It has been some very busy months lately and postings on this blog have suffered. Sorry for that, but as I am doing this for free I guess no-one has the right to complain. But I will try to get back on track more regularly soon.
Here`s a long one from that exciting time when Gabriel had quit Genesis and the band were trying to find their feet without their charismatic frontman. I hope you enjoy it.
Read on!
The `assume an interesting pose along with two members of Genesis` feature
Wherein Phil Collins and Mike Rutherford demonstrate how the intelligent interviewee responds to Mick Brown`s questions about their new album and stuff
STEVE HACKETT likes to work fast. No sooner had we arrived at Trident Studios than Steve had intercepted us at the reception-desk and steered us up four flights of stairs and into a vacant office. “Okay — so this is for the BBC, right?” The BBC? No, actually we’re from SOUNDS. “SOUNDS? Oh blast… Wrong people.” Back down four flights of stairs to the reception desk where Steve vanishes in search of the man from the Beeb. Enter Phil Collins who is expecting to do an interview with SOUNDS. Exit Phil, to re-enter a few minutes later with Mike Rutherford, who might or might not have been in the pub, and steer us back up four flights of stairs to the vacant office. Okay, is everybody sitting comfortably and in the right place? (Except for the man from the BBC who still hasn’t arrived). Then begin here…
There’s nothing like laziness, and, sure enough, Genesis’ collective attitude at the moment is nothing like laziness. Downstairs at Trident, Phil Collins is working with his extra-curricular combo Brand-X, recording a follow-up to ‘Unorthodox Behaviour’. Upstairs, the rest of the band are mixing material recorded on their last European tour (more material will be recorded on the upcoming jaunt) for a special low-price double live album, provisionally scheduled for autumn release.
Between takes the band have been finalising plans for their upcoming English tour, working out how to cram three hours of solid music into two hours (something’s gotta give), and rehearsing with the new ‘fifth member’ Chester Thompson, who will be occupying the second-drummer’s seat for the duration of the tour in the place of Bill Bruford.
The tour begins January 1st with a special gala re-opening of London’s Rainbow Theatre (the three shows drew 80,000 ticket applications — and that means 72,000 disappointed customers), and brings to a climax what has been a spectacularly successful year for the band, with a critically-acclaimed best-selling album, ‘Trick Of The Tail’, their most successful tour of America ever, and a triumphant tour of England and Europe, highlighted by five consecutive sold-out nights at Hammersmith Odeon. All rewarding enough in itself, but even more so when you consider that it was Genesis’ first full year without Peter Gabriel, for five years the band’s lead-singer and theatrical focal-point.
There were those ready to dismiss Genesis on Gabriel’s departure eighteen months ago, but time has borne out the wisdom of the band’s decision at that time to carry on as four, without recruiting a ‘surrogate’ Gabriel or attempting to emulate the singular theatrical bent which he brought to the group. Indeed, Gabriel’s departure has probably worked to the group’s advantage in a way which few people, least of all the band themselves, could have anticipated, by refashioning the group’s identity and putting their music in focus rather than extravagant stage presentations.
I suspect I was not the only person to have my vision of Genesis’ musical abilities clouded by the hoopla surrounding Peter Gabriel’s theatrical contrivances, and not the only person either to have ‘Trick Of The Tail’ — the band’s first post-Gabriel album — show me what I’d been missing. Idiosyncratic and adventurous melodies and exacting but emotionally-charged performances led to the belated realisation that here was a band with bountiful imagination and ability, and with the temperament, good sense and, above all, taste to keep pretentiousness in check.
In fact, I hadn’t enjoyed a `progressive’ English rock album so much since ‘Close To The Edge’ — and how long ago was that? Happily, the band’s new album, ‘Wind’ And Wuthering’, is no anti-climax. In fact, while it has less immediate impact than ‘Trick Of The Tail’ it has a subtelty and depth which is, in the long run, even more satisfying. “The areas of sound and composition that this album has are definitely wider than `Trick Of The Tail’,” says Mike Rutherford. “On `Trick’ there wasn’t much you couldn’t take in on the first listen. On ‘Wind And Wuthering’ there are certain things which catch your attention on the first listen but the album as a whole only begins to emerge after a few more plays. It’s a very gradual album in that sense, although it actually took us less time to record than any other album in the past and our working procedure was exactly the same.” “We get together at rehearsals and thrash out the material that’s around, pick the best — what excites us all,” explains Phil Collins. “In the old days the development from one album to the next was, if anything, more clean-cut. We were doing an album a year, and from my point of view I always felt that my drumming changed a lot in that year. But we’ve never made a conscious effort to be `different’ in the way we write or approach an album.
“If ‘Wind’ does seem more sophisticated or subtle than `Trick’ that’s just a natural evolution. Albums tend to shape themselves. We really don’t know what we’ve got until we actually come together in rehearsal, and as the weeks tick by the album begins to take on some form. Some tunes might be good openers, others good closers; you get like bookends and work in, get the feel of the album as a whole through that. “As it happened, this time around we actually had too much material; one track was too long for inclusion on the album and didn’t quite fit into the feel of the complete piece, and there are two other shorter, more commercially-orientated songs. We thought of putting them on an EP in with the album, but I think they tend to get lost that way. I still haven’t played the EP that came with the Stevie Wonder album, and it’s the same with that EP that came with the Beach Boys’ `Holland’.” Instead, the three tracks will be released on a maxi-single, available in March.
`Wind and Wuthering’ (the title is a combination of the working titles for two of the album’s tracks, ‘Unquiet Slumbers For The Sleepers…’ and ‘…In That Quiet Earth’ — the first because of it’s wind-like evocations, the second because “it has a bit of a corny mood — like `Wuthering Heights’. (Put together they don’t mean anything, but it sounds right). The album was recorded in Holland a step initially prompted by financial considerations, but which subsequently proved artistically advantageous too.
“It was nice to get away,” says Phil. “We were based in this little village, our own little world, miles from anywhere, and it enabled us to develop a schedule and stick to it. We’d get up in the morning and be in the studio by 11 and out of it — literally by 3 or 4 the next morning – every day for 12 days. We got so much done in that time. It’s a nice way of working, but not for more than two weeks. It’s so intense that you go a bit crazy after a while.”
The recording of the new album, like the rest of the band’s activities over the past year, has been marked by a pronounced mood of group unity — a collective determination and sense of purpose which has grown out of solving the problems thrown up by Gabriel’s departure. While the group themselves admit that Peter’s importance to the band has been blown up out of all proportion there is little doubt that his decision to leave precipitated a thorough reappraisal amongst the remaining members as to the band’s objectives and ways of achieving them.
“To have a change like that at such an advanced stage in the band’s career really brought home to me, and I think to everyone else, the fact that we would really have to work hard,” says Mike. “And that feeling inspired a lot of new energy. We couldn’t just sit back and think `Ah well, we’re doing another Genesis album’ with all that had come to mean – not that we’d ever been complacent in that way anyway.
“Suddenly there wasn’t that sense of security there had been. That doesn’t mean we weren’t confident, but however confident you are there are still fears; the ground was taken away from under us a bit and that really motivated us to work hard. As a result ‘Trick Of The Tail’ was more of a challenge than it would otherwise have been, and meeting it really pulled us together as a group.
“I think we all changed a bit in that situation. Funnily enough, in a way it made us all more relaxed and calm with each other. It could just be numbers; I think 4 is easier than 5, and 3 is probably easier than 4. It gives people more room to breath. If you think, we do an album every nine months/year, and albums aren’t that long — you don’t need a lot of material to put on them. Now there’s more room for everyone to make their contribution felt more strongly, in terms of writing at least. Those sort of changes have been most evident in the studio.”
“Everybody’s around most of the time doing everything now,” says Phil. “Whereas before it was a bit. We’d do the backing tracks and Peter would be there, but because Peter wanted to get the best out of himself and he felt he worked better by himself he’d record the vocal parts alone. On ‘Wind And Wuthering’ and ‘Trick Of The Tail’ vocals seem to be much more group ideas in a way; everybody’s been there saying ‘That line works. Let’s do that one again’, whereas before we would come into the studio and hear what had already been done.
“I think actually that kind of co-operative attitude towards everything we do has been one of the reasons why the band has always remained accessible and not been side-tracked into over-indulgence. In a group where there’s just one or two writers the rest of the group have to follow wherever they lead, but in Genesis the influence of the other three is always strong on whoever’s writing.
“It’s a bit like quality control; everyone has to be really excited by something before we do it. Another reason is that the basis of the band has always been songs; the focus is on the music as opposed to the playing of the music. Things like ‘Your Own Special Way’ and ‘Blood On The Rooftops’ are straight-up songs, in the same way that ‘Trick Of The Tail’ or ‘The Carpet Crawlers’ were.”
Now secure in their own abilities and in a popularity which has, if anything, grown stronger since Peter Gabriel’s departure, the group can look back with a cool, objective detachment on that period of uncertainty eighteen months ago.
“It was a bit of a weird time actually,” says Phil, “because we had known for six months that Pete was going and we’d been rehearsing for three or four weeks on our own before the music press picked up the story. I remember going into rehearsal, picking up a paper and seeing it in print and suddenly there were people ringing up for quotes and stuff.
“We were going great guns at rehearsal; we’d adjusted to the change and were on our way as a foursome, and suddenly there were all these letters in the papers ‘Genesis are dead! Long Live Genesis!’ It was really depressing because we were on top form, we knew we could do it and here were people reading it was all over and just closing the book on us.”
“It was a terrible period,” echoes Mike. “Until we’d actually recorded ‘Trick Of The Tail’, it had come out and people liked it we were spending our time saying ‘Believe me, it’s going to be good’ — which I hate doing. But the response couldn’t have been better.
“Actually, we’ve been quite lucky throughout our career in that we’ve never really come in for any really hard criticism. Some bands go through an incredible amount of slagging — Led Zeppelin, for example, although they seem to have come full-circle out of it…”
“… E.L.P. too,” adds Phil. “I feel sorry for them in a way because they epitomise the kind of band a lot of people think we are and the Moody Blues are and Yes are — rich pyrotechnic rock — and they get knocked a lot for that. I don’t like them particularly but I feel so sorry for them…”
“The thing is that no matter how much people say they like a band when they first start out somehow as soon as they get reasonably successful people do a complete about-turn and start knocking them for all they’re worth,” says Mike. “I guess it’s because you can only say so many good things about a band. Each time we have an album out I think ‘Is this the one that’s going to get it?’, but luckily it hasn’t happened to us…” He smiles and leans forward to touch the table, “yet…”
If it was going to happen at all one would have thought that the band’s first live appearances as a foursome would have been the point for the knocking to start. For better or worse, Peter Gabriel’s theatrics had been many people’s principal reason for interest in the band, and it was in this area that his departure raised the most acute doubts about Genesis’ ability to adapt and prosper.
Choosing not to replace Gabriel proved a wise move (although, interestingly enough, at one point the band were toying with the idea of introducing a black singer). By adding another drummer, Bill Bruford, and allowing Phil Collins to come forward as lead vocalist the band revealed new strengths rather than simply compensating for old ones. Bruford’s and Collins’ unison playing brought an added bite and dynamism to the instrumental passages, and Phil’s engaging natural ebullience on stage (shades of the Artful Dodger there!) and the tastefully integrated use of lights, films and lasers brought visual excitement and, above all, a strong sense of personability to the act.
“To me, the biggest thing was that I wasn’t going to have anything on,” says Phil, “to subsidise anything that I might have lacked. I was really more worried about having to talk to the audience than I was about singing. On the way to the first gig I was scribbling in the back of the car, trying to remember things to say — little jokes, stories — something to get some humour going between the tunes. That first gig was supposed to be a warm-up date — and it was in front of 4,000 people! But I really enjoyed it, and after it was over it seemed that everything would slip into place from then on.
“It got a very strong reaction,” adds Mike. “Pete was obviously a powerful stage force, so for us to come over so strongly without him was amazing. I really didn’t expect it to be as good as it was. I had all the confidence in the world musically, but I really wasn’t sure how we’d go down on stage.”
The live album which the band are currently mixing will preserve Bruford’s contribution for posterity. “Bill wasn’t and won’t be on any recorded studio work,” says Phil, “and those tours we did with him were really an ‘up’ period for the band, so it’s nice to have a record of that — literally.”
Bruford, in fact, was supposed to have retained his position as the fifth member of Genesis for the forthcoming tour, but instead opted to play alongside Rick Wakeman and John Wetton in Wakeman’s projected avant-gothic ‘power trio’. That idea was in turn aborted by Wakeman’s decision to rejoin Yes, by which time Genesis had been obliged to recruit another drummer, leaving the unhappy Bruford out in the cold.
The new drummer is former Weather Report, Frank Zappa and Pointers Sisters player Chester Thompson. “I’m really pleased we’ve got him,” says Phil. “To me he’s the right kind of person exactly in terms of what we stood for, what he played — everything. I wanted to make sure we had someone with impeccable taste and class. To be honest, most of the other drummers that would be able to play our music are like in the ‘B’ movies as opposed to the ‘A’ movies. There are other drummers — and this is nothing detrimental to the way they play — but they have been in or are in groups that perhaps owe something to Genesis or are at least similar in style to us.
“Chester’s schooling is something else again. I really like a black drummer anyway because he adds something very different to a band. Chester’s way of playing is totally different to Bill’s, and to have that change is good for the group. Each time you play you’re thinking differently, and why not rather than have a guy who just plays drums and very nicely thank you – a session drummer – get someone with a bit of spark, imagination and vitality? Aynsley Dunbar would have had it and Chester’s definitely got it.”
Phil first heard Thompson playing with Zappa (he was a Mother of Invention at the time of the `Roxy and Elsewhere’ and One Size Fits All’ albums) and subsequently saw him performing with Weather Report. “He was the first guy on my list,” says Phil, “but the last guy I actually asked. I thought: `He’s a black American — he won’t be interested in playing with us’.” Alfonso Johnson, a mutual friend who had also played with Weather Report, persuaded Phil to give Chester a call anyway.
The drummer was in England within a week, and had learnt Genesis’ live repertoire within two. “I think he agreed because it was such a departure from anything he’d ever done before,” says Phil. “I know for a fact that the Tony Williams, the Alfonso Johnsons and the Billy Cobhams are all looking at us white punks over here because they see us being quite successful and themselves not being quite so successful and they want to know how it’s done. This is true: they’re as fascinated by what’s going on on our side of the fence as we are in what’s going on on theirs.
“Chester and I have been sitting down together going through songs, and he’s very intrigued to find out how something like ‘Afterglow’ from the new album is done because he’s never had to play like that before. In fact, it’s so good when the two of us play together that I want to play drums through the whole set and tend to think ‘Let’s get a singer…’!”
“The nice thing about having a different drummer for each tour is that they’re learning all the time and really bring a freshness to the whole thing,” says Mike. “But maybe if they were to do it again they would have ceased to learn and it could become a bit job-like. I really enjoyed playing with Bill, but with Chester it’s a completely new leaf, every song is so different. There were certain bass-lines that I got into playing with Bill that I couldn’t play with Chester, and vice versa; he pulls out different things in me, which can only be good.”
Given the injection of vitality which a new player brings, would further augmenting the band be a consideration? “Not really,” Mike answers. “We could perhaps add a percussionist – a really tasteful one, but he`d have to do a lot to justify his presence. The thing is that drummers can change the sound of the band without altering it too dramatically, but as soon as you get another instrumentalist you`re getting into different lines, different chords…”
“… For instance, Chester can play” – Phil`s hands shape quotation marks – “`funky` through some of our tunes – but don`t say that: I hate the word. He can play in his normal style and it sounds right, but if he was a guitar-player, say, his style would sound very much out of context. I can`t even see him playing with us on albums. I like doing all the drumming too much for one thing. That’s my only excuse for being a singer — that really I’m a drummer. I might not be singing that good for some of the time, but I think I’m always playing good. Anyway we’ve got more than enough ideas for the studio between us as it is without accommodating any more. But live — live’s another thing entirely…” It was Miles Davis who said `To really be able to cook you’ve got to have that thing, and a black drummer can give it to you’. With the addition of Chester Thompson to the touring ensemble Genesis will get that thing and, of course, a few more things besides. Catch them if you can. It’s going to be one hell of a start to 1977…
The original music paper this article came from (pictured at the top) is for sale!
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My Things - Music history for those who are able to read. 