Original subtitles

[Applause]

[Music]

[Music]

yeah forget about all this other

we're

entertaining people and if they're

entertained we've done our job properly

[Music]

no i loved it it's great having hits

jesus

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 70s was pretty blank

[Music]

the basic feel was radically different

than anything i'd ever done

very british actually

it's not country it's not uh rock it's

not jazz you know it's

genesis

[Music]

very competitive band no doubt about

that very gifted

but with those gifts you know there's a

certain there's a certain price

it was always you know beating each

other into submission

we pulled rank the only thing about me

peter and i used to fight a lot like

close friends but you know used to

argue about silly little things

[Music]

no he was really all good bastards but

we loved each other too you know it 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

slash pop band on both sides of the

atlantic

[Music]

genesis were never cool and genesis are

proof that

ultimately in rock music brains win out

[Music]

there's something in the the dna of that

group that

that's still connected even though

they're in different places

[Music]

whenever 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

[Music]

we had something that none of us could

do on our own

[Music]

i was at school and i remember exactly

which room

i was in and i heard this thing coming

out of the radio

and otis writing was my

hero at that time i think it felt very

free

it was so hot sexy

alive and has obviously come out of

blues and pain and suffering

the rigors of that school would have

given them something to kick against

there was a revolutionary impulse within

them i think 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 and big and grand and

sprawling that kind of pushed those

those riggers out of their life

the demo session was mike and i are

saying tony will you come and help us

with the keyboards and he said yup

i'll do it if my mate peter gabriel 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

[Music]

we've 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 pop

show and of course i went back to chat

house in glory

in my little austin healey sprite and

one of the kids at chat house

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

for

[Music]

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 with them for a chance

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 were they're very strong

characters you know and we were

kind of slightly as a bit of a pressure

cooker situation

the guys never saw the 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

apartment have pints and

you know relax

and was also probably the best musician

at the time he's anyone 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 session of that it was

two guitars

i entered myself playing guitars tony

keyboards and pete

are better keyboards you know but more

the vocals really

sneaking away from school to come to

these uh hippie events to

to then be offered to perform in an

atomic sunrise festival

sounded you know like a thing we

couldn't say no to

the roundhouse was somewhere where you

know concerts were not just consonants

they

they were happenings you know and it

would be somewhere you'd go to commune

with 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 get me very

frightened

looking for someone

[Music]

i guess i'm doing

that

trying to find a memory in a dark room

dirty man you're looking like a buddha i

heard

[Music]

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 children of the summers

and

gathered in the dampened grass

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 theater costume departments

then of course came the uh the first

official if you like genesis album

uh 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 a

famously the track the knife

[Music]

and i looked at the guitar 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 keblanc really

i tried fighting through it but i didn't

make it

well anthony phillips was a was a

fantastic uh musician was was

very much part of the original

collective and when he

left it could it very easily have been

the end of genesis we wouldn't be having

this discussion

um 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 history

people don't quite realize um

how important a character was i would

say he was

um very much the driving force i thought

it was the right thing to do

if i hadn't left they may never got phil

collins so

all i wanted to do was to be able to

play the drums and to 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 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 speak at the

barbra street stage school

the first thing he did was bring this

incredibly direct

and uh brilliant musical drumming he can

play anything he can play

your soul music your prog music your

jazz music your fusion

he can play he can play it and he

brought that incredible confidence i

think to their

to their sound you know i was a stage

school kid i was

from a very different background

i've been playing music all my life

whereas music

to them was um was a restricted subject

you know i mean you know you weren't

supposed to play guitar at charter house

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's just unbelievable the difference i

never

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 was that he was a

really good trauma you know had a

fantastic sense of rhythm and stuff

which we're all 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 play

and he had a lightness as a personality

too he would

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 would i remember storming out of when

we were rehearsing one place

early first time with phil you know just

must have been very difficult for him i

think it was amazing state

all this friction or sort of

tension that was under you know kind of

under wraps

occasionally would boil over and uh and

someone would get up and walk out and i

did i missed something or what happened

because phil felt like a professional

who played with other musicians

and we're just getting on with the work

whereas we had all these intense

sort of dysfunctional family arguments

going on

they discuss these things under the kind

of a sort of stifling cloak of british

reserve which is very typical of the

public school boy and i imagine that the

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 was

made a big change from what i'd kind of

been playing and that was the first time

that it it felt like there was some

chance of this

combo gelling and delivering something

with a bit of punch

things that seemed really hard work you

know

pushing this big thing up a hill

suddenly it was downhill

and we could smile

[Music]

when steve hackett joined it was another

another kind of big moment in the

genesis story

absolutely stunning musician he could

make a guitar sound like any instrument

it was really

a little bit like being thrown in at the

at the deep end i mean i'd really been

um

a legend in my own bedroom at

that point i i could yes i could play

screaming so i was very very quietly on

this little radio that

i served as an amp and then suddenly uh

to work with a band

we all met him at tony's flat

and uh 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 a flash

guitarist at all you know he was

interested

in sort of combinations and all the rest

of it

[Music]

literally and then there were five and

that that really was

the classic band and steve just had he

was just perfect

[Music]

nursery crimes when they began to get a

few uh sniffs at what they were doing it

went into the you know scrapes into the

top 40 and uh

you can hear the sound coalescing coming

together there at the time of course it

was it was called progressive rock

um involved uh no limits basically

no no barriers so they were testing the

barriers learning how far they could

push this and realizing that they could

actually

push it a lot further than four by four

beach music

prog rocks who if you were trying to

explain it to an alien who just landed

on earth

um i'd say songs that last 20 minutes

plus they 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 as music but

to me

it's in england beyond psychedelia

[Music]

the guys were terrible at tuning the 12

strings and they would take

sometimes five minutes between songs

everyone looks at a singer

entertain us you know so that's

what i realized i had to start doing

[Music]

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

his infamous time in in dublin in the

boxing ring

he hadn't told us about it which is just

as well because we've never let him do

it

[Music]

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 that i was

trying to do

and so i would bring the stuff 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 was in my head

[Music]

peter's impulse to dress up in these

elaborate clothes and his his wife's

dress

with fox's head i mean for him it was

shyness as i as i understand he was

he was a beautiful young man but he was

not sexually confident in the

um stagey way like jagger was and he

wasn't even

as sort of committed to the personas as

bowie was at that point so you know the

likes of bowie were doing it the likes

of mark bolen you know the wearing of

makeup

all that kind of stuff which didn't go

down well across the atlantic in

americans what are these brits doing in

frocks you know we don't

we don't want any of that we want rock

and roll rock and roll

[Music]

it was dark it was a sort of dark energy

and 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

[Music]

quickly

brought the house down it put a naught

on the end of our

earnings the the costumes at that point

were not intrusive i mean it kind of

just to be seemed to be part of what

genesis were and i was all for it

[Music]

i am the voice of britain before the

daily express

my name is brittanya

foxtrot i think is where most genesis

fans agree that that's where they really

um broke the roof and and when 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 saw oh my god there's all that and

you get to that level and you think oh

my god there's all that

so we didn't realize until we came to

new york probably that just how vast

america was

and how much there was to do

[Music]

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

it was blues so you had your you know

your bob seeger and your leonard skinner

and then you had your

your art rock your iggy and stooges and

velvet underground

and in a way it was a different language

this is quite a challenge you know and

we were

we were not down-hearted by this

you know you may be big over-ear 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 you thought

this is the holiday inn yeah this is

holiday inn

it's their famous rock and roll hotels

you know

people get banned from these so it was

all experience

and i can't remember ever feeling jaded

by or like

depressed by it it was like we were

touring america that's what you wanted

to do

[Music]

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 that

thousands are coming in daily and

they're universally loved and

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

it was very powerful very palpable i

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 suppers ready which is the 23 and a

half minute anthem

which was then side two which uh i think

stands as a definitive genesis

work of art i can say no less yeah there

is this sort of spiritual yearning going

on through everything

i do and with suppers ready there was a

powerful mood in the audience sometimes

that

you just could harness and

we could convert very cynical

people walking across

the city

the opening part was a wonderful

attorney bank's

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

[Music]

a guitarist would never play that you

know because you were a guitarist i

played excited

never wear a guitar let's get this

straight uh you played sort of you know

so that sort of first two or three

minutes of it was just a chord sequence

all right but i knew it was going to

have a melody on it i wasn't worried

about that at this time i think when we

first started writing

we uh we were kind of

[Music]

tony was never short of a solo or

whatever and i'd always come in

and start wanting to put vocal things um

so we're sort of really

decorating around what he did and

you know i think we had a good

[Music]

partnership

[Music]

when i sing the new jerusalem

i was absolutely singing from my gut and

i think people could feel that

whether it was a spiritual

gold destination it's a

powerful word and then you have

blake's jerusalem and about history as

well so

there was all of that washed into it

[Music]

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

[Music]

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 the structures are still progy

they're still um slightly overblown and

long and mad in a sense

but the production is sharper that you

they needed to make themselves

um slightly more palatable to the to the

layman

rather than the prog fan and it it

worked

[Music]

peter had this idea and he was quite

dogmatic that he wanted to do this idea

and i thought well

you know okay but he meant even 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 landlord's 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 enthralled to bands who

could

create a weirdness an almost monty

python-like

side to 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 by 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 he probably couldn't have done you

know i think that

the prime venom was between tony and i

it's a funny spirit for me that the lamb

was my least favorite period during the

whole of the time with the group

basically because

mainly the problems with peter i think

you know he was you know because we'd

obviously been very close up to that but

when the

sort of things were going a bit wrong

and all the rest of it and he

just didn't like me getting away with

too much you know

or getting into a controlling position

so there's i think

wanting to keep check on on my power

as well i wasn't really that excited by

the story i have to be honest about

never have been

and that kind of was what the whole

thing was hanging on

i got sunshine in my

stomach

like i just rocked my baby

to sleep peter was you know he was

flashing back and forth

uh you know he had his 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

[Music]

meanwhile the album has been delayed

delayed and delayed and the end result

being of course that

the day the album came out was the first

show we did on the tour

the landline's down on broadway i think

was it 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 the 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

[Music]

album

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 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 rail

it's a journey through which he learns

to destroy oneself to open up a space

for another

the lamb was probably slightly ahead of

its time

they did it and from what i

know the the slides that they used on

the back projector failed regularly they

never quite got

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 maybe a

few nights it actually worked properly

but most nights it didn't

[Music]

what i remember about the land was

smoking a little joint before i went on

and putting headphones on and and

playing

in my own little world blowing dust and

i i just uh had a great time every night

you know it kind of

it was great to play

[Music]

that the lamb album was the best

we'd ever been on a record

[Music]

it was such a multimedia adventureland

the screens beats costumes

the music it was just an assault on the

senses i think

[Music]

the problem with the lamellars down on

broader 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 slipper man outfit

which had this sort of um

big head i couldn't hold the mic

properly

in the head and they didn't have these

little radio mics then so

you couldn't hear a word i was singing

when i was in there

your skins are covered in slimy lumps

but in a way we know whenever

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

[Music]

cause his genesis was obviously coming

increasingly difficult the whole way the

band was perceived was

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 he was creating some jealousy

yeah of course yes you know we were only

not early 20s and it was a difficult

difficult time there 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 gay

pete great show great show when you put

that mask on

they they loved it the kids loved 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 hotel in cleveland and um

peter came to my room and said look i

can't do this anymore i'm in the end of

this

i'm leaving at the end of the turn

there's only one direction

in the faces that i see

it's upward too we had a very long

conversation actually about it but i

knew that he was not

he was not going to come back it was

simple that really but we talked anyhow

really

this is the band man you know what are

you doing this is

it's feel

a little bit cheated and let down by the

fact that someone's gonna leave

for him one of the reasons apart from

family reasons

and everything else is something i'm

sure he felt he'd sort of

got to a point that he sort of moved on

me and then we kept it very quiet

right to the end of the turn we didn't

really make any announcements until

the end of the term i felt desperate

to tell the audience that i was going

and

um it felt like i was betraying

the people who were coming paying to see

us that that i couldn't

be myself and be real and be honest and

tell them what i was feeling we all got

quite emotional the last show it was

like talking about someone dying i

suppose but i mean no one had prepared

themselves for this

[Music]

i remember thinking oh my god what are

we gonna do

the british press certainly sort of

started to write genesis's obituary when

when peter left we knew 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

yeah that's the way i felt it was sorry

just suggestion we

auditioned quite a few singers

and uh 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 don't

send me out there with a microphone

i didn't want to do that you know it's a

question really whether he wants 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 everyone

looked so strange to him they got

no horns and they got no tail

they don't even know of our existence

am i wrong to believe in the city of

gold

that lies in the deep distance they

cried and wept as they laid

in the way to again i think the big

question mark was whether he could

cut it on the the sort of 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 me with pete

i was one of the guys in the band coming

forward and i'd been there all along

[Music]

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 the

group either breaks up or dies a very

slow death

but because of the versatility of each

individual in genesis they're doing very

well

matter of fact they seem to be doing

better than ever before i believe it was

your quote

i'm gonna not give it verbatim that it

was like a very big

load of everybody when he finally did

leave is that true

yeah i mean uh now it's patty now it's

paying off in a in a way i mean 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 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

and phil for the last way too many years

[Applause]

[Music]

[Applause]

a lot of people compliment me on trick

of a tale when i wasn't actually there

so perfect ignore one of the finest

moments

the band were much more successful

without me than they were with me

[Music]

after pete left two years later i was

basically doing the same thing myself i

i feel uncomfortable

talking about 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

it's fantastic the guitarist um

hear one of those songs 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 solar material

god forgive me guys but i just thought

it's

the only way to go to get ideas across

is

is to just negotiate with myself in the

end but there you are that's the way

bands are they 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 good working unit to bring a

new new person in

i mean it could have worked you know but

it wasn't

quite so it wasn't imperative

by this point music business has changed

a great deal

which we haven't sort of really been

aware of i still most of it escaped us

because we were out in

america most of this time but some punk

music had come in and a lot of the old

bands seemed to disappear if genesis

were all of a sudden gonna start

sounding like the jam or or johnny

rotten i

just don't think it would have worked

i mean the sound of the sex pieces i

thought

i thought they had a fantastic sound it

just sounded so

legitimate

[Applause]

so i kind of liked it and then i then i

realized that that we were the enemy

you know we were the people they were

trying to get rid of

[Applause]

we sort of seem to go through it

regardless in fact we were lucky in the

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 uh by chance genesis

redefined their sound

went for more compressed uh shorter

numbers

less flourid sound and and sort of

almost by chance started to have hit

singles

[Music]

we were lucky with them then there were

three which proved to be you know our

most accessible album

at the time follow you follow me being

actually being a single hit

first tip we've already had you know

follow you follow me must have just been

an interesting exercise for the band

you know they they probably set out and

thought how do we write a hit and

suddenly

a band that was probably a predominantly

male chin stroking audience was being

played at the

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 follow me

which doubled our audience overnight

suddenly we were more female

will friendly you will you

follow me all the days and nights that

we

know will be i will stay

with you will you stay

[Music]

i had never met chester you know i had

seen him play with the 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 like

just playing on this one track

and so i called him and i said do you

want to join the band he said well yeah

and i was saying man i'm going over to

the rehearsals with this band genesis

and he gets this worried look on his

face says man are you gonna have to wear

costumes

and i thought oh what am i getting into

[Applause]

here

what we we were missing in the visual

department

with peter not being there in his

costumes we suddenly had another

facet which was two drummers together

one drummer another you know there was

he was mixing it up a bit

i think we both i think we traded off

quite a lot actually

i 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

when i saw that chester was going to

join i thought

that's going to be a pretty nice band to

be in

[Music]

daryl's been playing a thing you know

he's an incredibly versatile musician

and brilliant musician you can do the b

flat diminished and that will go back

into the g as a sort of video

we have to get the end of fifth fifth i

mean we're going to leave that until

another point

so he has to sort of fit into a certain

style for the for the piece you know now

when we wrote first of fifths you know

and steve obviously played the guitar so

on that he's 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 firther fifth the main

guitar solo and then you improvise a

little bit around it

[Music]

turned into a very strong moment a

stronger moment than we probably ever

thought it was going to be when we first

did it

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 uh rock it's

not jazz you know it's

[Music]

genesis

[Music]

the road crew who had travelled through

the night start to unload five tons of

equipment from three giant trucks

sound and lighting rigs are taken into

the theater in preparation for the

evening concert

i come here so early as to meet the band

get the audience

get the autographs you can tell you can

tell who the

real fans are

okay yeah i think genesis they cover a

wide range of musical taste the early

material as well

which will appeal to far more people

than say

just heavy metal bands and genesis

appeals to basically everyone

what about your mates i get a lot of

slugging 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 unoffensive it's it's just

good music i don't know why there's a

stigma about genesis but i

am i'm happy to say that i'm out i'm out

i'm proud um i'm not afraid to if

someone's

i mean i haven't had to sit my family

down over a sunday lunch and say

i'm something to tell you all i'm a

genesis fan but um

i don't mind being i don't i don't mind

the brick bats that come with it it's a

bit of 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

all i need is a tv show

[Music]

i can show you some of the people in my

life i can show you

i can show you some of the people in my

life

it's driving me mad just another

[Music]

the post-gabriel album certainly the

first three or four are perhaps better

than they're given credit for

and then uh by the time of duke they

were getting starting to get the

the next level of sound which is more

stadium friendly

when we did duke which was probably my

favorite album anyways

my personal favorite track on the album

is also one i suppose is short although

it's quite long

is duchess which sort of starts kind of

for me 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 favorite

tracks we ever did

[Music]

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 crying a bit

i don't sleep too good

i'm fine please was probably the most

most personal song i'd ever written

and this was me really um

bearing my soul if you like

when can i touch you

again and very very personal and i

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 records aren't really

they're not going to be touched by this

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 i played this stuff to mike and tony i

said this is what i've been doing you

know

pick 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 said we wanted to

do all of them we had said okay

that was kind of how it was really you

know everything went into the pot

best in choosing one other song

misunderstanding we knew we were going

to do we'd heard that a lot

liked it very much

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

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

lineup 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 gable

was was really interesting

there's you know hit suddenly a hit

single salisbury hill you know the last

thing you would have imagined

[Music]

salisbury hill is a song of absolute

liberation um

it's it's uplifting it's almost like

word painting the way it climbs up this

the idea of the expanse that he's

looking over and the

the potential of what the future could

be um i think it's a it's a masterpiece

of

elation i just had to trust imagination

my heart goes

[Music]

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 synthesizers and

sophisticated electronic technology

around the time of the third album and

so i said well i'm doing nothing

you know because i've been through my

great sorrow so

i i volunteered my services as as a

drummer

and peter said i don't want any symbols

i don't want any symbols on so

and for a drummer that was you know that

was a

big deal you know hang on what's this

hand supposed to do

so we set up the drums so there was a

drum instead of a symbol

in that particular position in case i

had the urge

it was like um

peter gabriel's album was a was a dream

come true for

for a recording engineer because we we

were doing

[Music]

you know so much sort of experimentation

with

sound just the wind in the pipe is quite

nice

yeah it was just great fun you know

so this is intruder and it starts off

with the with the drum pattern i asked

filtered a really simple

pattern there and it just sounded like

the future of drums

[Music]

i was so blown away that i wanted to

strip everything

back off the track and have this be the

absolute center of it

[Music]

because hupajim was the engineer the man

with the hands-on

that's the reason why i befriended him

and and thought he'd be the man to make

my first album

and i think all creative people uh in

the end just like

dogs in the park you know you sniff

something interesting and you try and

jump on it

and and you know we we've always been

like that i think

you know we can always tell where we've

been sniffing yeah

at a very early stage i established the

principle that

the two the solo careers and the genesis

career

were always maintained as very separate

things we never

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

i always kept the two the two things

very separate

i think phil went off to do his 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 public he's

because

he was a huge success at it

[Music]

can

[Music]

i think it's a very good thing we didn't

do it if genesis had done 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

[Music]

i'm glad you know i'm glad we didn't use

it because obviously

i was left to my own devices on 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

doesn't matter what everybody 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 breakup of his

marriage and these love songs

initially on his solo career but there

was obviously a crossover between the

songs he was writing for both parties

it did introduce an element of uh

confessional

[Music]

i think what collins did in terms of

channeling those emotions in terms of

his

what had happened in his personal life

into his music was something that 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 he's the master of the rom-com

romance isn't he it's these are

extremely emotional songs all through

the 80s growing up i thought of him as

the

the guy playing the piano with the pot

of paint on it you know the sort of the

heartbreaking um plaintiff ballads

[Music]

cause

[Music]

we are unique in the fact that i think

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 do 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

i'm sure it helped us keep going

actually the variety of work and

and music was i think games of freshness

as a main band

[Music]

i know people who who picked up on us

and say abba cab or something and think

that's the best album you know

we always like 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

[Music]

i didn't i didn't do it i did

i didn't i didn't do it i was honest i

didn't

[Music]

another record that that was really big

at the time

was ground master flash and it was

called the message and it had this

sort of sort of laugh

in it don't push me cause i'm close

to the edge of trying

not to lose

and we all thought that's fantastic you

know that's laughs

fantastic i did have a record a laugh

you know i mean not since the laughing

policeman

was there such a laugh on the record

[Music]

and i just started going

and everyone kind of you know they were

playing and sort of looked and laughed

and smiled but i knew that it

it wasn't getting a grimace it was

getting a smile you know so i thought

okay well i remember that

[Applause]

[Music]

and the lyrics of of mama were

improvised i was kind of

that's my kind of linen

linen sort of influence you know kind of

with the echo be buffalo it was just

kind of compression it sounded a little

like

i can see you mama

you have to sneer a bit when you're

[Music]

singing

in all the years nobody ever asked why

the laugh because i thought that people

would be surprised you know

genesis grand master flash

surely not

just as i thought it was going all right

i found out i'm wrong when i thought it

was right

it's always the same it's just a shame

that's all

i could say and you'd say night tell me

it's black

when i know that it's white always the

same it's just a shame

and that's all the albums that became

huge in america and britain

um they they're concise they're

effective

for me they're a little clinical but

effective the soul and

and art rock if you will of the previous

albums has been

sidelined they're more like a well-oiled

machine by that point

it's always the same it's just a shame

[Music]

sticker to think for long enough you

know no i loved it

it was great having hits you know i

brought up in the era of hits i in

60s you know i would 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 where i am you know i

loved hits and to suddenly have records

in the charts having a record

i mean still a thrill for me out here a

record on the radio right now for the

very first time on top of the pops

it's genesis

[Music]

less obvious it's like turning around

again and mama which are kind of neither

of which are very

totally straightforward pop songs were

able to be hits because we kind of

were accepted now we played on radio one

where in the old days we could only be

played on sort of

deepest darkest sort of something

all i need is a tv

[Music]

hi i'm phil collins i'm mike rutherford

and i'm tony banks i'm 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

it was on every bar i've been wrestling

all around the world

[Music]

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 it was 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

[Music]

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 fights

[Music]

[Music]

you never quite say

and now i know

she's got something you just can't trust

i'm seems

[Music]

the impact of mtv was was enormously uh

influential for genesis and for peter

gabriel they were always a very

theatrical band

but of course took very limited

audiences of a few thousand here and

twenty thousand there or whatever to

suddenly be able to to

channel those theatrical impulses into

video

on mtv uh changed their fortunes forever

mtv brings you genesis tonight 10 p.m

eastern

9 00 p.m central 7 p.m pacific i think

the solo careers of

of uh of my brother from tony banks are

always going to be overshadowed 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 subtle album

before trick of the tale 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

can't be too bad

so i did a load of those albums you know

develop a half dozen albums five

dancing solo albums but then the idea

came perhaps just before i concede

i should have a go doing stuff with an

orchestra and

i wrote a couple of pieces that i

thought would work really well as an

[Music]

orchestra

and you know i actually got some quite

good reviews from the classical people

even you know i mean

most of us don't want to know about rock

guys doing classical music

somehow beyond the pale but it was um

got some good reviews actually sold

quite well far better than anything i'd

done before

[Music]

in order to be a solo artist i have to

be a singer

without that it's a bit tough as i found

out

all i need is a miracle you write a good

song you want a great voice

and that great voice isn't me

[Music]

the fastest rising hit in britain and

the states

written by scotland's b.a robertson and

mike rutherford of genesis

it's called the living years from mike

and the mechanics

[Music]

i find the act of collaboration exciting

part

you're sort of you're feeding off what

the other person is doing

[Music]

with a decent voice i would have always

think 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 be

great fun

these you know whereas in fact you end

up being everywhere and in people's

faces the whole time

[Music]

[Applause]

congratulations on the five emmy awards

yes the grandma's yeah

how about the fellas in genesis are they

furious

they're spitting blood i heard the rumor

in the rumor in the music press is there

spinning blood

i mean it was great for him you know

he's our friend we want him to do well

but you know he didn't want to do that

well not initially

but uh you know it was the thing and it

kind of never went

away

[Music]

he was ubiquitous for about 15 years you

couldn't get away from him

[Music]

nightmares

[Music]

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 goebbel has done politically is

enormously important

um and i think he was always ahead of

the curve you know he always kind of

knew what was going on i mean songs 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

[Music]

may have done more damage to south

africa's image abroad

than he could have achieved alive with a

thousand speeches

why were you drawn at the time to write

a song about become

i think there was tremendous shock

because uh i think no one

there'd been a certain amount of

publicity about his arrest and no one

was expecting

him to be killed

[Music]

[Music]

i think had he been allowed to live he

could have been a great

african statesman perhaps so

crystallized the hopes

of a lot of young people in the way that

kennedy did in america

and i think uh it's tragic the way you

know he was

his life was cut short

we dreamt of having our own studio for

years you know because going to these

holes in the ground and sort of first of

all in london and

stuff we just just thought it'd be so

nice then you could actually sort of

write and record in the same place we

know time pressures

visible touch was the first album we did

here and one we got here so that was

fantastic and the keyboard was to be

able to sort of feel because you know

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's going

to sound whereas

because we end the place we could sort

of write and almost record at the same

time

and mess around it just made the whole

thing a lot freer and i think better for

[Music]

us

[Music]

to touch

[Music]

i think all the other albums at that

time were to a certain extent treading

water

they 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

[Music]

i've lost my wife i've 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

yes i used to travel to england a lot

and do videos for

genesis and phil and other bands there

and i always watch spitting image

on television because it was a great

show and one

time at one time they had um 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

president of the united states

mr president we have an idea you

wasn't a fun decade at all you had such

division in the country you had rights

with the police

thatcher was such an abrasive and

divisive person

do you have any piranhas as indeed was

reagan

[Music]

out in the open statement i normally

make little comments about things

in a subtle sort of an assigned 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 also difficult

it's a kind of 80s protest song

[Music]

sad thing is you know the puppets are in

better shape than

people with caricature in these days you

know i hope phil's doing well compared

to his puppet

i bought one of my heads someone someone

in texas has bought my head

yeah somebody worries me if you wouldn't

say what's he doing with it

i mean we're just popular and there's

nothing wrong with it i mean

we just got more popular

i won't take the credit and i won't take

the blame

[Music]

with mtv and videos i hit single

overshadowed the whole album and people

started sort of saying well you know

you stopped doing long songs you never

did really you know every album had a

sort of 50 minutes long on it

till the very end but they're album

tracks and so they went on the

television

they went on the radio but live they're

a big part of the set

i always knew the long songs would

always grab them

hey they were good songs be visually

they were very impressive

with the very lights on the stage

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

[Music]

us

[Music]

when we played live the shows the songs

that have really stood out

on things like domino and home by the

sea which are probably the the classic

songs from the later period

[Music]

well neither of those were singles or

even any attempt of being a single and

yet they worked so well live you could

really build her climax with both those

[Music]

songs

[Music]

it was extraordinary and you knew he

couldn't last actually

it was on a divine visitation that the

lord told me that i was to go on the

television

the earnest ainsley and he talked like

that uh

and he was very affected and he he would

wear this beautiful leisure suit in a

very

bad wig and and he would uh

out of the screen you devil you know it

was like awful stuff i mean it was

very you know bible belt eccentric

you see the face on the tv screen coming

at you every sunday

[Music]

magazine there's no question why i'm

smiling

your body's the paradise you buy a piece

of me

i just had a problem with with the whole

you know

tv evangelists i mean when i was growing

up there was billy graham yeah and that

was it

we were improvising and trying different

things and

eventually when i was saying i'd sing

jesus he knows me and i don't know if

tate and tony and

mike were really kind of hearing it i

don't think they were too sure about

the lyric until i 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

we had the girls in the middle didn't we

yeah we insisted we had made so many

videos

and we just wanted to make it one time

to do a video like with david lewis

so we had this bit in the middle of that

which was excuse for it really

good care of you

which is

[Music]

can't remember quite when we started

writing we can't dance but it was

it was done in a pretty you know once we

started we

we kept going until we finished it it

didn't take a ridiculous amount of time

to uh to write we can't dance

well i'd wrote a lot of lyrics on we

can't dance

um i think i was i was allowed to do

that

um you know i mean

i still i it's i still played

third in line you know

somewhere in that field rather than come

back to the vocal i'm not aware but

you want me to sing george i don't think

you could do that what am i saying i'll

sing if you'd only sing i won't see

it's still the new boy even now it's

kind of amazing

when we put out we can't dance we still

were very confident at that point

the line something about the way we walk

that

i thought was the sort of funniest line

in it so the

feeling i had was we should do the

choruses with a city walk no

the silly walk was his you know he'd

have this walk around which apparently

used to stay school or something

yeah i was at a drama school and drama

school

wasn't that good you could always tell

the people that really shouldn't be

doing dancing you know because they're

the same for

the same hand and it just

always struck me as funny that

[Applause]

[Music]

i can't sing i'm just standing

and selling everything

[Music]

[Applause]

and obviously that did well my album did

very well it was sort of towards the end

of that period when we released our

final single from that album

song called uh tell me why that i sort

of felt suddenly it was

something had changed and they didn't

get played on radio and stuff and

and really from then on you know

suddenly genesis was sort of

like that these things sort of sometimes

suddenly happen you don't quite know why

[Music]

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

certainly was a surprise to me i think

it is the fact that regardless of your

age race

genre color everybody loves a little bit

of genesis

[Applause]

have you been waiting long we've been

waiting for you

15 years 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 realize that the

that what they had was worth more than

the the parts

you know a couple of some old songs in

their entirety well just try a few it's

what happens

people will investigate that back

catalogue and really realize 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

[Music]

i think the secret to genesis longevity

is that they are the progressive rock

band who progressed

and progressive rock bands according to

their fans opposed to

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

um

and i love the fact that they also

expand

and explore with other musicians

have straddled so many periods they have

been hugely successful within within

prog rock in the in the 70s

as a pop and rock band in the 80s

gabriel's had a solo career that spanned

you know

decades um 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

[Music]

i see that emotions are something

[Music]

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 what what

am i i mean that's fantastic

for for someone that writes i mean

i mean that kind of almost negates all

the negative stuff

i can see the future you can't keep

doing exactly the same thing forever and

ever

i don't think and i think the reason we

last so long is that sort of those

changes

give the chance to actually um be a bit

different each time

we just carried on doing what we had

always done we just used to write

we probably got better at doing the

shorter stuff there's nothing about that

we always like 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 just do what you want at the time

with a particular combination of people

you've got

[Music]

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 deter 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

the music are we being serious for a bit

preferably for a bit

[Music]

okay

[Music]

we've gotta get in and

[Music]

she must kill the prime minister

or lose her family

brand new edge of your seat israeli

drama

hostages coming soon on bbc four

i'm daniel hearn ba whistleblowing hero

data warrior nobel prize winner

well uh next year probably and uh i'm

hiding in this embassy on the run from

governments and

that's my mug he's my mike

yeah anyway thank you all for coming

asylum part of taking liberty season

starts monday at nine on bbc four

[Music]

don't miss a genesis special from top of

the pops 2

at 5 to midnight but first speaking of

special

remastered from the original 16

millimeter footage

we joined genesis on their abba cab tour

of north america

with three sides live

[Music]