I’m still making noise for a living
You’ve been touring America, Canada and Europe and now have a 20-date UK tour performing the entire album Selling England By The Pound and highlights from Spectral Mornings, which celebrated its 40th anniversary this year. How has it all been going?
IT’S BEEN extraordinary, really. We did seven weeks in Europe and Scandinavia – 18 countries. It’s all been received very, very well.
I think that Selling England By The Pound has had a long time to bed into the affections of fans.
John Lennon said that we were a band that he was listening to at that time. It’s a long time ago now, but somehow anything that The Beatles did is basically regarded as a classic and, if he said that, who was I to disagree? He seemed to like what the band were doing at that time. So, I’m very proud of that.
Britain was going through the three-day week and there were global financial problems when the album was released in 1973. Has much changed?
IT’S STILL going on, yeah. Facing austerity and what have you and a lack of medicines and the like. I don’t know, are we still a nation of lemmings or what? We seem to be forever jumping off various cliffs. I do spend a lot of time abroad, so I can’t really claim to be 100% English all the time.
Has the album stood the test of time since it first came out 46 years ago?
IN SOME ways it’s a blast from the past but, at the same time, it’s still classic and it still shines, and I’m very happy to do it. Plus, I include one more track, which Peter Gabriel originally introduced into rehearsals right back in the day.
It didn’t get finished. I finished it some years later with his blessing, so there’s a Gabriel-Hackett composition.
We play that live and include it like a deleted scene. It has been going down very well, which I’m pleased about.
What has the atmosphere been like at the live shows?
I LOVE the fact that, from crowds, there’s more than a big reaction – there’s a whole emotional thing that goes with it.
There’s sort of a slight delay as tears well up. That feeling. That sort of stunned thing. It’s got this huge emotional resonance with the people who went out and bought it – never mind the people who dreamed it up and recorded it.
It’s still a great album, with lots of great ideas from all the guys in the band. So, I’m still hugely proud of it.
It’s my favourite Genesis album.
Spectral Mornings was your third solo album and you perform selected highlights on tour. How does that work live?
VERY well, indeed. We do certain things, we do Every Day and we do Virgin And The Gypsy, which I never really played live. I might have attempted it once or twice, but it didn’t really work back in the day, but it seems to work now.
It was a risk taking it on board and deciding to do it, but it’s come off.
How has the latest been doing?
studio album
AT THE Edge Of Light charted in 12 different countries, so that’s doing better than I’ve ever done before in the solo sense, but then I’ve got the Genesis thing as well, so, I seem to be able to bring these separate strands together. I guess it’s because I’m doing a ton of gigs.
The more you do, perhaps the more people like it. I think it’s the best of all possible worlds. People that come along, who don’t know either my solo stuff or any of the Genesis stuff, luckily have been saying nice things about both.
They might say ‘Well, I saw a show of two halves, I don’t care where it comes from, whether it’s new or old. I enjoyed it all’.
Music is very subjective and everyone who listens to it has got a very strong opinion about what’s good and what isn’t. But I’m still making noise for a living!
Genesis Revisited Band & Orchestra: Live At The Royal Festival Hall has just come out too. Will you be recording the new dates as well?
WE ARE going to record the tour. The new Genesis live album and Blu-ray with the orchestra is quite something. I figured that if Procol Harum could do it live with the Edmonton Symphony, we could do it, and it’s come out really well.
Can you sum up your career?
I’VE played with a lot of people in a lot of different styles. I’ve been a bit of a chameleon really, because I can show up and do blues things, I can do proggy things, sometimes classical things, sometimes jazzy, world-fusion things...
I think the secret to that is, whoever you join, whether it’s on record or live, you realise you get out there and you take a risk – and nobody dies if it goes wrong.
STEVE Hackett is touring the UK with Selling England by The Pound plus Spectral Mornings. He plays Town Hall, Birmingham, on November 18.