Probably from NME - just after 'I Know What I Like' was released = Do you want to hear some stories? Written by Steve Clarke

Like the one about Rita Pavone's brother recording a Genesis song? And the time old Jonathan "I'm just-making-the-one-record-to-finance-my-studies" King got involved with Genesis and even suggested their name? And Peter Gabriel's fetish for treetrunks and carrots? You do? Now just hold on a minute while I set the scene.

Genesis are writing, rehearsing and recording their next album at Headley Grange in Hampshire, a tumble-down old mansion with a swimming pool that looks as though it hasn't been used since man took to the air.

Led Zep rent out the place from a certain Mrs. Smith, and then sublet it to various rock 'n' roll bands for the purposes set out above. Genesis reckon on being there three months and they're just settling in after returning from an 11-week American tour.

A pretty successful tour, according to Gabriel, we make small-talk before getting down to the more serious and - according to him - boring task of tracing Genesis's career from their days as school-boys at Charterhouse to fame and fortune in the world of showbiz.

GABRIEL'S A MITE eccentric and, I think, a little shy as he makes us comfortable, spreading out on the kitchen table a wedge of Dutch cheese, a loaf of bread, peanut butter and other wholesome goodies. Apparently the last tenants of The Grange, The Pretty Things (whatever happened to), left the old house in a bit of a state and Genesis had to do a lot of sorting out.

Genesis's drummer, who's recently had his barnet cut, wanders in, his wife and daughter making the odd appearance now and again. He sits in on the interview for a while too, until he eventually decides to wander off and fix the television.

According to Gabriel, Genesis see themselves as songwriters-being-musicians being presenters. And it was as songwriters that Michael Rutherford (bass and 12-string) Tony Banks (keyboards), Anthony Phillips (Genesis's guitarist up until and including their first Charisma album 'Trespass'), and Gabriel originally got together at Charterhouse. (Just for the record, Gabriel would like to see public schools wiped off the face of the earth).

Gabriel himself was messing around between song-writing and playing drums, first in a trad jazz group and then in a soul band:

"Blues and soul was the first thing that excited me," he says. He still listens to black music now: "I enjoy a good soul record."

Over the years, he complains, his drum-kit was slowly taken away from him piece by piece, until all he has left now is a bass drum which Phil wants to stuff with concrete - but I don't think he's being too serious.

Gabriel isn't the easiest of fellows to weigh up, wobbling between bouts of intense seriousness and a kind of Pythonesque humour, interspaced with long pauses. He smiles benignly to himself every now and again. And he twitches a lot. But back to the songwriting.

"We got in the situation where the sort of music we were enjoying and writing was getting out of the verse/chorus/verse/chorus/chorus/chorus/end routine - which wasn't suitable for anyone of us, really. If it was going to get recorded we had to do it ourselves."

And so they formed a group and added a drummer. The writing was more or less divided into two partnerships, Gabriel and Banks writing on keyboards, and Rutherford and Phillips writing with guitars.

"Rita Pavone's brother was the only person who'd actually recorded any of the songs apart from us," chuckles Gabriel. "There are still some songs we've written that are unsuitable for the band and which we'd like other people to record."

I think that's something that separates us from the other bands with whom we tend to get lumped. Genesis is more song orientated than musician orientated. There's less desire to show off technique."

The four of them began taking their songs around various publishers, but no-one wanted to know. "It was the same with the band later on when we tried to get a recording contract." Eventually someone did want to know and that was Jonathan King, acting out his role as producer, who coincidentally was also an old Charterhouse boy, although the two factions hadn't made themselves known to each other at school. With a fair amount of sarcasm in his voice, Gabriel says of this period: "It was the opportunity we had all been waiting for." Slipping back into his normal tone, he continues: "We were given a fairly free hand in the studio. At times he (King) was very excited about it and put a lot of energy into it. And sometimes he got bored with it." Was it that far removed from what King himself was doing at the time? "It was a bit," Gabriel replies. "The songs used more than three chords ... whoops!" Whoops, indeed.

The resulting album was called 'From Genesis To Revelation' and released on Decca. Gabriel now describes it as an amateurish effort. recorded quickly - which means cheaply. None of this lolling around in country mansions for dose months then. Genesis's stay with Decca didn't last more than a year and Gabriel says the company didn't consider Genesis's departure a momentous loss. He also reveals that the group were about to split up around this time but, after temporarily forsaking the music business for other activities, the group resumed once more to the streets of London, searching for a record contract.

"Most The Hoople (They get in everywhere in this paper, don't they?) were good to us then. They were fresh from Hereford and very friendly and got Guy Stevens involved." (Stevens was Hoople's Island producer, you remember.) "Guy Stevens was never the most together of people and his interest took a while to be followed up with a deal. "The Moody Blues showed interest when their record company started up, and we got one of those 'Come back in two years' routines from Warners. Anyway, we went from company to company and, when either Charisma or someone else began to get interested, the rest of the people began to assume there was something worth looking at."

GENESIS, AS YOU KNOW, did join Charisma, who at that time were in a fairly virgin state with only a couple of other acts on them booked after The Nice had split up. Genesis's music, originally acoustically-based, was get ting more electric and their debut Charisma album 'Trespass' set Genesis more or less on the musical path they've been exploring ever since. "The things we were doing at that I time were considered too un-commercial," Gabriel recalls. "Quite a lot of record companies said that you could either do acoustic music or you could do electric music, but you couldn't do both, particularly in the same number. Two musicians, drummer John Mayhew and guitarist Anthony Phillips, left after 'Trespass'. Collins replaced Mayhew, but it took them a while longer to find their current guitarist Steve Hackett. Over to Collins:

"FROM WHAT I CAN GATHER there was a major upheaval in the band at that time. Tony was going to split cos he didn't think we could get it together - this was before I joined. He said he'd only stay with the band if they got a new drummer at the same time as they got a new guitarist. Apparently the drummer was holding the band up because of the speed he worked at."

Gabriel elucidates: The drummer (Maybew) wasn't a good learner. And it was also a major change when Anthony Phillips left - he was an important writer so we weren't sure if we could continue or not."

Continue, they did for a few months as a four-piece minus a guitarist, keyboard man Banks playing the guitar parts on a phased electric piano.

"It was quite interesting. Some gigs made it and some gigs were a bit..."

After six months of searching Hackett was found and Genesis came together in the shape it is now.

The line-up was together a year before recording 'Nursery Cryme', writing and rehearsing the album at Charisma boss Tony Stratton-Smith's house in the country.

Collins again: "The material wasn't that easy to come by. We had 'Musical Box' - which had been written previously - but most of the other stuff came from writing on the spot. Like this one. We haven't got anything written for this one yet."

It's just one of the many unusual faces of Genesis that all their material is band written, the composing credit on their albums being simply "Genesis". Explains Gabriel: "We wanted to avoid bitching and fighting for composer's royalties and glory on albums. A sensible way of doing it is to have mutual credit."

Genesis's lyrics mainly come from Gabriel and the Rutherford-Banks partnership. It's difficult to say precisely who originates the musical ideas since they get moulded in a different direction by each musician in the band.

ALTHOUGH the group's following was mainly restricted to clubs, their signing with Charisma gave them a chance to work in a concert context on the Charisma Sop tour with Van Der Graaf Generator and Lindisfarne on the same bill.

"The emphasis has always been on live gigs," says Gabriel. "If you get to an audience through live gigs, it's a much more direct and honest relationship than records via press hype. It's always been a slow cult thing building, rather than a mass launch.

"People who get into us often use it as escapism. Like they'll go home and listen to a Genesis album on a night when there's nobody else in the house. They'll put on the cans and sink into it, rather than putting it on in a room full of crowded people."

The band don't see any one particular album as being central - although their third album 'Foxtrot' contains two of the group's best known pieces, 'Watcher of The Skies' and the lengthy 'Supper's Ready.'

"We've never recorded albums with a view to live presentation afterwards," says Gabriel. "We do the music that we like best. Some of the last record ('Selling England By The Pound') was probably more suitable to listening to on record than for playing live. 'Watcher of The Skies' and 'Supper's Ready' are more suitable for live performances.

"We see the thing primarily as entertainment, and we write about things that interest us. If a subject which happens to be social comment interests us or seems suitable for a song, then it'll be there - rather than using the whole thing as a political band-wagon."

Gabriel says the idea for 'Get 'Em out By Friday' came from watching a TV documentary on eviction, while 'The Battle of Epping Forest' was inspired by a newspaper story:

"It was a story about a gang battle in Epping Forest. The gang had agreed not to use firearms. It was a very gentlemsaly agreement. It was the only way to decide who would have certain property boundaries without spilling blood."

AS BY WAY of a change, the idea for Genesis's recent hit single 'I Know What I Like (In My Wardrobe)' came from the cover painting of 'Selling England By The Pound' - the album from which the track was lifted. All previous Genesis covers with the exception of the live album and the Decca album, have been inspired by the lyrics of one of the record's songs.

Gabriel sees singles as nothing more than adverts for the album from which they were taken, and it wasn't their's but Charisma's decision to release it.

Which brings us more or less up to the present and, with the Dutch cheese a slightly diminished wedge and the third kettle of water ready to boil for another cup of tea, I ask Gabriel what he thinks the appeal of Genesis is, and this is what he has to say:

"My trousers."

There's a long pause and then he continues:

"Small pieces of rubber hosing borrowed from the Elvis Presley Memorial Society. Perhaps a large part of the British public have certain urges to shave certain areas of their skull, which has a remarkable effect on virility and produces a healthy desire for carrots and tree trunks..."

Now this is getting silly. I think we'll say goodbye and let Genesis continue writing their new album.

Go back