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The autumn of
2009 marks the 30th anniversary of a radical shift in the Genesis mythos. It
was 30 years ago that while on hiatus from Genesis albums and hot on the
heels of their acclaimed 1978
And Then There Were Three world tour,
that Tony Banks, a co-founding member of the band, released his solo debut,
1979's A Curious Feeling. Although he was not the first member in the
Genesis camp to release a solo album, it is this period of creativity that
allowed singer/drummer Phil Collins to take personal time away from the band
(essentially keeping the band intact), while also permitting members Banks
and Mike Rutherford to pursue their own creative interests outside of the
confines of a group environment.
Arguably, it was this shift toward allowing
band members the freedom to work on outside projects that kept Genesis
together the better part of their 40 year history. To commemorate this
significant solo release, Esoteric Records will reissue a deluxe CD+DVD
remixed and remastered pressing of
A Curious Feeling overseen by Tony
Banks himself. The deluxe reissue (which is also available in a traditional
stereo CD only pressing) includes a rich 5.1 audio track and newly remixed
stereo by long time Genesis Producer and Engineer Nick Davis. The deluxe
edition also features special packaging rare music videos that, even as a fan, I've never seen
prior to this reissue's release!
As a solo artist, Tony Banks has released seven projects outside of the band
(and the soundtrack to the 1982 film
The Wicked Lady), the last of
which being the aptly titled orchestral album,
Seven. In addition,
Tony has been instrumental in the band's epic undertaking of remixing and
remastering the Genesis back catalog in both stereo and 5.1 surround sound.
Previous box sets 1970-1975,
1976-1982, and
1983-1998
have featured the band's studio output while September 2009 also sees the
release of the Genesis Live 1973-2007 box set, a newly remixed and
remastered set of the band's live albums with several bonus tracks.
This will
be followed by the November 2009 release of the Genesis
Movie box
set, which features the band's officially recorded concert videos, some of
which have never been on DVD previously, including the much sough after
Mama Tour and Three Sides Live concert films. In recognition of
the band's significant influence on popular music in the 20th Century, 2009
also saw Genesis' nomination to the Rock N' Roll Hall of Fame, who's ranks
include The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Bruce Springsteen, U2,
Elton John, and many more of rock music's most defining artists.
On September 30, 2009, Tony Banks sat down with World of Genesis.com's Dave
Negrin to talk very candidly about the new reissue of
A Curious Feeling, his
recollections of the making of that first solo album and its significance to
the Genesis history, the newly remixed and remastered Genesis back catalog
reissues, the new Genesis
Live 1973-2007 box set, the forthcoming
Genesis Movie box set,
Genesis' nomination into the Rock N' Roll Hall of Fame, and much more!
World of Genesis: There are
elements of
A Curious Feeling
that have a very strong
And Then There Were Three
feel. Were the basis of many of the songs from
A Curious Feeling
taken from unused material or unexplored ideas you
had from those Genesis sessions? |
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WOG:
Many people find
doing solo projects liberating, because they have more creative control than
they might otherwise in their respective bands. That being said, knowing
that you wrote a great deal of
And Then There Were Three
with Mike, which was probably more creative room than you had making any
Genesis album up to that point, how did doing your first solo album liberate
you as an artist? Prior to Phil's requested hiatus from the band after the
1978 tour, had you been thinking about doing something on your own?
TB:
Well, the first time I ever thought about doing a solo project was after
Peter [Gabriel] left the band around Trick of The Tail. Then I
thought, if Genesis is going to carry on, we really need to put all of the
best ideas into that next album. Obviously, Steve [Hackett] did go off and
do a solo album at that point, which was kind of difficult for us in a way,
because we felt we needed all hands on deck at this particular time.
The
songs I had written at the time… I had originally thought of things like “A
Trick of The Tail”, “Mad Man Moon”, “Robbery, Assault, and Battery” and
assorted musical bits and pieces that ended up on that album, as being part
of a possible solo album. So, it had sort of been in the back of my mind to
do that.
I think within Genesis, perhaps once or twice in the early days, you did get
that feeling where you did have to compromise a little bit too much, but I’d
been able to get almost complete songs out quite a few times. You know,
there’s things like “Firth or Fifth” and things like that. It was just a
fact that we didn’t do enough albums, really. I mean, we were all writers
and we all wanted to get stuff out and one album a year or so didn’t give
you much possibility to get your stuff out. I mean, it would be 10 or 15
minutes of your own music with a lot of group stuff. So, it was important
to me. I wanted to do more, and I knew I could do more.
With And Then There Were Three, you still, in a sense, had to
slightly compromise within the group concept, and I was happy to do that and
I’ve always loved the way we worked together, but it is a different way or
working. I’d abbreviated songs like “Undertow” and “Burning Rope” in
particular. They ended up being much shorter songs, because it was on a
Genesis album.
I wanted the freedom to actually allow that to do whatever I
wanted to do. You know, make it longer or whatever.
What I actually ended up doing with
A
Curious Feeling
was to expand a song like “One for the Vine” or “Burning
Rope” over a whole album in a way. So, I let every bit kind of breathe and
let the quiet bits become sort of complete instrumental sections on their
own. I needed to do that. I needed to do that badly. |
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Tony Banks: Well,
the main thing would be the first piece, “From the Undertow,” which
obviously has a relationship from the title. A version of it was originally
written as an introduction to the song “Undertow” from
And Then There
Were Three. I’d actually adapted it and kind of turned it totally
inside out and turned a small piece into the main part of it for the film
The Shout, which we were asked to do the music for, and I needed to get
something together quite quickly, and I thought that would work really well.
And I like the way it turned out, although I wasn’t particularly pleased
with the way it was used in the film.
So, I ended up wanting to use it as a
sort of starting point for a solo album. I felt that it sort of set up quite
a nice feeling, you know? Other than that, there was really nothing else
that had been around. There were no sort of reject bits or anything.
It was totally written [for
A Curious Feeling specifically]. I’d
pretty much drained all of the stuff I had written for
And Then There
Were Three. Most of the stuff I had written were used on that [album]. I
certainly can hear a relationship between the songs on
A Curious Feeling
and particularly with the song “Burning Rope,” I think. There’s a bit of a
connection there and perhaps to “Undertow” as well.
WOG: Speaking of your work on the soundtrack for the film The Shout,
have you considered remixing the rest of your solo catalog in 5.1 similar to
what you have done with
A Curious Feeling?
If so, are there any plans to potentially add bonus audio? For example,
adding original tracks from
The Shout,
The Wicked Lady
or
your demos from
2010
to your
Soundtracks
compilation album?
TB: Well, I hadn’t thought of... Well, I wanted to do A Curious Feeling
quite badly, because I’d always felt that sonically wasn’t as good as it
should have been at the time. Having just redone all of the Genesis stuff, I
was amazed at how much the period like And Then There Were Three and
Duke, which
A Curious Feeling is from, had improved
sound-wise.
I really wasn’t surprised that we got a much better sound on the
early period, because technology had moved on a lot. So, things like “Cinema
Show” [from Selling England By The Pound] and everything sounded a
lot better. So, I felt with this album, I could definitely get it better. I
wanted to explore what that would be like, so I got in there with Nick
Davis and we were really pleased with how the stuff sounded on tape and we
knew we could make it a lot better than it did originally… to get rid of…
kind of the ‘wooliness’ that the album had originally.
In terms of anything else in 5.1, well, that’s a question. It depends on
quite a few things. I mean, I wanted to do this and see how that goes, I
suppose. I had considered perhaps just doing a selection of later tracks and
putting together sort of a ‘best of’ if you like, because some of the later
albums are sort of much less well known in any way. Anything is possible,
but at the moment, I’m not planning to do any more remixing. Although, I’ve got a
feeling that we might do something while we’ve still got the studio and
Nick’s still up for it. It would be quite fun to try and do something.
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The time it came was obviously forced on us
a little bit by Phil and his need to take a little bit of time out, but it
was an important change over. I think the fact that we’ve all been able to
do solo albums from then – obviously, with varying degrees of success – but
it allowed you to get it out of your system a little bit and when you came
back as Genesis, it gave us something new to do. I think that change kept
the group going a lot longer than it would have otherwise.
WOG:
In retrospect, what tracks on A
Curious Feeling are you most proud of?
TB:
It’s a funny thing with
A Curious Feeling more than any other album
I’ve ever done, really. I look at it more as an entirety. I think you can
listen to it from the beginning to the end and it has something about it
that is strong. It’s almost like one song. If I had to pick a piece, I would
probably have to choose “The Waters of Lethe.” I think it’s the best
instrumental piece I’ve ever done. The melodies are nice in it, it just
builds very well, and the whole structure of it is really nice. It’s in a
good place on the album, because it comes after a very heavy track,
“Somebody Else’s Dream.” You have this slightly wistful melody coming out,
where the tragedy of the album has first become apparent.
WOG:
I was really pleased to see that you were reissuing this album in 5.1
surround, but what really shocked me were that it includes promo music
videos. To be honest, I wasn't aware that any promo videos were even done
for A
Curious Feeling
prior to this reissue's announcement.
TB:
They’re not the best, but they are there (laughs)! “For A While” came out
as a single. Things went quite well with the album initially, so we thought
we’d do a promo for it. It was sort of a simple promo with Kim singing and
me playing the piano. I mean, I’m doing about as much as I ever do, which is
look onerously at the keyboard!
We had a bit of time left over, and I thought while we were there I’d like
to do one for “The Waters of Lethe” as well. I knew it would never get used
for anything, but I thought why not just do it? The director was quite keen
to have a go, so we just did it and made a little film of it. Its fairly
cliché sort of stuff, with shots of water and me playing various instruments
and things, I think it’s quite nice to have. Coming back to it, I’m pleased
to have it, because it’s part of the period 30 years ago, and it gives a
little bit more of an image to go with the album. As I said, they’re not the
greatest videos, but they’re not offensive (laughs)! …They’re alright
(laughs)!
WOG:
(laughs) Were you surprised at the initial commercial success of
A
Curious Feeling when it opened on the charts?
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TONY BANKS ON TONY BANKS:
I have two sides to me, really.
I have the Genesis side, and
I have the solo artist side that
has much less exposure, but it’s undiluted me, if you like.
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TB:
Actually, when it first came out, we were writing
Duke. I thought,
“This is great!” The album went to #20 or something and then next week it
was #21, and then after that it was kind of gone. It was all a little bit
brief, I suppose. Looking back on it, I was happy enough, really, but once
it came in that high, I thought it was going to do better than that. It
really didn’t get any kind of radio play or anything.
I always thought because the previous Genesis albums up to there,
particularly Trick of the Tail,
Wind and Wuthering, and
And
Then There Were Three, I’d sort of been, I suppose, pretty heavily
featured as a writer and I thought I would carry more of the audience with
me than I did, but I can’t really complain. |
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WOG:
I understand that Nick Davis has mixed
Seven in 5.1 surround back in 2004.
Might that see the light of day as a CD+DVD release?
TB:
Yeah, we do have a 5.1 mix of Seven that we did at the time when we
were originally recording it. Actually, I haven’t really heard it actually
since then! Obviously with a classical piece; it’s a slightly different kind
of thing. You get more of a concert hall ambiance out of the
piece, which is quite effective, I think. It would be quite fun to go back
to that I suppose… At the moment though, I really haven’t decided what to do
with these kinds of things. There are no plans to put that out yet.
WOG:
What was it about the
Flowers for Algernon story that inspired you to
create an album around the concept? How strongly did the book influence you,
lyrically speaking, on this album?
TB:
I’d read the story quite a few years before I’d done this album, and I’d
sort of kept it in the back of my mind. I just thought it was a great
little story that would lend itself to music very well. It’s quite emotional
and I felt that I could tell this story quite well. I did write the whole
thing – all the lyrics - to fit this particular plot, it was only after I
was informed that there was a musical coming out based upon the story.
At
the time, I didn’t know if this was going to be a musical as big as
Jesus
Christ Superstar or something. I had
heard that Michael Crawford was going to star in it, who’s obviously a big
English actor, so I thought it could do well.
So, the advice was to not do it. In many ways, I was in two minds at the
time. Probably, left to my own devices, I would have carried on with it, but
the advice from everyone else was to change it. So, I adapted the story.
It’s obviously no longer based around
Flowers for Algernon anymore.
Although, there are some resemblances to it in that there’s a man who
consciously loses his mind, which is the part of the story I liked the most.
I think the way it was done in the original story was very neat, and I liked
the story very much. It was a very clever little science fiction story...
It’s quite short and obviously a real classic as well.
WOG:
Were there ever any other stories you’ve read that inspired you to craft
either an album or a song around their story?
TB:
I don’t think so much later after that. Remember, even in 1979 when
A
Curious Feeling came out, ‘a concept album’ was kind of a dirty word.
Although, that didn’t necessarily worry me all that much, I didn’t feel like
doing that approach again.
Everything I read influences me when it comes to lyrics. Back in the early
days of Genesis, obviously we were the Greek and Roman myths, which
influenced us all a bit, I think… science fiction and stuff… I used to enjoy
that. If I was stuck for an idea, there were certain books that I would
perhaps look at and try and get some ideas from (laughs).
I think as years
went by, later on, I tended to try and stick a little bit closer to the
things that sort of came out of my head, which were part of my experiences.
Not necessarily about me, but things I could relate to and things I could
see about other people. Rather than going to someone else’s story.
I think it’s a self confidence thing as much as anything else. In the early
days, I was less sure of lyric writing, and I needed the help of someone
else’s story in a way. Whereas later on, I felt more able to kind of do my
own thing.
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It was brought down to
Earth slightly when Mike’s solo album [Smallcreep’s Day] came out and
it did rather better… and, of course, when Phil’s [Face Value] album
came out… Well, that kind of eclipsed everything slightly (laughs)! I became
fairly philosophical about it after that. I mean, I’m not writing… these
aren’t hit singles, you know what I mean? I can’t really expect to have that
kind of success, and if I want to follow these ideas right through – and
it’s not particularly easy music - the chances are that it’s not going to
be commercially successful, but I just thought that’s ok if I’m happy with
what I’m doing. I’m getting a lot of commercial success with Genesis. I have
two sides to me, really. I have the Genesis side, and I have the solo artist
side that has much less exposure but it’s undiluted me, if you like.
WOG:
Did you have any reservations about including the bootleg video footage on
the box sets?
TB:
If you’re talking about the studio album boxes (1970-1975,
1976-1982, and
1983-1998), we just included anything we thought
was kind of good enough to include. We went through an awful lot of bootleg
stuff, a lot of which wasn’t very good. We just put the stuff in we thought
was better. I mean, a lot of the so called video bootleg material was stuff
we actually did for television shows and things.
There’s a version of “Supper’s Ready” that ended up there that was done for
a French TV show that I hadn’t seen before. I certainly didn’t see it at
the time it aired. I found it on the Internet, on YouTube, I think. I
thought, “Well, that looks quite good, you know?” So, we got the tapes and
it was ok, so we thought we’d use that. There were no reservations about
adding something. Particularly from the early period, there isn’t much video
that exists that is of any decency at all with Peter singing and we were
fairly unique live act at the time. It was nice to use what we could find.
WOG:
Is there anything audio or video-wise that you would have liked to include
on the box sets but didn't get to use or ultimately chose not to use?
TB:
No, I don’t think so. I was probably the most closely involved in all of
this, so I was able to kind of pick and choose a little bit. So, I think it
all worked out ok. The most difficult one has been the live box set (Genesis
Live 1973-2007) and the
Movie box set coming afterwards. To
try and choose what to put on has been a slight problem on these, really.
Originally, we were going to include Live Over Europe (on the Genesis
Live 1973-2007 box set) and
When In Rome DVD (on the
Movie
box set), but a lot of people [on the Genesis-Music.com forum] said, “Well,
we’ve got these already, you’re just making us re-buy them again for more
money.” So, we thought we’d take them out and reduce the price by that and
leave a hole in the box for people who want it.
Then, the question was, do you include 5.1 mixes of things like
The Way
We Walk and everything when fans have already got the live DVDs with the
5.1 surround mixes already? So, to try to keep the box sets manageable and
not have them in masses and masses of albums and taking the comments made
into consideration, we took the decision we did, which was to release 5.1
versions of the albums that didn’t already exist in video form… which
included the early Genesis live albums up to and including
Seconds Out.
In all honestly, my vote was to include it all into one boxed set, which
would have combined the two, which would have been everything that would not
have been otherwise available. That would have been quite a good package, I
think. It would have been bigger, but I think it would have satisfied the
fans more. |
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WOG:
How did you come to work with Kim Beacon on the project?
TB:
Well, I needed a singer, and I thought of a few people I could use who were
possibly more famous, but I contacted them and nothing really happened.
So, I just listened to a lot of tapes really in the end trying to find
someone who I thought was suitable. He was, in fact, singing with a group
called String Driven Thing, who were also on the Charisma label. He
wasn’t the main singer with them. He sang on the later version of the group.
I actually didn’t know about that Charisma connection, but someone from the
group did send me a tape of some of the stuff he had done with a few songs
on it. He sang the song, “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother,” which is not a
song I like very much at all, actually (laughs)… but I thought he sang the
song really well, and I liked his tone range and everything. So, I got him
down here and we tried a few things out, and I thought he sounded great! So,
I liked the tone quality of his voice and the way it fit with what I was
writing.
WOG:
I had an opportunity to meet up with Chester Thompson last week, and we
talked about the making of
A Curious Feeling. During that interview
he talked about staying at your house during that period. What are your
recollections of the making of that album? At what point did you involve
Chester in the project? Were you still on tour together with Genesis at the
time?
TB:
We’d just done the 1978 tour with Chester for
And Then There Were Three.
I really liked Chester and I really liked his drumming. I thought his
playing style would give a slightly different flavor to what I was doing.
He’d also been quite enthusiastic about some of the things the band
had done… Things like “One for the Vine” which, in a way, since he
came from such a different background from me… I mean, his whole approach to
the jazz rock stuff… his whole musical background was so different, yet he
seemed to quite enjoy that kind of music. So, I thought, if he can get into
that, he can get into this. In a sense, because it’s like “One for the Vine”
done over 45 minutes of an album (laughs)!
So, he could add to that. I was
really pleased I used him. It was nice to have a friendly face. He was very
enthusiastic. He came out here and then we went to Polar Studios in
Stockholm, which was ABBA’s studio, where we actually made the album
together and everything. He gave me a sort of confidence about it, really. I
mean, I knew I wanted to try and do try and do everything else myself, but I
knew I couldn’t drum and I couldn’t sing, so I wanted to make certain that I
had a good drummer that I felt secure with. He was the obvious person to use
in many ways, but I wanted to use him because I liked his style very much.
WOG:
Speaking of your interest in playing most of the instruments on
A
Curious Feeling, that seems like a very bold thing to do for a first
solo album. Why did you want to take on that responsibility?
TB:
I had no real problem with guitar, because I knew most of the guitar on it
was going to be acoustic sort of rhythm guitar. I’d done a lot of that with
Genesis and I’d written a lot of Genesis’ music on that – particularly parts
of “Supper’s Ready”, “Cinema Show”, and things like that. So, I was kind of
well up for that, really. I had also written things like “A Curious Feeling”
and “Lucky Me” on guitar. So, I had no problem with doing that. I just
wanted a little bit of a lead guitar and I knew that was going to be more of
a problem. The bass was the only other factor, and in many ways, perhaps
I should have gotten a bass player? I don’t know. I quite liked the idea of
doing it myself, because I wanted it to be as personal as possible.
Having done about ten years of Genesis by that stage, where you pool your
ideas and everything kind of gets diluted a little bit. I wanted something
where I could just completely do the whole thing without anyone else.
Something that was as much me as possible. So, the bass was more of a
struggle. In those days, it was before you could do proper bass lines and
things [on the keyboard], so I had to play it on the bass guitar itself. I
had to sort of tape it up and put foam on it and everything to stop all the
strings from resonating. So, I kept the bass parts really simple… as you can
probably hear (laughs)!
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Genesis in 1978 (clockwise from
left): Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford,
Tony Banks (center), Daryl Stuermer, and Chester Thompson
There was another factor with these boxed sets which was that it was kind of
a definitive version of all of the things we had. So, the live boxed set has
all of our live albums on there, so that works well from that point of
view. Otherwise, you might have had to leave one or two of them off. It’s a
difficult one. It was much more straight forward with the studio albums. We
knew exactly what to put on those. It was the studio albums plus all of the
relevant b-sides from the period with any additional bonuses we could think
of. In the end, you have to make decisions and everything is a slight
compromise, but there are still some nice stuff on these live albums – no
doubt about it!
WOG:
Were you disappointed that the
Live 1973-2007 box could not be
produced in SACD format (the box set is only available in CD + DVD format
worldwide)?
TB:
Well, this is the thing… The reason for not doing SACD is that in the
States, it’s virtually a non-existent format now. Over here [in England],
it’s definitely not used as much as well. It just means that you have to
have all of these extra CDs and stuff.
It’s actually a much better format in many ways, especially because you can
actually put the stereo mix and the surround mix on the same piece of
plastic – which also saves on materials. Having doubled everything else up
on the previous boxed sets, at this stage, because we had rather too many
CDs and things anyhow, we thought we’d just keep it in DVD format… which is
a slight shame, because the quality of sound isn’t as good on DVD. I
suppose some time in the future when all of this stuff has been ironed out
with all of the different formats, there will probably be a format that will
give you a perfect sound, and I suppose they will come out again (laughs)!
WOG:
I know some people are talking about the prospect of Blu-ray Audio discs as a
possible format of choice for surround sound and loss-less audio…
TB:
Yeah, well it may be. In the end, what will happen is that you’ll get more
and more information on one disc. Then again, maybe the discs themselves
will soon become irrelevant. Maybe it will all just be downloaded? Either
way, you still need quite a few bits of plastic to get all of the
information out with all of this stuff.
One day, all you will need is one piece of hardware and one piece of
software that will have everything on it. In the future, perhaps not so
distant future, it will be out there, but for the moment, you have to play
with what’s existing out there and SACD unfortunately just doesn’t seem to
be a such popular medium – which is a shame because it is a much better
sound. |
WOG:
(laughs.)
TB:
…But it does the job and it works ok, so I was happy enough with the results
from that point of view. I think it’s nice on a solo album… I mean, because
I couldn’t sing it, I suppose was half the reason, I wanted to do as much as
I possibly could. I didn’t have the feeling I could sing it or, at least
have the confidence at the time anyhow that I could sing it. So, I felt I
had to get everything else together.
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Tony Banks circa A Curious
Feeling |
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Tony Banks live on the
Invisible Touch Tour
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WOG:
King Crimson is seemingly following Genesis’ lead with the reissue of their
back catalog in CD + DVD-Audio format with rare video included. Aside from
the loss-less DVD-Audio, the only difference between the model Genesis
established with the latest reissues is the inclusion of the original stereo
mix on the DVD-Audio disc (in cases where the stereo version offered was
remixed).
One can only assume this was considered because of comments like those on
the Genesis-Music.com forum or other forums where people have argued about
abandoning the old mixes for new ones. Is that something you wish you had
done? |
WOG: What gave you
that confidence to take on the task of lead vocals when it came time to do
your next solo album,
The Fugitive?
TB: Well,
that was a more difficult one for me, really. Obviously, both Mike
[Rutherford] and I follow sort of pattern with this, actually. We did the
first solo albums. The difficulty we had was that the people did quite know…
The identity of the album was always a problem, because if you put your name
on the top of the album, everyone thinks you’re the singer. Since then, it’s
become much more common, but at that stage in the late ‘70s, it was quite an
odd thing to do. So, I had to try and tell everybody all the time that it
wasn’t me singing. It just made it difficult to promote a lot of the time.
People had trouble with that. So, I thought with the next one, I will give
it a go.
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TB:
No, not really. I mean, the way we look at it is that the original mixes are
out there. Anyone who wants them – they are available or can be found – if
you prefer that. I honestly can’t think of a single song that
isn’t better with the remixes. I think its one of those things were everyone
will have their own argument about it.
There really wasn’t anything we could do from the Mama album onward.
I really don’t think much changed to be honest. There were a couple of
things, like I think we made “Illegal Alien” sound better. I think the original mix of the Mama album sounded great, as did
Invisible Touch… but for the early ones – like you go back to “Giant
Hogweed” or something, I mean the new version is so much better.
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The Fugitive had happened a bit later,
after we’d done [the Genesis album] Abacab. A couple of songs on
Abacab, I’d just done the demo of the vocals for Phil [Collins]. Just
so that he could hear them out of interest. I did it to get the idea of the
vocals across a little bit. Sort of, “This is how I want it sung…” I did
that with “Me and Sarah Jane” and also with “Keep It Dark” from that album.
With “Keep It Dark” in particular, I thought it sounded quite good. So, I
thought maybe I could give it a go.
I never wanted to be a singer. I mean, I
don’t feel comfortable. I certainly never wanted to front anything, but I
reckoned I could sing in tune well enough where I could get a bit of
character in my voice – which is all I wanted to try and do and give it a
go. So, I did with that… It was an experiment that I quite enjoyed doing.
Although, having done it once, I wasn’t that keen to do it again, aside from
the odd track after that. So, the approach on
A Curious Feeling
was
the right one, which was to get a good singer who can do really the songs
justice and really deliver them. |
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Of all the remixes, I think the first half in
particular of “Cinema Show” I think sounds wonderful, especially, the 5.1
version of it. Whereas the old version was just sort of cluttered and
things. If you go back to “Stagnation” on the original [stereo] mix of
Trespass for example, the vocal could hardly be heard. I mean, these
things are there.
There will always be people who like the original I suppose, because that’s
how it was, but it was very arbitrary how it was at the time. I mean, it was
like, you’ve only got ten minutes and you’ve got to finish this track
otherwise you’ll be kicked out, you know? So, that’s how it ended up rather
than actually doing it properly. I understand where they are coming from,
but all these tracks are out there for people who want them in the original
mix of that is what you want.
(Continued - Go To Part II) |
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