Genesis turns it on again
Rock pioneers get along for documentary, new DVD release
In the mid-’ 70s, when Genesis were reaching the heights of their theatrical pomp, singer Peter Gabriel’s outfits often threatened to steal the show.
“I was always afraid that these guys would start arguing about any of the visual costume bits that I was trying to do,” says the man famous for performing dressed as a flower, angel, begowned woman, or some combination of all three. “So I would smuggle it in as late as possible when they were so preoccupied with getting everything else sorted that I could get away with whatever s-- t was in my head.”
“These guys” are keyboard player Tony Banks and guitarist Mike Rutherford, his Charterhouse schoolmates with whom he formed the band in 1967; Phil Collins, the grammar school pupil and drama student from west London who joined on drums in 1970; and Steve Hackett, the guitarist who followed Collins into the lineup five months later, having placed an advertisement in Melody Maker seeking “musicians who are determined to strive beyond existing stagnant forms.”
Hackett found what he was looking for: Genesis would come to define, or even catalyze, the progressive rock era. Later, after Collins replaced Gabriel as frontman in 1975, they became one of the biggest stadium acts in the world. To date the band have sold 130- million albums. Factor in the members’ solo projects — notably, of course, Collins’ — and you’re looking at global album sales of 300 million.
Reminiscences from the band are part and parcel of a multi- pronged and remarkable Genesis reunion this autumn. There is a BBC documentary, Together and Apart. The producers assembled all five musicians for on- camera interviews — the first time they had been in the same room since 1975. A month after its broadcast it is being released as a DVD, complete with extras, titled Sum of the Parts. And preceding all that is R- Kive — a three- CD, 37- track, almost four- hour compilation of the best of the band, plus the best of each of the key members’ solo material.
The documentary interviews, too, offer some pointers as to the band’s hitherto reluctance to cross- pollinate. In his solo interview, Hackett says, “we were a very competitive band.” Collins says that with five musicians who could all write, “we beat each other into submission.” As evidenced by the breadth and depth of R- Kive’s three- dozen tracks, that creative hurly- burly was partly what made Genesis a vibrant and fertile band.
“Absolutely,” says Collins. “We were all from different backgrounds. Tony, Pete and Mike — obviously did the public school thing. Just that alone meant that I was a totally different animal ‘ cause I came from drama school, where anything went. And ( at) public school you’re on such a tight rein — guitars being banned and all this kind of thing. I had a school band — it was encouraged.
“So those examples and everything in between meant we were all cut from different cloth. And even the guys that went to school together, there was probably more acrimony among that lot than there was between them and us.”