In a previous career, PG was a local radio freelancer... it was a long, long time ago... but here for your viewing pleasure is the transcript of his 1993 interview with master musician, Mr Steve Hackett.
For all the latest on Steve's music visit: www.hackettsongs.com.
STEVE HACKETT interviewed by PG at BBC Radio Leicester May 28th 1993
PG: Playing tonight at De Montfort Hall, founder member of Genesis, guitarist Steve Hackett. Over twenty years ago, Steve placed an advert in the Melody Maker music paper, it read:
SH: It read, err (puts on cod RSC voice) 'Imaginative guitarist/writer seeks involvement with recipient musicians determined to strive beyond existing stagnant music forms...'
PG: You placed that advert some twenty years ago - as a result you were asked to join Genesis and recorded some eight albums with them-
SH: Erm, yeah, something like eight albums - yes quite a lot of albums actually - I can't remember them all - it's so long ago !
PG: You've pursued a solo career since 77 - in that time, has your vision for making music changed much ?
SH: Well - I think that I probably approach it in a different way - in those days we used to reckon that a song had to have a good verse and a good chorus, except that with Genesis, nobody really agreed about what was the verse and what was the chorus ! But you see that's an insight into some of the in-fighting that goes on with groups ! And now of course, everyone knows what the chorus and the verse is, because things have gotten much simpler !
In a way it's kind of like an un-learning process I don't want to do songs that have got set verses and choruses - I want to get back to the idea of atmospheric stuff, where you not quite sure what's the verse and what's the chorus, so you start off writing a song, and you dont really know where it's going to end up - so it's an adventure getting there.
When I first left the band most of the companies that I was signed to, because there were a variety of them, seemed to think that the way to sell records was to do a quote: 'commercial song' - so there was this heavy orientation towards hit singles - whatever they were - and no-one really knew what a hit single was. Ironically I'd written the song - or kicked it off, rather - the song that became the first hit for my old band (I Know What I Like).
But subsequently I wasn't really to have any hits with singles myself apart from a brief skirmish with the charts in 1983 I think it was, with 'Highly Strung' - the album was 'Highly Strung' and there was a hit single off it which was called 'Cell 151'.
But you see, the thing is, when you're a guitarist you're kind of known as an instrumentalist and so there's a certain kind of prejudice I think against having hits - certainly there was at the time; there hadn't been this kind of orientation back to the blues and back to playing.
Things have opened out a lot more since then - I mean thank God for that - because in those days they'd try and set you up with a disco producer and you'd have to say. 'No, no, no - please, please' and then you were a 'difficult artist, Steve - aren't you ?' So I went my own sweet way and tried not to get involved with that kind of stuff.
PG: It's been a long time since we heard a rock album from you. You've formed a new band, and you're on a national tour to promote your new record - it's called 'Guitar Noir '.
SH: Thank God ! It's been a long time since we heard anything from that guy ! (laughter)
PG: (sings) It's been a long, long time (from Suppers Ready)
SH: (sings) Its been a long, long time - I remember that one ! (laughter)
PG: You were there !
SH: I was - I didn't write it, I didn't sing it - who was that mystery singer, folks ?
PG: Competition time: who was the lead singer in Genesis
SH: The lead singer
PG: before Phil Collins ?
SH: err
PG: Answers on a postcard to the Peter Gabriel Competition (more laughter).
SH: Exactly ! Right - I'll tell you ! Yes - the Garden Wall - who were they ? And who was that Charterhouse boy caught smoking in the dorms ? But they turned a blind eye to that kind of thing, but in fact they were thrashed, you know ? For going down to the local record shop ! This is a little-known fact ! And somebody said the other day that they were expelled but we all thought they were upstanding members of the community, didn't we, folks ?
PG: Allegedly
SH: Allegedly and these allegations will have to stop.
PG: Tell us about the new album.
SH: Yes, well the album took a long time to make because we built our own studio, we started our own record label (Camino forerunner, Kudos) and these things do actually slow you down - but I do think it's a better product as a result of the enormously long wait !
PG: It seems to be quite a personal collection of songs.
SH: It is - I think the album title really goes right back to there was a friend of mine, an actor, I saw him just shortly before he died actually - his name was Ralph Bates - he died of cancer - a couple of years back - and when he was in hospital I went to see him for the last time. He said to me:
'If I ever get out of this place, I'm going to take up photography again, he said, I used to like black and white photographs'. And I said,' Why's that ?'.
He said, 'Because the areas of shadow seem to be more important than the areas of light'. It was that whole thing about a film noir which hed grown up with.
And then one day, my wife, Kim was trying to describe my guitar style, and she said : 'You've got a kind of guitar noir playing style', and I said that's great, because in a way it covers all the dark areas and the corners of the guitar - the things that I'm interested in - when it doesn't sound exactly like everybody else, when it sounds atmospheric and perhaps cartoony - and there are people who say, Your stuff is filmic or kind of panoramic. And it seemed to stick and it seemed like a good idea for an album title - so that's why we called it that.
PG: Listening to the album, it seems to be very much a project in two halves; the first half is mainly played by yourself on a variety of guitars and synthesizers, and the other is more band-orientated. You must be pleased with the results, but have you got a preference in the way in which you record ?
SH: Well I think you're right - the first half of the album is acoustically driven, and the second half, theres more for lack of a better word, band numbers and some of those numbers have been written with them. I didn't do it entirely alone, the first half.
Quite a lot of it was done with a fellow called Aaron Friedman, who is a very talented fellow - he both plays, engineers and produces - and he's written quite a lot of those things with me. He's a very nice guy... for a keyboard player ! (laughter).
PG: You must have worked with some great keyboard players in your time.
SH: I certainly have - I have worked with Tony Banks, I have indeed; I worked with Howard Jones, (Rock Against Repatriations Sailing single) I worked with... who else have I worked with ? Nick Magnus was a very good keyboard player, but he doesn't do any more touring.
But er, it does really fall into two halves, the album - the first half is the more atmospheric, introverted, questioning stuff. As you say - those are very personal songs - but that's a deliberate thing.
I think that most guitarists, you pick up their album and they're in heavy from the word go and we felt we didn't really want to fall into that camp, where it could be mistaken for another heavy metal act. I think its an over-subscribed club. So we came in with something more lyrical (Take These Pearls).
PG: You're on a national tour now with your new band - a lot of your music on record is quite complex - how difficult is it to reproduce live ?
SH: Whats the brother (of Richard Attenborough, actor and director) David Attenborough, (famous BBC TV Wildlife presenter) isn't it ? David Attenborough - is it difficult to reproduce live ? Some species find it extremely easy to reproduce live, but er musicians find it very difficult to reproduce some of their finer works live. (laughter) But we try !
Some of it is very difficult to reproduce live, but my manager, Billy Budis, who's sitting here with us at the moment said to me, 'Actually the most interesting stuff is the stuff that would be hardest to do live - but why dont we attempt it anyway ?'
First of all I thought, 'Hang on a minute !' There are certain things that work very well on record but you don't attempt them live because they have quiet passages, meandering if you get a boisterous audience you know they can shout you down at those points, and so yes - usually in the past I've tried to keep up the decibels, but we've taken the chance and those numbers seem to go down very, very well with live audiences, particularly here in England, (adopts cod Brooklyn accent) where you people do speak English in the main...
Of course, up to now we've done America where they sometimes speak English; and we've done South America where they speak no English whatsoever in most cases, but one tries to introduce numbers in Spanish or in Portuguese. Then you just hope that they get some of it !
Its quite interesting - because some of the numbers are more lyric intensive. In the past I think I'd written music first and then your lyrics tend to be an appendage to the music where as this time out, I'd sat down and just written things out to see if they work on their own - see if there's some kind of music in it - see if I can work with stories - the idea of musical narrative, which is a very hard thing to do, but I thought the road less travelled has to be more interesting.
PG: Tell us a bit about the musicians who are working with you in the band at the moment.
SH: In the band at the moment we have on drums, Hugo Degenhardt, who's a young 24-year-old fan of Keith Moon actually - he's kind of interesting - he's a complete maniac - in some ways ! On the other hand he's also very sensitive to classical stuff - as he said today, the very first record he bought was Holst - so I thought, 'That can't be bad !' - so a cross between Holst and Keith Moon is exactly what we want on drums !
On bass we have Doug Sinclair, who's not actually on the album, but he's a Scot, and he's a wonderful bass-player.
On keyboards, Julian Colbeck, who I've worked with before - he's on the lesser-known but equally wonderful live album, which is called 'Timelapse'.
The only guy I haven't mentioned is a guy called Dave Ball who played bass on the album, who is unfortunately working with a German act at the moment, and so can't be with us, but he's another equally wonderful bass-player.
PG: You've recorded two albums of purely acoustic guitar music before - you've mixed that's style with rock on the new album quite extensively. We're going to play one of the tracks in a moment, it's called 'There are Many Sides To the Night'; tell us about how you put the various musical elements together.
SH: Well it started out as an instrumental in fact, Billy and I one day decided to track-up guitars, and I mean MIDI guitar controllers, and electric guitar and acoustic guitar - so it was a short instrumental, but that's what actually precedes the song. It seemed like they might go together; the final chord is a very open-ended thing, and I set it up for a cross-fade. They both have a city feel in different ways.
It's quite difficult to do a track like that, because I played everything myself, although what you tend to rely heavily on is the engineering facility. I worked very closely with two engineers on that - in fact one of whom manages me, Billy Budis. You end up tracking-up enormously to create the orchestral effects - it does take rather a long time, but I also did the percussion effects on the second half of the song as well.
I don't think it sounds like one bloke played the whole lot - I like to think that it sounds more than I mean the usual criticism is that when one bloke plays everything, is that its not really an act of love, but its self abuse ! But I don't think that thats the case on this track - I think it comes across, it sounds like all the instruments are playing.
I'm particularly pleased with the instrumental coda, at the end of the song, where it really does sound orchestral. We had a guy working on that, a guy called Gerry O'Riordan who mixes and records lots of orchestras, and so he placed the sounds in such a way that the stereo spread was convincingly orchestral.
I don't know - I guess it's a little like musical cartoons - if they're done with enough passion and care then they can fool you into thinking it's the real thing. It's a bit like the portrait made out of postage stamps... you've seen that of course ?
PG: Of course
SH: And the viewers on air will see that - I'll hold it up to the camera (!) did you catch that ?
PG: Yes, I think the word were looking for here is er...
SH: Picassoid (laughter). The thing about 'Many Sides to the Night' is that it actually started out as a lyric - it really started out as a poem. Something I used to do at one time in the jobs that I had before I became a professional muso, I was very bored - I had these terrible desk-jobs where you know you have time to play about and shuffle paper-clips - I used to sit down and write short stories and poems and at the time I never thought that they would fit into songs. Songs were written as something else entirely, but in a way I kind of invented a number of characters, and I let them talk back to me in a way.
One character that seemed to stick out, that I kept coming back to was this Lily Marlene-type character, which has become - it's become a stereotype really, hasn't it for a lady of the night. So I started out with this idea, and then I thought, Well let's try to see what motivates her, and right at the end she says: 'I do it for my child alone'.
So it's the idea that in fact her motivation isn't actually to support herself and make a fantastic amount of money and take short-cuts in that way - it's because she's got that kid that she's got to support - and I think I mean I like to think that it is symbolic perhaps - call me pretentious if you like, but in a way I suspect that it's this kind of hard exterior with a heart of gold in the centre. So as I say, the track's called 'There Are Many Sides to the Night'.
PG: There's quite a variety of subject matter in the songs on the album; where do you find inspiration for your lyrics ?
SH: I do a fair amount of reading - I do like books a lot - and the reason I like books is because it's like having a conversation with someone where you just shut up and listen to the other person for the duration - and that's great ! So you get all their best ideas and you never have to interject with your own clichés ! It's the best way.
PG: I understand you have your own studio now ?
SH: Yes.
PG: How has having access to music technology at your fingertips changed the way you write music ?
SH: Well I suppose what you tend to do is you've got all these choices - youve got mega-choices, pop-pickers ! And what you tend to go for is the idea of the studio as an extension of the instrument - its an instrument in itself, isn't it really - the whole thing ?
Yes - the studio is an instrument, the guitar is an instrument - I am an instrument - as Charlton Heston will tell you ! You combine all these things, and try not to do it in a way thats done before.
I have the annoying habit of being in a studio and being in the middle of something, and by the time the keyboard players got it all programmed up, and nicely sequenced, I say to him: Ah - I've got the idea - it's something else entirely ! Why don't we go off and do this - this'll be much better, and well come back to that.' And it throws everybody, but provided people are flexible enough, it's the best way to work.
I don't actually sit down and try to write songs anymore, I find that as soon as you sit down and try and write a song, you come up with something very boring. As soon as you sit down and try to write a rock song, you'll end up writing a ballad or an acoustic piece - so I don't try anymore, I just wait for it to come, and usually it arrives in a very embarrassing place !
But nonetheless, you have to get the pen and paper out at that point in time - whatever you're about to do ! In other words, if you've been asked to be the best man at a wedding and suddenly an idea strikes you, you have to say to the guests: 'Excuse me a minute,' rush off into a quiet corner, write out an entirely separate piece of script, then come back and carry on with what you're doing - but that's what you have to do - the greatest ideas always come along at the worst possible times.
It's not my fault - it's just the way it is !
PG: Its a very high-tech album, but how do you keep from losing that human touch ?
SH: Mainly by working with the acoustic guitar as much as possible. Really, when I pick up an acoustic instrument, I know I'm going to play it, I know I'm not going to sequence it in the main - that's something I can't do - other people can do it - yes, your keyboard player can do that.
You can use the jigsaw in other ways - you can use samples and indeed we do - we use all the available technology but at the end of the day when youre playing that instrument, that's one thing I'm not gonna sample !
It's the wide dynamic range you've got when you're playing the nylon guitar - there's something about the nylon - as opposed to the electric and the acoustic steel-string. It can be very, very bright, it can be very percussive - flamenco players can do that - but it can also be very, very mellow. You've got as much of a range as you've got with pick-ups on a guitar.
An electric can scream at you, or it can be just like a pin dropping, but you can do the same thing, really on the nylon. On a track like, 'Paint Your Picture' for instance, where you've got the flamenco introduction, then you've also got the very mellow stuff that follows it with this kind of almost like a kind of siesta-type feeling - very, very dreamy, but still using Spanish and Latin influences.
PG: Speaking of painting pictures - how important is the visual presentation of your albums ? They're all had very distinctive artwork - I understand you have a very special artist to do that for you ?
SH: Yeah, well my wife, Kim - who's known as, her artistic name is Kim Poor - her stage name ! She's got a distinctive style in fact, before I met her, she sent something to Charisma Records, years and years ago, which was a painting based on a song that the band (Genesis) did, and I was really impressed with it. I assumed that this person, Kim Poor, was a guy ! And I thought, Isn't it marvellous ? You know - a song which is a fairly good song - an extraordinary piece of artwork has come out of it, and I actually thought the visual was far stronger than the song which had in fact inspired it.
And then I met her, about a year later and we fell in love, and eventually got married - but anyway the thing is, I was surprised that that was the Kim of the aforesaid painting - so it was our work in one sense, that brought us together.
So, yes - theres a lot of cross-currents between what she does visually, and what I do musically - were always trying to draw parallels - the language that she employs to do what she does, and what I do often we try and expand the terms.
This can place you in hot water of course, with the purists that think that rock and roll should just have three chords and you shouldn't try and pad it out with too much orchestral dressing. But on the other hand it's this palette of colours as she will tell you - that's what you use.
It's those kind of gradations of tint that she uses that I try and use as well. It can be difficult ! I think that the more imaginative you try to be obviously, you know, you kind of let yourself in for it, but you've got to be brave.
PG: Looking back over your solo albums, you seem to enjoy playing in a variety of music styles - rock, blues, classical - even Brazilian music. Is there any kind of music you wouldn't consider playing ?
SH: Originally, I probably wouldn't have considered playing jazz, and originally I wouldn't have considered playing a Cantonese koto, but these days, I've got my koto working !
At one time - you start out in life, and you're listening for one thing; I mean I couldnt hear anything but guitars, I mean prior to the year 1969, I don't think, you, if someone said, 'A snare drum, I'd say, Whats that ?' You know ? I just gotten used to the idea of the word, drum (!) These bangy things bong, bong ! But the more you involve yourself with other musicians, so their tastes tend to impress themselves onto yours.
It's by accident that you get lead into these other areas - so there's almost no area of music that hasn't impressed me at some point or another. Whether that's Chinese music or country music, or trad jazz, or all the areas where you think : 'I couldn't possibly touch that'.
I mean I listened to nothing but the blues really in the sixties - that was all I was interested in, but quite by chance, you find that you're listening to nothing but 'The Shadows', and one day, someone will come along and play you an album like 'Segovia Plays Bach', and you have to go: 'Oh wow ! You know ? This is something incredible - how can that all be done on one guitar ? I can't possibly do that'.
And I wasn't really interested in learning at the time, but in a way it was kind of lazyness combined with arrogance and I thought: 'All this right hand stuff - its a bit like knitting - I dont really want to do that, do I ?'
Yeah - you know - great - my grandma makes great sweaters (!) but Im not going to do all that. That's for poofters ! Knitting needles and all that stuff !
But then eventually, of course, you find that, yes, that technique becomes awfully appealing when you see someone doing like the galloping horse widdly-widdly approach, which creates these fast triplets - and its a bloody good thing, mate ! So I do it now thank you !
So you can't really say that - because you see, someone will come along and change your idea of what its all about. You say to yourself, I don't like country music, and then someone will come along, like K.D. Lang and she'll use country influences, and you say, 'Hey ! Thats really great - thats really good !'
So you mustn't say that, you mustn't say I don't like trad jazz, because you'll hear something like 'Petite Fleur' by Sidney Bechet and you'll go, 'Oh wow! Thats really evocative - fantastic tune'. And that's what it comes down to - not really the instrument, it's not the form, it's not the style - it's: is there a great tune, or isn't there ?
PG: One last question
SH: Right
PG: Musically, you've very much gone your own way since you left Genesis, but I detect a common strand in their work, and the work of Peter Gabriel and in yours, and that's a strong sense of humour. Tell us about this track off the new album called, 'Vampyre With A Healthy Appetite'.
SH: Oh yes - common - you're right there common as muck ! Yeah - I think maybe the strand is that with humour, when you use a humorous narrative approach to a song, then you are in a way, creating a backdrop to an non-existent, but implied cartoon.
I guess it's everything from 'Tom and Jerry', to 'The Big, Bad Wolf', isnt it ? In fact I was talking about this the other day to somebody, in fact to Billy's cousin, who was saying that all the stuff that we used to hear on 'Uncle Macs Favourites', (BBC Radio programme for children, 1950s), stuff like, 'Sparky the Magic Piano' and various things, 'The Runaway Train' all that - they were very, very visual and they really placed you there.
As a kid, you know, you'd be listening with your ear glued to the radio and, 'The Ugly Duckling' and 'Christopher Robin' - but it really did conjour up the whole thing - it was very, very colourful.
In a way we've all been hit by that, all the Genesis chaps, and Pete Gabriel did say, years and years ago, that the hardest thing to do is musical narrative, and I said: 'Whats that, mate ? Whats that word ? Narrative ?' and it was in those days of course, very difficult with these Greek myths - very difficult to follow, you know ?
I mean: 'Heracleum mantegazziani'... What does that mean, mate ? Well you know, these Latin lyrics should be stamped out ! But we persisted, and one still does in the blind hope that perhaps someone will realise that there is a reason for doing it, and it's just to add slightly more colour.
PG: I wish you continued success with the album and the tour - Steve Hackett - thanks for being with us.
SH: Thank you.
PG: Good to see you back.
SH: Thank you !
For all the latest on Steve's music visit: www.hackettsongs.com.
STEVE HACKETT interviewed by PG at BBC Radio Leicester May 28th 1993
PG: Playing tonight at De Montfort Hall, founder member of Genesis, guitarist Steve Hackett. Over twenty years ago, Steve placed an advert in the Melody Maker music paper, it read:
SH: It read, err (puts on cod RSC voice) 'Imaginative guitarist/writer seeks involvement with recipient musicians determined to strive beyond existing stagnant music forms...'
PG: You placed that advert some twenty years ago - as a result you were asked to join Genesis and recorded some eight albums with them-
SH: Erm, yeah, something like eight albums - yes quite a lot of albums actually - I can't remember them all - it's so long ago !
PG: You've pursued a solo career since 77 - in that time, has your vision for making music changed much ?
SH: Well - I think that I probably approach it in a different way - in those days we used to reckon that a song had to have a good verse and a good chorus, except that with Genesis, nobody really agreed about what was the verse and what was the chorus ! But you see that's an insight into some of the in-fighting that goes on with groups ! And now of course, everyone knows what the chorus and the verse is, because things have gotten much simpler !
In a way it's kind of like an un-learning process I don't want to do songs that have got set verses and choruses - I want to get back to the idea of atmospheric stuff, where you not quite sure what's the verse and what's the chorus, so you start off writing a song, and you dont really know where it's going to end up - so it's an adventure getting there.
When I first left the band most of the companies that I was signed to, because there were a variety of them, seemed to think that the way to sell records was to do a quote: 'commercial song' - so there was this heavy orientation towards hit singles - whatever they were - and no-one really knew what a hit single was. Ironically I'd written the song - or kicked it off, rather - the song that became the first hit for my old band (I Know What I Like).
But subsequently I wasn't really to have any hits with singles myself apart from a brief skirmish with the charts in 1983 I think it was, with 'Highly Strung' - the album was 'Highly Strung' and there was a hit single off it which was called 'Cell 151'.
But you see, the thing is, when you're a guitarist you're kind of known as an instrumentalist and so there's a certain kind of prejudice I think against having hits - certainly there was at the time; there hadn't been this kind of orientation back to the blues and back to playing.
Things have opened out a lot more since then - I mean thank God for that - because in those days they'd try and set you up with a disco producer and you'd have to say. 'No, no, no - please, please' and then you were a 'difficult artist, Steve - aren't you ?' So I went my own sweet way and tried not to get involved with that kind of stuff.
PG: It's been a long time since we heard a rock album from you. You've formed a new band, and you're on a national tour to promote your new record - it's called 'Guitar Noir '.
SH: Thank God ! It's been a long time since we heard anything from that guy ! (laughter)
PG: (sings) It's been a long, long time (from Suppers Ready)
SH: (sings) Its been a long, long time - I remember that one ! (laughter)
PG: You were there !
SH: I was - I didn't write it, I didn't sing it - who was that mystery singer, folks ?
PG: Competition time: who was the lead singer in Genesis
SH: The lead singer
PG: before Phil Collins ?
SH: err
PG: Answers on a postcard to the Peter Gabriel Competition (more laughter).
SH: Exactly ! Right - I'll tell you ! Yes - the Garden Wall - who were they ? And who was that Charterhouse boy caught smoking in the dorms ? But they turned a blind eye to that kind of thing, but in fact they were thrashed, you know ? For going down to the local record shop ! This is a little-known fact ! And somebody said the other day that they were expelled but we all thought they were upstanding members of the community, didn't we, folks ?
PG: Allegedly
SH: Allegedly and these allegations will have to stop.
PG: Tell us about the new album.
SH: Yes, well the album took a long time to make because we built our own studio, we started our own record label (Camino forerunner, Kudos) and these things do actually slow you down - but I do think it's a better product as a result of the enormously long wait !
PG: It seems to be quite a personal collection of songs.
SH: It is - I think the album title really goes right back to there was a friend of mine, an actor, I saw him just shortly before he died actually - his name was Ralph Bates - he died of cancer - a couple of years back - and when he was in hospital I went to see him for the last time. He said to me:
'If I ever get out of this place, I'm going to take up photography again, he said, I used to like black and white photographs'. And I said,' Why's that ?'.
He said, 'Because the areas of shadow seem to be more important than the areas of light'. It was that whole thing about a film noir which hed grown up with.
And then one day, my wife, Kim was trying to describe my guitar style, and she said : 'You've got a kind of guitar noir playing style', and I said that's great, because in a way it covers all the dark areas and the corners of the guitar - the things that I'm interested in - when it doesn't sound exactly like everybody else, when it sounds atmospheric and perhaps cartoony - and there are people who say, Your stuff is filmic or kind of panoramic. And it seemed to stick and it seemed like a good idea for an album title - so that's why we called it that.
PG: Listening to the album, it seems to be very much a project in two halves; the first half is mainly played by yourself on a variety of guitars and synthesizers, and the other is more band-orientated. You must be pleased with the results, but have you got a preference in the way in which you record ?
SH: Well I think you're right - the first half of the album is acoustically driven, and the second half, theres more for lack of a better word, band numbers and some of those numbers have been written with them. I didn't do it entirely alone, the first half.
Quite a lot of it was done with a fellow called Aaron Friedman, who is a very talented fellow - he both plays, engineers and produces - and he's written quite a lot of those things with me. He's a very nice guy... for a keyboard player ! (laughter).
PG: You must have worked with some great keyboard players in your time.
SH: I certainly have - I have worked with Tony Banks, I have indeed; I worked with Howard Jones, (Rock Against Repatriations Sailing single) I worked with... who else have I worked with ? Nick Magnus was a very good keyboard player, but he doesn't do any more touring.
But er, it does really fall into two halves, the album - the first half is the more atmospheric, introverted, questioning stuff. As you say - those are very personal songs - but that's a deliberate thing.
I think that most guitarists, you pick up their album and they're in heavy from the word go and we felt we didn't really want to fall into that camp, where it could be mistaken for another heavy metal act. I think its an over-subscribed club. So we came in with something more lyrical (Take These Pearls).
PG: You're on a national tour now with your new band - a lot of your music on record is quite complex - how difficult is it to reproduce live ?
SH: Whats the brother (of Richard Attenborough, actor and director) David Attenborough, (famous BBC TV Wildlife presenter) isn't it ? David Attenborough - is it difficult to reproduce live ? Some species find it extremely easy to reproduce live, but er musicians find it very difficult to reproduce some of their finer works live. (laughter) But we try !
Some of it is very difficult to reproduce live, but my manager, Billy Budis, who's sitting here with us at the moment said to me, 'Actually the most interesting stuff is the stuff that would be hardest to do live - but why dont we attempt it anyway ?'
First of all I thought, 'Hang on a minute !' There are certain things that work very well on record but you don't attempt them live because they have quiet passages, meandering if you get a boisterous audience you know they can shout you down at those points, and so yes - usually in the past I've tried to keep up the decibels, but we've taken the chance and those numbers seem to go down very, very well with live audiences, particularly here in England, (adopts cod Brooklyn accent) where you people do speak English in the main...
Of course, up to now we've done America where they sometimes speak English; and we've done South America where they speak no English whatsoever in most cases, but one tries to introduce numbers in Spanish or in Portuguese. Then you just hope that they get some of it !
Its quite interesting - because some of the numbers are more lyric intensive. In the past I think I'd written music first and then your lyrics tend to be an appendage to the music where as this time out, I'd sat down and just written things out to see if they work on their own - see if there's some kind of music in it - see if I can work with stories - the idea of musical narrative, which is a very hard thing to do, but I thought the road less travelled has to be more interesting.
PG: Tell us a bit about the musicians who are working with you in the band at the moment.
SH: In the band at the moment we have on drums, Hugo Degenhardt, who's a young 24-year-old fan of Keith Moon actually - he's kind of interesting - he's a complete maniac - in some ways ! On the other hand he's also very sensitive to classical stuff - as he said today, the very first record he bought was Holst - so I thought, 'That can't be bad !' - so a cross between Holst and Keith Moon is exactly what we want on drums !
On bass we have Doug Sinclair, who's not actually on the album, but he's a Scot, and he's a wonderful bass-player.
On keyboards, Julian Colbeck, who I've worked with before - he's on the lesser-known but equally wonderful live album, which is called 'Timelapse'.
The only guy I haven't mentioned is a guy called Dave Ball who played bass on the album, who is unfortunately working with a German act at the moment, and so can't be with us, but he's another equally wonderful bass-player.
PG: You've recorded two albums of purely acoustic guitar music before - you've mixed that's style with rock on the new album quite extensively. We're going to play one of the tracks in a moment, it's called 'There are Many Sides To the Night'; tell us about how you put the various musical elements together.
SH: Well it started out as an instrumental in fact, Billy and I one day decided to track-up guitars, and I mean MIDI guitar controllers, and electric guitar and acoustic guitar - so it was a short instrumental, but that's what actually precedes the song. It seemed like they might go together; the final chord is a very open-ended thing, and I set it up for a cross-fade. They both have a city feel in different ways.
It's quite difficult to do a track like that, because I played everything myself, although what you tend to rely heavily on is the engineering facility. I worked very closely with two engineers on that - in fact one of whom manages me, Billy Budis. You end up tracking-up enormously to create the orchestral effects - it does take rather a long time, but I also did the percussion effects on the second half of the song as well.
I don't think it sounds like one bloke played the whole lot - I like to think that it sounds more than I mean the usual criticism is that when one bloke plays everything, is that its not really an act of love, but its self abuse ! But I don't think that thats the case on this track - I think it comes across, it sounds like all the instruments are playing.
I'm particularly pleased with the instrumental coda, at the end of the song, where it really does sound orchestral. We had a guy working on that, a guy called Gerry O'Riordan who mixes and records lots of orchestras, and so he placed the sounds in such a way that the stereo spread was convincingly orchestral.
I don't know - I guess it's a little like musical cartoons - if they're done with enough passion and care then they can fool you into thinking it's the real thing. It's a bit like the portrait made out of postage stamps... you've seen that of course ?
PG: Of course
SH: And the viewers on air will see that - I'll hold it up to the camera (!) did you catch that ?
PG: Yes, I think the word were looking for here is er...
SH: Picassoid (laughter). The thing about 'Many Sides to the Night' is that it actually started out as a lyric - it really started out as a poem. Something I used to do at one time in the jobs that I had before I became a professional muso, I was very bored - I had these terrible desk-jobs where you know you have time to play about and shuffle paper-clips - I used to sit down and write short stories and poems and at the time I never thought that they would fit into songs. Songs were written as something else entirely, but in a way I kind of invented a number of characters, and I let them talk back to me in a way.
One character that seemed to stick out, that I kept coming back to was this Lily Marlene-type character, which has become - it's become a stereotype really, hasn't it for a lady of the night. So I started out with this idea, and then I thought, Well let's try to see what motivates her, and right at the end she says: 'I do it for my child alone'.
So it's the idea that in fact her motivation isn't actually to support herself and make a fantastic amount of money and take short-cuts in that way - it's because she's got that kid that she's got to support - and I think I mean I like to think that it is symbolic perhaps - call me pretentious if you like, but in a way I suspect that it's this kind of hard exterior with a heart of gold in the centre. So as I say, the track's called 'There Are Many Sides to the Night'.
PG: There's quite a variety of subject matter in the songs on the album; where do you find inspiration for your lyrics ?
SH: I do a fair amount of reading - I do like books a lot - and the reason I like books is because it's like having a conversation with someone where you just shut up and listen to the other person for the duration - and that's great ! So you get all their best ideas and you never have to interject with your own clichés ! It's the best way.
PG: I understand you have your own studio now ?
SH: Yes.
PG: How has having access to music technology at your fingertips changed the way you write music ?
SH: Well I suppose what you tend to do is you've got all these choices - youve got mega-choices, pop-pickers ! And what you tend to go for is the idea of the studio as an extension of the instrument - its an instrument in itself, isn't it really - the whole thing ?
Yes - the studio is an instrument, the guitar is an instrument - I am an instrument - as Charlton Heston will tell you ! You combine all these things, and try not to do it in a way thats done before.
I have the annoying habit of being in a studio and being in the middle of something, and by the time the keyboard players got it all programmed up, and nicely sequenced, I say to him: Ah - I've got the idea - it's something else entirely ! Why don't we go off and do this - this'll be much better, and well come back to that.' And it throws everybody, but provided people are flexible enough, it's the best way to work.
I don't actually sit down and try to write songs anymore, I find that as soon as you sit down and try and write a song, you come up with something very boring. As soon as you sit down and try to write a rock song, you'll end up writing a ballad or an acoustic piece - so I don't try anymore, I just wait for it to come, and usually it arrives in a very embarrassing place !
But nonetheless, you have to get the pen and paper out at that point in time - whatever you're about to do ! In other words, if you've been asked to be the best man at a wedding and suddenly an idea strikes you, you have to say to the guests: 'Excuse me a minute,' rush off into a quiet corner, write out an entirely separate piece of script, then come back and carry on with what you're doing - but that's what you have to do - the greatest ideas always come along at the worst possible times.
It's not my fault - it's just the way it is !
PG: Its a very high-tech album, but how do you keep from losing that human touch ?
SH: Mainly by working with the acoustic guitar as much as possible. Really, when I pick up an acoustic instrument, I know I'm going to play it, I know I'm not going to sequence it in the main - that's something I can't do - other people can do it - yes, your keyboard player can do that.
You can use the jigsaw in other ways - you can use samples and indeed we do - we use all the available technology but at the end of the day when youre playing that instrument, that's one thing I'm not gonna sample !
It's the wide dynamic range you've got when you're playing the nylon guitar - there's something about the nylon - as opposed to the electric and the acoustic steel-string. It can be very, very bright, it can be very percussive - flamenco players can do that - but it can also be very, very mellow. You've got as much of a range as you've got with pick-ups on a guitar.
An electric can scream at you, or it can be just like a pin dropping, but you can do the same thing, really on the nylon. On a track like, 'Paint Your Picture' for instance, where you've got the flamenco introduction, then you've also got the very mellow stuff that follows it with this kind of almost like a kind of siesta-type feeling - very, very dreamy, but still using Spanish and Latin influences.
PG: Speaking of painting pictures - how important is the visual presentation of your albums ? They're all had very distinctive artwork - I understand you have a very special artist to do that for you ?
SH: Yeah, well my wife, Kim - who's known as, her artistic name is Kim Poor - her stage name ! She's got a distinctive style in fact, before I met her, she sent something to Charisma Records, years and years ago, which was a painting based on a song that the band (Genesis) did, and I was really impressed with it. I assumed that this person, Kim Poor, was a guy ! And I thought, Isn't it marvellous ? You know - a song which is a fairly good song - an extraordinary piece of artwork has come out of it, and I actually thought the visual was far stronger than the song which had in fact inspired it.
And then I met her, about a year later and we fell in love, and eventually got married - but anyway the thing is, I was surprised that that was the Kim of the aforesaid painting - so it was our work in one sense, that brought us together.
So, yes - theres a lot of cross-currents between what she does visually, and what I do musically - were always trying to draw parallels - the language that she employs to do what she does, and what I do often we try and expand the terms.
This can place you in hot water of course, with the purists that think that rock and roll should just have three chords and you shouldn't try and pad it out with too much orchestral dressing. But on the other hand it's this palette of colours as she will tell you - that's what you use.
It's those kind of gradations of tint that she uses that I try and use as well. It can be difficult ! I think that the more imaginative you try to be obviously, you know, you kind of let yourself in for it, but you've got to be brave.
PG: Looking back over your solo albums, you seem to enjoy playing in a variety of music styles - rock, blues, classical - even Brazilian music. Is there any kind of music you wouldn't consider playing ?
SH: Originally, I probably wouldn't have considered playing jazz, and originally I wouldn't have considered playing a Cantonese koto, but these days, I've got my koto working !
At one time - you start out in life, and you're listening for one thing; I mean I couldnt hear anything but guitars, I mean prior to the year 1969, I don't think, you, if someone said, 'A snare drum, I'd say, Whats that ?' You know ? I just gotten used to the idea of the word, drum (!) These bangy things bong, bong ! But the more you involve yourself with other musicians, so their tastes tend to impress themselves onto yours.
It's by accident that you get lead into these other areas - so there's almost no area of music that hasn't impressed me at some point or another. Whether that's Chinese music or country music, or trad jazz, or all the areas where you think : 'I couldn't possibly touch that'.
I mean I listened to nothing but the blues really in the sixties - that was all I was interested in, but quite by chance, you find that you're listening to nothing but 'The Shadows', and one day, someone will come along and play you an album like 'Segovia Plays Bach', and you have to go: 'Oh wow ! You know ? This is something incredible - how can that all be done on one guitar ? I can't possibly do that'.
And I wasn't really interested in learning at the time, but in a way it was kind of lazyness combined with arrogance and I thought: 'All this right hand stuff - its a bit like knitting - I dont really want to do that, do I ?'
Yeah - you know - great - my grandma makes great sweaters (!) but Im not going to do all that. That's for poofters ! Knitting needles and all that stuff !
But then eventually, of course, you find that, yes, that technique becomes awfully appealing when you see someone doing like the galloping horse widdly-widdly approach, which creates these fast triplets - and its a bloody good thing, mate ! So I do it now thank you !
So you can't really say that - because you see, someone will come along and change your idea of what its all about. You say to yourself, I don't like country music, and then someone will come along, like K.D. Lang and she'll use country influences, and you say, 'Hey ! Thats really great - thats really good !'
So you mustn't say that, you mustn't say I don't like trad jazz, because you'll hear something like 'Petite Fleur' by Sidney Bechet and you'll go, 'Oh wow! Thats really evocative - fantastic tune'. And that's what it comes down to - not really the instrument, it's not the form, it's not the style - it's: is there a great tune, or isn't there ?
PG: One last question
SH: Right
PG: Musically, you've very much gone your own way since you left Genesis, but I detect a common strand in their work, and the work of Peter Gabriel and in yours, and that's a strong sense of humour. Tell us about this track off the new album called, 'Vampyre With A Healthy Appetite'.
SH: Oh yes - common - you're right there common as muck ! Yeah - I think maybe the strand is that with humour, when you use a humorous narrative approach to a song, then you are in a way, creating a backdrop to an non-existent, but implied cartoon.
I guess it's everything from 'Tom and Jerry', to 'The Big, Bad Wolf', isnt it ? In fact I was talking about this the other day to somebody, in fact to Billy's cousin, who was saying that all the stuff that we used to hear on 'Uncle Macs Favourites', (BBC Radio programme for children, 1950s), stuff like, 'Sparky the Magic Piano' and various things, 'The Runaway Train' all that - they were very, very visual and they really placed you there.
As a kid, you know, you'd be listening with your ear glued to the radio and, 'The Ugly Duckling' and 'Christopher Robin' - but it really did conjour up the whole thing - it was very, very colourful.
In a way we've all been hit by that, all the Genesis chaps, and Pete Gabriel did say, years and years ago, that the hardest thing to do is musical narrative, and I said: 'Whats that, mate ? Whats that word ? Narrative ?' and it was in those days of course, very difficult with these Greek myths - very difficult to follow, you know ?
I mean: 'Heracleum mantegazziani'... What does that mean, mate ? Well you know, these Latin lyrics should be stamped out ! But we persisted, and one still does in the blind hope that perhaps someone will realise that there is a reason for doing it, and it's just to add slightly more colour.
PG: I wish you continued success with the album and the tour - Steve Hackett - thanks for being with us.
SH: Thank you.
PG: Good to see you back.
SH: Thank you !
