess, which was Johns flute debut with me back in the days of Voyage Of The Acolyte album. I really am looking forward to having the extras with us on stage (laughter). I have to say that it is one hell of a team, they really are wonderful.

You are now some thirty solo albums in, plus your albums with Genesis. Just how difficult is it for you to put a set list together?

Well, what can I say, I have to make some hard and fast decisions. Because Circus And The Nightwhale was a hit I felt the need to celebrate that. Whereas other times I have been more circumspect, and I have thought, ‘it’s the older material that people recognise and respond to’ the things that they can sing along to, but I have to say that I have managed to bridge the gap perhaps between the past and the future. It is always a difficult decision, and I always feel that whatever I do I am letting down potentially fifty percent of the audience.

But I think that the solo stuff is most loud and the recent things have been charting once again, and not just in this country. We have received some good charting positions in Germany, and have managed to go to number one in some charts, in some places. I have got absolutely nothing to complain about whatsoever. You try to come up with the old favourites together with the new successes which is a lovely feeling and a great place to be in to have that choice. But being totally honest with you, it’s a hard one.

Once again you are joining us here in Nottingham at The Royal Concert Hall on Wednesday 16th October and I have just checked ticket sales, and I have to say that they are going really well.

Well, that’s very good. It really is very nice to know. Most places are selling out whilst a few of the others need a little help. But in the main, all of the shows are doing really well. We seem to be doing really well in the larger places. I’m told that The Royal Albert Hall is all but sold out. I am thrilled to be able to do that. It’s great for me to be able to play The Symphony Hall in Birmingham once again, and The Royal Concert Hall in Nottingham plus it’s great for me to be able to play in Swansea. It really is fantastic for me to be able to do so many of these places which really are a second home to us. We are no strangers to these places, my band and me.

I know that you are always working and that you can’t sit still. Is there anything new in the pipeline?

As you know I am always writing new stuff, always playing and doing a phenomenal amount of hours playing the guitar both electric and acoustic, because you have to keep up the chops, and your nails have to be right, so I actually keep at it. That doesn’t always come back that easily, plus you make new discoveries. It’s not all drudge trying to compete with the guitar Olympics (laughter). It’s not all bad, certain things reveal themselves, great sounds, great noises, great bits of equipment that come my way, so I’ve got to keep my hand in (laughter).

You have travelled the world many times. Is there anywhere left that you would like to play?

Oh, my goodness, well there are still many places that aren’t really on the Rock ‘n’ Roll map. I have one or two friends who have managed to play in China, India and Greece but I haven’t managed to so far. I look forward to perhaps battling against the audiences over there who have absolutely no idea as to who I am, what band I played with, and just why is he doing this new stuff, or even, ‘why is he playing a guitar’ (laughter). When I was over in China this was a place that had never heard of Genesis or Phil Collins. Whenever I spoke to people, they didn’t know who the hell I was talking about. These people have most probably never heard of Elvis (Presley) or Bob Dylan or arguably even The Beatles. China really is a long way away and so there are far flung corners of the globe that I have visited, Borneo for example. I don’t suppose that Bing Crosby was all that big in Borneo, but you never know (laughter).

On Monday 22nd July 2024 we sadly lost John Mayall OBE. Did you ever get to perform with him?

Sadly, I never got to perform with John Mayall but I have to say that he was an early hero of not only mine, but many, many people. I think that he did a wonderful job as being the real thing, he really kept touring and I think that he was very focused, but also very passionate about the music that he obviously loved and I think that without his example, because he was really linking the Trad Jazz boom days and the early start of the blues, to have Chris Barber on the stage with him for his 70th birthday bash, was absolutely wonderful.

I met John at an awards ceremony just as he was about to turn 80 and he said, “I’m doing a gig in a week’s time” and I said to him, “I used to come and see you perform at Eel Pie Island a very long time ago” and at that time I was 16 and John was 33. Me and all my pals used to think, ‘wow, how does he get up on stage and still do that at the ripe old age of 33’ (laughter).That’s how you used to think when you were 16, The Rolling Stones were five years older than me, Eric Clapton was five years older than me, and all of these guys who were in their early 20s who are now pushing 80 and over, not to mention 90 (laughter).

I was a great fan of John Mayall and all of the marvellous people that he had going through his band. I personally think that John was a genius. One doesn’t think of him as an empresario, simply because he was always getting his hands dirty so to speak. You would often find John loading in the gear at gigs. I don’t believe that it was ever about the highs, and I don’t think that it was ever about the hits, it was just about the sheer joy of the music and whenever I went to see John Mayall, I always knew that it was going to be a great show. I remember arriving at Eel Pie Island late one evening and the band were already on stage.

Why the hell I was late I have no idea, but Peter Green was with the band at that time, and they were playing the old Freddy King number the immortal The Stumble, which I recorded myself many years later. It was at that moment where you have to do a double stop thing in order to play it right and Peter Green was doing that with absolute ease, and I have to say that it sounded brilliant. Peter looked over at John Mayall and they would just smile, and I thought I don’t know if these guys realise just how thrilled I was to see playing at that level going on in front of me. It was one of those rare occasions where you can eavesdrop on the Gods as it were, doing what they seemed to do effortlessly.

But I know from many years of experience that being on stage and doing what seems effortless isn’t (laughter). Everyone is on stage dealing with whatever they have to deal with, their equipment, whether or not their wife is still speaking to them, all of these things which would be a distraction. When you are that young and keen as I was at the age of 16 to be in there, underage, not really allowed to be in there, drinking beer underage, but feeling that it was absolutely where I ought to be. I always wanted to be on that stage if not playing with John Mayall myself I always harboured the idea that one day I would call John up and say, “I don’t know if you remember me but it’s the old Steve Hackett here and I was wondering if you would mind if I played a 12 bar with you or whether you would like to make a guest appearance on my latest album” (laughter).

However, that never happened. I came very close to working with the late Jack Bruce who had been through John’s band. Jack, Keith Emmerson, Simon Phillips and I were going to form a band at one point. We rehearsed together, and it really was going very well. I think that it was Jack Bruce who felt that with Cream it was Eric Clapton who had walked away with all of the honours. What I wanted to be able to say when I was going out to lunch with him was, “yes, but you organised all of the songs” but in reality what I should have said to him as a gushing fan was, “yes, but what you don’t realise is that you are absolutely brilliant and you have got that brilliant voice and you have no idea as to how it affected the young me” (laughter).

Hey, you know, these guys are the real thing and so many of them have passed, and so many of the greats are now gone. Hopefully they are off to the great jam in the sky where we all hope to go one day. It’s wonderful to be in a position to contemplate that, and the wonders of a music scene that was bourgeoning in the 1960s. There was so much going on, it really was a quantum leap in terms of creativity, the power of playing, and just where did these guys spring from; where did Peter Green spring from, he was playing with John Mayall after he had only been playing the guitar for three years according to legend. How is that possible in three years surely that can’t be true (laughter).

It really is amazing that John had Clapton, he had Peter Green, and Mick Taylor of course, all in that band, and it really was extraordinary. I saw more gigs with Peter Green at the helm than I did John Mayall and before Fleetwood Mac were formed and he was basically totally brilliant with John Mayall. Mayall gave Peter Green loads of space, which was the thing. John always gave his star performers plenty of space, and I think that he was bright enough and kind enough to give people what they needed in order to shine. I think that John was competitive in terms of the idea; if he knew that there was a better player around, he would always try to bring in the better player. You could be told from one minute to the next, “you are no longer in the band, it’s someone else” (laughter). John was every much the band leader and for that I salute him (laughter).

On that note Steve let me once again thank you for taking the time to speak to me today, it’s been delightful as usual. Good luck with the move and I will see you here in Nottingham.

Thanks Kevin it’s been great. Make sure that you come and say hi when we get to Nottingham and here’s to interview number eight. Bye for now.

Steve Hackett performing his Foxtrot At Fifty And Hackett Highlights Tour at The Symphony Hall Birmingham on Sunday 18th September 2022.

Images and Review by Kevin Cooper

Steve Hackett returned to the Symphony Hall Birmingham on Sunday night to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of Genesis’ fourth studio album, Foxtrot, which he and his very tight band played in full.

Starting off with the instrumental Ace Of Wands from his 1975 album Voyage Of The Acolyte, which set the tone for the evening and with Hackett centre stage with woodwind player Rob Townsend, keyboardist Roger King, a rhythm section of bassist Jonas Reingold and drummer Craig Blundell, the evening got off to a blast when Nad Sylvan came on to the stage to provide vocals for The Devil’s Cathedral.

With perfect sound, a spectacular light show Spectral Mornings was allowed to shine as Hackett’s brilliant guitar work resounded around the Symphony Hall before a fantastic version of Everyday proved to be an early set highlight. A Tower Struck Down was filled with wonderful keyboards from King and also allowed Reingold to excel on an excellent bass solo.

Camino Royale From his 1983 album Highly Strung preceded a portion of the iconic Hackett track, Shadow Of The Hierophant which brought the first half of the set to a close.

After a short break the lights dimmed and King opened the second set with his dramatic keyboard skills for opener Watcher Of The Skies, whilst the rest of the band joined him. The gentle strains of Time Table followed which was light and airy and the piano bright and breezy. Get Em’ Out By Friday upped the tempo and saw Sylvan dominate the stage with his great vocals and had the crowd mouthing along the words and gentle clapping at strategic points.

The very rare Can-Utility And The Coastliners was rapturously received with sublime musicianship from all of the band. For Horizons Hackett took centre stage with his acoustic guitar and mesmerised the enchanted crowd.

Closing the second set was Genesis’ longest recorded song, a twenty three minute Supper’s Ready which saw Hackett and Reingold in tune perfectly together on the dual guitar parts and with the extended closing solo from Hackett, it was a standing ovation that closed this epic song.

Returning to the stage for fans favourite Firth Of Fifth, the evening was brought to a glorious end with a mash up of Myopia, Slogans and Los Endos, all of which well and truly deserved the crowd’s applause.

For Foxtrot Hackett had delivered a master class in musicianship and showed exactly why he shouldn’t be thinking of hanging his guitar up any time soon.

Steve Hackett, an English musician, singer, songwriter and producer, chats with Kevin Cooper about the 50th anniversary of Genesis’ fourth studio album Foxtrot, being a member of Genesis and working with Tony Banks, Mike Rutherford and Peter Gabriel, the release of his forthcoming album Genesis Revisited Live: Seconds Out And More and his Foxtrot At 50 + Hackett Highlights 2022 UK tour.

Steve Hackett is an English musician, singer, songwriter and record producer who gained prominence as the lead guitarist of the progressive rock band Genesis from 1971 to 1977.

He has contributed to six Genesis studio albums, three live albums, seven singles and one EP before he left to pursue a solo career with his first solo album, Voyage Of The Acolyte, released whilst still a member of Genesis in 1975.

He co-founded the supergroup GTR with Steve Howe in 1986 and they released their self titled album GTR which spawned the top twenty single, When The Heart Rules The Mind. When Hackett left GTR in 1987, the group disbanded.

Hackett then resumed his solo career, releasing a total of twenty-seven studio albums. He also tours worldwide on a regular basis.

He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Genesis in 2010.

Whilst busy preparing for his forthcoming tour of the UK, he took some time out to have a chat with Kevin Cooper and this is what he had to say.

Steve good afternoon, how are you?

I’m very well thank you Kevin, how are you?

All is good this end, thanks for asking. And before we move on let me firstly thank you for taking the time to speak to me today.

It’s always a pleasure whenever you and I find the time to speak to one another so thank you for giving up your time in order to find out just what it is that we are currently up to.

And just how is life treating you at this moment in time?

Life at this moment in time has been very, very busy. I just seem to be forever on the run, whilst trying to be creative in the midst of it all. It’s been an absolute whirlwind of previous commitments now being fulfilled this year. Everyone knows the state of play with regards to Covid-19; we all had to stop what we were doing for a while. For me, that meant that current commitments and previous commitments were all sandwiched into one, so I haven’t been able to record anything new since last August. Having said that, it has pretty much been all non-stop and I seem to be working my team to death (laughter).

I was going to say that now that the great James Brown is no longer with us, you seriously must be the hardest working man in music (laughter).

Do you reckon?

Yes, I do. You once said to me a few years ago now that you were thinking of slowing down, but I really do feel that now you are working even harder.

Yes, I do seem to be, don’t I (laughter). It’s a strange one. I think that B.B. King was most probably the hardest working artists that I had heard of. I know that he was playing three hundred dates every year. I personally don’t quite know just how that is possible, when you are still performing, and you find yourself in a wheelchair in the end. I’m not sure about that, but when he passed on, I tried to deliver a write up to try and encapsulate what I felt about his commitment to music. All that I kept on thinking about was the word unshakeable; he never did falter, and that is pretty amazing. So, what can I say, it has been a challenging time, but also very exciting times. It is compressing into one period what you would normally stretch out into a number of years.

Looking out on the horizon, I am going to be touring in Australia, New Zealand, and Japan, which will also include a little trip over to Borneo, for a quick holiday. I have recently returned home from Greece, and I know that all of this makes me sound like a very adventurous globetrotter (laughter). You have to remember that there are my commitments to music, and there is also Jo’s (my wife) need to visit everywhere on the planet. When she was a child, someone bought her a globe and she said, “yes, I want to visit everywhere on there” (laughter). And I have to say that we have covered a fair bit of it in recent times and we have come back with stories and blogs and numerous tracks and samples so, the research goes on (laughter). It all ends up in the music in the end, one way or another.

You must have accumulated more air miles than the late Alan Whicker ever did (laughter).

I never thought about that (laughter). Just think about it, I could be the Alan Whicker of Prog Rock; now that really would be something wouldn’t it (laughter).

Now, we must speak about the fiftieth anniversary of the Genesis album, Foxtrot, together with your forthcoming UK tour which celebrates the album.

Yes, we should (laughter).

How did you feel when you were recording the album, did it sit comfortably with you?

Wow, don’t hold back, let’s get straight into it shall we (laughter). You are quite right; it didn’t sit comfortably with me at all, and at the time, I was personally worried that Foxtrot was a little bit too far out there for the listening public. However, fortunately, I was proved to be extremely wrong (laughter). Its relevance seems to reveal itself over a very long period of time, because I am not sure that there is any other album out there that sounds like Foxtrot, in fact, I would go so far as to say there is no other Foxtrot. In fact, I’m not sure that is entirely possible. Whenever I have tried to write a song that was in the style of one of those tracks, it usually fails miserably and I think, ‘no, that’s Foxtrot, leave well alone.’

Just give to Foxtrot what is Foxtrot. In other words, ‘Give unto Caesar what is Caesars’ (laughter). All that you can do is try and come up with work that is as detailed and as thoroughly composed, and make sure that you leave some room for some improvisation too. I think that is an important part of rock that often gets forgotten. In the drive to write another good song, or an opus, you can often forget just what it is all about; the discovery of something which, if you are lucky, finds its way onto an album. In one of those rare moments where a band is all playing at the same time, and everyone goes, ‘why don’t we just leave it exactly as it is’ (laughter). I have to say that there were a few moments like that with Genesis.

Do you think that the album has stood the test of time?

I have always found Foxtrot to be an interesting album, and yes, I personally do feel that it has stood the test of time extremely well. Let me put it another way, I feel that the material stands the test of time. However, I could argue that the production, not in every instance, but in general, the production always has, in my opinion, left a lot to be desired. I have to be totally honest with you and say that there are some great sounding tunes on the album, for example, I wouldn’t change a note of Willow Farm, I think that everyone did exactly the right thing on that plus the production sounds bang on. Anyway, I’ve got my opinion about it and no doubt, you will have yours.

I was, if I may, going to take you one step further back, and say after Genesis had come off a massive world tour, do you think that the time was right for you to go back into the studio to work on a new album?

Was it the right time? We were a touring band; we were all young guys, we were fit, we punished ourselves with that kind of behaviour, and we were recording somewhat piecemeal. We had the luxury with the previous album, Nursery Cryme, of taking time off, and concentrating on getting an album right. However, we didn’t have that luxury with Foxtrot. I seem to remember that there was an awful lot of activity in Italy at that time. When we were both rehearsing material that was going to go on this thing, particularly Watcher Of The Skies, and even when we were messing around with it in sound checks, you could see that there was a palpable reaction from the promotion team who were with us at that time.

They were all young guys too and they were getting really excited about what we were getting excited about. There really was something about it. What you can’t do fifty years later is surprise people with it. At the time it really was a surprise, but now it is a case of, ‘yes, these are the notes, the tablet has been handed down from the mountain’. Therefore, you dare not change a single note.

How were you personally feeling at that point because it had been rumoured that you really did want to leave the band?

Yes, I really did feel that it was my turn to leave the band. I was involved in a stormy private relationship, and that for me was a huge distraction from the band. My wife to be and I at that time were having some difficulties, and I have to say that it did rather colour things with the band. I was used to being in situations that didn’t last that long with bands. I thought, ‘this will last for a bit then there will be something else that will last for a bit’ (laughter). I wasn’t really aware that, particularly with Tony (Banks) and Mike (Rutherford) within the band, I got the feeling that they disapproved of what I did to a large extent.

Until I got that seal of approval, in other words, on the first day of recording the new album, for example, Foxtrot, they both said to me, “we want you to stay, we like you’re playing” and I thought, ‘well this is news to me’. I thought, ‘well this is good news, so I had better stick around for a while’ (laughter). Looking back, I guess that Genesis was a rather stiff upper lip organisation, and they never really gushed and never said, “hey man, that’s a really wonderful tune” or “I really like your playing” or “what a dazzling bit of mellotron” or “just how do you get that tone”. We really weren’t like that (laughter). It really was much more reserved, and I think that reserve could quite easily be misinterpreted as disapproval. So, we did stick it out altogether, and I have to say that I am very glad that we did.

I really do think that there is some great stuff on Foxtrot. Famously, I remember when The Rolling Stones, who were all very young at the time, were interviewed for a music paper and they were asked, “what do you like most of all about the new album”’ and Bill Wyman would say, “my bass playing”, Charlie Watts would say, “my drumming” and it would go “my guitar playing”, “my singing”, “my harmonic playing” (hysterical laughter). So, what do you like the most about Foxtrot, “well” (laughter). There is a really short answer there. But actually, I was a fan very much of the way the guys and the team, as we all were, were able to function together, and write together, and add things to each other. So, I would say that the triumph outweighed the disappointments as the world thought that this was very good.

What they hadn’t heard were the things that failed and didn’t make it out of the rehearsal rooms, some of which I thought were extraordinarily beautiful things, and I was very disappointed about that and usually made amends later on, with my own efforts. I found myself using things that had been co-written which ended up on things of mine, or things that were influenced by together with things that I was able to take further. A solo career was a very different proposition. I have only got to deal with one dictator at a time and that is me (laughter). It is very different when you are in a band where you need permission to do this, that and the other.

I find myself explaining band politics to people who perhaps don’t need to know that. You are in a band, and there is push and pull, that is how it goes. I think that it is a terrific album, plus there is a lot of really great stuff on it.

Was there ever a danger that the album would never get finished as the recording process was fraught with problems. For example, four producers who simply came and went?

Yes, I have to say that there was some water under the bridge; there were producers and engineers who didn’t always see eye to eye with the way that the band operated. I personally don’t know why that was; Genesis wasn’t full of easy characters, people came from different backgrounds, different cultures, and I have to say that there was a lot of talent that simply came and went together with friendships. Yes, I guess that there was some blood on the tracks; there had been some blood spilt there, together with a few heavy knocks. So I can imagine that to some people it may have been regarded as a breach birth rather than an immaculate conception.

Albums are like that; some albums are more difficult to make than others, and you have to remember that this was the second album that we had made with the team comprising the Charterhouse guys, together with Phil (Collins) and myself. So, as you can see, we were a newly formed five-man team. Some four hundred tour dates later, we were still very much a new song writing team together. But I have to be totally honest with you and say that I don’t remember that many problems or have my memory tapes been erased (laughter). I just look back on it all rather fondly. I just wish that some of the album sounded as good as it did live, in particular Watcher Of The Skies.

I think that wherever you listen to the Genesis Live album, by comparison, you get the mellotron sound that was closer to my heart; the drum sound that was closer to my heart, together with a fair bit of playing that is pretty good. Having said all of that, there is also a little bit of this, that and the other that I would change, usually things to do with timing and what have you, but all albums of that period, the early 70s, that five year time span from 1967 to 1972, there is always timing issues involved which unfortunately you are going to hear, not just with our band but also with the great and the good, The Beatles. You have to put up with certain things because that is just how it was.

How did the recording process differ back then to how it is today?

The process back then was much more mechanical, much more organic. There was no auto correction with this sort of stuff. You either played it right or you got it wrong. Recording back then was a very different proposition to the way it is today. Nobody started off with a click tack in those days; it was simply, ‘here we go’. So, tempos can be a little bit racy and personally, I had always hoped that Watcher Of The Skies would have sounded a bit bigger and a bit slower in order to let it breath. By the time that we were doing Genesis Live it had settled into a comfortable live speed, and we were almost in time with each other (laughter). In fact, we were almost in time and in tune with one another at the same moment (laughter).

Would you say that Foxtrot represented a coming of age for Genesis?

A coming of age, well, what can I say, I am still growing up myself, and I most probably still have quite a way to go in my whatever decade it is now, it’s frightening (laugher). I think that there was a progression, certainly from the previous albums and I think that the quality of the writing had improved. That’s not to say that there weren’t some gems that predated this. There was some damn good stuff, The Fountain Of Salmacis for example from the Nursery Cryme album, which really was damn good. But being totally honest with you, it was the epics that I found myself being attracted to, so I loved Watcher Of The Skies and what it did. The fact that it started off with this quasi-alienated classical orchestra in the shape of the mellotron, being joined by a rhythm section, that made it sound all the more powerful, and the fact that it is the opposite of heavy metal.

It’s not balls to the wall from the word go. There are dynamics; there is the crescendo for a start, which is probably the most exciting bit of the tune itself; the rhythm, the staccato rhythm which orchestras can’t play. Believe me when I say that because I have tried (laughter). It is so syncopated that it continues to this day to fox orchestras. So, you should never try to put an orchestra on the rhythm section of Watcher Of The Skies or you will come a cropper as I have found out from my embarrassment (laughter). But there we are, orchestras don’t usually syncopate to that degree, and that rhythm is all about being on the money. I have to say that it is a very clever rhythm.

Bearing in mind what happened to Peter (Gabriel) in 1975 and you in 1977, were the cracks already starting to show at this point?

I think that the cracks were always starting to show with Genesis. The moment I joined the band, Peter (Gabriel) was saying to me that he “didn’t really believe in composition by committee”. I had some idea of what he was talking about, although I had not really functioned as a fully fledged writer within a committee. I don’t think that there is really much point on dwelling on band politics. I think that it was a very gifted team, but it was equally so competitive that it started to lose members, or even haemorrhage members, and the music is what remains. We have the music, and I chose to honour that and leave it politics free.

How do you put a tour together, when considering the combined back catalogue that you and Genesis have?

That’s a very good question and I will try to answer it as best that I can. Firstly, I choose what I think is the best music that the band ever made and have a team that authentically not just reproduces it, but takes it hopefully to the next level, plays with it, and changes it. There is sufficient of the original there to say, “yes, I recognise this tune” but I like to think that it has evolved to take on board some moments that deserve to be changed or extended. I like to take liberties with the limited sound canvas that we had at that time with the addition of woodwind, brass, extra keyboards, and sometimes extra percussion.

We are able to do things with the team now that would have been hard pushed to do back in the day. So, I do love doing this stuff live, that’s the point, and we really do tear into it with a will. We have recently been doing Seconds Out and I have to say that it has just been getting better and better as the band go at it with more and more panache and attitude. They really do make it their own. So, Genesis, the band, the place, is my straight onto paradise moment really.

It has to be said that on the recording of Foxtrot Peter really was on top of his game, his vocals are immense. Would you agree?

Yes, I totally agree with you. You have to remember that Peter was a hugely creative individual. Peter, I think, always had wonderful ideas, and he was largely responsible for the band’s acceptance internationally. He was prepared to risk life and limb trying out things, not just on stage, but also as a galvaniser of opportunities, in other words, as a hustler (laughter). Either on the phone or working the room, he was very good with communications; he was always very much ahead of the game. He was always at the forefront of technology, and I think that Peter and I hit it off because of that. For instance, the idea of doing the whole of Supper’s Ready live.

I remember that the band was divided into two camps. I knew, and I think that Peter knew that it wasn’t going to work doing Supper’s Ready live unless we had all the bells, the whistles and then some. We needed our own light show; we needed the sound effects, and Peter himself realised that he needed to personify it, to feel it, and not run it by the committee. He had to get up on the night, and just do it, ‘don’t ask what I’m doing, this is what I’m doing, this is what I’m wearing, you guys wear what the hell you want but I am going to be wearing a red box on my head, let’s make the devil’ (laughter). That’s fine, as you don’t get things done in Genesis by not running them by the committee; you get things done in Genesis by being bloody minded.

It was all to the good because whatever Peter did got us photographed and written about. When people look back on this era, perhaps all of those things that were described as gimmicks, which made the difference at that time, seem to get consumed into the idea of, ‘oh this is really good music’ (laughter). We were playing much of this music beforehand and it really wasn’t setting the world alight, that is until the visuals served the best interests of that music, so that it could be performed and loved in that way. So, you have got to give people a show, you have got to give them a framework and you have got to be spellbinding in some way or another, particularly with complicated music.

There has got to be something about it, that stops people going off to the bar, and saying, “sod all of this I’m going to go for a drink, it is all far too difficult” (laughter). And there you are; that’s the dichotomy of music that is a collision of different schools of thought which is what I think Genesis was. We were lots of different schools of approach, not just the school that they hailed from, but the schools of ideas that we all had. For me, it was spending as much time listening to Segovia as I was Jimi Hendrix. Tony’s classical leanings and pop sensibility was equally as important. Peter was listening to a hell of a lot of Nina Simone’s music, and then there was Mike who liked Led Zeppelin and Judy Collins (laughter).

These are all very different types of music, and each person loved lots of different ideas. Phil was very much into big bands and Tamla Motown. That is what motivated him. None of these things really were Genesis but they all informed it in some way. All of these different ideas and things that perhaps shouldn’t co-exist in the same song, the same band, or the same album. I personally think that is what made it work, the differences with everybody, so you would get this richly textured, strange, quirky, often quaint, often comedic, very English sound. It’s strange as it’s like the concert hall meets the musical hall meets the club and it all seems to compress into one thing which is hopefully not too fossilised in people’s memories but held in great affection, certainly by mine anyway (laughter).

You played on six Genesis studio albums. Where would Foxtrot sit within those six?

Oh goodness me, well now, I have often said that my favourite Genesis album which I played on was Selling England By The Pound, but I think Foxtrot comes a very close second for me. And I can quite understand it if someone said, “well actually I much prefer Foxtrot”. I could quite understand that. There will be things on all of the albums that I am incredibly proud of, not every track, but I think that there are moments in every track that make them outstanding. For example, a track like Time Table, my favourite moment is when it goes instrumental at the end. You have got a melody being played that sounds closer in spirit to Henry Mancini than a rock band.

That little delicate melody that is being plucked inside the piano is made by a plectrum that Tony used. You would never know what that instrument was, no one knows. Thinking about it, I will have to figure out just how I am going to play that live when we tour, because at the moment I don’t know (laughter). I recently bought myself a Mandolin, maybe I could play it on the Mandolin. At this moment in time I really don’t know. We will see.

I have always loved Horizons which I always refer to as being the calm before the madness (laughter).

Yes, I can see just where you are coming from with that reference (laughter). I am surprised that the band allowed me to use it, but I think that the way that it was butted onto the beginning of Supper’s Ready, is what makes it work. It works as a hors d’oeuvres before the main course. Oh dear, here I go again with the food analogy (laughter). It acts as a precursor rather than a separate track with not too much stop and start if you know what I mean. A lot of what Genesis did in those days was acoustic, and we used to say that if there was a song which was guitar based, it usually meant that it was based on acoustic guitar, and that guitar being a six string Yamaha acoustic that I had borrowed from a friend.

On my fourth attempt at being able to play Horizon all in one go, I got it right without any drop ins. In fact, it was the monitor mix that we used. Someone, I can’t remember who, had the idea of sticking it through a Leslie cabinet or two, so you had the straight sound and the Leslie cabinet sound, which was slightly swirly with a bit of reverb on it, and it hissed like crazy (laughter). Back in those days, nobody was thinking about that because vinyl already had its own surface noise, and even today, whenever I go into Café Nero in the morning, they very often play Horizons, and more to the point, it is that very same recording. I stop and think to myself, ‘my goodness me, this is still around after all of these years’ (laughter).

I would expect that probably no one in the café has got any idea as to what the track is and I am the man responsible for it. No one would have any idea remotely that it is a Genesis track, and why would they, some fifty years later. Over the years a lot of people have tried to play it, usually on nylon guitar because it really is a nylon guitar piece. It is usually based upon a Bach melody that I had heard at a distance, and I have to say that it has got brevity on its side. It’s very short; I was thinking of the works of composer William Byrd back in the 1500s and in particular a piece called The Earl of Salisbury. That piece was originally written for keyboards, and John Renbourn recorded a version on an album of his with Terry Cox playing the glockenspiel on the top.

What intrigued me about that was the brevity of it. It was only ninety seconds long, but it was a real gem. I thought that it didn’t need to be long, and it didn’t need to go through excessive changes. It didn’t need to die from a surfeit of logic, it just needed to be paired down to the essentials, and that is what I went for with Horizons. I have to say that I do think that it is well written; it took me about a year to write that small piece. I just kept picking away at it, and when I thought that it was right, I played it to the guys and I fully expected them to say, “well that’s you on your own” but it was Phil bless him who said, “it sounds like there should be some applause after that, and I think that we should use it” and so we did.

The album failed to chart over in America, was that disappointing?

To be totally honest with you, I wasn’t really aware of it. We were touring so much back in those days and America took quite a while to get their heads around just what Genesis were all about. And it wasn’t until we broke out of college radio first of all, where guys at their respective colleges would play what the hell they wanted; I think that mainstream radio would just have past us by. We broke out of college radio, we did one or two television shows, we did a Midnight Special with Wolfman Jack, we also did the stop-gap album which followed Foxtrot which was Genesis Live with a King Biscuit Flower Hour, and I think that a combination of all of that got us onto a wider audience.

What you have to remember is that we were playing clubs and colleges for quite some time. The Americans didn’t always get what we were doing simply because they were into boogie, and we weren’t a boogie band. So those delicate twelve-string moments would get shouted down by a rowdy crowd most of the time, and I used to think, ‘I hope that we get to the loud bit soon, and then we can drown them out’ (laughter). So, when we got to those moments, they suddenly decided that they liked it. We could, if not boogie, we could certainly reach those powerhouse moments. I do remember playing at The Roxy in Los Angeles, we were playing there for three nights doing two shows a night, and it was completely sold out.

I honestly believe that they were some of the best gigs that the band ever did. It was then that I just knew that the band were going places. To me, it was the best band around at that time. We were playing the best of Foxtrot, we were playing some stuff from Nursery Cryme, and the best of Selling England By The Pound. By that time, we were really good live, and I knew that I had something to reckon with, at that point, and I could see it on the faces of the audiences who got it. It was the West Coast that really got it first of all. Although we first showed up on the East Coast, I always felt that we were auditioning our ideas to the American audiences.

Tell me about a certain John Lennon’s interest in Genesis?

Just who the hell have you been talking to (laughter). That really was something rather wonderful and I have only just found out recently that John was saying to anyone who would listen that “Genesis were true sons of The Beatles”. He would have all of our albums sent over to him in the States from Nursery Cryme onwards. I often wonder why he would do that, except that I think that perhaps, because we were so very British sounding, it might have been a way of staying in touch with home in a way. You are an expat Brit, living in New York with a Japanese wife, maybe a little bit of cream cakes, jam and scones went with Genesis perhaps, maybe it had a palliative effect (laughter).

You have been well documented as saying that you thought the album cover was “a bit of a strange design.” Has your opinion changed over the fifty years?

Well, the funny thing is that I had originally thought that the album sleeve was actually a bit of a hotch-potch. It wasn’t until Peter started to personify the character on the front of the cover, as an afterthought, that it suddenly began to make sense. When people now look at the cover they will usually say, “oh look there’s Peter Gabriel there” and they think that it is an illustration of him, but in fact, it was the other way round. He was personifying something that had been painted. It’s a funny thing with album covers; you will have your favourites and then there will be others that you don’t quite get. I know that Hypnosis always wanted us to use a photograph and the band resolutely refused to do that.

I really liked, at the time, the cover to the Trespass album. I instantly thought, ‘oh, that’s a really nice album cover, why can’t we have something like that’ (laughter). But I realise, when I look back on it, the cover is very much of then; it’s the hippy look of the late 60s was roughly in line with the medieval look of Kings, Queens, Knights, swords, sorcery and all that kind of stuff. So, when I look back on it now, I think, ‘that’s of its time as well’. But I thought that the execution was interesting, and I longed for something similar. So, it wasn’t until we got to Selling England By The Pound that I actually thought that was an incredible album cover for an illustration.

Of course, it wasn’t designed as an album cover; it was a discovery of a black and white drawing, which Betty Swanwick, agreed to do again but to paint it this time. These album covers have got their prodigy haven’t they, they have got their complications and lies too (laughter).

On the original album, Supper’s Ready runs at 23 minutes and 5 seconds long. If you had been in a position to record the track onto compact disc, do you think that it would have been any longer?

What a question, I can see why you have left it until now (laughter). I think that it may have been on the following album. We managed to put 29 minutes on one side, but a lot of it was acoustic so we were able to get away with the grove. The idea behind Supper’s Ready I am quite open about these days. I had seen King Crimson live in 1969 prior to them recording In The Court Of The Crimson King, before I became pals with them, and I found myself on the outside looking in. They used to finish their set by mashing a bunch of numbers together, things as different as The Young Ones and Holst’s Mars. They would mash Cliff Richard and Gustav Holst, and nobody missed a beat with that.

I thought that if a band could do that and pull it off, and you can’t tell where one thing starts and another thing stops and starts then basically, it was the late Ian McDonald who said to me that they did it all via a system of cues. Somebody would play something, and the rest of the band would follow it, and it was from that moment that the idea of Supper’s Ready was born. I thought that we could do something long form, so we put it together and that’s how Supper’s Ready was born. Sometimes it was possible to steer Genesis or encourage them to go in a certain direction. I had the idea that my role with the band was often to have an overview and to try and function with them perhaps in a similar way to how Peter Sinfield functioned with King Crimson.

King Crimson were four guys on stage with another guy who was in the band offstage, but who was still considered to be a part of the band. I think that it is important for a band that is starting out, to have somebody who notices all of the things that the other guys don’t. They should also be prepared to be unpopular in order to be popular (laughter). There lies the contradiction; you have to be prepared to be the in-house critic or the in-house publicist. Whilst I was with Genesis, I had pretensions of being the in-house producer (laughter). Having said that, I decided that the best thing for me to do was to take a step back and try and do perhaps what (Brian) Eno was doing with people.

You are talking about two acts who were signed to EG Management, both King Crimson and Roxy Music, and I think perhaps the link was that there was intelligence at work. It wasn’t just haphazard. Somewhere along the lines, someone has got to say, “yes well everyone else does that, why don’t we do something else instead. Everyone else is doing ABC so why don’t we do XYZ” (laughter). The trouble is that it can all go down like a lead balloon, people can get very pissed off, but they will eventually admit that you were right all along. So, you really do need your helmet on for that (laughter). But it came out really strong in the end, that’s the thing.

How proud were you that the band used Horizons on the album together with a few of your ideas for Supper’s Ready?

To be perfectly honest with you, I can’t quite remember now, just how proud I was, but I was surprised that I got Horizons on the album, and I was surprised that they all liked Can-Utility And The Coastliners as a song, so I had written the song together with the lyrics, and I was surprised that they used a few bits of Supper’s Ready that I had come up with. Having said all of that, I was surprised that they liked anything that I ever did. At times, it could be like working with the Civil Service (laughter). There was about as much excitement as working with the Duke of Edinburgh (laughter). So, the short answer is that I was always very pleased whenever they used an idea of mine, but it wasn’t a surprise when they didn’t.

At times, one had to accept that one was rank and file, who would work on top of the ideas of others. That seemed to be a better way of working, and they often worked with me coming up with riffs, rather than whole tunes because I might have been perceived as being a threat to a great composer.

You have been in the business for some fifty-four years now, have you enjoyed it?

Surprisingly I have, yes, I really have, and the surprising thing is that I still enjoy it. If I can I try to play every day. I was recently speaking to Nigel Kennedy about this, and he said, “so you play every day right” and I said, ”yes, if I can, if I’m not on a plane” (laughter).

The forthcoming Hackett’s Highlights, what can we expect?

The good thing is that there will be some things that I have been wanting to play live for some time, songs that I personally think are very good. I feel that it is now time for me to showboat a few of those songs a bit, again.

Will you be performing Foxtrot in its entirety, and sequentially, as it was recorded originally?

Well, at this moment in time, that’s the plan. I’m not quite sure just how I am going to be able to do Horizons which then jumps straight into Supper’s Ready, but maybe I will let the other guys start off then I can pick up the guitar and keep the flow going and the momentum going like that. Unfortunately, I don’t think that it will work; picking up a nylon guitar and then going into Foxtrot, I might be able to do it but it won’t sound quite right. It’s got to jangle far more than that, so I don’t think that will work. It might, we will just have to wait and see (laughter).

What length of show are we looking at because Foxtrot has a total running time that is just short of an hour?

Yes, that’s right; Foxtrot is, as you say, there or there about an hour long. Because of that fact, I am going to include a lot more solo stuff, but there is also going to be some other Genesis stuff as well but can’t remember what off the top of my head. I have to keep asking what has been agreed at this point because my head is still thinking about us doing the whole of Selling England By The Pound in some places and the whole of Seconds Out in others, so I am afraid that memory is in fact fallible at this point (laughter). I would like to do The Devil’s Cathedral again; we recently played that live and it just seems to be getting better and better all the time.

I certainly would like to do that, plus there will be some other tracks that I haven’t played for a while. Plus, there will be some Genesis tracks that I know people are going to want to hear. I think that all in all, it is going to be a very good show.

Who will be playing the bass on this tour, will it be Jonas (Reingold) or will it be Nick (Beggs)?

This time, I am pleased to say that it will be Jonas Reingold who will once again be playing the bass on this tour. Jonas really is a brilliant player; his playing really is extraordinary. He can play rock, he can play jazz, he can even play brass on a bass, I have heard it all, and he is phenomenally fast. Having said that, both Jonas and Nick are brilliant bass players.

Is Nad (Sylvan) in good voice?

Yes, he is. Nad has been extraordinarily consistent, he has done show after show and I have to say that his voice doesn’t falter. He has, by far, been the fittest of all the lead singers that I have ever worked with. If he has a cold, or if he has got a cough, he just sings through it, and he doesn’t seem to suffer. When he is match fit, Nad is mighty.

Will Amanda (Lehmann) be playing with you on any dates on the forthcoming tour?

Yes, she will be, she is going to be with us on quite a few shows, but I can’t tell you which shows they will be as yet simply because she hasn’t told me laughter). She tells me that she would like to be on a few so that is up to her, and I am very pleased that things have taken off for her with her album and I am informed that she is currently working on another one. I anxiously await with bated breath to see what she comes up with.

Now, before I let you go, I have to ask you about the forthcoming album, Genesis Revisited Live: Seconds Out And More which if my information is correct, will be released on Friday 2^nd September.

(Laughter) just where do you get your information from, and yes, you are perfectly correct, it will be released on 2^nd September.

What can you tell me about the album?

What can I tell you about the album; well as you will no doubt recall I finally went back out onto the road with my band during September and October 2021, which was our first tour for two years thanks to the pandemic. We decided to perform Seconds Out, the Genesis live album in its entirety together with a host of solo favourites plus tracks from my most recent studio album Surrender Of Silence. We also performed tracks like Squonk, Supper’s Ready and The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, all of which I personally feel have been vastly neglected over the past few years. It was also a joy for me to play Every Day and The Devil’s Cathedral.

We really did have a great time. I am really so happy to finally be in a position to release my Seconds Out And More show. It was a spectacular night and I have to be honest with you and say that the band really were on fire. They tore into that magical music combining the true spirit of Genesis with a fresh virtuosic approach. They produced some extraordinary sounds under amazing lights. In my opinion, this show is a feast for both ears and eyes; the very best of so many worlds.

I’m told that the show was recorded in Manchester.

That’s correct; the show was recorded and filmed in Manchester on the 24^th September 2021.

I understand that the album is available in most formats, is that correct?

Yes, that’s absolutely correct, the CD is available as a limited 2 x CD and Blu-Ray. There is a limited 2 x CD and 2 x DVD in a digipak, both of which include bonus content and are presented in 5.1 surround sound. I know you will like this next one as it is available as a limited gatefold black 180g vinyl 4 x LP and 2 x CD and LP-Booklet. I know that you like your vinyl (laughter).

I certainly do like my vinyl (laughter). On that note Steve, let me once again thank you for taking the time to speak to me today. It has, as usual, been absolutely delightful.

Thanks Kevin, you stay safe, and I will see you up there in Birmingham. All the best.

Steve Hackett performing his Seconds Out + More! Tour at The Royal Concert Hall Nottingham on Saturday 2nd October 2021

Images and Review by Kevin Cooper

Steve Hackett returned to the Royal Concert Hall last night to play what was undoubtedly Genesis’ best live album ever, Seconds Out, in its entirety. Originally released in 1977, six days after Hackett left the band to go solo; it was still warmly regarded by this eager crowd.

Split into two sets, the opener Clocks – The Angels Of Mons immediately showcased Hackett’s adventurous playing style. From his latest album Surrender Of Silence there was the tender yet aggressive Held In The Shadows with its scorching guitar licks, pounding drums and soaring vocals from Nad Sylvan, which was followed up with fans favourite, Everyday.

Another new track, the wonderfully sinister The Devil’s Cathedral complete with its shredding guitar solo gave way to an abridged version of Shadow Of The Hierophant which built to a tremendous crescendo and which brought the first set to a triumphant end.

For Seconds Out, Hackett delivered a master class in musicianship and with a band that matched him note for note. Opener Squonk set the scene before Hackett picked up his acoustic guitar for the very tender The Carpet Crawlers. Robbery, Assault And Battery took full advantage of a swinging rhythm section provided by the very talented Jonas Reingold and its tricky keyboard runs were handled with ease by Roger King.

Afterglow played out against a classic backdrop of white spotlights all pointing down, whilst Firth Of Fifth boasted the most extravagant Hackett solo in Genesis’ catalogue which he nailed with ease, with cheers from the audience to prove it. The Cinema Show which started off slow expanded to a major keyboard and drum spectacle to bring the album to an end.

For the encore there was a thunderous Dance On A Volcano which morphed into a full blown drum solo of 70’s proportions before things were brought to a climatic end with a full on version of Los Endos showing that Hackett is still worth the ticket price.

Steve Hackett, an English musician, songwriter, singer, and producer chats with Kevin Cooper about how he kept busy during lockdown, his friendship with Peter Gabriel, his latest album Surrender Of Silence and his extensive tour of the UK.

Steve Hackett is an English musician, songwriter, singer and producer who gained prominence as one of the guitarists in the progressive rock band Genesis from 1971 to 1977. He contributed to six Genesis studio albums, three live albums, seven singles and one EP before he left to pursue a solo career. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a Member of Genesis in 2010.

He released his first solo album, Voyage Of The Acolyte in 1975 and since then he has been prolific with his releases, having released a further twenty six studio albums, the last being Surrender Of Silence which was released earlier this year.

He is currently embarking upon a thirty date tour of the UK which will see him perform Genesis’ 1977 album Seconds Out in its entirety.

Taking some time out of his busy schedule to have a chat with Kevin Cooper, this is what he had to say.

Steve, good morning. How are you?

I’m fine thank you Kevin. How are you today?

Well, I could complain but who would listen (laughter).

(Laughter) I know exactly what you are saying.

Well, we had better leave our ailments behind as I firstly thank you for taking the time to speak to me today.

It’s my pleasure Kevin, it is always fun whenever you and I get to chat.

Just how is life treating you in these strange times?

I have to say that in my opinion Covid really has been a great leveller. People have either been stuck indoors, or they have gone out and they have caught it. Having said that, I have to say that for me personally, it has been a productive time overall. I managed to get my latest album, Surrender Of Silence written and recorded during lockdown, which I thought was pretty amazing. What is also nice is that we have played a few live shows so far and I am very happy with just how well the tour has gone so far. It really has been fantastic for us to be able to play live in front of people once again. For us to be allowed out really has been wonderful.

Where there any nerves at all when you finally stepped out onto the stage after eighteen months or so?

I have to be totally honest with you and say yes, there was a hell of a lot of nerves. Within the set which we are playing on this current tour, we play some solo stuff; some of it from the recent album Surrender Of Silence, which I am lucky enough to say went straight into the charts at number sixteen which really was great vindication of that. Playing shows was a little nerve-racking at first because it is a very long set. It is about three hours long and for us to try and get the whole history of things, including the solo stuff, the whole of the Seconds Out album in the Genesis set, which I have to say is extensive. It is even longer than the original double album as we play full length versions of all of those things.

All of the guys are saying to me afterwards that they are all finding it a really tough set, but the shows have been getting steadily stronger as things get tweaked, and all things start to happen; a little bit of a tweak on my distortion unit, in order for me to get the maximum out of it. Not everything is turned up to eleven; some things are actually turned down in order to give us a better sound being honest with you (laughter). It has been a great tour so far, and I am really looking forward to being back in Nottingham on the 2^nd October when we will once again be found playing the Royal Concert Hall. And I have to say that I am really looking forward to that. It is a thirty-date tour, and it is the most extensive tour that I have ever done here in the UK, both with Genesis and also my solo stuff. Thankfully, so far, it has been amazing.

This coming from a man who once told me that he was going to start slowing down (laughter).

(Laughter) ah well you see, let’s put it this way, Covid retired us all for a while, and at some point, I thought, ‘well, I can’t be in front of people as things have been cancelled and rescheduled, so what can I do. I could record more, I could make some more videos, I could even do track chats to people’ so I actually did around sixty lock down videos. Some of which were playing to camera, some of it was me talking about people’s favourite tracks from the past, solo stuff, Genesis stuff, you name it I would talk about it (laughter). We were almost like a regular TV channel at that point. Then I thought ‘well, let’s get going with recording as much live stuff as was possible.’ So I recorded an acoustic album; there was a live album, there was the autobiography, plus a new rock album.

Two weeks after I had finished the acoustic album, Under A Mediterranean Sky, we were onto the rock album, Surrender Of Silence. The acoustic album seemed to perform in the marketplace like a rock album; I was lucky in the fact that that one charted. I wasn’t expecting it to do that. I just wanted to do something in an attempt to calm everyone down and which was different from Surrender Of Silence, which I have to say is a much more intense album.

Having listened to the album a few times now, it would appear that there is more social comment on there, more so than any previous Steve Hackett albums. Would you agree with that?

Yes, I would totally agree with that observation; thank you for saying that. The latest album Surrender Of Silence really relates to the fact that there are a number of things which I have stayed quiet about lyrically until recently. We were addressing climate change; we were addressing the inequalities in wealth, one half of the world locked up like a prison camp whilst the other half of the world was in charge of the keys. I really do get worried about that aspect of the world being divided into haves and have nots. So, there are tracks on the album which deal with that together with social comment change.

The Russian inspired track Natalia, the track which borrows heavily from the style of the Russian ballet composers, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, and Stravinsky, that one was really more about Natalia, who is really a Russian type of everywoman. In each verse Natalia finds herself being executed by the Russian authorities, over a thousand-year period. So, as you will find as you play the track, there are four different Natalia’s. We had visited Russia and our reactions to it were I have to say, very mixed. We met some wonderful people, and the audiences were great, but there were always those little things like why our emails weren’t working, and all this kind of stuff so, I don’t know. I can’t help thinking about Alexei Navalny, the man who they tried to do away with is a bit like a modern-day Rasputin. That really does go on with the Russians.

On a lighter note, there is some world music on the album, Wingbeats for example.

(Laughter) you have done it again. You never cease to amaze me. Yes, that’s right, after we had enjoyed a visit to Ethiopia, we had fallen in love with the place and so we decided to do an African themed thing together with an Oriental styled piece; Shanghai to Samarkand with a few instruments that I have not used before. The rest of the album, I think, is very full on. Some people have been calling it Metal Macabre whilst others just say, “it is a heavier album than you have made before” (laughter). Whilst I would never pigeonhole the album, I would have to say that it is not escapist nor is it romantic. The acoustic album was much more of that, more gentle and more romantic.

I would never attempt to tell anyone that Surrender Of Silence is romantic in that sense of the word. It is very much a rock album, with a few added things which I like to think sets it aside and makes it subtly different from other peoples view of what Rock and Roll should contain.

Personally, if I had to label the album, (which I never would) I would say that it is more industrial than your previous work. Does that make any sense?

Yes, it does, more industrial, yes. It’s funny, my great friend the late John Wetton would often say, whenever they asked him about his style of music, he would say that it was Post-Industrial. So, I have to say that I like your expression, that’s good; I will take it that you think that the album is more industrial. I like that.

Normally, at this stage, I would be saying to you, “I like this track” or “I like that track” but after the third play of the album, I just wrote one thing, ‘this is Steve Hackett doing what Steve Hackett does best, playing a lot of different styles’. Would you agree with that?

(Laughter) once again your observation is absolutely correct. Yes, on this album I have tried out a lot of different styles, and whenever I have tried to write something in one style, apart from acoustic, I find that I want to do the equivalent of albums which started to appear back in the late 1960s, things like the CBS Sampler Albums. Those were the albums where you would get Leonard Cohen next to the Grateful Dead next to Simon and Garfunkel next to Roy Harper. People would put these albums on at parties and people used to stop what they were doing to listen to what was going on because at that time, there was a lot of great song writing going on. Having spent time growing up in the 1960s I was a little bit too young to be a professional at that point. I always used to think that that kind of diversity together with the multicultural thing as well was uppermost in my mind.

Ever since I was writing stuff like Please Don’t Touch! and Spectral Mornings ages ago, which were things that I had done as soon as I had left Genesis, people were starting to use the word travelogue about it. It was photographer Armando Gallo who had worked with Genesis back in the early days, and who is now a great mate of mine, who once said, “thanks for the album Spectral Mornings. You have taken me from the shores of Brighton Beach to Hong Kong Harbour on this one” and I thought to myself, ‘ah, I see’. In other words, that was something which I had done naturally. I didn’t sit down and think, ‘I will try and do that’, it just came out that way.

Are you happy with the album?

Yes, I am. I am very happy with the album. As you know, I basically just keep going. As soon as I have recorded one album, I usually start another one and I fall in love with different things every time. I fall in love with this riff, and I fall in love with this guitar which I have just acquired. There will be favourites but on the other hand, it is the song and story itself that drives me. I write with my wife Jo and we often discuss what the tracks are going to be about. Sometimes she will come up with a lyric for something and I will scratch my head and be puzzled for a few months and then I will think, ‘how can I bring this one to life’ (laughter). That was the case with Natalie. Once I had hit on the idea to go Russian on the music, as it was a Russian story, I thought ‘yes, we can do that, we can make it consciously referential and deferential to those composers I have spent a lot of time listening to’.

That is where the strange harmonies come from; they come from Prokofiev and he seems to bridge the gap, I think, between the romantics and the modern. Tchaikovsky is the great romantic, with his heart wrenching stuff such as Swan Lake. So, there is more than a nod in there, and Stravinsky who nails his colours to the mast with dissonance and all the rest. Basically, it is a sort of percussion driven thing, and I honestly feel that Stravinsky was heading more towards rock, so you then take it a stage further and it heads into the cinematic experimental aspect. He certainly influenced film music which in turn influences me.

I am getting to know you a little better now and I have to say that you made me laugh when you mentioned that you are always working. So, my question to you is when will we be seeing the new album because I know that you would have started working on it as soon as Surrender Of Silence was finished (laughter).

(Laughter) well, it’s a funny thing that you asked me that, and I have to be totally honest with you and tell you that I have currently got three tracks on the go; two of them could go just as they are whilst the third one is more complicated. This challenge is one where you think, ‘just how can I blend rock, folk, orchestral, and fairground grotesque. How can I make all of that work together?’ That is the big challenge at the moment. It’s a bit like having a notice board pinned up and thinking, ‘I have got pins in this bit but over there, there is this bit as well which has pins in that side too’ (laughter). I need to flesh out the orchestral section and make that good. But I have loved working in orchestral styles and shoehorning them into rock.

I think that Surrender Of Silence will probably get dressed as that, in the fullest sense that we have ever done. My cohort with the orchestrations, Roger King, is someone whom I personally feel should be conducting the Berlin Philharmonic actually. He has got those capabilities as well as being a rocker too; he is a hell of a player and a good all rounder. As is the rest of the band. We used the touring band on the album, but we have now extended it into a United Nations collective. We have people from Azerbaijan, America, Tajikistan, Sweden, Denmark; the list simply goes on. I love bringing different people in. So, with each album, there is an invisible map in my mind, and I will be thinking, ‘yes, where can we go where we haven’t gone before’ (laughter).

I saw this guy playing this marvellous instrument. I had absolutely no idea what it was; I was watching him on the internet, and I heard that he was playing a thing called the Dutar which hails from Tajikistan. His name was Sodirkhon Ubaidulloev, and I had him playing the Dutar on Shanghai To Samarkand. He was recommended to me by a guy I’d worked with before from Azerbaijan called Malik Mansurov who played the Tar. Those two instruments, the Dutar and the Tar are both related to the guitar. I would describe his playing as a cross between Ravi Shankar and John McLaughlin. He has got those sorts of chops; he is a fantastic virtuoso, who I have worked with on a number of things, and I have to say that the whole experience is totally wonderful. I like working with people who are as driven on their instrument as I am on mine. They are all as mad as I am (laughter).

I always ask you so I don’t see why this time should be any different, where did the album title come from?

I thought that Surrender Of Silence was something that might address the fact that there are certain aspects of social comment where I wouldn’t normally be sticking my neck out. I figured that the world is in a hell of a mess right now, and I think perhaps that all of the aspects of profit versus poverty versus climate change versus the pandemic are actually all linked. They all have the same thing which drives them. It is the limitations of the profit motif, so I am sorry if I sound like I am on my soapbox here but, I do feel that it is time for, let’s put it this way, I’m very happy to record a protest song if the subject matter moves me. I realise that I am an entertainer first and foremost, but that is what I do.

I am a player, I am an entertainer, and I make a noise for a living. But, whilst I have got an audience who are prepared to accept changes from me, I think that people have had more time at home to consider all manner of things, then perhaps the work that I have been doing gives them the chance of a virtual journey to other places, if not a physical one. We got into that big time with Under A Mediterranean Sky, where with that album what I was basically trying to do was tracks that were based on the various countries around the Mediterranean so there is a Spanish sounding track on it called Andalusian Heart. There is also a Geek sounding track called The Memory Of Myth, and so on and so forth.

So, the idea there was that we tried to take the listener all around the Mediterranean so in a way I have continued that thread. There are three specifically which are very deliberately un-British. There is Russian, African, and Oriental; there is certainly all of that. I was working with a Vietnamese stringed instrument called a Dan Tranh; I was getting to grips with that and trying to play that. I love the way that it sounded. What you also have to take into consideration is the fact that I was trying to get people to play in an Oriental style which, I have to say, was good fun (laughter).

I personally feel that you are keeping Rock music alive and very well here in the UK.

(Laughter) really, well let me see, so far I feel that the music is alive. I like to think that I live for the music and the music lives in me. It is kind of what I am all about and I am very lucky to have the people that I work with around me. They really are an extraordinary team and also my wife Jo. Jo and I really do write as one with these things.

Well, I currently have two tracks which I keep going back to; one that you have previously mentioned, and that is Wingbeats. I think that is fantastic…

I’m so glad that you like it…

And the second being Relaxation Music For Sharks (Featuring Feeding Frenzy) which I have to say, I think is brilliant.

Thank you for saying that and I have to say that I’m so pleased that you like Wingbeats. The story behind that particular track is that we happened to be in Ethiopia and as you will probably know, there are four videos which go with the song; much of which we shot whilst we were away. As for Relaxation Music For Sharks, we had a visit to the London Aquarium at one point, and these sharks were circling very slowly and at that time there was a guy in the tank with the sharks who I think was feeding them. I thought to myself, ‘he’s got some bottle this guy’ and my thought then was that of the idea of the bubbles circling, rising to the surface and all of that. Starting the track slowly and having an imaginary shark or two operating as if by stealth, heading for prey, and the fish that were being consumed.

As the sharks go through shoals of fish, they form themselves into large bait balls. It is literally a circle according to Sir David Attenborough, whose book I have just read. It really is extraordinary. They get picked off by the sharks, plus if they are lucky enough to find their way to the surface, they also get picked off by birds as well. Anyway, I felt that we were kind of doing music for an imaginary movie. For your information, I have never done a movie for sharks but there are four other movies which go with this album (laughter). It’s been great for me doing all of that, and I feel that sharks go through all of that business by stealth which is the point at which I got into orchestral power and then it moves into full rock, once Nick D’Virgilio kicks in with those drums.

Nick is a fantastic player, and he is no stranger to Genesis himself. On the subject of drums, we also have Craig Blundell who is working with us live, showing his chops, and I have to say that Craig is a fabulous player. I have seen him on TV and I have to say that he really is extraordinary. I proudly said to Craig, “I have made four albums during the lockdown” to which he replied, “really, I have just played on fourteen” (laughter). So, if I ever thought that I was a workaholic, I really do need to take stock (laughter). I was trying to make up for lost time and lost gigs. However, we are now reclaiming the streets. I am playing thirty dates, the most extensive tour of the UK that I have ever done, and we are playing up and down the country, and I have to say that it has been great; in fact it has been absolutely wonderful.

Putting you on the spot, do you have a favourite track on the album?

For me, I would have to say that it would be the track that was the flagship when we first started the album, and that was Natalia. I think that was the second track that we worked on. I had already recorded Scorched Earth, which I have to say is a lot of people’s favourite. Then, once the album was done, I thought of doing this gentle acoustic piece which became Esperanza right at the end of the album; Esperanza being the Spanish word for hope. Once we put strings on it, I said to Roger, “I think at this point, this is my favourite track”. Having said all of that, I find it hard to show complete loyalty and to be completely faithful to one track over another. I think what happens is as soon as someone says that they like one of the tracks, I tend to go, ’ah yes, that’s my favourite too’ (laughter). Yes, it’s true; I’m as changeable as the weather (laughter).

You have mentioned your autobiography, A Genesis In My Bed, briefly, which you released on 24^th July 2020. Were you happy with the reaction the book received?

I have to be totally honest with you and say yes, I was. It is now also available in paperback which has an addendum to it, so it has been updated. So, yes, the reaction to the book has been very good, in fact I seem to have gotten away with being an author at this point, which is awfully nice (laughter).

Have you received any feedback from any of your previous work colleagues?

(Laughter) the simple answer to that is no. However, the Genesis tradition is usually to avoid that. It’s the way they were raised, I think.

On the subject of Genesis, shall we attempt to get the elephant in the room discussed and put to bed?

Elephant in the room, and yes there is of course and fire away, bring the elephant right in here by all means (laughter).

Now that they are finally taking to the stage once again, The Genesis Last Domino? tour has reared its head once again. How does it really feel, not being invited along; it must hurt?

Let’s put it this way, the last time that I was invited along was back in 2005, along with Peter Gabriel. To me, at that time there simply didn’t appear to be enough common ground in order to pull that off. I was approached, however. I never expected to be approached for this. I have always said that if it was a serious and sincere offer, then yes, of course I would be up for it. Let’s put it this way, my tour was booked first, and I have got these thirty dates so I couldn’t possibly even do a walk-on. I figured that, how many people they were playing to throughout the UK, I am probably playing to a similar number with all of the dates that I am doing.

I’m playing in the theatres, and I have to say that I am very happy with the fact that they will prioritise the music from the 80s whereas I will celebrate the music from the 70s. I will be celebrating the classic line-up of the band and if people want to get an idea of what Genesis was like in pretty much all of its incarnations, then I would say by all means go and see both shows. I have to say that I am absolutely thrilled with the attendances at these shows of mine; many of which have sold-out. It has been selling really well considering the competition up the road; the elephant in the room (laughter). It really is extraordinary. I wish Phil (Collins) and the rest of the guys all the very best, because despite everything we still remain pals. I wish them the best with everything, in particular Phil and his health.

Have you and Peter (Gabriel) every considered going out on the road together?

What a wonderful idea. I have to say that I have never suggested that to Peter. I have always regarded him as a mate, and I think that he would feel that it was a favour which he would be doing for me. However, Peter has shown an interest in the Genesis stuff that I have been doing. Peter is a very sweet guy; he is totally non-competitive; he just wants everyone in the world to do well. That’s obvious I think with the nature of the music that he has done, together with the social issues which he has addressed. Peter is a very nice guy, and he knows that he can count on me anytime, for something, should he wish.

You will be playing Seconds Out in its entirety, which was your last album with Genesis…

…It certainly was, yes

…does it get emotional whenever you are playing it?

I will tell you what, I love the words to Afterglow and whenever we are playing that, there is a big moment when the lights come up in just the way that they did. We are using the aircraft landing lights in order to have that big moment, and it is during Afterglow and as I said, it is the big moment which is, ‘I would give anything just to hear you call’. And at that moment, I always feel that the loved ones that I have known, my family; I feel that I am singing to them, the ones that have passed on and I personally feel that it is a clarion call to spirit. It is a beautiful song, and I have to say that we have been playing it on previous tours, but it has never sounded so wonderful as it has sounded on this tour. It sounds so good that I have to say that it is quite possibly my favourite, of the Genesis things.

Back in the day, live albums were generally very good or awful. Where do you think Seconds Out sits as a live album which was recorded back in 1976?

I think that in the choice of songs, it is very good indeed. However, I think in terms of production, because you have to remember that it was recorded eons ago, I personally think that it could have sounded better. Having said that, it’s not about the performances, it’s all about the equipment. For me, I understand why people love it, but I’m doing it and we are going to film it on this tour, and there will be a live version of not just that, but also my stuff as well. So, I am really thrilled that it has all been very well received. I am signing so many of the albums every night, that has now become my other job and they keep selling off the stands at gigs.

I keep asking, “you can’t possibly have sold all of those already” (laughter). I have even signed more of everything, and that includes even more of the solo stuff, and funnily enough it hasn’t been as many as Seconds Out. It is a thrill for me that we get to do that.

Where would it sit in your favourite Genesis albums?

I would have to say that I think that Selling England By The Pound is my overall favourite. But again, I think that there were some things that were very good on it, but there are other things that were, again because of the equipment, and also not just because of recording techniques, equipment, and technology, but also the ability to play oneself. I just think that I know that I am a more rounded player now. I can now do things that I couldn’t do back then. There has been a lot more time spent on the nylon guitar, on orchestration, on Flamenco moves, on classical things, on Jazz phrases, on Blues things, you name it. I claim not to be an expert in anything, but I sketch in a number of styles which sometimes blunders into a full portrait, and I am always thrilled whenever things do that.

Taking on board everything that you have said regarding technology, ability, and everything else, do you think that Seconds Out is a true reflection of just where the band were at that moment in time?

I think that the band was always capable of great things. However, there is not a version of Watcher Of The Skies on the album, and there is not a version of The Fountain Of Salmacis on the album, and these were great things which the band touched on in the early days. Also, there is not a live version on the album of Dancing With The Moonlight Knight which I think is another great extravaganza, but, there is a live version of Firth Of Fifth where the guitar is not buried in the mix, because what would be the point (laughter). I like playing the album; I like playing it live and I like the guitar parts being heard. What’s the point of hiding a Stradivarius in the broom closet (laughter).

You tour is entitled Steve Hackett Genesis Revisited – Seconds Out & More, just what can we expect from the ‘more’ section of the show?

You can expect some of my solo stuff. There is a solo set before we do that, and I have to warn you that it is a very long show. Having said that, there is a thirty-minute break in order for you to recover. We have been required to do that by order of the venues. The band would prefer to have a fifteen-minute break. They are not happy at getting warmed up and then being forced to cool down and then going back out on stage once again. Maybe it is tougher on the memory in the muscles. But, you know, I don’t mind (laughter). I just go back to the dressing room and say, “well they liked the first half so they are going to love the second” and I will have a cup of tea (laughter). By the time that I have done that it is time to go back on, so I sign a few more albums and we are back on.

I recently spoke to Joe Brown who told me that he loves the break in proceedings as it gives him time to relax, have a cup of tea and take his wig off (laughter).

(Hysterical laughter) so far, I don’t have to take my wig off, it is all my own hair, but I would be boasting then wouldn’t I (laughter). I love the idea that Joe Brown wears a wig and I have always said that when I lose my hair, nobody will really know, other than the person who is running the crematorium. I’m a very firm believer in wigs, in fact wigs for all I say. If it makes you feel good, then why not, nobody has to go bald. I had a German friend who I had known for years, and I heard that when he was a kid his mother had given him some medicine and all of his hair fell out when he was a child. Apparently, he had some horrendous reaction to his mother’s treatment.

Apparently, he had three wigs, which were all different lengths so it would look like he had had his hair cut. I think that is fantastic. Long live me and Ena Sharples (laughter). You have got to do whatever it takes. I spend a whole lot of my life dieting. I was quite proud at the last gig when I looked down, I didn’t see the great mound, and I found that really nice. I must be heading the right way, which is good. So, again, those who say, “ah okay, I have gone to seed now, I have given up” I say, “why, if you want longevity, if you have got something to do, if you are passionate about what you do, and you want to get the best out of yourself for as long as possible then you have to take a leaf out of my uncles book”.

My uncle lived until he was 108 and he was actually the oldest serving solider still alive from the First World War. His name was Jack Davies, and he was from my mother’s side of the family. So, I am hoping that the candle gets passed down or at least it is in the genes, from that great old boy.

I have to tell you that I have been listening recently to Innocence And Illusion the recent album by Amanda Lehmann, and I have to say that firstly I think that it is a great piece of work, and secondly, there is some great harmonica on there by a certain Steve Hackett.

(Laughter) I am so pleased that not only you have heard of the album, but I am so pleased that you have enjoyed it. Her album is really wonderful, it’s great. The reaction to it has been fantastic. She has had a positive write up in The Prog Magazine, so she has been thrown in at the deep end with that. Amanda does appear on stage with us at some of the shows and would that she be on all of them. She really is fantastic, and she really is a great writer now. I’m so pleased that you have heard the album, and I hope that you like it as much as I do.

I have been looking at the players on there and I feel that you will all have had a great time working on the album together?

Yes, we did, it is a very good album, and as you say she has got some great people on it, people such as Nick Magnus, Rob Townsend, myself, Roger King; we have all helped out basically, but I do have to say that the album is all her. It is all down to her hard work. Amanda is very creative; and I personally think that she is the new British talent.

At the minute I keep going back to Tinkerbell, I think that’s brilliant.

That’s lovely, Tinkerbell is such a brilliant track. It is a lot of people’s favourite track, and it is such a poignant song. It is so lovely.

On that note Steve, let me once again thank you for taking the time to speak to me, it’s been a pleasure as usual. You take care and I hope to see you here in Nottingham.

It’s been nice talking to you again Kevin, thank you so much and I will see you up there in Nottingham.

Steve Hackett, an English musician, songwriter, singer and producer chats with Kevin Cooper about his frustration with cassettes, his fondness for Selling England By The Pound, his latest album At The Edge Of Light and his forthcoming tour of the UK.

Steve Hackett is an English musician, songwriter, singer, and producer who gained prominence as one of the guitarists of the progressive rock band Genesis from 1971 to 1977. He contributed to six Genesis studio albums, three live albums, seven singles and one EP before he left to pursue a solo career. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Genesis in 2010.

Hackett released his first solo album, Voyage Of The Acolyte in 1975, and after a number of other solo releases he co-founded the super group GTR with Steve Howe in 1986. The group released the self-titled album GTR on which was their top twenty single When The Heart Rules The Mind. The group disbanded in 1987 when Hackett left.

He then returned to his solo career, releasing a total of 25 studio albums including his latest, At The Edge Of Light which was released in January 2019. Later this year Hackett will tour with a set which will see him perform Genesis’ 1973 album, Selling England By The Pound in its entirety together with some other Genesis songs, and some from his own 1979 album, Spectral Mornings to commemorate the album’s fortieth anniversary.

Whilst busy promoting his latest album and forthcoming tour, he took some time out to have a chat with Kevin Cooper and this is what he had to say.

Steve good morning, how are you?

I’m very well thank you Kevin and more to the point just how has life been treating you?

All is good thank you and before we move on let me thank you for taking the time to speak to me today.

That’s alright; as usual it’s a pleasure.

And just how is life treating you?

Life at the moment is alright. I have been very busy and as you know I am always on permanent catch-up and I simply keep on forgetting important things all of the time. But I always feel that it is far better to be busy than it is to be sitting at home twiddling your thumbs.

That is very true, and on the subject of being busy let’s talk about your latest album, At The Edge Of Light which you released in January 2019. I was listening to the album prior to today’s chat and all that I have written is ‘business as usual’.

Well what can I say to that except that I totally agree with your sentiment, it really is business as usual (laughter). Thank you so much for saying that. I like that.

I have to ask you, where did the title come from?

(Laughter) I’m so glad that you have asked that question. Funnily enough it was Jo, my wife, who suggested a title that involved light. So we kicked it around for a bit, and that is what we came up with. So it really was a partnership deal; it’s a construct, it is a shared idea.

Are you happy with the album?

To be totally honest with you I am absolutely thrilled with the album; I absolutely adore it. I think that one reviewer was saying that one track on the album titled Hungry Years, didn’t really fit in with the rest of the album because it was “more like 60s pop than rock” and I thought that was precisely the point (laughter). But this particular reviewer said “I like the track but didn’t think that it fitted in with the rest of the album” (laughter). So you could have it all complete doom and gloom on the album, and it is much easier with proggers isn’t it just to have, let’s give it a name, doom rock (laughter).

Well I have to tell you that at the moment I have got four go to tracks; Beasts In Our Time, Underground Railroad, Under The Eye Of The Sun and Hungry Years. On the last two I think that the harmonies are absolutely fantastic.

I really am glad that you like those four tracks. Regarding the harmonies that is myself and Amanda (Lehmann) singing neck and neck on those two tracks. We were attempting to paint a harmony picture.

Do you have a favourite track on the album?

Well the track that I have tended to play up to now was Beasts In Our Time. That is the one that I tend to put on and listen to. However, we have recently been making a video for that track and so it has been going backwards and forwards a lot so it is no longer the Immaculate Conception (laughter). Before it has got any memories, an embryo forms and it is much easier to deal with the track before there are any politics that surround it. I don’t mean politics from the world today I just mean backstage politics in terms of ‘how do we do this’ and ‘how do we do the video that is not too contentious, and not likely to get banned’, whilst at the same time addressing some of the symbolic stuff on it (laughter).

How long did it take you to write and record the album?

Well I’m not sure about this because people are saying “well it’s been a year since you came up with the last album” so whilst I cannot remember the exact date, I personally feel that it was about eighteen months but I really am not sure. It’s been between a year and eighteen months which is how long these things usually take. Plus you have to remember that there are a whole tonne of gigs which go on in the interim so I am not working exclusively either as a recording chappie or live so I have to do things, walk away, come back, alter it, and think about it for a while. These things simply do not happen chronologically.

Having previously spoken to you, no doubt you are already writing for the next album?

(Laughter) well I am always writing things down in notebooks but you know they are just little bits of ideas; in fact they are mostly one line at a time. I find that musical ideas come along at the most annoying times, like in the middle of the night or when I am in the shower and I have to try to remember it. I suppose that I will one day have to drag myself kicking and screaming into the 21^st century but I really do like working with a pen and paper (laughter). I have got masses of notebooks that are full of riffs and things that, to date, haven’t been turned into songs. Having said that occasionally one will standout and I will think to myself ‘I really have got to follow through with that idea’.

Sometimes it is just a case of interacting with the technology, trying to record something with somebody, and ideas spring from that. I think that all music is a rescue package really, where your initial doodle has to be turned into something cohesive. So the schoolmaster within really does want to work much more quickly but I have to be the slow boy who is the pupil who asks “what’s wrong with this piece of music” or “what’s wrong with this riff” and it keeps going back to the tailors for alterations, take it in, take it out, more stiches, so I can’t really tell you how the process works. What I will tell you is that it is a lot of backwards and forwards, together with a lot of corrections.

I notice that you still haven’t bit the bullet and released the album on cassette?

No, I haven’t done that so far, no (laughter). The record company still haven’t mentioned cassette to me and I just remember that people were always complaining about cassettes to me saying “my cassette is broken” and I would always reply “well what do you expect” (laughter). Many careers were built or failed on cassettes and they were simply a case of whether Dolby was in or out (laughter). Record companies would say to me “the mix is really muffled” or “the mix is really tinny” and I would shake my head and say “I bloody hate those things” simply because they would always be failing me.

For example, I had an English record company and an American record company and so I sent them both the same mix of something that I was working on at that time. Everyone failed the first mix whilst everyone praised the second mix claiming that it was so much clearer and the vocals were so much better. And of course all that had changed was that we had stuck an ending on one; they were both the same mix. Who knows, maybe something had happened with the cassette tape, we will never know. The 80s were a terrible time for the Holy Cassette of Antioch or do I really mean the Holy Mellotron of Antioch (laughter). Lots of stuff at that time that was regarded as gospel was being badly failed simply because of dodgy technology. Personally I am not a great fan of cassettes but if people want to buy them then fine, I will mention it to the record company.

Looking at your tour schedule for this year, there are still no signs of you slowing down yet?

No you are quite right, there are as yet no signs of me slowing down, and in fact it seems to be totally the opposite. I seem to be speeding up; I seem to be playing even more gigs, and in fact I think that at the last count I have already got a hundred and fifty gigs next year. And that number is still building daily. I have recently announced yet another tour of America; in fact there are a tonne of gigs coming up.

You are not playing Nottingham on the forthcoming tour; so who has upset you? (Laughter).

(Laughter) that’s right we are missing Nottingham on this tour but let me assure you, no one has upset me in any way. Unfortunately I don’t book either the dates or the venues and let me tell you, I would be more than happy to play in Nottingham once again. The simple answer is that I just let my agents get on with it. I have absolutely no prejudice against Nottingham in fact I kicked off last year’s tour with the orchestra at the Royal Concert Hall up there in Nottingham. What can I say, I am sure that it will be redressed at some point.

On the subject of the Steve Hackett Genesis Revisited 2019 tour you will be playing Selling England By The Pound in its entirety together with a selection of tracks from your most popular solo album Spectral Mornings which will be celebrating its 40^th Anniversary. Are you looking forward to that?

Yes I am, I really am. What can I say, it will be a great night with some super songs from two really great albums.

Lots of Genesis fans claim that Selling England By The Pound epitomises the very best of Genesis. Would you agree with that?

Yes I would, and I will also say that it is my favourite Genesis album. I can always remember the late John Lennon being interviewed and saying that Genesis were one of the bands that he was listening to at that time. It really is high in my selection and I think that it is most definitely the best Genesis album that I was ever involved with. I realise that with Genesis there have been lots of eras but that one encapsulates a lot of what I was trying to do at the time and ironically I wasn’t really writing that much then. Having said that I was continually coming up with riffs and telling the rest of the band “here’s a riff, here’s a riff, here’s a riff” and “see if you like this” which meant that my guitar work on that specific album came to prominence.

I personally think that it was a terrific album, and I think that when we were touring the best of that album together with the best of Foxtrot and the parts which were tourable from Nursery Cryme, I felt that we were the best band out there. What you have to remember is that we recorded that album way back in 1973 but I was immensely proud to be involved with that album together with the team. So yes you are right when you say that we will be playing the album in its entirety. In respect to Spectral Mornings we will be playing most of it, if we can, together with a few of the new songs from At The Edge Of Light that is unless At The Edge Of Light goes ballistic (laughter).

If it goes to number one then I really am in a quandary because I will have advertised one thing but I will actually be playing something else (laughter). I have to say that people really have been saying kind things about the album so, as they say, watch this space. I am proud of the new album; I love it and if I am allowed to then I will take it to the masses.

When you recorded Selling England By The Pound back in 1973 did you feel that you had created something really special?

Well I loved it, but I also remember that Charisma were not overly fond of the album first of all. However, I had that very good feeling, the same very good feeling that I had when I recorded Spectral Mornings and I told Tony Stratton-Smith who was at that time the head of Charisma that I had that same very good feeling about the album and I think, with time, Tony got to love the album. In fact, when we had the reunion concert at the National Bowl, Milton Keynes on Saturday 2^nd October 1982, we all agreed that the most touching moment was when Tony Stratton-Smith sang Can You Tell Me Where My Country Lies. That really does address England doesn’t it? It is the Edwardian legacy; a lovely melody which is a variation on those age-old ideas. A kind of Land Of Hope And Glory meets Tesco (laughter).

On the subject of the forthcoming tour, will Nick Beggs be joining you this year?

No, sadly Nick is committed to other things this year so it will be Jonas Reingold on bass this time around. In fact, Jonas toured with me for most of last year. He and vocalist Nad (Sylvan) are both Swedish so they are pals who have worked together before. I have to be flexible in relation to the rhythm section because they all tend to wonder off and get themselves involved in other things in-between (laughter).

Does touring still excite you?

Oh yes, very much so. So much so that I always look forward to touring. It’s best once you have played the first few gigs and the band knows what it is doing, as opposed to just looking at the crib sheet. After about four gigs usually there is something special that happens. So I am looking forward to playing a few songs that I haven’t played in a very long while, together with some that I have never played live.

On that subject, with regard to Spectral Mornings, do you know which tracks you will be playing as yet or is that still under discussion?

To be honest with you, I don’t entirely know just yet. Funnily enough Roger (King) was recently playing something on the keyboard and I thought ‘I know that keyboard part’ and so I asked Roger “what is that from” and someone whispered in my ear “that is from Tigermoth” which as you will know is one of the tracks on Spectral Mornings. I then thought ‘that is a very interesting keyboard part’ (laughter). This happens when you haven’t looked at something for a while and then it suddenly comes back. Tigermoth was supposed to have a piano accordion accompaniment, plus we had analogue synthesisers at that time, so we took it as far as we could but I simply ran out of time.

Plus despite my efforts I simply couldn’t get in an accordion player. Back then we would be working on an album for two months which seemed like an excessive amount of time, spending an absolute fortune in going away in order to do that on food bills alone. So there is no piano accordion because we spent it all on Thai cuisine over in Holland (laughter).

On that note Steve let me once again thank you for talking the time to speak to me today, it’s been fantastic. Take care and bye for now.

Thank you Kevin, it really has been nice to speak to you once again. You take care and I hope to see you in Birmingham.

Steve Hackett, an English musician, songwriter, singer and producer chats with Kevin Cooper about his first paid gig, playing harmonica on his brother John’s album, his latest studio album and his forthcoming tour of the UK with a forty-one piece orchestra.

Steve Hackett is an English musician, songwriter, singer, and producer who gained prominence as the guitarist of the progressive rock band Genesis from 1971 to 1977. He contributed to six Genesis studio albums, three live albums, seven singles and one EP before he left to pursue a solo career. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Genesis in 2010.

Hackett released his first solo album, Voyage Of The Acolyte, while still a member of Genesis in 1975. After a series of further solo albums beginning in 1978, Hackett co-founded the super group GTR with Steve Howe in 1986. The group released the self-titled album GTR and top twenty single When The Heart Rules The Mind. When the band disbanded in 1987, Hackett then resumed his solo career. He has released albums and toured worldwide on a regular basis since.

Whilst busy preparing for his forthcoming band and orchestra tour of the UK, he took some time out to have a chat with Kevin Cooper and this is what he had to say.

Steve good morning, how are you?

Hi Kevin I’m very well thanks, how are you keeping?

All is good thank you and before we move on let me just thank you for taking the time to speak to me today.

That’s fine, it’s always a pleasure whenever I get to speak to you so thank you.

I have to ask, since we last spoke, how has life been treating you?

To be honest with you, life at the moment is very good if not very busy. We recently had our last day of rehearsal and I have to say that we have been rehearsing very hard for two weeks solid for the upcoming tours.

You mention upcoming tours and I have been looking at your tour schedule and I have to say that there are certainly no signs of you slowing down are there?

(Laughter) that’s right, I just seem to be getting busier and busier as time moves on. We have recently been playing in both North and South America, together with a Caribbean cruise with a zillion other bands, which stopped off at Belize at some point and gladly there wasn’t a revolution in full swing, and now we are back here in the UK to tour with both the band and orchestra so all in all 2018 has to date been a very interesting year.

Without giving too much away, what can we expect from the UK tour with the band and orchestra?

Well I have previously done a few shows with an orchestra from time to time but this will be the very first time that I will have toured with an orchestra. This is the very first time that I have decided ‘yes, the circus will include an orchestra’ (laughter). I will be taking a forty-one piece orchestra out on the road with me, so I really am looking forward to that.

I want to speak to you some more about the tour with the orchestra but first, if I may, I would like to take you back to last year’s tour. You and I last spoke just prior to the Genesis Revisited Tour and I just wanted to ask you if you were happy with the fans reaction to it?

Yes I was, I really was and I have to be honest and say that the response to the tour was tremendous. We recorded the Birmingham show which is now available as a DVD, and let me put it this way and be British about it rather than an American and say that “it’s phenomenal man” (laughter). I have to say that it was a very good show; the audience were fantastic, the Symphony Hall is very nice, and you can now simply listen to just the audio or if you wish you can watch the show on DVD. I remember when I was watching the show back that the energy within the show just kept going up and up and up. My mother came to the release of that and she told me that she really enjoyed it so there we are. If my mother likes it then it is usually okay (laughter).

So it is safe to say that you are happy with the DVD?

Oh yes, I really am. I am particularly pleased with the sound on this one. I am particularly pleased with the drum sound on it. I think that it does Gary (O’Toole) proud in the fact that he sounds like the demon that he really is. It brings back really great memories of that tour. However, I have to tell you that for the upcoming tour Nick Beggs will no longer be with us. With Nick it seems to be a year on then a year off; he is either working with me or Steven Wilson it would seem (laughter). The two of us seem to fill Nick’s diary. So this year Nick will be working with Steven Wilson, as last year he was working with me. It has now been like this for consecutive years so this year I will be joined by Jonas Reingold who I have to say is a legend amongst bass players.

Jonas is an incredible player, and he is probably a mixture of Jaco Pastorius and the late Chris Squire. He is phenomenal and I have loved working with him. We have been in rehearsals for the forthcoming tour for the past few weeks and I have to say that Jonas has blown me away. He really is a great player; he is very modest, more than capable, and that now means that we have two Swedes in the band (laughter). We have Nad Sylvan on vocals and Jonas on bass, which I have to say is really great.

You have briefly touched on the tour schedule; Japan, Canada, America, Brazil, Chile, Peru and the United Kingdom. There is still no sign of Steve Hackett slowing down in the immediate future (laughter).

(Laughter) yes I know, its mad isn’t it (laughter). The world is not big enough as they say. You are right, there are no signs of slowing down. If truth be told I think that I am actually getting busier (laughter). I don’t know how that is possible, or why that is even possible (laughter). I think that when offers to tour come in I automatically say yes. My wife, fortunately, loves to travel. As well as running a lot of the business, she is a historian so she is very well read. She has written the odd history book and she tells me about the places that we visit. For example, one of her family spent time in Brampton here in Norfolk which is a tiny place that only has a few lovely houses and that type of thing.

My wife informed me that two thousand years ago Brampton used to be a Roman stronghold called Bramtuna. It was in fact a Roman garrison and the tiny stream that runs through Brampton one assumes must have been a lot bigger at that time. My wife is full of facts like this so for me there really isn’t a boring place on the face of the earth. We have recently got back from India visiting temples that were carved out of whole mountains, and it is truly amazing when you see just what the Indians were able to do over a thousand years ago. It was just mind-blowing. I think that she is secretly completing my education (laughter).

You will be starting the tour here in Nottingham at The Royal Concert Hall on Monday 1^st October, which is billed as being the ‘band with orchestra’ which all sounds very intriguing. Are you excited about the tour?

I am, I am very excited by it, yes. I actually think that the possibilities are endless. I hope that the tour is a huge success, because I think that certain bands who embraced the notion of working with orchestras sounded at their most exciting when they finally bit the bullet themselves. In that statement I am including The Beatles, Procol Harum, Electric Light Orchestra, and other bands who had more than a nod as to just what the trained individuals could do with their individual instruments. I think that it broadened the pallet hugely. I know that we can do a lot with tens of thousands of samples and I have personally embraced technology but then there is the aspect of manpower and elbow grease.

I have friends who work in orchestras and they very kindly point me in the right direction at times and I am thrilled whenever I meet orchestral players because I just know what they have gone through in order to achieve the level of playing that they are required to do. It is a different emphasis; we rockers have been allowed to go our own way at times whilst orchestra players have had numerous disciplines imposed upon them because the very nature of the fact that one week they will be playing Beethoven and the next they will be playing Tchaikovsky or Stravinsky. Also what you have to remember is that the orchestral programmes that they will be required to do differ greatly.

And then suddenly its ‘oh, this week we are playing Genesis’ (laughter). I have been lucky because I have been able to work with orchestras in different contexts from time to time. Sometimes I had done it as guitar and orchestra, and I have worked with The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra a couple of times on different projects, and I was very happy to do that. But this time it is rock and I feel that we borrow a little from each other’s school of styles whenever we do this stuff. You have to be prepared to meet each other halfway.

From the audiences perspective it’s not just about the music, it is also about the visual effect too.

Yes it is, that it very true. There is something about it, when it works it really does catch fire. It makes you sit up and think ‘oh wow look at this, this is how it should be’ and it’s great that everyone is invited to the party. They are no longer separate schools; it’s a collision of all of the different styles that we have put together. Perhaps the symphonic nature of some of the early works by Genesis are actually taken on a stage. It’s a little like colouring in a black and white photograph and saying that it can afford to expand. Let me say that the first single that I ever bought was by The Shadows back in 1959 and the first album was in fact Ravel’s Boléro when I was twelve years old in 1962.

I would never have thought that these two kinds of music were ever going to come together and then I remembered that The Shadows played Wonderful Land and suddenly they were working with an orchestra. My first thought was ‘oh that’s interesting’ (laughter). In my opinion, music was finally becoming lush, it was The Shadows doing their thing but then there was the lushness of the orchestra. So by the time that The Beatles were performing Eleanor Rigby I thought ‘wow, these guys are taking a risk here, they are drowning their own instruments and they are using the old instruments to tell the story of the old lady at the end of her life’.

You could almost smell the dust on the old instruments and imagine the room that she spent her time in staring out of the window. And I thought that in a way you needed those instruments in order to convey that. When I was young I tended to listen exclusively to the electric guitar; I didn’t really hear the other instruments, then funnily enough by the time that I was fifteen and listening to Andrés Segovia playing Bach, I thought ‘oh my god, this guy is conjuring a whole orchestra with his fingertips here’ and then I remember reading some years later that Andrés Segovia had hoped that the guitar would be assimilated into standard repertoire perhaps so that the orchestra would include a guitar.

Of course that hasn’t happened, it still has to happen. However, I am trying to blur the edges, the distinction, and I have to say that is lovely when it happens. I have managed to do it live a few times and I have to say that it is a truly great feeling.

From your point of view is there a lot of reworking and rescoring involved in anticipation of the tour?

I am so pleased that you have asked me that, because yes there is. The Genesis stuff was never scored for orchestra; most of what we were doing and are doing was never scored for orchestra. For example, one of the tracks on the last album called El Nino had a combination of orchestra, tribal drums and rock group so there were three different atmospheres. Whilst we were in the studio our conductor Brad (Thatcher), who is also doing some of the scores, said to me “we can orchestrate one more tune, is there something that you would like to do” so I mentioned that one. So I really do hope that will work with an orchestra.

There is a certain amount of syncopation involved with that track, so all that I will say at this moment in time is that we hope to get everyone playing in time (laughter). Everyone who has worked with an orchestra says the same thing “rock groups understand the one, two, three, four, bash whilst the orchestra goes one, two, three, four and….take a breath” (laughter). That is where you get the lushness. If you can get the attack, the timing of everything tied in with the band, then that will be very interesting.

I keep my fingers crossed whenever I come to see you hoping that one day you will perform Martian Sea.

Funnily enough I have recently been working with an Indian sitar player Sheema (Mukherjee) who is a British composer and sitar player. She plays like a demon; she is an absolute virtuoso. I am currently recording a new track with her and I have to say that I find India very interesting. They play different types of drums over there in India, and rhythmically they are very sophisticated and very exciting. I find their approach to rhythm very, very exciting. During my travels I have recorded a little bit of the Indian stuff.

You have mentioned that it will be a forty-one piece orchestra, does that cause you any logistical problems?

Originally I was talking to my agent about doing just the one show in London with the orchestra, but then they told me that it was logistically feasible to do the forthcoming tour and guess what, they all want to do it. They are all prepared to take the risk so onwards and upwards (laughter). I don’t think that we will all be travelling in the one bus together, in fact I don’t think that we could get a bus big enough to hold the band, the orchestra, the crew and all of that (laughter). It won’t be like Sir Cliff in the film Summer Holiday or The Beatles in A Hard Day’s Night (laughter). I have enough to worry about at the moment so please don’t ask me how the orchestra are going to get there (laughter). If they fail to appear then I will assume that they are not going to show up.

The last time that you and I spoke you said, to quote, “I am on fire and I simply cannot stop writing”. In that case are there any signs of a new studio album?

Yes there are, I am actually halfway through a new studio album which has got the spirit of previous symphonic stuff, together with more of the straight ahead rock stuff. I am using some things that I have never used before, for example I am using a real Sitar this time, and I’m not just faking it (laughter). There will be some orchestral stuff on there, and I have also got some choral stuff going off which is very interesting. For me, choral is the next thing really. Maybe it The Beatles’ fault, maybe it’s Queens’s fault, I really don’t know (laughter). We want it big and we want lots of them. Sometimes I track up lots of me or lots of other people but then I sometimes feel that a real choir would be the way forward.

When are you hoping to have the album ready for release?

Well I know that the record company would love me to have it ready for this tour, but realistically I suspect because I am spending so much time on the road, that might be difficult. However, I will try and work at a greater pace. However, I find that means having to give up more sleep. I would have to be awake and out of bed very early. When I did Genesis Revisited the Japanese said that they were prepared to step-in with a rather large sum in order to allow me to do it. But that then meant that an album that I had spent eighteen months making suddenly needed to be delivered in six weeks. So from that point on I just gave up sleep.

The problem was that I was working with Roger (King) who looked at me and said “I have got nineteen different production ideas which I now have to come up with every single day”. And so at that time, we took a leaf out of The Beatles book in the fact that we mixed everything down onto eight track, we put the guitars onto two tracks, the drums were on two tracks, the orchestra were on two tracks and the vocals were also on two tracks and suddenly we had got it all. And as they say, that was that (laughter). I have to say that is a really good way of working. It limits certain things but it means that other things are possible.

Having said that we don’t work like that anymore because a while ago in the studio Roger turned to me and said “you do realise that we are now up to three hundred tracks” (laughter). Back in the old analogue days if you had a tambourine or two they would share a track with something else. However, we can now put them onto a separate track with its own programme so that is what we do. It’s just the computers that blow up now (laughter). Roger always says that it is my fault that we are using three hundred tracks and I always say that it is his fault; we constantly blame each other. I don’t think that I am being excessive (laughter).

I recently had a chat with younger brother John (Hackett) who informed me that you had played the harmonica on Never Gonna Make A Dime from his latest album We Are Not Alone. Did you enjoy that, was it an enjoyable experience?

Yes I did and yes it was, it really was. John has a band or two these days and in a way I think that he is very much like me, he moves within the same genre as I do, and we have in fact recently recorded together again. We have been something that someone said was very much in the spirt of the very first album that he and I did together, Voyage Of The Acolyte back in 1975. In other words it was classical with a lot of lead flute on it. Back in the early days I was thinking about the flute a lot because we shared our space at home. At that time I was listening to as much flute music as I was guitar music. Back in 1975 when John and I made our professional debut together John was sounding wonderful on that album especially on the track Hands Of The Priestess.

I just thought ‘wow, what a sound’. So I am very pleased that he has got a band; sometimes he is doing rock, sometimes he is doing classical, and I think that our similarities are far greater than our differences. John currently works with Nick Fletcher, who is a stunningly good guitarist, Duncan Parsons on percussion and vocals and Jeremy Richardson on bass, guitars and vocals. So I am very pleased for him. Sometimes John works with me and like me, Nick shares a love of both classical music and rock.

John told me about your first paid gig on the boat travelling over to Canada.

(Laughter) really, did he indeed. Yes I got paid by handing round the cap (laughter). I think that people started throwing money at me simply to get rid of this precocious seven year old who was annoying them by playing the harmonica (laughter). Let’s just say that I wasn’t shy (laughter). It simply had to be done.

Steve on that note let me once again thank you for taking the time to speak to me, it’s been absolutely delightful.

Thanks for that Kevin, you take care and I will see you in Nottingham. Bye for now.

Steve Hackett performing Genesis Revisited with Band and Orchestra at The Royal Concert Hall Nottingham on Monday 1st October 2018.

Images and Review by Kevin Cooper

Guitar legend Steve Hackett has been a working musician for nearly all of his life, but whilst he continues to keep the Genesis catalogue alive and kicking, it would be foolish to overlook his solo material. And last night this giant of progressive rock entertained a packed Royal Concert Hall with music from his legendary former band together with his solo albums ably assisted by a full rock band and a 41 piece orchestra led by Bradley Thachuk.

Opening the first of two sets with the frenetic and fusion influenced Dance On A Volcano from Genesis’ 1976 album A Trick Of The Tail, Hackett immediately owned the stage. He was assisted by keyboardist Roger King, Jones Reingold on bass, saxophone player Rob Townsend and the fabulously understated Gary O’Toole on drums. The vocals in the main were left to Nad Sylvan who whilst will never be Peter Gabriel, he did make every song his own.

There was the beautiful Dancing With The Moonlit Knight with its iconic lyrics ‘Selling England By The Pound’ which could still be relevant today. We were also treated to the brilliant Blood On The Rooftops which featured O’Toole on vocals and Firth Of Fifth which showcased Hackett’s memorable and signature guitar solo which will always be synonymous with his Genesis days and which is simply nine and a half minutes of beautiful music.

His own material included the eastern sounds of The Steppes, Acoustic Noodle and the awe- inspiring Shadow Of The Hierophant which finished the first set.

Back on for the second set, they opened with In That Quiet Earth before following up with the gorgeous ballad, Afterglow. Solo tunes included the lovely Serpentine Song which Hackett dedicated to his father who sold his paintings alongside Hyde Park’s River Serpentine. A particular highlight was the heavy drum led and blazing tumultuous instrumental El Nino before the set was brought to a close with the twenty minute Supper’s Ready and the encore song, the Musical Box.

Last night had been a fabulous display of music with Hackett using his band and orchestra like an artist; adding more colourful layers to paintings that could be re-worked with a few extra brush strokes. But he has also showed such a dexterity and versatility in his subliminal performance, he quite possibly on this occasion made the orchestra surplus to requirements.

Hackett is undoubtedly a phenomenal guitar player, who still plays with his heart and soul, and truthfully, last night that was quite enough.