Your latest UK tour starts later this month. Are you looking forward to playing to your UK fans again?
We did a tour earlier in the year and we’ve been all over the world since then including Japan and The States. I can’t wait to get back on stage around the UK again. The demand for the tour has been incredible and we had to extend the original tour so we could meet the demand. We’ll be doing more next year too. I am also looking forward to getting back home again and driving my own car. People also don’t look at you strangely if you ask for a cup of tea.
You played earlier this year, is your current tour a second leg of that tour or will you be doing things slightly differently on this run of shows?
The attendances on the first leg of the tour were spectacular and people seemed to really enjoy the show. It was a trip back to the glory days and people loved it so we had to meet the demand by doing more and more shows so we’re back in the UK for a second leg soon. The set list will be slightly different this time around and we’ll be playing some places that we didn’t get to last time.
In May you were up in the North at The Sage in Gateshead. This time you play at the City Hall. Do you find the atmosphere slightly different in each of those halls?
Everywhere you play is slightly different. When you walk into a hall I always think to myself that I have to make this place mine and really make it a great show each night. I do like playing in Newcastle. It’s a fantastic City but I don’t really get enough time off to enjoy the place. If I’m lucky I’ll get a half hour walk the morning after a show.
There’ll certainly be an atmosphere in Newcastle on the night of your show as Newcastle play Sunderland on that day so the people of Newcastle will either before very happy or totally distraught!!
It’ll be a lively place on the night after that game, that’s for sure.
You must have played in Newcastle many times over the years. Do you recall your first show up here?
It was way back I think in 1971. We were doing a thing for Charisma Records called the Three Bob Tour. There were three bands for the price of fish and chips. Genesis opened, then there was Lindisfarne and Van Der Graff Generator closed the show. They were really heavy. I remember it very well and it was great playing in Newcastle. Those days were my first professional days in the industry.
The tour and the one earlier this year are billed as Genesis Revisited. You have done so many albums in your own right since leaving Genesis, what made you decide to tour playing the Genesis material?
I’ve been trying to persuade the other guys into reforming so we could do what we did in the years when Gabriel was around but it was all to no avail. I thought that as I was co-writer of much of this material and as audiences wanted to hear it then then I would do something myself. Many people had written to me and there were people who’d never had the chance to see these songs performed live. The passing of time is a cruel thing and as much as I’d love to wave a magic wand it isn’t possible to travel back in time so I wanted to be able to reinterpret the music with a new band.
It must have been years since you played some of those songs. Did it all come back to you or did you have to go back to basics to relearn them?
I was in training for a long time. It took me three months of personal rehearsal to try to remember all of those parts. At that time I had about four and a half hours worth of potential material and I was tearing my hair out trying to remember it all and I wondered how all of the other guys were going to do it. We whittled it down on some nights to a two and a half hour show and on others two hours forty. It’s a substantial chunk of what Genesis delivered over the bulk of the ’70’s.
Have you been playing any songs that Genesis never performed live before?
I don’t think the band ever performed “Blood on the Rooftops” which is one that we do in our show. That’s something that I wrote with Phil Collins and a song I particularly enjoy playing live. Maybe it was something to do with the nylon strings back then and problems fitting pickups to the guitars but now that’s not a problem so we can perform that song properly.
Have you had any feedback from your old band mates about your latest shows?
I haven’t had anyone turn up so far but I know their management’s office wanted six tickets for the Albert Hall show so I don’t know who is going to show up, you never know.
Genesis were always known for their elaborate stage and light show. Your show at The Sage was very atmospheric with effective use of lights and video. Was it important to get the visual side of the show right as well as the music?
It was certainly important for me to put on a show. Not in the terms of me leaping across the stage as my guitar parts are not about that. I wanted to have a show going on around me. The music is the star of the show and the icing on the cake is to have the visual images that are sympathetic to the plot. I was very pleased that I was able to deliver such an atmospheric show. I wanted a Genesis Disneyland for people and take them on a journey that they’d really enjoy. We used to do a very visual show back in the ’70’s but I didn’t want to recreate that. I wanted to reinterpret that for today. I’m really proud of how we were able to put it across with the LED screens and light show.
Do you have the same band out on the road this time?
It’s the same guys who toured with me earlier this year. Occasionally we get joined by special guests. I love it when that happens as there’s always the expectation of what’s going to work whether it’s with Nik Kershaw, Bonnie Tyler or Steve Rothery from Marillion.
Probably one of the hardest parts to reproduce are Peter Gabriel’s vocals. Where did you first come across Nad Sylvan who sings Gabriel’s parts so well?
Nad worked with Roine Stolt from The Flower Kings and he’s also in a band called Agents of Mercy and I met him some years ago when touring in Spain. A German promoter suggested Nad to me and I watched some stuff that he had done and I thought that he might just be right from my band. As it turned out he was a huge Genesis fan. I think it had been his childhood dream to be the singer in Genesis so he’s in seventh Heaven doing this and the audience loves him. He’s very flamboyant which is great for me as that leaves me to be just the guitarist. I normally sing my own vocals but in terms of that Genesis voice and have someone who’s freed up and doesn’t have to play guitar and can do what lead singers do, Nad is just perfect. There’s the odd song that can be sung from behind the drum kit as Phil Collins did occasionally. Gary O’Toole our drummer does a great job with that. The rest of us sing back up and harmony but Nad has been great and it’s been heart-warming to see audiences respond to him in the way they responded to Pete and Phil doing it. That’s terrific for me.
When you recorded the Genesis Revisited II album recently was it strange for you recreating that music again but in a more modern studio setting?
What was interesting about the recording process this time is that I did it without amplifiers. I went straight into the computer which made things faster. In the digital domain you can change so many things. You can have a Marshall head with an Orange cabinet or a Hi-Watt head with a Vox cabinet. We can mix it all and even move the mikes using the computer to change the sound to get exactly what we want. It’s a wonderful world of possibilities but I’ll always extoll the wonderful world of vintage gear when playing live but in the studio I like using new technology.
The selection of special guests you have on the album is incredible. You have Nick Kershaw, Nick Beggs, Steve Rothery, John Wetton, Neal Morse, Steven Wilson, Mikael Akerfeldt to name but a few. It must have taken you quite some time to coordinate all of their sessions?
There were between 30 and 40 guests on the whole thing. They weren’t in the studio with me as file sharing is the modern way of working with people. It’s nice to be face to face with people but it’s also not always practical. It’s good to receive something from someone that’s near perfect at my end and return the favour later. No one has to stand there and teach me the tune. By the time I send it back it’s learned and done. This modern way of doing it is really nice.
If you’d said to someone when you were recording Nursery Cryme back in the ’70’s that one day you’d be able to send music down the phone line you would have thought they were mad?
True. Back then we were just glad that the kettle worked. We certainly could never have envisaged how music creation would change so drastically over the years.
It may surprise some people that Nick Beggs and Nick Kershaw appear on a Prog Rock album but they are both genuinely talented musicians.
Nick Beggs worked with us for a couple of years. I met him way back and knew he was a fine player and great personality. I’ve known for a long time that Nick is an incredible bass player, you could hear that even when he was in Kajagoogoo. Nik Kershaw is a talented guy too and a great songwriter. We currently have Lee Pomelroy who is a fabulous player and he used to play with Take That and he knows every song ever written by anybody. He takes the Mike Rutherford role in the band with the double neck guitar and at times the Variax. We recreate the sound of three twelve string guitars with me on my 12 string, Lee on the Variax and Roger on keyboards doing something that sounds like a 12 string. You layer all those things together and they create a spectacular sound on something like “Supper’s Ready.” It’s a really beautiful sound and I only wish I could sit out front and hear it for myself.
Genesis Revisited II has been very successful and is your highest charting UK album since the 1980’s. You must be delighted with the reaction?
It has been my most successful in years which is great. It’s sold in extraordinary numbers in a marketplace that as you know is challenged but I think it goes to show that if you do something that you believe in and make a quality product that looks and sounds great then people are quite willing to own physical products but it just has to be better than before. I still love making music and like CD’s. I wish they were the same size as vinyl. The days of gatefold sleeves were a thing of pride and joy. I’m not a great fan of the idea of downloading something that comes in kit form with reduced bandwidth and is of a lower sound quality and lacking the visual appeal of a physical product.
Is there a Part III in there somewhere?
There isn’t one in the pipeline but I have started another album but that’ll be something that happens more next year but somewhere down the line I’m intending on doing a Genesis Extended because there is such a demand for these Genesis shows. I do want to continue with albums of my own material and it’s important to have new material. I have a passion for writing new songs. I’m proud of what I’ve done in the past but I do like writing new songs too. My only frustration with touring so much is that I haven’t been able to get into the studio to start working on some new stuff but I have made a start and I’ll have something new ready for half way through next year.
Your latest release is a fantastic live recording on DVD/CD Genesis Revisited Live at Hammersmith. What is included on this?
This is a live show from the current tour that’s mixed in 5.1 surround sound. It spreads over three CD’s and two DVD’s. As far as I’m concerned it’s the best DVD I’ve ever done. It’s a long show with lots of guests. I’ve never had such a dream team on stage before and all doing a terrific job. I hope we’ll have it available at the gigs I’m doing later this month. We often sign the first thousand or so copies and sell them from my webstore and we’ll probably do that this time too provided that I can find the time to sign them all. I’m always happy to do that.
Your tour finishes in Cambridge on 1st November. Where do you head next?
After the tour I’ll be back to the studio recording new material. It’s going to be a busy year next year with recording and touring. I have to get the most out of myself while I can.
Steve Hackett’s UK Tour starts on 22nd October in Birmingham. See hackettsongs.com for more details.
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