This interview is a combined interview from Backstage interviews conducted at The Robin 2 In Bilston and The Assembly at Leamington Spa with a catch up interview conducted at Steve's home in Twickenham, Along with other questions asked of Steve via email just to round things off nicely. We hope you enjoy reading through the Interview and we thank Steve Hackett and Jo Lehmann as well as Nick Beggs and the most considerate tour manager I have ever met Mr Brian Coles
Steve Hackett and Nick Beggs (Credit © Mark Kenyon 2009)
Steve Hackett and Nick Beggs interview Robin 2 Bilston 2009
MK Mark Kenyon Interviewer
SH Steve Hackett
NB Nick Beggs
BF Ben Sound Engineer
TM Tigger Lighting Engineer
The Evil Jam recently sat down to interview Steve Hackett, we were very fortunate to have Nick Beggs join us as well here you can read the results of 40 minutes of conversation.
MK Recently Michael and I saw the show in London which was quite nice, the level of musicianship has been brought up quite a few notches in comparison to the previous tours.
SH, Yeah it has gone up a notch, I think the live stuff is improved because of the combination of material and the personnel that are Performing it. It’s often a subtle change.
MK Yes it is
SH Its all in the details, But I find I respond to people I am working with and the crowds. Also I think there is an aspect of getting older where you do feel as though the clock is ticking and I am more inclined to do all the things that I really enjoy in one way or another so there seems to be less time to have the sort of usual detours via things that I aspire to play but struggle to play.
BF and SH have a conversation about the show the interview is paused! three minutes pass by!
SH sorry about that digression but it might be the only chance I get before the show!
MK I saw you five years ago at the Shepherds Bush Empire and again just last weekend, it was quite different to see you on stage with a Bassist who also plays Chapman Stick.
(At this stage in the interview we are joined by the excellent Nick Beggs)
MK Yes it was very different, a similar sort of surprise would be if you (Steve) came on stage with an Electric Sitar instead of your usual Electric Guitar or Acoustic Guitar.
SH Yeah there is quite a bit of rearranging going on I would say but obviously Nick has been playing stick for quite some time and is one of the foremost exponents.
MK Nick your one of only two people I have seen play Chapman Stick in this country
NB There are a number of amazing Chapman Stick players in England but they are not very high profile because it is quite an alternative instrument, the reason for me learning it in the first place is because I was always fascinated by it and when Steve asked me to join the band I felt as though I would augment what I do into Steve’s arrangements. Fortunately it seems to be working and also with the new record I was able to throw some Chapman Stick into those parts too.
NB It just seems to be a natural bolt on really seam less I hope.
MK The first time I saw a Chapman Stick being played was in 2002 by a lady called Carrie Melbourne.
NB Yes she is a very good player.
MK She appeared to be holding it similar to a violin player, and you seem to have a different technique?
NB Well I think your right, but ergonomically there is only one way to hold a Violin by holding it under you chin and with the Chapman Stick there are lots of different ways of wearing it posturally some people like to look down at the instrument, Emmett Chapman doesn’t look at the fret board there are a lot of variables in the approach.
MK Do you find playing either the Chapman Stick (NB) or Guitar (SH) intuitive or do you have to look at what your fingers are doing or if they are in the right place?
NB Well I personally from my own position I am learning something from about playing everyday I am only a fraction away from the path of where I want to get to with the instrument I have only recently been able to use my little finger on my right hand with the Chapman Stick it has taken quite a lot of discipline to rework all of the voices that I knew, I noticed the other day I just did it and I finally got some pay off.
SH it’s very nice when that happens
MK Nick how are you finding the tour compared to working with Kajagoogoo which is quite a bit different to Steve’s music
NB there is a lot more gravitas to working with Steve than what Kajagoogoo is because it’s a POP band the kind of instant gratification Popsicle but personally this is here (working with Steve) where I feel most comfortable musically because that is the music that made me want to become a professional musician in the first place it wasn’t pop, Prog (Progressive Rock) is where my heart is.
MK We saw you in London and it was great, we have read a lot about what you were bringing to the tour and the shows.
NB Really? , That’s nice to know
MK Well we had read a lot about it but we hadn’t seen you for ourselves, then we saw the show in London and we found you to be a fun gregarious guy onstage.
NB It’s a great honour to be in this band because everybody is extraordinary and I am a big fan of Steve’s music, and when he asked me I felt like WOW everything had come full circle
SH Well I feel genuinely to be very lucky to be working with Nick he’s very very good. All the guys in the band are you know, obviously Nick has had a very high profile and history at the end of the day it’s about the playing and also the fact that we are all friends that’s important. I have worked in some situations that are much more competitive and obviously that’s a little different when you’re a player in a band rather than leading it.
MK If we can just talk about your new website for a moment, I have seen the video of Nick in the Knight Rider car which made me laugh a lot.
NB Oh is that on there?
LAUGHTER
SH yes these things are very much Jo’s influence on the website it was funny
MK There is also footage on there with you (Steve) doing these sketches around 1968?
SH Oh yeah these were when I was around 18
MK In one of them you’re outside the Bank Of America?
SH I thought it was the American Embassy, You’d get arrested for that now as a terrorist if you did that now.
MK The sketch in particular was called something like “Steve gets a mortgage for his Harmonica”
SH Yeah it was a buskers thing, a friend of mine way back in the 60’s was making student films I was putty in his hands a pawn and he just wanted me to look like a busker so I did and I had a little Harmonica that I used to play a small four note thing that you could play tunes on. I’m just stood there in a hat and its all sped up very Chaplinesque, You see in those days I had a beard and glasses and long hair and I had always wanted to look at least 40 that was the thing, and here I am in February I’ll be 60 and I think I’d rather to be in my twenties again.
NB Do you remember I showed you that photograph the other day of You and Peter (Gabriel) and you said you had your Polish Dissident look it was so funny.
SH The Polish Dissident look is the one! The wrong glasses (laughter) and often the wrong rain coat.
MK You may cringe when I bring this up now
SH the Strawberry Jacket?
MK Yes I bought all the Genesis box sets and I saw you wearing the Strawberry Jacket
NB What’s the Strawberry Jacket?
SH Ah it had a big Strawberry on the back (It didn’t Steve is teasing us and Nick)
Steve Hackett and that Derek Smalls look! (Courtesy of Charisma Records)
MK Have you seen Spinal Tap? Steve was the bassist Derek Smalls
NB Derek Smalls
LAUGHTER
SH I was Derek Smalls, I am Derek Smalls.
MK It looked like a Silk Strawberry Jacket
SH don’t remind me
NB Was that Trick of The Tail?
SH Stack heel shoes, No earlier Selling England time ’73 I sat there on stage with a bright Strawberry Jacket.
NB Hey listen we’ve all done it
MK I think I saw it on the Shepperton Film footage (released as an extra for Selling England by the Pound SACD/DVD remaster) of October 1973.
SH Well I toured that jacket, I had a series of jackets that were a bit like that.
MK You had a very serious pose with you sat down like that.
NB That’s right! You all did.
SH people just used to sit down those days, PETE was the show running about everywhere and the rest of us all sat down and it wasn’t until Pete left Monsieur Gabriel we well some of us learned to stand up.
NB Well you were playing Bass pedals and you were all playing really complicated pieces and I thought hey this music is so difficult that they all have to sit down to play it and that’s why I liked it.
Genesis in the very early '70's! (Courtesy of Charisma Records)
SH A lot of people used to sit down to play and a lot of audiences used to sit down in places, Where you would have standing tonight (Robin 2 November 18th 2009) if this were a Genesis gig in 1972 that audience would probably be all sitting down on the floor just like Children in a class room in primary school. there used to be such reverence in those days for all things that latterly became known as Prog but that wasn’t exceptional most audiences used to sit down for most bands in those days unless it was a wet muddy field.
MK What like the conditions at the Six of the Best gig?
SH Absolutely.
Laughter
NB What is Six of the Best?
MK The 1970 to 1975 era Genesis reunited in October of 1982 to help Peter Gabriel pay off debts he had left over when he had tried to organise the very first Womad concert, sadly Peter was getting death threats about money that was owed. Genesis heard about this and offered to pay the debt from the money made on their previous nights gig. Peter refused and came up with the idea of a One off reunion.
NB Now I remember and I remember hearing about this
MK Well sadly Steve came on for only two songs but when he did come on the crowd went ballistic in a positive way so I have been told by those that were there, and from what can be heard on a few bootlegs of the gig.
SH It was a great moment I did “I Know What I like” and “The Knife” with them I flew back three thousand miles when I heard that the gig was on to be part of it, I got on a plane and had practically no sleep. I would have liked to have been on for more of it. I think they (Genesis) had managed to rehearse at the Hammersmith Odeon, because they were doing there own show there they were really knackered it was the end of their tour and everyone had that pale and interesting green look because they had been on tour for a year I think already at that point and right at the end of it they decided to incorporate another set into it with Pete so it was more of a party than a gig plainly not everyone knew each others numbers Pete got up and tried to play along on the drums to Turn it on again and didn’t remotely know how it went, It was taken in the spirit of FUN so it was half Karaoke really, it poured with rain yet such an amazing atmosphere on stage and back stage.
SH I just felt wonderful to be on stage with everybody at that point because although we had this history together so much had been done subsequently everyone had done solo things with success and I just thought Oh what a proud moment to be on stage with them all again we were all practically laughing our heads off and all hugging each other the stiff upper lip had gone completely maybe no one else will admit to this I was there and I know and I got completely legless and I had to be carried home along with just about everyone else.
Laughter
SH I was completely gone
Laughter
MK Yeah I heard that the weather was terrible
SH Yeah it poured throughout the whole gig luckily on stage it was dry those that were there at the front suffered mightily from the deluge.
TM and Steve talk about lighting cues and the placing of the interval, as this conversation ends I say
MK If only there was “Dark town” in the set
SH Dark town? A version of that number, we did do it earlier but we have incorporated most of the new album except “Last Train To Istanbul” although it becomes part of the intro and outro.
MK its makes a lot of sense playing most of the new album, because you have a new album to promote as well as you have a limited time on stage.
SH well its quite a long set around two hours and twenty minutes to two and a half hours depending on any noodling.
MK How did you come to choose the set?
SH I let Nick choose the set
Laughter
SH It was largely Nicks input funny enough based on the former set we were previously playing and the potential set that we might do, so we were all furiously rehearsing away in private to come together and update the set . So I have broken with tradition in a way because really the sets that people usually enjoy are the ones that feature old favourites as much as possible but it seemed as if the new numbers in this set have been embraced almost immediately by audiences as if they were always there.
NB They’re quite instant songs though, and the material is quite approachable though in my opinion and I don’t know what you found when you first heard the album (Mark) but we listened to the material back in the mix and I thought do you know this has a kind of pop sensitivity to the songs which makes them quite instant
MK There were some songs where easy to get into upon the first listen of the album, But there where parts of the album were you had to listen hard to the first piece of a song which at times was subtle or even pastoral and then you could relax when then Rock element kicked in sometimes a sort of Led Zeppelin feel in a few places which was nice but I suspect not as instant as a three or four minute pop song. But that said most people that go and see a Steve Hackett show or buy a Steve Hackett album are not usually the kind of people that look up and down the top 40 singles chart and go off and buy whatever is in the said chart.
NB No they’re not!
MK Steve’s music and shows are much more than the Popsicle thing which appeals to me hence why I visit many gigs and to see him play and the band gelling along side him playing real live music. Unlike something along the lines of Pop Idol or X Factor which is all about one person who is often a product of the manufactured machine that some people like but it does in fact very little for me.
MK I most certainly wouldn’t want to watch such an artist in a live setting.
SH you know it must be very difficult for those people, I think
NB I think your right
SH Who haven’t had the benefit of playing a lot of different venues and a lot of different sizes of gigs to people who run the gamut of being totally indifferent or completely overwhelmed but it is a good grounding because you learn that its not just inheirtant in the music for instance if we are talking about success with Genesis when we performed numbers like Watcher Of The Skies people used to just go to the bar and it wasn’t until there was some kind of visual element. Until there was sounds lights and costumes and make up and all the rest presentation is what I have learned.
SH Presentation is what engages an audience not what sells a song and obviously I have worked with some masters who have done that in the past, but I cannot see me going on in a pair of Bat Wings.
LAUGHTER
SH I don’t think I could pull it off, Peter Gabriel did.
MK Yes people do under estimate the presentation side of things
SH I have had my moments of fake blood and fake snow as well as various things which have probably brought me closer to flying pigs and keyboard players on ice. The fake blood was something I got into in America in my more tasteless days.
LAUGHTER
To read the next interview conducted at Leamington Spa please click on part 2
Steve's official website can be located here