All language subtitles for Genesis_ Sum of the Parts (HD).English [SubtitleTools.com]

This programme
contains strong language

Genesis. Genesis.
Genesis. Genesis...

CHANTING CONTINUES

Turn It On Again

Yeah, forget about all this
other bullshit.

We are entertaining people,

and if they're entertained
we've done our job properly!

Invisible Touch

No, I love this.
It's great having hits.

Jesus He Knows Me

In those days there were no real
rules. I think

we were just trying to be
a bit different,

because the canvas
in those days in the '60s

and the '70s was pretty blank.

The Knife

The basic feel was radically
different

than anything I'd ever done.

Very British, actually!

Aye, aye, aye, ah!

It's not country, it's not rock,
it's not jazz, you know,

it's Genesis.

A very competitive band,
no doubt about that. Very gifted,

but with those gifts,
you know, there's a certain price.

I Can't Dance

It was always, you know,
beating each other into submission.

We pulled rank!

Peter and I used to fight a lot.
Very close friends but, you know,

used to argue about silly
little things.

I Know What I Like

No, he was a really awkward bastard!

But we loved each other too,

you know, there was a real bond.

They were at the forefront of what
we now think of as prog rock.

Then in the '80s,
they were a massive

rock/pop band on both
sides of the Atlantic.

That's All

Genesis were never cool, and Genesis
are proof that, ultimately,

in rock music brains win out.

Sledgehammer by Peter Gabriel

There's something in the DNA of that
group that's still connected,

even though they were
in different places.

In The Air Tonight
by Phil Collins

Whenever, sort of, Spinal Tap
is on or something and you see these

moments you think, "I've been in a
band like that! That's Genesis".

No, they don't think so.

We had something that none of us
could do on our own.

A Change Is Gonna Come
by Otis Redding

I was at school, and I remember
exactly which room I was in,

and I heard this thing coming
out of the radio, and phrew.

Otis Reading was my hero at that
time, I think.

It felt very free,
it was sort of hot, sexy, alive,

and it had obviously come
out of blues and pain and suffering.

The rigours of that school would have
given them something to kick against.

There was a revolutionary impulse
within them, which is that -

despite the constraints of that,

you know, very traditional public
school education -

they thought, "We
want to make a living out of music."

It was music that got them
through their day.

That's where Genesis developed this
desire to create something

that was elaborate and big and grand

and sprawling, that kind of pushed
those rigours out of their life.

The demo session was Mike
and I saying, "Tony will you come

"and help us with the keyboards?"
And he said, "Yeah, I'll do it

"if my mate Peter Gabriel can
come along and sing one song."

It was called She Is Beautiful
to start with.

I'm not sure what it ended up as.
It was a lovely song.

So we hustled our way into
their session.

We'd done these demos and it was
OC's day, Old Carthusian day,

Jonathan King was spotted there.

I was a successful pop star,

the first act on the London
Top Of The Pops show.

And, of course, I went back to
Charterhouse in glory,

in my little Austin-Healey Sprite.

And one of the kids at Charterhouse
rushed up to me

with a grubby cassette tape,
that I still have to this day,

and said, "Oh, this is the school
group, listen to it."

The lead singer had THE most
wonderful voice, I thought.

So I got in touch with them
and said,

"Look, I really like the sound of
you, I'd like to produce you."

And they said, "Oh, yes, please".

I gave them the name Genesis
because that, to me,

was the start of my production
career.

We did an album -
From Genesis To Revelation

which was just bought by us
and our friends.

And, you know, and then pretty much
that looked like it, and he,

sort of, was losing interest and
everything, which was fair enough.

I'm not very good with really good
creative artists.

I'm actually better with people
just doing as I say,

because it's my work of art that
I want to do.

My parents had a cottage near
Dorking in Surrey, quite remote.

They let us use it.

You know, it was very turbulent.

They're very strong characters,
you know, and we were kind of -

slightly... t was a bit of a
pressure cooker situation.

The guys never saw their girlfriends
half the time, it was

positively draconian.

But we were too serious.
We never went for walks.

We weren't the sort of group to
go down the pub and have pints

and, you know, relax.

Ant was also, probably, the best
musician at the time.

He was the only one who could
actually do something

with his instrument.

And he kind of brought me on really,
he taught me some chords.

Kind of early days in the writing
sessions

with Ant it was two guitars.

Ant and myself playing guitars,
Tony keyboards

and Pete a bit of keyboards, you
know, but more the vocals really.

Sneaking away from school to come to
these hippie events,

to then be offered to perform in an
Atomic Sunrise Festival, it sounded,

you know,
like a thing we couldn't say no to.

The Roundhouse was somewhere where,
you know,

concerts were not just concerts,
they were happenings, you know,

and it would be somewhere you'd go
to commune with kindred spirits.

People would sit
and happily close their eyes

and listen to songs that
lasted 25 minutes.

And Genesis just at that time
fitted right in there.

I remember finding it all starting
to get terribly tense,

and I used to be very frightened.

The Atomic Sunrise Festival
I remember mainly for there

being more people on stage than
there were in the audience.

Tony and I, particularly Tony, were
both Bowie fans from very early on.

Bowie's band were very
theatrical at the time

and it wasn't sort of
Ziggy-type costumes,

it was more sort of raiding
the theatre costume department.

Then of course came the first
official,

if you like, Genesis album,
with Trespass.

Where they were starting to
get their proper sound together.

It's not quite there,

but you can hear the seeds of what
they became within it.

And it has, famously, the track
The Knife.

And I looked at the guitar
and I thought,

"I haven't got a clue,
not a clue what comes next."

And then I saw myself playing this
thing, but it was really scary.

I eventually just sort of went
kerblonk really.

I tried fighting through it,
but I didn't make it.

Well, Anthony Phillips was
a fantastic musician,

he was very much part of
the original collective.

And when he left, it could have very
easily have been the end of Genesis.

We wouldn't be having this
discussion,

because they did very seriously
consider calling it a day.

That was a very,
very significant loss.

I mean Ant leaving was far

and away the most significant
moment in Genesis's history.

People don't quite realise

how important a character he was.

I would say he was...

very much the driving force.

I felt it was the right thing to do.

If I hadn't left they may never
have got Phil Collins.

So, I mean...

All I wanted to do was to be
able to play the drums

and make enough money to live.

It wouldn't be stardom or anything.

I was a professional musician
in a semi-professional band.

The band would have day jobs
and, you know, and we'd all meet up,

but I was the one that was actually
existing on whatever we earned.

Phil comes along, Dad's in insurance,

he's a Hounslow boy, a good
West London boy, but he does bring

some creativity with him
because Phil's mother, June,

also worked with Barbara Speake
at the Barbara Speake Stage School.

The first thing he did was bring
this incredibly direct

and brilliant musical drumming.

He can play anything.

He can play your soul music,
your prog music, your jazz music,

your fusion. He can play it.

And he brought that incredible
confidence, I think, to their sound.

You know, I was a stage-school kid,

I was from a very different
background.

I'd been playing music all my life,

whereas music, to them...
was...a restricted subject.

You know, I mean, you weren't
supposed to play

guitar at Charterhouse.

And they were kind of very precious,

you know, it really mattered.

You know, "You're playing what
kind of A chord?

"No, no, that's not the best
inversion of the A."

You know, I mean, things like that.

It was just unbelievable.
The difference?

I never ever, ever could have
imagined

in a million years the difference

a drummer could make.

Oh, my God, he was...
It was unbelievable.

He transformed the music.

It was very apparent to us that he
was a really good drummer,

you know, had a fantastic
sense of rhythm and stuff,

which... We were all a bit stiff,
you know?

He understood and felt things
and, you know,

it was thank God for me that
I can talk to someone who actually

knows the realities of life.

And he had a lightness
as a personality too.

He could joke and stuff
and everything, you know,

much better than...
We were very intense.

It was very incestuous.

You know, we did nothing but this
so, obviously, you know,

people got irritated with each
other.

I remember storming out of...
when we were rehearsing one place,

first time with Phil.

You know, it just must have been
difficult for him I think.

I was amazed he stayed.

All this friction or
sort of tension that was under...

you know, kind of under wraps
occasionally would boil over

and someone would get up
and walk out.

And I'd..."Did I miss something,
what happened?" You know?

LAUGHTER

And it would be like...
.."Fucking..."

LAUGHTER

Off into the distance.

Because Phil like felt
a professional who'd played with

other musicians and was just getting
on with the work, whereas we had all

these intense, sort of, dysfunctional
family arguments going on.

They discussed these things under
a sort of stifling cloak

of British reserve, which is very
typical of the public schoolboy.

And I imagine that the
workings of that band were quite

mystifying to Collins.

But I imagine he was
something of a breath of fresh air.

It was always, you know,
beating each other into submission.

But that was fun, I mean, I was
in a band, I was in a thinking band.

You know, as far as I was concerned
it made a big change from what

I'd, kind of, been playing.

And that was the first time that it
felt like there was some chance

of this combo gelling and delivering
something with a bit of punch.

Things that had seemed really hard
work, you know, like pushing

this big thing up a hill, suddenly
it was downhill and we could smile.

When Steve Hackett joined it was
another kind of big

moment in the Genesis story.
An absolutely stunning musician.

He could make a guitar
sound like any instrument.

It was really a little bit like
being thrown in at the deep end.

I mean, I'd really been a legend
in my own bedroom at that point.

Yes, I could play screaming solos
very, very quietly on this little

radio that served as an amp, and
then suddenly to work with a band.

And we all met him at Tony's flat.

And he was very dark,

but he always gave the impression
of being very serious, you know,

with his black glasses, black hair.

I sat down and played three
different styles of things

to them, and I remember Pete
famously saying,

"I think we can use the first style,
I'm not sure about the other two."

We liked his approach.

He was a very accomplished guitarist
without wanting to be

a sort of flash guitarist at all,
you know?

And he was interested in, sort of,
combinations and all the rest of it.

Literally, and then there were five,

and that really was the classic
band.

And Steve just had -
he was just perfect.

Nursery Cryme was when they began
to get a few sniffs at what

they were doing.

It went into - you know,
scraped into the Top 40,

and you can hear the sound
coalescing, coming together there.

But at the time, of course,
it was called progressive rock.

Involved no limits, basically, no
barriers.

So they were testing the barriers,

learning how far they could push
this and realising that they

could actually push it a lot further
than 4x4 beach music.

Prog rock to... If you were trying
to explain it to an alien who'd

just landed on Earth - I'd say songs
that last 20-minutes plus,

have mythical allegories
and strange creatures in them,

perhaps, you know, uniforms in the
case of Genesis and standing stones.

There's something very, very
English about Genesis's music that,

to me,
it's an England beyond psychedelia.

The guys were terrible at tuning
the 12 strings

and they would take, sometimes,
five minutes between songs.

Everyone looks at the singer...

.."Entertain us," you know?

So that's what I realised
I had to start doing.

He's not particularly at ease
with an audience

until he became someone else,
you know?

The first time he ever wore
a costume was, obviously,

the infamous time in Dublin
in the boxing ring.

He hadn't told us about it,
which was just as well

because we'd never have let him
do it.

There's quite a long instrumental
passage in the middle

and Peter went off.

He certainly didn't tell Tony Banks
because I think, rightly,

he thought that Tony would veto it.

I was always afraid that these guys,
you know,

would start arguing about any
of the visual costume bit that

I was trying to do,
and so I would bring the stuff in.

I'd smuggle it in.

I'd smuggle it in as
late as possible,

when they were so preoccupied with
getting everything else

sorted, that I could sort of get away
with whatever shit was in my head!

Peter's impulse to
dress up in these elaborate clothes

and his wife's dress with
a fox's head.

I mean for him

it was shyness, as I understand.

I mean, he was a beautiful young
man,

but he was not sexually confident
in the stagey way like Jagger was.

And he wasn't even as sort
of committed to the

personas as Bowie was at that point.

So the likes of Bowie were doing it,

the likes of Mark Bolan, you know,
the wearing of make-up,

all that kind of stuff which didn't
go down well across the Atlantic.

Americans - "What are
these Brits doing in frocks?"

You know - "We don't want any of
that.

"We want rock'n'roll. Rock'n'roll!"

The Musical Box

It was dark,
it was a sort of dark energy,

and it was scary to people
and shocking.

You know, he didn't run it
via the committee.

He bullishly went ahead and did it.

And if he hadn't, I suspect that
Genesis perhaps would not

have gotten as far so quickly.

CHEERING

It brought the house down.

It put a nought on the end
of our earnings.

The costumes at that point

were not intrusive.

I mean, it kind of just seemed to be
part of what Genesis were,

and I was all for it.

I am the voice of Britain
before the Daily Express.

My name is Britannia.

Foxtrot, I think, is where most
Genesis fans agree that

that's where they really broke the
roof and went to another dimension.

It's one of those things where
you get popular

and then by the time, you know, you
never really get it,

you're sort of, "Oh, my God,
there's all that."

And you get to that level and think,
"Oh, my God, there's all that."

So, we didn't realise until we came
to New York, probably, just how

VAST America was
and how much there was to do.

American rock in the '70s was very,
very American,

and the British rock that they liked
was working with American DNA,

so they liked The Stones
because it was blues.

So you had your, you know, your
Bob Seger and your Lynyrd Skynyrd

and then you had your art rock,
your Iggy and Stooges

and Velvet Underground.

And, in a way,
it was a different language.

It was quite a challenge, you know,
we were not downhearted by this.

You know, we may be big over here,

but over here you don't mean
anything.

This was America, you know,

this was the America that we'd all
heard about and read about.

Just to stay in a Holiday Inn
we thought,

"This is the Holiday Inn!" You know,
"This is a Holiday Inn!"

Because they're famous rock'n'roll
hotels,

you know,
people get banned from these.

So it was all experience.

And I can't remember ever feeling

jaded by it or, like,
depressed by it.

It was like we were touring America,
that's what you wanted to do.

The initial tour which
I was responsible for, 18 cities,

they were totally unknown.

I essentially did something that
I never did before,

for Genesis I had to lie.

Everybody in your city knows
about Genesis because of imports,

the thousands are coming in daily,

and universally loved it, ah,

it's underground, you can't see it.

I can see it, but you can't.
But don't worry, they'll come.

The first time I saw them, I noticed
that the audience seemed to

be elevated, they were lifted
out of the mundane for a moment.

I saw that.

It was like a religious service,
it was very powerful, very palpable.

I was moved along with the audience.

Early Genesis followers,
early Genesis listeners,

almost embraced them as, not a cult,

but some kind of emotional religious
openness to freedom, because

music still does, but especially
back then, it spoke to you.

It touched a part of you.

Particularly with Supper's Ready,
which is

the 23-and-a-half-minute anthem,
which was then side two,

which, I think, stands as the
definitive Genesis work of art.

I can say no less.

Yeah, there is
this sort of spiritual yearning

going on through everything that
I do, and with Supper's Ready

there was a powerful mood
in the audience sometimes that

you just could harness and we could
convert very cynical people!

The opening part was a wonderful
Tony Banks' guitar piece.

And because he doesn't play
guitar very much he chose a shape

I would never have chosen, because

it's just a weird...

finger movement.

A guitarist would never play that,
because you weren't a guitarist...

I played it...
You never were a guitarist,

get that straight. You played sort
of, you know...

That first two or three
minutes of it was just

a chord sequence I wrote,
but I knew it was going to have

a melody on it, I wasn't worried
about that.

I think when we first
started writing we were...

This is going...
Knew it was going to get fucked up...

LAUGHTER

Tony was never short of a solo
or whatever,

and I had always come in and start
wanting to put vocal things.

So it was, sort of, really
decorating around what he did.

And, you know, I think
we had a good partnership.

When I sang "the new Jerusalem", I
was absolutely singing from my gut

and I think people could feel that.

Whether it was a sort of spiritual
goal destination, it's a...

powerful word.

And then you have Blake's Jerusalem

and that history as well.

So there was all of that
washed into it.

I think when we got it right,
we had something that none of us

could do on our own.

And there were different musical
histories, you know,

merging together in a powerful way.

For me, when Genesis actually
found their feet was

when the tunes started to become
a little bit more robust.

I mean, you can hear in Selling
England By The Pound,

I Know What I Like,
that sounds like a good pop song.

The structures are still proggy,

they're still slightly overblown
and long and mad, in a sense,

but the production is sharper,
that you...

They needed to make
themselves slightly more palatable

to the layman rather than
the prog fan and it worked.

Peter had this idea and he was

quite dogmatic that he wanted to do
this idea,

and we thought,
"Well, you know, OK."

But it meant him writing pretty much
all the lyrics as well.

You know, if you really want to
define a world you have to

let one person paint it.

There weren't many novels
created by committee.

The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway
was a complex beast in every way.

It pretty much broke up the band
in terms of Gabriel leaving.

He said there were autobiographical
elements in there,

but then again there were bits
of dreams and bits of surrealism.

We all were in thrall to bands
who could create a weirdness,

an almost Monty Python-like

side to music at that point.

I remember thinking that the two
were almost together at that

point in late '60s, early '70s
Britain.

It's the one time Peter did all the
words himself, bar sort of one song.

Maybe it had to be that
way, I think, actually.

You couldn't have sort of shared the
words in the same way, in my mind.

I'm sure Banks disagrees but I think
you probably couldn't have done.

You know, I think the prime venom
was between Tony and I.

It's a funny period for me.

The Lamb was my least favourite
period during the whole

of the time with the group,
basically because - mainly

because there were problems with
Peter, I think, you know?

You know, because we'd obviously
been very close up to that point

and, sort of, things were going
a bit wrong and all the rest of it.

He just didn't like me getting away
with too much, you know,

or getting into
a controlling position.

So there was, I think, wanting to
keep check on my power as well.

I wasn't really that
excited by the story,

I have to be honest about it,
I never have been.

And that kind of was what the whole
thing was hanging on.

In The Cage

Peter was, you know,
he was flashing back and forth.

You know, his birth of his daughter
was fairly traumatic.

So, from his point of view
the writing was very slow.

The problems
with my daughter's birth

and the fact she was in an incubator
for a good amount of time that

was absolutely number one for me,
there was nothing more important.

And there was very little tolerance
and understanding for that.

Meanwhile, the album was being
delayed and delayed

and delayed and then the end result
being, of course, that

the day the album came out was
the first show we did on the tour.

The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway,
I think,

was a massively brave album

to make. Hugely ambitious, you know,

you can't fault
a band for being ambitious.

Prime example of what not to do is
to go on tour with a new album

not released and play
the entire double album live.

Now, that was a risk,
bearing in mind this was a time

they needed to be steadily
building their American audience,

they decide to produce this
out-of-left-field concept album.

The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway

To go from Selling
England By The Pound,

to go from this English rural
atmosphere to, you know, the mean

streets of New York I think it's
an incredibly brave album to make.

It's an album
I will defend to the hilt.

It is a sort of Pilgrim's Progress

set on the streets of New York
for me.

He was a punk character in a way,
Rael.

It's a journey through which
he learns to destroy oneself,

to open up the space for another.

The Lamb was probably slightly
ahead of its time.

They did it and, from what I know,

the slides that they used on the
back projector failed regularly.

They never quite got it right,
and yet they carried on doggedly -

this will work.

And although it was a troublesome
child, you know,

with the visual side, you know,
I mean, a few nights it actually

worked properly,
but most nights it didn't.

What I remember about The Lamb

was smoking a little joint
before I went on,

and putting headphones on,
and playing in my own little world!

And I just had a great time every
night, you know?

It was great to play.

'The Lamb album was the best
we'd ever been on a record.'

INSTRUMENTS KICK IN

It was such a multimedia event
The Lamb,

the screens, Pete's costumes,
the music.

It was just an assault
on the senses, I think.

The problem with The Lamb Lies Down
On Broadway was that

when it was done live it was being
performed, you know,

across North America to audiences
that had never heard it,

that are sitting there going, "The
Knife?" And going, "What is this?

"And why is Peter in a huge bobbly
suit, and what on earth is going on?"

There was with the Slipperman
outfit,

which had this sort of big head,
I couldn't hold the mic properly,

and they didn't have these little
radio mics then,

so you couldn't hear a word
I was singing

when I was in that.

But in a way, you know,
whenever sort of Spinal Tap

is on or something and you see these
moments you think,

"I've been in a band like that!"

Where the pod didn't open, you know?

That's Genesis!

It was becoming increasingly
difficult,

the way the band was perceived
was getting difficult,

it was seen very much as Peter
and the band, you know,

and that was kind of difficult
for all the rest of us because...

I think it was creating some
jealousies.

Yeah, of course it was, you know,
we were only in our early 20s

and it was a difficult time that,
you know?

And certainly people would
come in the dressing room...

In America I remember the record
company guys, the local guys and

the promoters would come and say,
"Yay, Pete, great show, great show,

"when you put that mask on they
loved it, the kids loved it!"

You know, I'm exaggerating, but it
would be that kind of thing.

And it would be like "Hello,
you know, it's a band, you know?"

And the music was first.

It was a very difficult time,

but I still feel that along with
Supper's Ready it's

one of the things that I feel best
about from my time with Genesis.

We were in a hotel in Cleveland
and Peter came to my room

and said, "Look, I can't do this any
more, I'm at the end of this...

"I'm leaving
at the end of the tour."

The Carpet Crawlers

We had, I remember, a very long
conversation actually about it,

but I knew that he was not -
he was not going to come back,

it was as simple as that really.

But we talked anyhow, really.

"This is the band, man!" You know?
"What are you doing?"

"This is..."

It's... It felt a little bit cheated

and let down by the fact that
someone's going to leave.

For him one of the reasons,
apart from family reasons

and everything else, is something
that I'm sure he'd felt he'd

sort of got to a point that he'd,
sort of, moved on really.

And then we kept it very quiet
right to the end of the tour.

We didn't really make any
announcements

until the end of the tour.

I felt desperate to tell
the audience that I was going,

and it felt like I was betraying
the people who were coming,

who were paying to see us,
that I couldn't be myself

and be real and be honest
and tell them what I was feeling.

We all got quite
emotional at the last show.

It was like talking about someone
dying, I suppose,

but, I mean, no-one had prepared
themselves for this.

The Musical Box

I remember thinking, "Oh, my God,
what are we going to do?"

The British press, certainly,
sort of started to write Genesis's

obituary when Peter left.

We knew that we were
going to carry on,

so I said, "Let's just do the whole
thing instrumentally, you know?"

And it was like a cartoon,
it was like -

"Well, let's just do the whole thing
instrumentally."

"Shut up!"

You know? "Are you mad,
are you crazy?

"We write songs, they need to be
sung. Now, just shut up!"

You know, that's the way
I felt it was.

"Sorry, just a suggestion."

We auditioned quite a few singers.

And most of the time Phil would sing
the part to show them what they

were singing and then they'd sing it
and it wouldn't be as good as Phil.

I didn't want to not be the drummer.

You know, this is what I did,
this is my territory!

"I don't want to go,
don't push me out there, sir,

"please don't take me out there,
don't send me

"out there with a microphone."
I didn't want to do that.

You know, it was a question really

whether he wanted to do it more
than anything else.

You know, we did,
as far as I can remember,

we did revisit some of the tapes

and thought, "Is there really
nobody that we've heard?"

You know,
and we decided that there wasn't.

A Trick Of The Tail

I think the big question mark was

whether he could cut it on the more
rock,

out and out rock stuff,
whether his voice was big enough.

I remember nothing but good
vibes from the audience, you know.

They wanted this to work. They
didn't compare with me with Pete.

I was one of the guys in the band
coming forward.

And I'd been there all along.

I think I had more confidence
in the band being able to be

successful than they did initially.

Last May the lead
vocalist

of the British progressive
rock group,

Genesis, left the group.

Now, when this happens a group either
breaks up or dies a very slow death.

But because of the versatility
of each individual at Genesis

they're doing very well.

As a matter of fact, they seem to be
doing better than ever before.

I believe it was your quote,
I am going to not give it verbatim,

that it was like a very big
load off everybody

when he finally did leave.
Is that true?

Yeah. I mean...

now it's paying off in a way.

One feels better about it,

because you've come
out from an underdog situation.

The sad thing is that when someone
leaves, like Anthony and Peter,

there's a sadness because, you know,
you'll never be as close again.

You know, you stay in touch
and you see,

but you lose that bond of sharing
things that I've had with Tony

and Phil for the last, way
too many years.

A lot of people compliment me
on A Trick Of The Tail

when I wasn't actually there,
so it's...

LAUGHTER
Reflected glory. Yeah.

One of your finest moments.

The band were much more successful
without me than they were with me.

After Pete left,

two years later I was basically
doing the same thing myself.

I feel uncomfortable talking about
it even now.

I feel, you know,
if I reveal too much

it's a man ratting on the regiment.

I'm very grateful to the
regiment for everything it gave me.

He's a fantastic lead
guitarist.

You hear one of those songs

and it'll be absolutely unique,
you know?

In many ways it was such
a claustrophobic experience.

Harder and harder to find relevant
things for the guitar to do,

so, over time, I started to
amass solo material.

God forgive me, guys, but I just
thought it's the only way to

go to get ideas across is to just
negotiate with myself in the end.

But there you are,
that's the way bands are.

I think there was a certain
amount of, you know,

who shouted the loudest
and got the most grumpy

if their bit wasn't used, you know,
which would be me.

Yeah, well, I mean I did probably

get more on than other people,
you know, and that's...

So, you've either got me
to blame or to love for the music.

We then thought about getting
someone else in,

but I think we felt that
the three of us had gone...

we were so close at that point
in time, such a good working unit,

that to bring a new person in -
I mean it could have worked,

you know, but it wasn't quite
so... It wasn't imperative.

By this point, the music business
had changed a great deal, which we

hadn't sort of really been aware of,
still most of it escaped us because

we were out in America most of this
time, but punk music

had come in and a lot of the old
bands seemed to have disappeared.

If Genesis were all of a sudden
going to start sounding

like The Jam or Johnny Rotten I just
don't think it would have worked!

Anarchy In The UK
by the Sex Pistols

I mean, the sound
of the Sex Pistols, I thought

they had a fantastic sound,
it just sounded so...legitimate.

So I kind of liked it, and then
I realised that we were the enemy,

you know, we were the people
that they were trying to get rid of.

We sort of seemed to go
through it regardless.

In fact, we were lucky in a sense

that all the opposition had
kind of been killed off.

After Peter left, of course,
Phil came into his own

and the hits started coming.

Somehow, almost by chance,
Genesis redefined their sound,

went for more compressed,
shorter numbers, a less florid sound

and, sort of, almost by chance
started to have hit singles.

Follow You Follow Me

We were lucky with
And Then There Were Three,

which proved to be, you know, our
most successful album at the time.

Follow You Follow Me
actually being a single hit,

first hit we really had, you know?

Follow You Follow Me

must have just been an interesting
exercise for the band.

You know, they probably set out
and thought,

"Right, how do we write a hit?" And
suddenly, a band that was probably

a predominantly male chin-stroking
audience was being played

at the, you know, the slow dance at
the end of the Friday-night disco.

Actually, Mike was the first one to
really write the love lyric,

which was Follow You Follow Me which
doubled our audience overnight,

suddenly
we were more female-friendly.

I had never met Chester.

You know, I had seen him
play with Weather Report.

And there was a track that
I really liked,

when he played with Zappa,
the Live At The Roxy album.

And him and another drummer, I just
liked his playing on this one track.

So I called him and I said, "Do you
want to join the band?"

He said, "Well, yeah."

And then I was saying,
"Man, I'm going

"over to do rehearsals with this band
Genesis," and he gets this worried

look on his face, says,

"Man, are you
going to have to wear costumes?"

And I thought, "Oh-oh,
what am I getting into here?!"

What we were missing in the visual
department with Peter not

being there and his costumes,
we suddenly had another facet,

which was two drummers together,
one drummer, another drum...

You know, it was mixing it up a bit.

Well, I think
we traded off quite a lot, actually.

I got a bit more of, I think,

maybe the sort of his edge in my own
playing.

And I like to think he got a little
funkier over the years, you know?

CHEERING

When I saw that Chester was going to
join I thought, "That's going

"to be a pretty nice band to be in."

Daryl can play anything, you know,

he's an incredibly versatile
musician, a brilliant musician.

We'll go back into the G
as a sort of...

We have to get
the end of Firth Of Fifth, I mean,

are we going to leave that till
another point?

So he has to sort of fit into

a certain style for the piece,
you know?

And when we wrote Firth Of Fifth,
you know, and Steve, obviously,

played a guitar solo on that, he was
quite a, you know, quite a

stiff player, particularly in those
days, a certain kind of effect.

I mean, it's very much a melodic
line

you're playing with Firth Of Fifth,

the main guitar solo and then you
improvise a little bit around it.

Firth Of Fifth

It turned into a very strong
moment, a stronger moment than

we probably ever thought it was
going to be when we first did it.

And I thought it would never work on
a guitar, but it just sounded great.

To me, Genesis is a style already,
that it's not country,

it's not rock, it's not jazz,
you know, it's Genesis.

Deep In The Motherlode

The road crew who had
travelled through the night start to

unload five tonnes of equipment
from three giant trucks.

Sound and lighting rigs are taken
into the theatre in preparation

for the evening concert.

CROWD CHEERING

I've come here so early as to meet
the band. Get the autographs.

Yeah, get the autographs.

Got quite a few.
You can tell who the real fans are.

OK, cheers.

Yeah, I think Genesis cover
a wide range of musical taste.

The earlier material as well.

Yeah, which will appeal to far
more people than, say,

just heavy metal bands.

I mean, Genesis appeals to
basically everyone.

What about your mates?

I get a lot of slagging off
because of Genesis,

they're not a vogue band to like.

I have no idea what it's all about
when people say -

"I listen to Genesis
but don't tell anyone."

What is it all about?
I mean, I really don't know.

It's melodic, it's inoffensive,
it's just good music.

I don't know why there's
a stigma about Genesis.

But I am happy to say that,
"I'm out, I'm out, I'm proud.

"I'm not afraid if someone's..."

I mean, I haven't had
to sit my family down over

Sunday lunch and say,

"I've something to tell you all -
I'm a Genesis fan."

But I don't mind being -

I don't mind the brickbats that
come with it.

It's a bit a mystery,
I don't know what the problem is.

It's an entrenched view in British
rock appreciation that

when the hits start coming
the band's gone off the boil.

The post-Gabriel albums,
certainly the first three or

four, are perhaps better than
they're given credit for.

And then by the time of Duke
they were getting - starting to

get the next level of sound,
which was more stadium-friendly.

When we did Duke, which is probably
my favourite album in many ways,

my personal favourite track
on the album, and also one that

I suppose is shorter, although it's
quite long, is Duchess, which sort

of starts in a very sort
of loose kind of way and then builds

to a very concise pop song and then
goes meandering again at the end.

It's one of my favourite tracks
we ever did.

When my marriage broke up
I had an empty house.

I just used to go down the pub,
and I kind of lived there.

It became my social life.

And I would go home and I'd start
thrashing around on a piano

and start writing songs, some of..

you know, some of them
were pretty sad.

Please Don't Ask was probably
the most personal song

I'd ever written, and this was me
really...

..baring my soul, if you like.

And very, very personal.

And, you know, it was strange,
I found myself thinking,

"What am I doing singing this song
on a Genesis record, this is..."

Because I know the people that buy
Genesis's record aren't really...

they're not going to be
touched by this.

But I don't think he'd written
a really particularly good lyric

until he found his voice,
which was really after, you know,

obviously, his marriage break-up
and everything

and he had time on his own,
he started writing these songs.

I played this stuff to
Mike and Tony.

I said, "This is what I've been
doing, pick whatever you want."

We really liked Please Don't Ask.

He played that to us,
a few others like that he played.

And, at the time, if we'd said,

"We want to do all of them,"
he would have said, "OK."

That was kind of, how it was really,

you know, everything went into
the pot.

A question of choosing
one other song.

Misunderstanding,
we knew we were going to do,

we'd heard that a lot,
liked it very much.

Now, one of the extraordinary
and unique things about the band,

and this is probably also
why they've survived so long,

is that all the members
of the classic line-up have managed

to follow solo careers
and yet still work together.

I think the thing that's always
overlooked is what an amazing

singer Gabriel was and is.

His voice was always
incredibly special.

His first album,

the first Peter Gabriel album was
really interesting.

There's, you know, suddenly a hit
single - Solsbury Hill,

you know, the last thing you
would have imagined.

Solsbury Hill is a song of
absolute liberation. It's uplifting.

It's almost like word paint
in a way, it climbs up,

the idea of the expanse
that he's looking over

and the potential
of what the future could be.

I think it's a masterpiece
of elation, that record.

The South Bank Show Theme
by Julian Lloyd Webber

Hello. Peter Gabriel made his name
in the rock world in the early

'70s as a singer-songwriter and
often wildly-theatrical performer

with the rock band Genesis.

He left them in 1975,

and since then he's built a new

reputation as a thoughtful solo
artist who takes immense

care in writing
and producing his own material.

His highly acclaimed third album
placed him at the forefront

of one of the most significant
recent developments in rock,

the increasing use of synthesisers

and sophisticated electronic
technology.

Games Without Frontiers

Peter didn't have a band
around the time of the third album

and so I said, "Well,
I'm doing nothing,"

because I'd been through my great
sorrow, so I volunteered my services

as a drummer, and Peter said,

"I don't want any cymbals, I don't
want any cymbals on this."

And for a drummer that was... You
know, that was a big deal, you know?

"Oh, hang on, well, what's this hand
supposed to do?"

So we set up the drums
so that there was a drum instead

of a cymbal in that particular
position in case I had the urge.

LAUGHTER
You know, it was like...

Peter Gabriel's album was a dream
come true for a recording engineer,

because we were doing, you know,

so much sort of experimentation
with sound.

Just the wind in the pipe is quite
nice.

You think? Yeah. 'It was just great
fun, you know.'

DRUMBEAT PLAYS

So this is Intruder and it
starts off with the drum pattern.

I asked Phil to do a really
simple pattern there,

and it just sounded
like the future of drums.

I was so blown away that
I wanted to strip everything

back off the track and have this be
the absolute centre of it.

Mr Padgham...

Because Hugh Padgham
was the engineer,

the man with the hands on, that's
the reason why I befriended him

and thought he'd be the man
to make my first album.

And I think all creative people,
in the end, are just like dogs

in the park, you know,
you sniff something interesting

and you try and jump on it.
And, you know...

Speak for yourself.

We've always
been like that I think, you know.

You can always tell where we've
been sniffing. Yeah.

LAUGHTER

At a very early stage I established
a principle that the two,

the solo careers

and the Genesis career were always
maintained as very separate things.

We never mixed them.

There was never a time when we said,

"Oh, let's do a Phil Collins song
on a Genesis show," or vice versa.

We always kept the two things
very separate.

I think Phil went off to
do this own thing

because it was very clear that that
career was there for him.

He was probably the last of the band
to make a solo album.

I mean, actually, they had all
gone off and done other things.

He just went off
and did it rather more publicly

because he was a huge success at it.

I think it was probably a very
good thing we didn't do it.

If Genesis had done it, I
think we'd have complicated it up.

But, of course,
that's its whole charm,

it's what works about it, is the
fact that it's so repetitive.

I'm glad, you know,
I'm glad we didn't use it because,

obviously, I was left to my own
devices on most of the material.

It's down in history now that
Tony Banks claims that

I didn't play him
In The Air Tonight, but I did.

And he didn't play
In The Air Tonight.

It doesn't matter
what anybody tells you.

I don't remember the moment
when I played In The Air Tonight.

I just was very proud of it,
so I don't understand why

I would not have done,
because at that point I hadn't

made my record, so I didn't know how
good or bad it was going to be.

Phil Collins, when he started
writing about the break-up

of his marriage and these love
songs, initially on his solo career,

but there was obviously a cross-over
between the songs he was writing

for both parties, it did introduce
an element of confessional.

I think what Collins did in terms
of channelling those emotions

in terms of what had happened in his
personal life into his music,

was something that the band had
never done, as far as we were aware.

He was very, very emotional,
something,

if I may say, that we British tend
not to show emotion so much, do we?

You know, the old stiff upper lip.

In a way, he's the master
of the romcom romance, isn't he?

These are extremely emotional songs.

All through the
'80s, growing up, I thought of him

as the guy playing the piano with
the pot of paint on it,

you know, the sort of,
the heartbreaking plaintive ballads.

We are unique in the fact that
I can't think of any other band

who's done this
solo/main band career

and run it for many years
afterwards, you know?

We always felt that whatever
we were doing is the main

thing at the time, the band or solo.

But it wasn't like, if you're doing
that you can't do that, you know?

And I'm sure it helped us
keep going, actually, the variety

of work and music was, I think,
gave us a freshness as a main band.

I know people who picked up on us
on, say, Abacab or something

and think that's the best album,
you know?

We always liked to throw in a bit
more sort of thinking kind of music

in there, did long songs
and tried to do a few things

that were slightly more, you know,

slightly less predictable,
if you like.

Another record that was really
big at the time

was Grandmaster Flash
and it was called "The Message",

and it had this sort of
"hoo-hoo-ha-ha-ha-ha"

sort of laugh in it.

Ha-ha, ha!

And we all thought, "That's
fantastic," you know? That laugh.

What a fantastic idea to have
on a record, a laugh, you know?

I mean not since
The Laughing Policeman

was there such a laugh on a record.

And I just started going, "Ha-ha-ha.

"Ha-ha-ha!" And everyone would
kind of, you know,

we were playing, and sort of looked
and laughed and smiled,

but I knew that it wasn't getting a
grimace, it was getting a smile,

you know? So I thought, "OK,
well, I'll remember that."

And the lyrics of Mama
were improvised.

I was kind of,
that's my kind of Lennon.

HE HUMS MELODY

Lennon sort of influence, kind
of with the echo, Be-Bop-A-Lula.

It was just kind of compression.

It sounded a bit like a Lennon song.

You had to sort of sneer a bit
when you were singing it.

Ha-ha, ha-ha. Oh...

In all the years, no-one
ever asked, "Why the laugh?"

Because I thought that people
would be surprised, you know?

Genesis. Grandmaster Flash.

Surely not?

That's All

The albums that became
huge in America and Britain,

they're concise, they're effective.

For me, they're a little clinical
but effective.

The soul and art rock, if you will,
of the previous albums

has been side-lined.

They're more like a well-oiled
machine by that point.

Stick at a thing for long enough,
you know?

No, I loved it.
It was great having hits.

You know, I'd been brought up
in the era of hits.

In the '60s, you know,
the next Beatles song coming out

was the sort of high point
of my existence, really,

and all this stuff, you know?
So hits for me were, you know,

I loved hits. And to suddenly
have records in the charts,

having your record... I mean
it's still a thrill for me now

to hear a record on the radio.

Right now, for the very first time
on Top Of The Pops, it's Genesis.

Turn It On Again

Less obvious hits like
Turn It On Again and Mama,

neither of which are very totally
straightforward pop songs,

were able to be hits because we were
kind of, we were accepted now,

we could be played on Radio One,
whereas in the old days

we could only be played on sort of
deepest, darkest sort of something.

Hi, I'm Phil Collins.
I'm Mike Rutherford.

And I'm Tony Banks. Of Genesis,

and you're watching MTV,

the world's first all day/all night
video music channel.

In stereo.

This MTV thing meant that a hit song
was so high-profile

that it was on every bar, every
restaurant all round the world.

Invisible Touch

Once it got to Invisible Touch
and we had, you know,

in America we had

a number one single suddenly, you
know. Extraordinary.

And, you know, half a dozen songs
off that album,

because the way America calculated
charts

was on radio play
as much as on sales,

and we were played everywhere, so we
had all these songs that were hits.

Right now, ladies
and gentlemen, Genesis.

Genesis!

The almost all-Genesis weekend.

Start by casting your vote
in the next round

of the Friday night video clash.

The impact of MTV was enormously
influential

for Genesis and for Peter Gabriel.

They were always a very theatrical
band but, of course,

to very limited audiences
of a few thousand here

and 20,000 there, or whatever.

To suddenly be able to channel
those theatrical impulses

into video on MTV
changed their fortunes for ever.

MTV brings you Genesis tonight.

10pm Eastern, 9pm Central.

7pm Pacific.

I think the solo careers
of Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks

are always going to be over-shadowed
by those of Collins and Gabriel,

because they were the vocalists and,
you know, as is always the case.

I actually thought about
doing a solo album

before Trick Of The Tail,
so I did it and, you know,

I wrote A Curious Feeling.

I was obviously hoping for more
success than it had,

I have to be honest about it,
really.

But it did make the top 20,
so, you know, it can't be too bad.

So I did a load of those albums,
you know,

I did about half a dozen albums,
five albums, I think, solo albums.

But then the idea came, perhaps
just before I concede,

I should have a go at doing stuff
with an orchestra,

and I wrote a couple
of pieces that I thought would work

really well with an orchestra.

And, you know, I actually got some
quite good reviews

from the classical people, even.

You know, I mean most of them were
sort of, you know, don't want

to know about rock guys doing
classical music,

it's somehow beyond the pale.

But it was, it got some good
reviews.

Actually it sold quite well,

far better than anything
I'd done before.

In order to be a solo artist,
you have to be a singer.

Without that, it's a bit tough,
as I found out.

If you write a good song,
you want a great voice

and that great voice isn't me.

The fastest rising hit in Britain
and the States,

written by Scotland's BA Robertson
and Mike Rutherford of Genesis.

It's called The Living Years
from Mike and the Mechanics.

I find the act of collaboration
the exciting part.

You're sort of, you're feeding
off what the other person's doing.

I would have always probably carried
on co-writing, because I like that.

I was being given fantastic
opportunities, if you like,

and I just think, "Yeah, how can
I say no to that, you know?

"Because maybe I won't get asked
again, I should do that,

"it'll be great fun, you know?"
Whereas in fact you end up

being everywhere and in people's
faces the whole time.

Ladies and gentlemen, Phil Collins.

Congratulations on the five Emmy
Awards.

Yes, the Grammys, yeah.
Grammys, right.

So how about the fellas in Genesis,
are they furious?

Oh, no, no, no, no.
They're spitting blood I heard.

The rumour in the music press
is they're spitting blood.

I mean, it was great for him,
you know,

he was our friend, we wanted him
to do well but, you know,

we didn't want him to do that well,
not initially.

But, you know, it was the thing
and it kind of never went away.

He was ubiquitous for about 15
years, you know?

You couldn't get away from him,
it was a nightmare.

Peter's music changed once
he left Genesis,

because he wasn't under
the Genesis umbrella.

Now it's true, of course,
that all the members of Genesis

were having hits, but it was Peter
who was the one becoming more

and more involved in politics
and political causes.

I think the stuff Peter Gabriel
has done politically

is enormously important.

And I think he was always
ahead of the curve.

You know, he always kind of knew
what was going on.

I mean, songs that I know people
probably get sick to death

of people banging on about,
songs like Biko and stuff,

but, you know,
nobody else was doing it.

A man who was imprisoned, tortured
and killed in a jail in South Africa.

This is for Stephen Biko.

Biko's death may have done more
damage to South Africa's image

abroad than he could have achieved
alive with 1,000 speeches.

Why were you drawn at the time
to write a song about Biko?

I think it was a tremendous shock
because I think no-one...

There'd been a certain amount
of publicity about his arrest

and no-one was expecting him
to be killed.

I think had he been allowed to live
he could have been

a great African statesman, perhaps
sort of crystallised the hopes

of a lot of young people in the way
that Kennedy did in America.

And I think it's tragic
the way, you know,

he was, his life was cut short.

We'd dreamt of having our own studio
for years, you know, because going

to these holes in the ground in sort
of, first of all, in London

and stuff, we just thought it would
be so nice, and then you could

actually sort of write and record

in the same place
with no time pressures.

Invisible Touch
was the first album we did here.

And when we got here it was
fantastic.

And the key thing was
being able to sort of focus,

because otherwise you have to write
an album, rehearse it quite well

and then go and record it.

So you'd already sort of decided
how it was going to sound,

whereas, because we owned the place,
we could sort of write

and almost record at the same time
and mess around.

It just it made the whole thing a
lot freer and I think better for us.

I think all the other albums
at that time were,

to a certain extent, treading water.

The big one was Invisible Touch,

that was the one that moved them
to the level where

they could create an album
that 14.5 million people would buy.

And they never really
topped that moment.

I'd become one of the people
of the '80s -

that was one of the reasons
why people didn't like it.

Just do that small lean forward,
please.

I used to travel to England a lot
and do videos for Genesis

and Phil and other bands there, and
I always watched Spitting Image

on television, because it was
a great show.

And one time they had a video
of Phil,

and he was like crying, and it was
about his wife leaving him.

I thought to myself, "This is really
cool, they have a Phil puppet."

And for a long time I was thinking
it would be great to do

a puppet video with them.

I, Ronald Reagan, do solemnly swear,

that I will faithfully execute

the office of the President
of the United States.

Mr President, we have an idea...

It wasn't a fun decade at all.

You had such division
in the country. You had riots

with the police.

Thatcher was such an abrasive
and divisive person.

Do you have any piranha?

As indeed was Reagan.

It's a song that is the nearest
I've ever come to actually making

an out in the open statement.

I normally make little comments
about things in a subtle

sort of an aside way.

It's really about how we live in
a very nice world

and what a mess we're making of it,

and how it should all be so easy
and how it's all so difficult.

It's a kind of '80s protest song.

The sad thing is, you know,
the puppets are in better shape

than the people we're caricaturing
these days, you know?

I hope Phil's doing well
compared to his puppet.

Yeah, I bought one of my heads.

Someone in Texas has bought my head.

Slightly worries me actually.
What's he doing with it?

I mean, we're just popular,
and there's nothing wrong with that.

I mean, we just got more popular.

I won't take the credit and I won't
take the blame, you know?

With MTV and videos, a hit single
overshadowed the whole album,

and people started sort of saying,
"Well, you know,

"you stopped doing long songs."

We never did, really.

You know, every album had a sort of
15 minute song on it

till the very end,
but they're album tracks,

and so they weren't
on the television,

they weren't on the radio, but live
they're a big part of the set.

I always knew the long songs
would always grab them.

A - they were good songs,

B - visually they were
very impressive,

with the varied lights
and the staging.

So, in a sense, I think
those who came to see us

because of the singles and the short
songs and the radio tracks

went away with a different
impression of us.

When we played live, the songs
that have really stood out

are things like Domino
and Home By the Sea,

which are probably the classic
songs from the later period.

Well, neither of those were singles

or even any attempt at being
a single,

and yet they worked so well live.

You really build to a climax with
both those songs.

It was extraordinary really, and you
knew it couldn't last, actually.

It was on a divine
visitation that the Lord told me

that I was to go on the television.

'Ernest Angley,
and he talked like that,

'and he was very affected'

and he would,

with his beautiful leisure suit
and a very bad wig,

and he would...

"Out of the screen, you devil!"
You know, it was awful stuff.

I mean, it was very, you know,
Bible-belt eccentric.

I just had a problem with the whole,
you know, TV evangelists.

I mean, when I was growing there
was Billy Graham, you know,

and that was it.

We were improvising and trying
different things,

and eventually when I was singing.
I'd sing, "Jesus, he knows me."

And I don't know if Tony and Mike
were really kind of hearing it.

I don't think they were too sure
about the lyric

until I'd, you know, finished it.

Because it was a satire in the end.

I think they kind of thought that it
was a bit serious.

It was quite fun, I mean, you know?

We had the girls in the middle,
didn't we? Yeah.

We insisted. We'd made so many
videos and we just wanted

one time to do a video
like David Lee Roth...

To be near naked women. Yeah!

So we had this bit
in the middle of that,

which was an excuse for it, really.

I can't remember quite when
we started writing We Can't Dance,

but it was done in a pretty...

You know, once we started
we kept going till we'd finished it.

It didn't take a ridiculous amount
of time to write We Can't Dance.

But I wrote a lot of lyrics
on We Can't Dance,

and I think I was allowed
to do that.

You know, I mean I still...

I still play third in line.

Unless the lyrics are right.
We're in now.

We'll probably come back to a vocal,
I don't know where.

If you want me to sing,
George, I'll sing.

Want me to sing, I'll sing. If you
don't want me to sing, I won't sing.

I'm still the new boy, even now.

It's kind of amazing, isn't it?

CHEERING

When we put out We Can't Dance,

we were very confident
at that point.

The line "something about the way
we walk",

I thought was the sort of funniest
line in it, so the feeling I had

was we should do the choruses
with a silly walk.

Now, the silly walk was his,
you know? He'd have this walk around

which apparently you used to
do at stage school or something.

Yeah, I was at a drama school...
Drama school.

It wasn't that good.

You could always tell the people
that really shouldn't

be doing dancing, you know,

because they'd do the same foot
and the same hand.

And it just always struck me
as funny, that.

And obviously that did well,
the album did very well.

It was sort of towards
the end of that period

when we released our final
single from that album,

a song called Tell Me Why, that
I sort of felt suddenly it was...

Something had changed, and we didn't
get played on radio and stuff.

And really from then on, you know,

suddenly Genesis was sort of phtt,
like that.

And these things sort of sometimes
suddenly happen

and you don't quite know why.

I think the fans thought that they'd
seen the last of Genesis,

so it came as a real joyous surprise
when they announced that they

were getting back together
for a final tour in 2006.

It certainly was a surprise to me.

I think it is the fact that
regardless of your age, race,

genre, colour - everybody loves
a little bit of Genesis.

Have you been waiting long?

We've been waiting for you 15 years.

Darling, darling.

'They're a band that's managed to
straddle so many different phases

'in the history of British
rock music and they're still around.'

They were sensible enough
to realise that

what they had
was worth more than the parts.

Yeah, there are a couple of old
songs in their entirety.

Well, just try a few
and see what happens.

People will investigate that back
catalogue and really realise

that there really is some
wonderful, artistic, intelligent

stuff in there, which is exactly
what we're always crying out for.

We're always moaning, "Where is
the art, where is the intelligence,

"where is the ambition in
today's simplistic music?"

Well, it's there.

I think the secret to Genesis's
longevity

is that they are the progressive
rock band who progressed.

And progressive rock bands,
according to their fans,

are supposed to stop about two
albums into progressing

and progress no more,
and that's why they've survived.

They're great musicians, great
writers of music, great lyricists.

And I love the fact
that they also expand

and explore with other musicians.

They have straddled so many periods.

They have been hugely successful
within prog rock in the '70s,

as a pop and rock band in the '80s.

Gabriel's had a solo career
that's spanned, you know, decades.

I think they will be remembered

because they've written great songs
and they are great musicians

and, at the end of the day,
that's what's important.

I think it's very flattering,
you know, to be part of something

that people call the
soundtrack of their lives.

But they say, you know,
like, "I grew up with your music,

"and so therefore, you know,
you're pretty special to me."

You know, and that's like, it's...

I mean, that's fantastic for someone
that writes.

I mean, that kind of almost negates
all the negative stuff.

You can't keep doing exactly
the same thing for ever and ever.

I don't think. And I think
the reason we lasted so long

was those changes, which gave us
the chance to actually

be a bit different each time.

We just carried on doing
what we'd always done.

We just used to write.

We probably got better at doing
the shorter stuff,

there's no doubt about that.

We always liked to throw in a bit
more sort of thinking

kind of music in there.

Did long songs, and tried to do a
few things that were slightly

more... You know, slightly less
predictable, if you like.

But I mean we just...

It's a very difficult thing to know,
you just do what you want

at the time with a particular
combination of people you've got.

Never underestimate what difference
you could make or what you could do.

I've seen other people, you know,
at every stage with everything

I've done, who are smarter and better
than I am,

and that hasn't deterred me.

So that's what I say to young people
everywhere, you know,

don't limit yourself
or limit your expectations

because if you want to make
a difference,

if you want to change the world,
it's all there.

The secret?

Well, the music.
Are we being serious for a bit?

For a bit. Yeah. For a bit. OK.