Singer and songwriter Peter Gabriel, formerly of Genesis, also broke loose from the restrictions of lessons - both musically and educationally: "I used to sing in the choir when I was very little and I started listening to the radio and taping things off the broadcast, and then dancing. I stopped piano classes when I was young because I hated all my lessons. Then I started relearning it when I was twelve or thirteen, picking out a note one finger at a time. At school there was a sense that I could cut through the repression, just letting my hair down and dancing and screaming. It was physical and emotional and intellectual all at once."
Beginning in childhood, singer, songwriter, and Genesis drummer Phil Collins did not follow a traditional path, preferring his drum kit to toys. During adolescence he became dissatisfied with his successful career on the British stage when he discovered he could not express himself honestly through drama. Phil's musical drive was so great that he gave up acting to play music professionally although it meant disappointing his parents, who had encouraged him in the theater. He recalled: "I had a pretty normal upbringing. My dad used to have a little boat, and he belonged to the yacht club with about one hundred other people who had boats. Because of that, they used to put on dinners and dances, and a couple of times a year they'd put on pantomimes, and I would play in them, usually as Humpty Dumpty. When I was five my uncle made me a small drum kit that fit in a suitcase. I would play these shows, and so I was exposed to that kind of thing from very early on until I was eleven or twelve. My mum started an agency to book kids for commercials and TV, so I started gong to auditions. When I was fourteen I got the part of the Artful Dodger in 'Oliver!'. That's when I moved from my grammar school (the British equivalent to high school) to stage school.
"All along, though, I didn't want to do anything else but play the drums. I'd bypassed all the train sets and stuff. I knew from a very early age that I didn't want to do anything but that. I used to come home from school and just practice and play, although I realized I couldn't do that professionally until I was grown up. Other kids would be playing football more than I did. All I wanted to do was sit at the drum kit upstairs and play along with my records.
"At the time that was a lot different from my friends, who had no interest in music at all. I used to be in my own little world. I always used to play in front of the mirror because I had read that it was good to watch yourself play so you don't look down at what you are doing. I would put the record player on as loud as it would go and play along with it. It must have sounded horrible downstairs where they were trying to watch television. I remember sitting in the living room and playing along with the television while everyone else was trying to watch it. When I was fourteen I started drum lessons - I'd taught myself from the agent of five - thinking that as this was what I wanted to do in my life, I should try and do it properly. I decided I'd do the pop group thing when I was old enough, then after that finished, I'd probably go do sessions or go into a big band - that seemed like the kind of thing to do in your late twenties, early thirties - and then I'd end my days in a pit band, like an orchestra pit.
"I used to go home with all the orchestra musicians in 'Oliver!' I was in the show on the West End for seven months, then I started being asked to do other things. At the point when I was sixteen or seventeen, I told them I didn't want to do any more acting. I just wanted to play the drums and I was finally old enough to get into a professional band. My mum and dad weren't very happy about that, especially my dad, because he liked showing me off at the office - 'My son's in the West End stage!' as opposed to being in a rock group. There was deathly silence around the house for a couple of weeks."
Submitting to the Creative Urge
Mike Rutherford, a member of Mike and the Mechanics and Genesis, said that being a prisoner to the muse is actually the greatest release: "I've got no control over [the choice to create]. I'm like a man incontinent. I have a respect for whatever it is that enables me to do it. I try not to abuse it. The biggest high comes when you write something. By not abusing it, I mean I try not to force it; it's too precious. [If it won't come} I just leave it and do something else."
The "Feel," or Unconscious Elements, of Music
Technical playing appears to come from the conscious mind, whereas the feel springs from the unconscious. Phil Collins explained: "You can have the feel for [playing music] and then cultivate it into something more; you can't buy it, or learn how to do it. Some of the most famous drummers - like, say, Carl Palmer - someone like that to me is a very unnatural drummer. He was taught, and it just sounds like it when I hear him play. There are other guys out there, you can tell, who just picked up a pair of sticks and started playing. Without putting down Carl Palmer, I've never hear anything from him that sounds convincing to me, and yet there are other drummers who can do far less but move me far more - like Ringo, for instance."
The Collective Unconscious
Musicians represents a type of archetypal idea from our collective unconscious....It is through exploring these symbolic expressions of the collective unconscious that we can recognize parts of ourselves reflected by the artist. As Peter Gabriel said, "I put a lot of myself into my music and so I think people find echoes of themselves in it."
Music Reflecting Our Times
Mike Rutherford said he has "felt" the mood portrayed by certain musical styles: "I just sense moments, the feelings that are going on in young kids at certain stages; you hear a song, or you hear a mood or an atmosphere. It's there somewhere, you can feel it. I've always felt the strongest things are subconscious; a heavy lyric or a heavy sound is never as strong as some of those subconscious feelings. I think everyone inside is feeling it, even if not aware of it."
The Musical Message
Many of the musicians are keenly aware of the opportunity to speak through their music about various political and social issuesxAccording to Mike Rutherford, message songs are meaningless unless they come directly from the heart. If written just for the sake of consciously making a statement, songs fail. He observed: "For a while, I didn't like songs with messages; I didn't feel it was my place to tell people what I thought they ought to do. It wasn't my place to preach, and I didn't like it when people did that. I think it can very often be power misplaced and misused, but I'm changing a little bit.
"For a Genesis album, I wrote a protest lyric called 'Land of Confusion," which shows how I've changed. As I get older, maybe I'm feeling more in a position to comment than I did before. I fight not to analyze it; everything I do is pure gut feeling. I let something inside tell me where I'm going. It's in your stomach, you know, it's just that feeling inside you. I found myself changing the way I write lyrics and being slightly more grown up, whether I felt older or wiser, I don't know.
"This particular song, 'Land of Confusion,' was a terribly simple message, which was really, We have a wonderful way of living and what a complete fucking mess we're making of it. It was a very direct lyric, but it was still done subtly. It's more a social comment, but I'm becoming more positive in my writing that I used to be. I think it's all to do with, we grow up, we change, and I like that movement. This creativity thing is affected one hundred percent by that.
"I know a lot of people feel they owe it to themselves and to the world if they're in a position to reach a lot of people, they ought to use it, but I'm very cautious of that. I haven't felt convinced of their genuineness a hundred percent. The way I work, I do it for myself, it's purely for my satisfaction. And I'm obviously changing as a person because I'm looking at the world more than I used to and making more comments, but it's only because I want to do it. It feels right inside, not that I *ought* to. I can't ever feel I ought to do something and then channel my work in that way."
The Peak Experience - times in life when one experiences moments of euphoria, when everything comes together - a heightened state of awareness, sometimes called inspiration, intuition, or the peak experience
Mike Rutherford finds he is better able to lose himself while writing, rather than when performing, and thus it is during the writing that he experiences the peak: "It's an incredible high, a rush of energy. It's slightly hallucinogenic. I come back sort of a bit bleary-eyed and vague; I'm not quite sure when I am. I'm somewhere else for a while; it's like I come back to earth. Something breaks the moment and I'm back. You don't realize you're gone till something happens and you're back. It's a moment's magic that from time to time touches me, and I don't control it. Like Tinkerbell, it just goes past.
"When I'm playing, though, I never get lost. I never lose myself in the same way. While playing I get a different high: feedback from the audience. It lifts me somewhere but I always know where I am."
Reaching the Peak in the Studio
Peter Gabriel explained how he uses certain techniques in the studio to prevent his concentration being broken and ensure the spontaneity required for a peak experience: "I think you plug into this electricity - it's like a river in a way. No question when the magic's there, everyone in the room feels it. You're a bit like a radio aerial and you quiver when you're on to something. One of the things we try and get a lot more conscious about now is to make sure we record those moments in whatever form possible at *that* moment. You don't take an hour trying to get sounds right, trying to get all the bits and pieces operational and then find you've lost it. Immediately you put the red light on and catch whatever is around. And then even if it's only on two tracks of the twenty-four, you can always pull them back up again, even it it's not usable in its own form. It will then speak in a language of magic to the musicians."
The Link Between Artist and Audience
Peter Gabriel is very sensitive to the vibe given off by the audience and reacts to it accordingly: "Performers feed off the audience; sometimes you can tell how a gig's going to go at the moment you walk on stage. You know what sort of electricity and energy is being put up toward the stage. I respond to that a lot. Sometimes you can generate that from nothing, but it is a lot harder."
The Spiritual Element
Peter Gabriel spoke of the ethereal element that music brings to the artist's life: "Music is spiritual and is a doorway into that world. Its power comes from the fact that it plugs directly into the soul, unlike a lot of visual art or text information that has to go through the more filtering processes of the brain."
Chemicals and Creativity - A Change in Consciousness
Peter Gabriel disparages the use of drugs as giving a false sense of enlightenment: "Mind-altering substances of one kind or another have been traditionally part of many cultures and have a place in shaping creativity. But I don't think it's something I would recommend to anyone nor that it is necessary. I think it's possible to get to wherever you want to go without it. Perhaps sometimes it does short-circuit longer routes that maybe allow you to look through a window perhaps at a state that might be arrived at through spiritual work. I'm not sure you actually get there. It's a very dangerous road."
Side Effects of Drug Use
Phil Collins recalled a telling anecdote about the debilitating effect of drugs: "It's so easy to get diminishing returns. I have [used drugs]; certain albums are a bit of a blur, not a blur that I don't remember anything; I just wish that I hadn't been so uptight. I know myself now, I know my capabilities, and I know I can't do it, so I don't do it. I haven't smoked for years. Coke and stuff, I just cannot function on that.
"An experience I had with smoking: It was about 1978 and we were playing in LA, one of the Forum gigs and Chester [Thompson] came up to me and said, 'I've got this Hawaiian stuff, just one puff, you don't need anymore.' So of course we had two puffs, we went on stage, and there's a song we used to do - most of the Genesis songs were more story-oriented, so if you lost the thread, you lost it. So I started this song. I was standing there and the verse was coming at me and I though, God, what am I going to sing? And just at the last possible second my mind took it away and I knew what to sing. I was in a cold sweat. So I vowed from that point, no more."
Mike Rutherfordxhas found that one's own natural state of being is more conducive to creating: "For myself [drugs] have been a destructive force, without bringing any good. That's the main thing - writing and creating have always felt like such a natural thing. It's like you need to cleanse your body to do it. It's the feeling of purity I think."
The Creative Potential - Nuturance Breeds Self-Confidence
Encouragement can allow dormant creativeness to emerge, Phil Collins has discovered: "There is probably something in most people that just never gets tapped, or they don't think about it, or they don't have the opportunity. For example, every year the Prince's Trust [a British charitable organization that helps underprivileged children] has a holiday camp for a week in Norfolk. There are four hundred kids there, between the ages of fifteen and twenty, from Liverpool, Manchester, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, and so on, all potential football gangs. The purpose is to encourage any natural talents they have. They're taught how to apply themselves, how to get on with other people, how to apply for a job. There are all kinds of different workshops they can go to throughout the week.
"I'm a trustee, so I go up there on the last day. I get all the musicians together in the music workshop and form a band for that particular day. Some are musicians, but most of these people have never touched an instrument before. They're encouraged to pick up something and play, and from there maybe they will take an interest in it. We learn a couple of songs and perform that night. There was one guy there, very introverted, and during the week he had plucked up enough courage to get up and sing in front of these four hundred kids. He'd never done anything like this before. The reception that this bloke got was absolutely fantastic because they'd seen him get strength through the week. They knew what he was going through, and they went mad."
Peter Gabriel gave several examples to show why he believes that anyone who gains confidence can be creative: "I'm absolutely certain that everyone has the potential to be creative. the example I used to use, which isn't perfect, is that if I could convince someone in the street - anyone - that their survival was dependent on producing something very creative - whether it was music, painting, or whatever - if they took me seriously, then they would find they were creative. I'm sure music, poetry, painting, all of the arts, are languages - no more. Some people are more adept at speaking them, but no one is excluded or no one need be excluded. If a baby is dependent on drawing to get his milk, then he would become as talented as possible. I remember reading about some music students in Czechoslovakia who were hypnotized into thinking they were their favorite composers. They sat down at their instruments and didn't play new sonatas or whatever, but sat down with a self-assurance that they lacked left to their own devices, and that enabled them to really raise their standard. We put our own limitations on nine times out of ten."
The Creative Potential - Taking Chances
Phil Collins told me what it was like, as an established musician, to overcome the fear involved in attempting new artistic challenges: "You sort of push yourself tot he edge to see if you can do it, because you want the challenge: If I can learn from it and see if I can pull it off. I had this terrible feeling after 'Face Value', the first album, that that was all I had. I thought, Will I be able to do this, or will I get up there and nothing happens. I'm scared as well, so I have to keep going to convince myself that it isn't all gone. It's a personal challenge each time."
Conditions Conducive to Creating
Mike Rutherford agreed that forcing creativity doesn't work and described the euphoric state that occurs when he is able to open himself up to the muse: "When I write, if I try too hard it's completely hopeless; nothing happens. It's like you have to free yourself up, and if I think about how it happens, the more I analyze it, the more it pushes it away. A perfect example: if I go in one morning to write with the idea that today I'm going to do something wonderful, nothing happens. If I don't try or think about it, with the attitude of 'I'll give it ten minutes,' it all happens. It's frightening because ideas come so fast. It's a wonderful feeling. You get these moments when you can do no wrong. Everything you play is wonderful."
Creative Tricks of the Trade
Phil Collins explained the group process that Genesis uses to compose songs and emphasized the need for trust among band mates: "When Tony, Mike, and me - the guys in Genesis - go into the studio, we have nothing written. Nowadays we just keep all the songs we've written for ourselves and we go in and just turn everything on and start playing, and we improvise and improvise for days until something works. I'm taping everything and we'll listen back to it and say, 'That sounds interesting. What happened there?' And we'll develop that into songs, so to do that, you have to have no inhibitions, to sit down and not be afraid to play badly, because if you're playing safe all the time, then nothing really new happens. You have to have the knowledge that the other people involved don't mind that I start to sing out of tune, if I'm going to try and sing a melody that isn't written. Just try and go for things that you might not be able to reach. We all know we've got to let our trousers down without worrying about it. And that's like a chemistry that you do get in certain bands, and that's what makes the band great, at least the experience of doing that. It's very enjoyable because you're creating something out of nothing."