Commonly used acronyms:
PC, MR, TB are again obvious
R is the Rockline Interviewer (here Bob Coburn?)
G is Genesis
C## is a Rockline caller, numbered for our reference.
Album titles are referred to as their initials enclosed by underscores (so _A_ is _Abacab_, etc.) and song titles are referred to by their initials enclosed by quotes (so "NSoM" is "No Son of Mine"). Brackets [] indicate full songs, curly brackets {} indicate editorial comments (of which there should be few), and bracketed ellipses {...} indicate portions of commentary irrelevant to Genesis (like repetitions of the Rockline phone number). Regular parentheses () have been inserted to make the interview more easy to read. Vocalized pauses have been cleaned up, a VERY LIMITED editorial standard has been imposed (like eliminating all the "Hi Guys" and reply "Hi"s from each call), and untranscribable mumbles are indicated by elliptical question marks, "???". Okay, on to the show, as always, viciously transcribed without permission! Have fun! It's almost *exactly* 50k long, so settle down and get comfortable...
Todd Satogata - satogata@calvin.fnal.gov
{Really cool Rockline music - where is this from!?!?!}
R: Live, via satellite, from Hollywood and New York City, it's Rockline, show where you interview the biggest stars in rock 'n' roll. Hello again, I'm Bob Coburn. Rockline is brought to you by in part by {some beer company}, by {some phone company}, and by {some candy bar company}. Tonight, it's an extended two hour show with TB, PC, and MR of G - so get your questions ready and call us toll-free in the US and Canada at 1-800-344-ROCK. {...} One number toll-free from anywhere in North America. Well, we lost a very talented, gifted man today with the passing of Freddy Mercury, lead vocalist and creative mastermind of Queen. We extend our sympathies to Freddy's family, his friends, and of course to all of his fans. There are those who, for years, have been trying to tell us that AIDS is not a Haitian, or an African, or a homosexual, or a drug/blood-transfusion disease, but simply a human being disease, and it's time we listened, all of us. Safe sex is no longer a choice of luxury, but a potential choice of life or death. Make smart choices - be careful, please. Also on a sad note, we lost another rocker, yesterday - Kiss drummer Eric Carr, and we send our condolences to his family and friends as well.
After the longest layoff in two and a half decades of their careers together, some five years between CDs, G is back with a 70-minute long brilliant piece of work that only these three men together could have created. The CD spans from poppish to progressive, long to short, playful to serious - not bad for some guys who can't dance! Let's welcome, live from NYC, from G, TB - Tony, good evening, and welcome back! {Presumably PC: roaring crowd noises & laughter}
TB: Thanks a lot!
R: Also, PC with us tonight! Hi Phil, how are you tonight?
PC: eehokabobebuglu...???
R: ...and Mr. Mike Rutherford. Welcome back, Michael.
MR: How ya doin'?
R: Doing fine. How was it after not playing together for some four years... How long did it take to get the chemistry back? Was it a short thing; did it come back immediately?
TB: Yeah, about 10 minutes.
R: About 10 minutes! Really! {Laughter}
TB: No, the first day we spent a lot of time sort of trying to pretend we were still making equipment work. By the end of that day we had already started to (sort of) write one or two of the songs, so it was a very quick process this time, to get back into it.
R: Now I know in the past you have gone into the studio without any preconceived ideas - literally, just gone into the studio. Is that what you did this time around for this one as well?
MR: Yeah, it's the same process. We just go in, and take new ideas in, and switch on and improvise, and cross our fingers. Once again, it worked. It's never a safe bet, but it happened very easily this time.
PC: Life in the fast lane...
R: Really, I'll throw this at Phil - isn't there an element of danger in doing that, Phil?
PC: {vocal exhalation} {R: It's what he lives for!} That's right. Yeah, it's extraordinarily hard work to some people - I mean, you go in there without anything... It's very exciting, and the results, everything that happens, we're totally responsible for, so there can be no backing off. We ??? a good time.
R: We're going to start off tonight with "NSoM" which leads off the CD _WCD_. A majestic sound musically, but there's an element of sadness to this song, isn't there?
PC: Yeah, the lyric, the chorus of the song came from improvisation while we were writing the music. I took the notion of my lyrical idea and just wrote a story around it, really. Of course, the story is sort of self-explanatory; it's a household of abuse. The father is being sort of the monster of the family - he's either abusing the son or the mother. I'm not quite sure who, and that's deliberately left open. But it's kind of happening everywhere behind closed doors, and a lot of people I've found that have heard the song have sort of reacted as if it was written for them. It's extraordinary - you just write something that comes about by accident, but in fact it all ends up being something that reaches a lot of people.
R: Well, it has been happening behind closed doors for years, and finally it's being talked about. We'll start with that tonight, "NSoM". {...}
[No Son Of Mine] {...}
R: Our first call is from Rochester, NY, it's Tammy on the line, a listener of 96 WCMF. Hello, and you're on!
C1: Hi Bob, Hi Tony, Mike, Phil. {G: Hi!} It's great to be able to talk to you, and I'm enjoying your new album. I was wondering, when you got together to do this new album, did you purposely decide to write more lengthy songs this time, or did you decide not to write so many pop songs?
TB: I don't think we made any decisions about what we were going to write before we went into the studio. I think the only thought we did have, which came later on as the album was progressing, was that we were working in a CD-format, which meant that we could happily go to 70 minutes; we didn't have to think so much in terms of trying to strip the album. Which meant that we could put a couple of slightly longer tracks on the album without feeling that we were having to leave other things off by doing it. It also had the effect that we could try one or two things that we haven't tried before. I think, because of the fact that we had more time, we were able to go with songs like "ICD" and "SILY", which were slightly off-the-wall kind of things for us, very quickly written pieces that we just thought we'd give a try to and see how they worked out, and both of them came out good enough to go on the album. They're the sort of things that we wouldn't have done had we not felt we had the extra time.
R: I think there's a little something for everyone on this CD, and we're going to play a lot from it tonight. Tammy, thanks for starting us off - the next call on Rockline is Tyler; he's in Ottowa, Ontario, a listener of 54 ROCK. You're on with Genesis, Tyler.
C2: All three of you have had various solo projects over the years, some of which have been very successful, but you keep coming back to G. Do you feel a sort of obligation towards the group for getting your career started?
MR: No, that's the last way we feel; an obligation suggests that you do it because you have to. We do it because we enjoy it - there's no reason we have to do it unless it's fun to do. And I think for us the big gaps, doing the solo stuff, have been a big help, really. It gives us a kind of break from each other and a breath of fresh air, and so when we come back we're actually very keen to do it!
R: Will you know when it's time to stop?
PC: Well, yeah, I think the time when we'll stop is when we start writing together and it doesn't really happen, or what we write we don't like. At the moment, we've had our longest break between albums, and yet we've come back with something that we actually like an awful lot, and we had such a great time writing. It was a very easy album to write, it came quite quickly, and we really enjoyed the process, so if anything, it's boding well for the future. But I guess the time will come when we actually get together and it doesn't work, and that's the point when we just say, "Listen, guys. Call a cab."
R: Because several years go by between CDs now, every time you release one the rumors are inevitable, and I wanted to clear that up right now that it looks good for the future - there's probably going to be more. Tyler, thanks for the call. Let's talk with Pat, she's located in Richmond, VA, a listener of XL102, and you're on the Rockline, Pat!
C3: I enjoyed seeing you all at the radio station in London several weeks ago. {PC: Ohhh, yess...} Each album seems so fresh and different - I was wondering, do you ever listen to your previous albums when getting ready to record a new album, to have new ideas, or do you automatically know we've done this before?
PC: I think we kind of know, you know? I mean, some of the albums we haven't actually heard since we recorded them. You sort of go from the albums into rehearsing for the live thing, and then as soon as you've done the live thing they almost become redundant. The live versions take over, and you're starting to listen to gig tapes, and rehearsal tapes... And it's only when you listen to the radio sometimes you hear a song that you have never played on the road, or you hear something just because it's being played 'cus it's a single, or whatever. So I personally haven't heard some of the albums since we did them. Tony, you heard a couple of albums recently, didn't you?
TB: Well, because we often get asked these questions in interviews, where people ask, "What do you think of your earlier albums?" and most of the time we say, "Well, we really haven't heard them since we did them." So I actually listened to a couple of albums the other day just to hear what they sounded like, and it's quite interesting, hearing them. {MR: Never again!} It's very difficult to listen to them objectively - you get wrapped up in what you felt like at the time when you recorded them. Some of the the things sort of sound great, and then other things, you feel to yourself, well, "I'm not sure why we did that." But, in the main, obviously you like it a lot - it's sort of part of your history.
R: Mike, I hear one of the things you did to keep this new one fresh was play some instruments that you hadn't in a while, namely the doubleneck guitar.
MR: Yes, we blew the dust off him - he came out of the cupboard. I think it was during the writing session that Tony or Phil suddenly said, "Why not get the 12-string out again?" And we couldn't find it for a while, but then we located it {PC: Found in back}, found some more strings... It gave us a direction on a couple of songs - "TMW", which started off with a sort-of 12-string feel, and one called "Shoreline", which isn't on the album, which'll come out, I think, as a B-side later. Each time you look for new things, and we hadn't done a 12-string for a while, so out it came!
R: Pat, thanks for the call. We're going to play some music now - this is "ICD" from _WCD_, G on Rockline!
[I Can't Dance]
R: "ICD" from _WCD_ - any plans for that? Is that going to be the next emphasis track, or single?
PC: Yep, that'll be the next single, and we're going to be shooting a video pretty soon, in fact - a matter of days, for that. The song is about jeans commercials, really. Sort of sounds a bit strange... The guitar riff that Mike came up with sort of sounded a bit like the kind of thing that they use for jeans commercials in England, and we thought we'd take it one stage further, and wrote the verses about sort of scenarios in different jeans commercials. And the suggestion that some of the hunks that play the parts in these jeans commercials, these fine chiseled young men, really can't do much else other than BE chiseled fine young men... Of course, you can't really look like me and say that - it's really not jealousy. But, anyway, I'm gonna be playing the hunk in the video.
R: Oh, wonderful. Keep working on that picture you've got there, too, Phil, okay? {PC: Lookin' good!} {laughter} I should explain to people listening that we sent pictures to refresh the band's memory of what I look like, and they are havin' fun with them!! And, they've got a little bit of everything written on those pictures now. We've got Debbie on the line in Watsonville, CA, as we head to raisin country. 97.3 KRQR in San Francisco is our affiliate out there.
C4: Thank's a lot for staying up so late, 'cus I know it's been such a long day for you already. {laughter, MR: You spotted us! R: Is this your mom, here?} This question's for Tony - I have my own CD copy of _Still_ {wow - we should get her on the mailing list! :-) } which I like very much, and I wanted to know that, when it's released here in the States in the spring, will you have made any changes by adding or deleting any tracks?
TB: I don't think so. The only possible change is, there was one song that I had two different singers do a version of, and I preferred one version, and the English record company preferred another. That possibly could be changed, but that's the only small change that could be made. Other than that, every song on it will be pretty much the same as the English version you've got.
R: How is it doing in England so far, and in Europe?
TB: (Laughs nervously) Well, I can't say it's really set the world afire. I mean I should really say, of course, it's been a smash hit over there and when we release it over here everyone's waiting for it in great anticipation. It's a difficult thing in England, you know - you've only got one radio station, and if that station doesn't attach to it, then that's it, really. And that's how it was over there. Over here, because I know that American radio stations are so much more adventurous and everything {R: Uh, huh... TB: (more nervous laughter) } No, I just think over here it's a different thing, and I'm sort of... We shall see what happens.
R: The album features Nik Kershaw, and also Fish, formerly from Marillion, is on there, and I have heard it {ED: Jeez! Makes it sound common!! } and it's a fine effort. When it comes out in the spring, you look for it as well. {...}
{commercial}
R: {...} Next week, Rockline goes to Philadelphia. Our guest will be Neil Peart, drummer and lyricist for Rush { I couldn't stop myself from including this! }, Neil's first live radio interview in over 10 years, and you'll get to participate by calling him up on the show. Then, in two weeks, Rolling Stone and Expensive Wino member Keith Richards will join us. Rounding out the month of December will be Queensryche, The Cult, and the Best of Rockline 1991. And remember, in two days, this Wednesday, November 27th, a 2-hour special edition with Axel Rose of Guns 'n' Roses. Tonight it's an evening with Genesis, and back to the phones we go. {...} We have from Tokyo Bay now, from Bay FM 78, Felice on the line. Hello, and welcome!
C5: Hi Phil, Mike, Tony!
G: Hi... {PC: GONZA!! {???}
C5: Huuuh?????
PC: Sorry, nothing, sorry... The word "Tokyo" makes me do things.
C5: I was looking forward to talking to you. {PC: You WERE...} Just listen, I was looking forward to the release of this new album, but why did you call this latest album "We Can't Dance"?
MR: Well, it came from the song title. You sound like you're disappointed in the title. We had the song title "ICD", and that's kind of where we always look for album titles first of all, and it's just a nice phrase, WCD. It sort of makes you smile; it also, I suppose, is a little dig, which we justified afterwards on the fact that there's an awful lot of dance music out there at the moment, and a lot of it is not great, and we don't do it!
R: There you go, Felice, and thank you for the call. And we're going to move on to Carl, in Orlando, FL - WDIZ is our affiliate there. Carl, you're on Rockline with G.
C6: Hey. I'm an art major, and I'd like to know about the artist who did your latest CD cover, and how you chose that artwork.
PC: Well, we start getting guys down to sort of bring in their own ideas, people that were chosen to supervise, as it were. And they bring books down of artists' work so we can look at them, and sort of bounce ideas around, and we actually saw Felicity Roma Bowers, and we saw this picture in this book that we liked. We didn't actually like anything that the guy brought down, but we actually looked at some pictures, and we found this illustration which is the one that you see on the album cover. And we approached Felicity about this, and she did the illustration again for us, and she also did some illustrations for the lyrics, one to represent each song. I think it's a lot stronger album cover than the last two album covers, to be honest - there's something about it that we thought was very strong. Especially with it being a man and a boy, it kind of went with "NSoM" and went with _WCD_ - again, the title sort of being a bit of a non-communication between generations, in a way.
R: If we can't dance, we can't get on with one another. {PC: Exactly...} Carl, thank you, very good call. We're going to play a song now... I know you've heard this song before, but perhaps not this version. This is on the UK single of "NSoM", it's a live version of "IT". G, on Rockline, on the global satellite network.
[Invisible Touch]
R: We go to Vancouver, BC, now, to speak with Jason, a listener of 99.3 the FOX. Jason, you're back on Rockline.
C7: My question is, over the years, have you guys felt that playing live is less important, and you want to concentrate more on the music? Is there still a satisfaction in playing live?
PC: Yaah... I mean, the roar of the grease paint, the smell of the crowd, and all that kind of thing. It's still very important to us - we need to have new music to play, but now we've got it with this new album. I think we're looking forward to going out next year - we're coming out in May and June, and we're going to be playing in Vancouver. We're going to do a couple of nights at BC place, I think, is what we intended to do. And before everybody starts groaning, I know it's a bit of a barn, apparently; my kids live in Vancouver, {wow!} and they keep telling me it's a rotten place for gigs, but I think we're going to make the best of it, and try to make it sound good and look good. But we always look forward to playing the gigs. Sometimes over a long period of time the traveling gets a bit wearying, but we're looking forward to it as it is...
R: I hear this will be primarily a stadium tour.
TB: You hear right.
MR: Yup, I'm afraid so.
R: You're at that point - say, in Southern California you can play the Forum 10 nights in a row, but you can also play the Coliseum in one night and play to as many people that way. I want to mention, everyone who gets on the air with the band tonight receives a limited edition print of the front cover artwork that we discussed a moment ago from _WCD_, and Tony, Phil and Mike are kind enough to autograph that; sounds like something you might want to frame, to me. They're courtesy of Atlantic records, G, and Rockline - that's for everyone who gets on the air with the band tonight. We're going to take another call, thank you Jason. We're into Sacramento, right now, we have Jeannette on the line, listening to 98.5 KZAP, and Jeannette, you're on with G:
C8: I have a couple things I want to tell you: first of all, I have all the albums that you've ever recorded except the original one, _FGTR_ { Sounds like another prospective for the mailing list, and Rarities I-VIII! 8-} }, and I wanted the new one so bad that I made my husband go out and buy me a CD player. (MR: Quite right... TB: Excellent...) What I want to know is, I know that you have your own recording studio that you use to record all of your albums, and I want to know if you rent that out to other recording artists.
MR: No, we don't. We have one or two friends who live locally who use it. I think the thing we found is that, we've seen a few other groups who actually have their own studio (ABBA is one group in case, we did a couple of albums there {ED: Is this where they cut the studio side of _TSL_??}) and once it becomes a commercial studio, the whole situation changes. The atmosphere changes, and then suddenly you find, you want to go in there, whatever, even just to mess around or do a few things, and you can't get in there 'cus you've rented it out. So we keep it basically just for us, the solo projects, and different bits and bobs, you know, live films and documentaries and stuff. It's fairly busy.
R: Plus, you'd have never found that 12-string guitar if people had been in there messing around. {G: That's right, that's true...} Jeannette, thank you for the call. Let's talk with Judy, as we head to Lucern, PA; our station there is ROCK 107 in Scranton, and Judy, you're on the Rockline with us!
C9: You're the greatest band that I've ever heard. What I'd like to ask you is, if you're considering doing any of your old stuff from maybe the 70's and 80's, maybe like _TotT_, "Afterglow", "Into the Cage" {sic!}, anything like that in your next tour?
TB: Well I think what we want to try and do is perhaps do slightly different live old songs to what we've done in the past. Actually, I think we've done "In the Cage" {better!} and "Afterglow" pretty much every tour since Peter left the group {oops!}, well, certainly since we wrote the songs. {better!} And, I think we'd like to do some early songs, but we'd like to do one or two we haven't done for a few years. So, the best way of doing that, we thought, was maybe to do a sort of medley of some old stuff, so we won't, perhaps, play all of anything, but it means we can get a selection of a few of the old ones and perhaps satisfy a few peoples' tastes. We've just got so much stuff to play - if we want to play a lot of the new album, which we do, that's going to take up quite a lot of time, that's 60 minutes of music, probably, plus at least another hour of Phil's introductions for them as well... That's most of the show gone already, so by the time we've done all that, we've got another 10 minutes we can do some old songs in, and we'll definitely try and do a few.
R: After all, this is the 17th album - kind of hard to play everything. Judy, thanks for the call. Let's talk with Charles in Los Angeles, listening to 95.5 KLOS - hello there!
C10: I wanted to thank you for your years of playing songs, and I really appreciate it, and it's kind of brought me up from bad moods 'n' stuff. I wanted to ask you one question: Did the United States Transcontinental Railroad inspire you to sing "DtLS"?
PC: No. Sorry, NO. {R: No, but thanks for calling...} Some of the lyrical ideas that I came up with while we were writing that sort of LONG piece suggested a few things to me, and I had a book that I had been given called "The Navvies". Now that's an English terminology, the name given to groups of people that actually built the English railroads, and they were very hard men - as long as they had enough money for beer and women, they didn't really mind what they did. They were a different breed. The undertaking of the English railroads was quite an extraordinary undertaking - they lost a lot of lives, even young kids were sort of involved, and they were killed when wagons full of earth and rubble sort of fell on them. They were blasting their way through rocks, 'cus there isn't much straight, flat land in England, unlike America, where they could cover 2 or 3 miles a day; it took them a while to do that in England. So it was quite a big undertaking, and something that, over there, we take for granted - they're phasing the English railways out. It took an awful lot of time, energy, and lives to built the thing, and it just seemed an interesting story, and so we wrote the song basically from the point of view of someone that was leaving his family, and going off to work on something that he didn't really know what he letting himself in for, and gradually he became a hard man.
R: Charles, there you go - thanks for phoning. We're going to play this for all the G fans who like it when the band stretches out a little bit. {...}
[Driving the Last Spike] {...}
R: We're going to talk with Jim, in Indianapolis, right now. Jim is a listener of Q95 - Jim, you're on the show with us!
C11: Nice to talk to you, it's an honor. Really love the new album. My question is for Phil; I'd like to know about his "3 Bears" film project.
PC: Hmm! I'll talk about that... Well, it came to me many years ago. I was starting to get compared to Bob Hoskins physically, and also, slightly more cruelly (I hope he's not listening), Danny DeVito. One day, I just came up with this idea of the three of us doing the three bears, because of our sort of cuddly appearance. And I started talking about it enough, and I've come to the realization that if you talk about something long enough, it'll happen. And I started talking about it in the press, and Hoskins, apparently, was starting to be interviewed (because people had read what I'd said), and said, "Are you going to be doing this film with Phil Collins and Danny DeVito?", and he said, "Well, apparently I am!" Now he's actually doing it! I've made the thing a reality purely by talking about it; in fact, only tonight, I spoke to the guy who's writing it, Jim Hart, who lives in New York, and it's all going ahead. It'll be happening - by the time we come around to this time next year, it will hopefully have been shot, so it's actually going to be happening.
R: I remember you discussing that in one of your previous appearances here on Rockline - it's really going to happen, I can't believe it! {PC: Nor can I...} You were in _Buster_, of course; tell us about the role in the Steven Spielburg film you have coming up, in _Hook_.
PC: Well, me and Dusty... {R: Dusty Hoffman, yeah...} And Robby, yeah... I did a day's work on it. It was an incredible experience, because you're working with these people. I was really thrown in the deep end - you know, same old story, you learn the script, you arrive and they give you a new one, then they take that away just as soon as you get used to that. But it was great fun, great fun - I'm going to go and see it on the 8th, the premiere in LA... I know I'm in it, because someone else has seen it. Well, Jim Hart, who wrote _Hook_ as well, he's seen it and says that I'm in it - I've just got to see what I'm like, really. But blink and you'll miss me.
R: We'll all see what you're like. Jim, thanks for the call. Let's talk to another Phil in Ottowa, Ontario, 54 Rock our station there. Phil, you're on the Rockline, with Phil, and Tony, and Mike.
C12: I love your new album, but I have a question about earlier piece of work. In the mid-70s you released something called _Spot the Pigeon_ {Wow! Another person for our list!! (-: :-) } - could you explain how that came about, and who's idea was it, and whether it's going to be released as a CD in the future? {Ed: We all know the CD is out there!}
TB: Well, _StP_ was three tracks that were left over from the _W&W_ sessions, I think {PC: mm hmm}, and in many ways we'd have liked those three songs to have been on that _W&W_ album, but, I like the _W&W_ album very much, but it perhaps came across a little heavier than it was originally intended. What we left off were certainly two of the simplest tracks, and one sort of midway-simple track. We put them together on this EP called _StP_: one of the songs was called "Pigeon" on it, another one was called "Match of the Day", so the sort of spot-the-ball competitions, which we have in England, where you have to try and say where the ball (in our case it's where the soccer ball) is in a particular picture, and normally the ball ends up being somewhere entirely different than where you think it's going to be. Anyway, we have these competitions in England {PC: A good way to win a lot of money!}, so anyhow we just call it _StP_, so you have to find where the pigeon was in the picture in this particular case. {MR: But I digress...}
R: You have enough B-sides and unreleased material, and a couple of songs that were left off of this album. Any thought of an album of that, or perhaps a box set in the future, including some of those things?
MR: We've always discussed the idea of doing sort of an album of {PC: Rarities...} leftover bits - the only thing that puts us off, I think, is that you do it, and you agree with the record company that it goes as out not as a new album, but they always tend to promote it as a new album. But I think it might happen one day, I'm not sure when...
PC: When we're gone...
R: Oh, please!
PC: I don't mean physically gone, I mean just sort of, gone, in the...
MR: When we're LONG gone...
R: Thanks for the call to Phil, there. We're going to speak with AJ, now, in Concord, CA, listening to 97.3 KRQR in San Francisco - you're on the Rockline, AJ!
PC: Is this the AJ that we know? {MR: Yes.}
C13: It's the AJ you know. {PC: Hey, beh, howdyeh...} So, can I be in the next video, Phil? Anyway, my question is, the song "DWYS" has some pretty intense lyrics, and I was wondering who wrote the lyrics and what, if anything, inspired them?
MR: This is Mike, here - I wrote the lyrics. It's inspired by the line "Dreaming while you sleep", which is a line that Phil sang. {PC: (laughing) Tony's holding his head!} I'll do it good this time, Tony. The idea of that line - I had a very nice image, what happens to someone when they're in a coma? What is their brain doing - are they thinking, or are they just sort of vegetablized? The lyrics are just about someone who was driving a car, and had a hit-and-run incident and didn't admit it (he knocked over a girl), and his life then became kind of obsessed by what happened to her; he ended up sort of by her bedside, and not moving.
R: So there you go, that's where the story came from, AJ. {PC: So how's you're mom and dad, AJ?} I know that you all collaborate on writing the music and then work on the lyrics individually - there's more continuity that way. A lot of us are curious who writes which lyrics, though - why don't you include that information on some of the works?
PC: Well, we could do it. It just sort of draws attention to it, really - it's quite nice to guess who did what. It gives you something else to think about when you're fed up with listening to the record!
R: I've been trying to pick it out tonight as we go through the songs - let's see, Phil did "DtLS"... "DWYS"... that's Mike's... Just have a guess, huh? Who did "JHKM"?
PC: I did. That was Tony. No, that was me...
R: Let's play it.
[Jesus, He Knows Me]
R: We're going to go to New York City, where the band is located. David is on the line, he's listening to 92.3 K Rock - David, you're on with G.
C14: Lemme just ask, on the new album, all the parts of your music sound so full, and I was wondering if you use sequencing, and what do you think about using it live?
TB: Well on this new album there's virtually no sequencing apart from some of the drum machine parts. With the way we work with G, we tend to find that we don't do that - everything comes out of playing in a live situation, so the easiest way of putting it down onto record is to do it the same way. I mean, when I'm working on my own, I tend to use sequencers quite a bit, but I tend to use them more as a tape recorder than anything else, and sometimes on this album, kind of use it when I was doing a solo and things, I would put down lots of parts on a sequencer, again, using it more like a tape recorder than anything else, and then it's a very easy way of editing between different parts so you can work and get the best out of it. {PC: Changing sounds...} But in the main the sequencer really doesn't play much of a role with G music.
R: There you go, David, thanks for your call, and I know you're a big fan. By the way, everyone who gets on the air with G tonight receives a limited, numbered edition print of the front cover artwork from _WCD_ and Tony, Phil and Mike are going to autograph that {PC: Do we get one?}... We can get one for ya' - we have connections! I can get one for each of you, as a matter of fact - how's that? They're courtesy of Atlantic Records, G, and Rockline. We're going to head to Gailsburg, MI, now, to speak with Rick. Rick is listening to Q106 in Lansing. You're on the show with G, now, Rick.
C15: Tony, it was interesting a number of years ago, when you got Fish to work on some of your recordings, considering criticism that Marillion was copying G at the time. What was it like? I'm curious how the collaboration came about.
TB: Well, when I originally worked with it, it was kind of done because Marillion was so constantly compared to G. It was kind of like a little bit of a joke, the idea of working with him. I kind of did the first thing, I just listened to a little bit of what Marillion had done, and I always liked Fish's voice very much, but I wasn't that crazy about Marillion's music. But working with him was a different kind of experience, and I think we actually we're actually quite compatible as writers and in the studio. So having done the one song we did a few years ago, when I did my last record I got him to work with me on a couple of tracks on the album. I think it turned out really well - he has a certain approach to music; he's like me, he's long-winded, he's quite happy to use 10 words where only 1 would do, and all that, and so we got on very well, and I think the tracks we did together were good.
R: And that latest collaboration between Fish and TB will be out in the springtime in North America - _Still_ is the name of that solo effort by TB. Rick, thanks for the call. Joanne is on the line - we're headed to Buffalo; 97 Rock's our station there. What's going on, Joanne?
C16: Wow, I feel like I've won a billion dollar lottery! {PC: Well, I'm afraid you haven't - you're just speaking to us.} Now that I've got you, I'm going to put you on the spot. I wanted to know whether or not you were aware that when your fans send away to the addresses on the albums, all we get back from one is a flyer to order memorabilia, and with the other one, we spend all kinds of money to subscribe, and lately all we get is one or two little magazines a year.
PC: Okay, now tell us - the one you get the flyer from is Brad, right? {C: Right.} Well, Brad is a good friend of ours, and he basically does the thing for nothing and doesn't charge for it - that's the extent of what he does. What you get is the extent of what he will ever do - he's just doing it as sort of an information service. He doesn't charge you, he doesn't charge us, he just does it in his sweet time. The other one is what, Jeff Parkin? {C: Right.} Okay, well that's sort of the official G fan club, which we have very little to do with, and we have in recent weeks, in fact, during the course of this album we had a meeting with him because we have had lots of people writing to us saying, "Listen, what's happening with this?" They assume because it's your fan club that somehow you're involved with it, but in fact usually it's something that's just run by somebody on your behalf, and we don't have much to do with it. We have looked into it, and we've actually had conversations with him, and he is rectifying this problem as we speak. So hopefully you'll get something back - all I can suggest is if you don't get any satisfaction, the easiest way is to write to Atlantic Records, and they will forward it to our management company, and we will sort it out; that's the best bet. Write to Perry Cooper, because he's the one that really needs to deal with this. {R: Yeah, let Perry deal with it!} Let's put people on the spot here. They'll forward letters, all they're going to is like look at the letters and say, if you put "For the attention of G, London, England, care of Atlantic Records, 75 Rockefeller Plaza, whatever...", they'll forward it to us. You know, we'll take care of it. Don't worry, we'll get it sorted out.
R: I happen to have Perry's home address here, and we'll give that out now... That's Perry Cooper, PO Box... (laughter)
PC: No, seriously, though, do that. Because I know you send off your hard-earned money in good faith to do something, and the guy's snowed under with... He doesn't only run our fan club, he runs other fan clubs, and so it's a big thing we gotta work out. But to be honest, you know, we're not too interested in... Okay, carry on - I've waffled on long enough...
R: Joanne, thank you very much. We're going to play a song out of the past. We're not playing too many of those tonight, we wanted to concentrate on the new record, and due to what we feel is the progressive nature of this new album {Ed: That's EXACTLY what he said!!}, _WCD_, we selected something that we thought would fit well with that tonight. We'll go back to the first album where Phil was the full-time lead vocalist, _TotT_, this is "DoaV" by G, on Rockline.
[Dance on a Volcano]
R: David's on the line in Collinsville, IL (PC giggles), waiting to talk to the band. He's a listener of ??? in St. Louis. David, you're on the Rockline!
C17: I really love your albums, especially Tony's solo albums. {PC: Hey, money must have changed hands here!} Okay, do any of you keep in touch with Steve Hackett and would you work with him in any capacity in the future?
PC: Not having just listened to that, no! {Ed: Ouch!!} Sorry, sorry... No, we're all to blame for that last one, I think we're all to blame for that...
MR: I did a thing with Steve, he did a song for the boat people, did a version of "Sailing" which I went along and played some guitar on, and that was a couple of years ago. But I haven't spoke to him since - we didn't fall out or anything like that, it's just we're fairly busy, we've got our own friends to see, and you kind of very easily lose touch. The actual idea of working together with Steve again is probably unlikely, a bit like with Peter - there's so many new things to do which you'd rather do than go back over old ground, I think.
R: There you go, David, thanks for being on the show with us tonight. We're headed to Canada right now, to Calgary, to speak with Patrick, a listener of 107 Kick FM. Patrick, you're on with G.
C18: Right on. Hey, guys, welcome back to rock 'n' roll. {PC: Yeah.} Just wanted to ask Mike here - first of all, thanks for the great rendition of The Beatles' "Revolution" with the Mechanics there, and I'd also like to know, you had said in the past that you'd always thought of the Mechanics as a hobby band. Is that still the case? Paul Carrack, Paul Young still in it for a hobby, or do they want to get back full time?
MR: I describe the Mechanics as a "full-time/part-time" band, which sums them up. I think everyone's happy the way it is. We started the Mechanics when everyone knew that I was in G and was going to do an album every now and again, so it's no surprise to them, I think. And Paul Carrack's got a busy solo career, and the other guys have got a lot to do - so I think they accept it. A bit like G - I think I wouldn't enjoy doing the Mechanics full time, but I enjoy doing it part time.
R: It would seem to me to be a "best of both worlds" situation. Patrick, thanks for the call. We're going to go from Canada to Tokyo now, to Tokyo Bay. Yuriko is on the line; she's listening to Bay FM 78. We welcome her to the Rockline.
C19: I would like to ask you, as a band, how do you feel about the "digital revolution" and the gradual exit of analog?
PC: Well, we recorded this album digitally - some things sound a little bit different digitally than recorded on analog equipment. On this album, we actually did everything on digital; on some of the previous stuff, with Hugh Padgham, he always liked to record bass and drums on analog equipment. To be quite honest, on this album I don't think you can tell much difference, so we're quite pleased with the result. But the advent of DAT and things like that, we're all in favor of that - they're much more portable, the sound quality is great, and it's part of our life now, so we have to get on with it. It's great!
R: There are some musicians who say that when it's too clean some of the emotion disappears somehow - do you agree with that?
MR: I don't know about the emotion - I mean, there is something in the difference. The great thing about digital is that once you're on digital format, it'll stay there forever - it won't deteriorate, and it's a sort of safe copy. Actually, on this album, we actually mixed quite a few tracks onto, what was it - half inch tape? {TB: Yeah, half-inch.} - because of Nick Davis, and I think that we agreed with him, and found that some of the songs that had these very high peaks worked kind of better on the half-inch tape. {PC: You use a compressor...} On digital they end up lowering the whole level of the track... But I mean, the whole thing is the digital world is here to stay, and I think with an awful lot of good things about it.
PC: There's a bit of unpredictability about the sort of digital thing - I mean, suddenly you get drop outs, a dodgy batch of tape, and so you never feel it's actually there - of course, it's not actually recorded on magnetic tape, it's just there, and if someone up there decides to pull the plug on the whole thing you're gonna end up with no music on the tape. Living dangerously...
R: Yuriko, thank you for the call. We're going to play a song now, one of the lengthy songs from _WCD_ called "FL"... {...}
[Fading Lights]
R: Our next caller is in Springfield, MO - it's Lauren, listening to US 97. Hello!
C20: Many big artists in the past (you know, like Hendrix and Led Zeppelin), they've had biographies written about them that have contained a lot of inaccuracies, and I know that they've really suffered from it. I was wondering if you guys would be interested in maybe someday authorizing your own biography for G, to kind of keep the record straight?
PC: Well we had a book called "I Know What I Like" which was written by a chap called Armando Gallo, who's a good friend of ours. He wrote that, he's sort of been around the band during the very early days, and followed it through to the beginning of the solo careers, which is kind of, pretty accurate. Obviously there are always going to be little things that may be our interpretations of what happened as opposed to, maybe, how you see it. But there's an awful lot of rock books about - I don't know if the world needs another one. What do you think - do you want to do one? Would you like to write one?
C20: Well, no - I just wondered if you were going to have one, like a history of the whole band, you know?
R: She just wants to read a good one, she doesn't want to write her own...
PC: Well, we have got that one - if you haven't heard of that one, then it's worth checkin' it out. There are a few other ones, I suppose, that get written and printed on the cheap, but Armando's one has actually got some great photographs 'cus he's primarily a photographer. But he actually did a good job on that one.
R: Lauren, there is a good video, too, called "Genesis - a History", and I know Bill Wyman of the 'Stones was involved in that as one of the executive producers or something like that {PC: Yeah!}, and that turned out well, so you might want to look into that! We're going to head to Landstown, PA, talk with John - our station in that area is 93.5 WTPA in Harrisburg. John, you're on.
C21: My question is actually for MR - since he does the bass guitar work and the lead guitar work for G albums, I'd like to ask him which he prefers doing, and does he enjoy both responsibilities?
MR: Yeah, I enjoy doing both. I mean, I probably prefer the guitar most, because you can do more on it. {PC: It's got more strings...} It's got more strings; on a ratio of 6:4, I enjoy the guitar. I still enjoy playing the bass an awful lot - the only problem sometimes with G is that we tend to write with me on guitar, so when you come to do the bass parts, it's often difficult. You have to define the bass notes on the chords, which are often a little bit gray... {PC: or black, anyway. Sorry - I'm harassing you, aren't I?} Um, I definitely enjoy both, but guitar is my favorite.
R: John, thank's for the call. We're going to talk with Lee in Raleigh, NC, WRDU 106 our station there - Lee, you're on the show!
C22: You're my favorite band! Recently there's been tragedy in the music industry with the deaths of Freddie Mercury and Eric Carr - do you feel that G should help in the fight against AIDS and other terminal illnesses through music and charity events, or do you think that it should rest with politicians alone?
MR: I think they should all help - I mean, I think, with AIDS, it's difficult at this moment in time. I think there's not much more you can do - everyone knows about it, and knows how to deal with it now. The problem really comes since people didn't find out 'til too late. With other terminal illnesses, I think it's one of those things that has to come from the governments and the politicians. I think music can change people's awareness to the problems, but that's all it can do, really.
R: Well, we all try and live as long as we can - no one lives forever, but we can certainly thing about it. "LF" by G from _WCD_ on Rockline...
[Living Forever]
R: We're headed to Tokyo Bay - Ashike Ake is listening to Bay FM 78, and we welcome him to the program, hello!
C23: I found your new album, _WCD_, a little on the dark side, overall. Is there any special reason for this introspective feeling?
MR: Well, we've gone over to the Dark Side.
PC: (low ominous voice, "Genesis, the Dark Side".) We've only really found this out in recent weeks when we've been doing interviews and things, and journalists have come in and suggested that the album is sort of sad, dark, ominous, depressing... And we never realized that - I mean, we lived with the thing for a few months, and you'd think we'd have sussed that out. I mean, some of the songs are a little sad. There's some very funny moments, and they should be considered funny - I mean, "ICD", "LF" and "JHKM" are three sort of satirical songs, but there are some very serious subjects that we are dealing with, and I guess that's life. You kind of write about what's bothering you; it's an ugly world out there sometimes.
R: I even said that in the introduction, that I thought it displayed both sides; that there's a humorous side involved in the record, and there's a serious side to it, too - I think there's both there. Ashike Ake, thank you for the call - we're going to talk with Stephanie in Fontana, CA, now - Stephanie, you're the last caller tonight, a listener of 95.5 KLOS.
C24: My question is, in the past on all of your G albums, there's been artwork on the covers. Might we ever see in the future a picture of the three of you, a photograph?
MR: Do you know what we look like??
PC: (Vomiting sounds)
R: That's WHY we're doing radio tonight...
MR: I don't think so. Everything we do's got no rules to it, not to say...
PC: Tony Banks' solo album has got a picture of him on the cover!
TB: And what about YOUR solo albums, huh?? {???} picture on your bathroom locker...
PC: At least I'm awake on mine...
MR: It's got Tony naked on the cover...
PC: No, I think we sort of decided a long time ago that we looked very normal, very boring, and very average, and pretty much like any other three guys. So we just kind of try and find a piece of art, if you like to call it that, that just sort of puts over the mood of the music on the record inside. I mean, that's kind of the way - there's no hard-set rules. Maybe in the future we'll change our mind, but for the moment, I think that's the way we kind of think about things. We just include a picture *somewhere* in the album, just to show the passing of time.
TB: The receding hairlines, too!
R: Stephanie, thanks for the call. Thanks to everyone for listening and calling tonight. If you want to drop a line, our address is:
Rockline PO Box 4383 Hollywood, CA 90078
{Thanks and windup...}