'Genesis Becomes a Trio - Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks Carry On Tradition Alone'

From Circus Magazine issue #182, May 25, 1978.

From Circus Magazine issue #182, May 25, 1978.
by Robert Smith.

As the lights dim on Genesis' vast stage set, an eerie buzz circulates around the front of Madison Square Garden and moves swiftly towards the back of the hall. Phil Collinss slips up to his microphone perched near the stage's edge, grabs the mike stand with wary assurance, and lets his acrobatic voice open up on Squonk, a Genesis classic he composed. Bodies move faster as he glides through Genesis' new single, Follow You, Follow Me, which closes the band's tenth LP, And Then There Were Three.

The audience, some of whom have followed Genesis' ten-year career since its beginnings as England's flashiest art rock band, begin to sway, mesmerized by the lasers and giant mirrors and the overwhelming Genesis sound, one of the most identifiable musical signatures in the vast, changing world of rock music. Collins is smooth and exact up there, playing the audience like a stealthy cat, howling and hooting, using his voice like another musical instrument.

Trained as a jazz musician and active outside Genesis as one of England's premiere progressive jazz drummers, Collins' influence on the group is apparent. Although co-members of the trio, Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford, do most of the band's composition since original leader Peter Gabriel left two years ago, Collins is the energy behind the band that loses members as fast as they seem to be gaining popularity. This year, ace six-string guitarist Steve Hackett quit the band, discontent with what he felt were "immovable restrictions" on his own talents, replace by 25 year-old American Daryl Steurmer, a veteran of three years jazz playing with Jean-Luc Ponty.

Stuermer is the second "second class citizen" in the band. For the last two years, American drummer Chester Thompson has been on board for the tours to relax the enormous pressure on Phil Collins. Singing every song and playing Genesis' difficult drum parts is too much strain for any man under the spotlights.

Ever since the demise of Gabriel, people have sworn Genesis couldn't stay together. But silent member Collins, whom exited guitarist Hackett says, "was always ready to go with the majority," has emerged as a leader of a band on the verge.

"On stage people think I'm the leader and I am the group's focal point. But I'm a little embarrassed by all that. I write the least of the three of us;arranging is my real strength. They see me as the leader, the Village Idiot up there, but musically it's Tony and Mike."

Their Steely Dan-ish ATTWT reflects a solid change. Heavily jazz-oriented, wikth shorter songs - eleven this time - Three represents the new collective: Banks, Rutherford and Collins, despite his disclaimer.

Follow You, Follow Me has a distinct pop beat, reminiscent more of the Bee Gees than Yes.

"It had a Brazilian or Calypso feel to it originally," says Collins, "but Ahmet Ertegun remixed the American single and gave it more of a Bee Gees beat because he thought it had a funkier quality than we got out of it." Down and Out, Burning Rope and Scenes From a Night Dream all evoke the light, moving and dreamy positivism and fantasy of early Genesis, but the richly fabled characters of Gabriel's mind are no longer in heavy evidence.

Once a singer in another band, Flaming Youth (where he also banged the drums adroitly), Collins is no newcomer to show business. "My first gig ever was with The Charge, a semi-professional band that I played drums for. But I'd played drums since I was six or seven."

When he joined Genesis in 1970, the original art-rock quintet had gone through changes. Founding member Anthony Phillips had departed, their "sound" was shifting and Collins arrived at the right time. An avid follower of the arts, he fit right in with the eclectic spirits in the band. Phil had turned professional at 14, when he played the David Copperfield role of Artful Dodger in Oliver during its long run in London's West End. He did a succession of radio plays with The Charge, then Flaming Youth (named after FDR's wartime plea for patriotic, flaming youth) and finally with Genesis.

"Collins was ready for the role," says Bob Kaus, Atlantic Records Chief Writer and house expert on Genesis. "He's always been a drummer's drummer. He loves to play; he has to do it."

"Once, when he and Steve Hackett were on a promotional tour to Oslo Norway, he disappeared for hours. When the rest of the guys found him, he'd been at a local recording studio doing tracks with a local band. He doesn't stop playing."

"Well," says Collins in his own defense, "we had just landed and I kiddingly asked the Phonogram man who met us what was happening. Before I knew it I was sitting in with some guys I still haven't met. But I was invited in, played, and none of them spoke English. I even got paid for the session and heard that the record came out there."

Of course, you can find ample evidence of that almost everywhere. "He seems to appear on every progressive record to come out of England lately," says Kaus, "And he's the guiding force and founder of Brand X. He's even on the new Cafe Jacques LP, the last three Eno's, Rod Argent's Solo, John Cale's Helen of Troy and more." He hasn't a lot of time for outside things, either.

Married to Andrea, an Italian woman he met at 13 in acting school, they have two children, Simon, 1-1/2 and Joely, 5-1/2. Banks and Rutherford are also married and each have a young child. "That's why we tour a month, take one off, and go back out again for a month," says Collins. "I love to be with my family."

To stay in shape for the touring and recording he drums a lot and runs and works out with the Queensborough Park Rangers, a British football (soccer) club. Phil typifies a new breed of professional, hard-working rocker, dedicated to his life in music. He always has time for music. "On airplanes, I listed to tapes of the concert the night before."

"He's the only one who expresses himself elsewhere," offers Kaus. "Significantly, the two new tour members are Collins additions to the group. In addition to Daryl Steurmer's jazz credits, Thompson is a Frank Zappa alumnus - and Collins has really precipitated the ultimate fusion band."

The music on ATTWT is jazzier, more generally entertaining. It doesn't have that "if you don't know the songs by heart, forget it" feel. The shorter songs and expanded music give Genesis a lot more popular depth.

"It was nice to be able to get the amount of variety we could get by having shorter songs," explains Tony Banks excitedly. Aside from the harmless, happy goblins in Scenes From a Night's Dream, there are none of the acid-period Dylanesque images that peopled songs like Supper's Ready, the sidelonmg social-comment opus from Second Out, their last live LP, which had Hackett on guitar.

The new songs give Genesis another slant:helpful and optimistic, the band are a high-energy self-help group, extolling listeners in Deep in the Motherlode to grow up and "go west, young man" or reminding their fans that love and tenderness aren't dead concepts - Follow You, Follow Me, Snowbound ("Lay your body down in the midnight snow....Filled with the love of all who lie so deep") are two of their best love songs ever.

Collins, the tender singer and exphatic drummer, embodies the Genesis that begins its second generation with ATTWT, concerned more with sound and song rather than lengthy fairy tale. But Phil can likewise preserve the "age-old" Genesis sound.

"Phil had always sang backup," argues Bob Kaus, "and he sang with Flaming Youth. He adopted 'the Genesis style' after he took Gabriel's place. While his voice is lighter, airier than Gabriel's, he captures his distinct sound. The overall concept of sound transcends the group's individual members." Furthermore, contends Kaus, and any casual listener can agree, Rutherford sort of picked up where Hackett left off, playing the missing guitarist parts well. And Hackett's new solo LP, just out on Chrysalis, Please Don't Touch, doesn't sound like Genesis. "Banks will always be the quiet authority" but the band exerts its own distinctive influence.

"Genesis is a combination of very individualistic taste in music," posits Collins. "I like more catholic things, but also like Richie Havens or Traffic. Tony tends more towards classical but likes 10cc and the Beach Boys. Mike is more acoustically oriented but goes for tha Zeppelin simple-heavy sound. We sort of encroach on each other." A better definiton of active synthesis doesn't exist.

"Genesis work in the jazz band democratic style," says Kaus. But that, friends of the controversey, is the Phil Collins way.

"He sings like the Artful Dodger he played," jests Kaus, and like Fagan's stealthy accomplice, he accomplishes far more than people ever see.