“Back in the day,” as the saying goes, live albums were de rigueur for the big time, touring arena rock band; records which were meant to be listened to intently and in the dark, replicating that inimitable magic of the live concert experience.
Yet, over time, the importance of ‘the live album’ seems to have been lost, with very little energy or electricity left for those few live albums which get released these days by major rock acts.
As guitarist for famed progressive rockers Genesis, Steve Hackett is no stranger to live albums, yet it’s his latest, Live Rails, which bravely attempts to bring back the format’s lost, classic charm.
“Every live album is just instinctive,” admits Hackett, phoning one afternoon from his English home, “and this one feels like the best live album I’ve ever done, right across the board with every band I’ve been in. This one says the story; there’s no ulterior motive behind it. It’s from a lot of different sources, but I figured you could get the authenticity of one gig all the way through, but that doesn’t necessarily capture the band at its best. This is a personal best.”
While these are indeed bold words from a man who has contributed to such important live prog blueprints as Seconds Out and Genesis Live, the man’s latest live effort is indeed a fantastic listen, drawing a set list which spans the six-stringers productive solo career, while also inserting copious Genesis classics for rabid fan consumption.
“It’s from around an eighteen month period of touring,” continues Hackett upon the creation of Live Rails, “but essentially it’s drawn from stuff in Paris, London and New York, so it’s Pan-American, in a sense.”
To boot, Hackett’s band consists of top notch players from every angle, including bassist Nick Beggs, who enjoyed prior 80s fame as a member of “Too Shy” composers Kajagoogoo. As a unit, Hackett and Co. flow through these classic compositions with almost embarrassing ease.
Steve remains fairly humble about any such praise, delivering, “They’re a very good band. I was working with some of them around ten years ago, and my upcoming full length has the band on it, while also containing some stuff with Chris Squire and Simon Phillips, plus some orchestral players, as well. I still keep nudging at the taboo of combining band and orchestra, because I think that, when it really works, it’s just a whole other dimension.”
Given that Hackett’s noted influences include classical music together with the blues, this almost seems like a match made in heaven for the influential guitarist.
“I think you’ve got it in one, there!” Hackett enthuses in agreement. “The animal passion of blues and the total lack of spontaneity which is the orchestra: they are separate worlds and separate times, but if you can a collision of the two, I think it’s just wonderful. I want the power of blues with the brain of classical music, and I’ve always tried to mix these things up…not necessarily on the same song! Still, I like to think that they’d be able to co-exist, and I think the Brits were able to do it quite well back in the 60s.”
With Hackett’s axe-manship being of the self-taught variety, Steve is able combine both worlds without the hampering of music school snobbery; this purist attitude about the blues ‘sullying’ the otherwise ‘pure’ nature of classical music.
Steve agrees with this sentiment, saying,
“It’s not purist, and you’re right: I wasn’t schooled with any of this, which means I can go and do Bach, go and do blues, and no one can tell me that I can’t! It’s all fair game, as far as I’m concerned, if it’s played with passion.”
Does Steve Hackett think that the art of emotion can tend to be lost within most ‘progressive’ music, then?
“Oh yeah,” is the answer. “People can walk away with the trappings of it, but back when I was doing Genesis in the 70s, I don’t think any of us knew what we were doing would eventually be called ‘progressive rock.’ I think if we had, there might have been some things which would have been left out of the mixture. As far as I was concerned, I was operating in a music scene which, at the time, was just as interested in Stravinsky as it was Jethro Tull or Focus or Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones. It’s from everywhere, all at once. All those influences, from Musique Concrete to Stockhausen were in there, right alongside the big bands and the blues bands. It was one big melting pot, with black and white coming together in a big way. There was no past and no future; just a present which recognized all these separate schools of thought.”
He continues, “When I first joined Genesis, I had no idea what ‘syncopation’ was, and I had no idea how jazz or big band would be relevant to what we might do. Accents, syncopation, being able to push on the beginning of a bar…all of these things became stock and trade of Genesis; the influences which Phil [Collins] brought into it, and thank god he did! I finally, over time, realized what it was which made something ‘swing,’ and what gives it that acceptable lilt of power. The riff has to make me move. I don’t tend to work much with time signatures these days. I find myself working in four a lot more often, but it’s all valid. The only thing you have to worry about is too much punctuation and not enough statement. That’s the reason why so many people AREN’T turned on by what is called ‘progressive;’ the idea that you can’t participate with it, that it’s some deadly equation for which you have to find a clue. It can be great…when it works. It can also be indigestible, if you aren’t careful. It’s a case of finding the right lick to go along with that allegedly ‘odd’ time signature. No one’s got the monopoly on time signatures.”
Yet, when one has bands like Porcupine Tree and Muse re-defining the idea of what ‘prog’ is and can be, this also tends to make the genre even more difficult to pin down, a situation which Steven approaches with a broad mind.
“I think that if [a band] is successful commercially, they tend to not be labeled ‘progressive’ anymore. On one level, ‘progressive’ is considered elitist and impenetrable, but when it works, it can work with an uncanny magic which gives the music a sense of mystery and surprise. That ambush element of ‘surprise’ is the thing I look for, and once you start joining songs with bridge passages, it begins to sound ‘progressive’ anyway. I won’t think to analyze what is or isn’t ‘progressive,’ because that’s like trying to define art and music itself. I’m not clever enough to do that; I just do what’s instinctively authentic and feels right to me. It all comes back to sounding passionate, which I can find in many different forms. Ultimately, it’s the spirit which runs through, not what they’re dressed up in on the outside.”
Finally, because the temptation is simply too difficult to resist: with Phil Collins announcing his formal retirement from music recently, the idea of a full-fledged Genesis reunion with Hackett and former vocalist Peter Gabriel seems to be drifting further and further away…
“I think it is drifting away,” says Steve. “They asked me to rejoin for the reunion tour they recently did [with Collins Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford], and when I said ‘yes,’ they said they didn’t need me!”
Hackett laughs good naturedly, and continues, “I don’t know whether they got some perverse pleasure out of that, but I have to say that the idea of working with Pete again, and the band was exciting. I didn’t for a moment think it was going to be easy, however. At the end of the day, the power was in the strength of the ideas we all came up with. Arguably, as soon as a band starts replacing its lead singer and going through personnel changes, you almost become your own tribute band. Genesis was a great band with great ideas, some of which flew…and some of which didn’t. There was so much potential with guys who were determined to make their mark, and did! We’re all still involved in music, I believe, and I hope Phil gets better and continues with music in some way, shape or form. I can’t believe the amount of energy and enthusiasm he had for music would be confined to the dust bin, so I wish him well, and hope he recovers health enough to do that fabulous thing that he did for us all.”
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