Genesis á árunum eftir 1974
In pursuit of success, Genesis took the scenic route. It was 10 years
before they scored their first hit single. Long, radio-unfriendly epics
such as Supper's Ready, a 26 minute controlled freak out from the Foxtrot
album, were their original stock in trade.
Band members subsisted on a retainer of £10 per week. Hotels proving
sadly unaffordable, the group would drive home to London after every gig.
Their live show looked great - a riot of masks and weird costumes - but
it cost next to nothing. "The challenge was to create something visually
striking that was also cheap," Banks remembers. "Which was a
good discipline."
By 1970 Genesis were making headway with their uniquely theatrical brand
of progressive rock. A series of personnel changes introduced a newdrummer,
Phil Collins, and guitarist Steve Hackett. Gradually, the world started
to prick up its ears. In America, Genesis have rarely appeared as an opening
act (a somewhat curious statement ina bio if ever we've seen one - considering
this one of the biggest bands in the history of rock). Rutherford: "We've
always gone down well in the big industrial cities of the East Coast and
mid-West, maybe because of the element of fantasy and escapism in our shows."
Following the extraordinary success of the band's 7th album, a soundtrack
to their spectacular stage show (we would think it's the other way round
- the stage show was developed to the music and the concepts therein), The
Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, Peter Gabriel left in 1975.
"We came close to calling it a day when Pete left," Rutherford
recalls, "It wasn't that we lost our nerve. We were always confident
we could write the music, because Tony and I had done most of the Lamb.
It was just a question of whether the public would accept us."
They did. Collins took over on vocals "because he really wanted to
do it, basically" and the next instalment of Genesis, A Trick Of The
Tail, promptly outsold all of their previous releases.
After the departure of Hackett in 1977 the creative nucleus of the band
re-configured as a trio, aptly expressed in the album of the following
year, ... And Then There Were Three... , on which Rutherford played both
guitar and bass. At this point the songs were mostly written by Rutherford
and Banks.
It wasn't until Genesis's next album, 1979's Duke, that drummer vocalist
Phil Collins made his major debut as a songwriter.
By the end of the 1970's, punk notwithstanding, Genesis were a major force
to be reckoned with. "I think the fact that we were all in our 30's
by the time we became really successful was a great help," says Banks.
"To this day we've never had an argument about money."
Even without Gabriel's showmanship, the band continued to set new standards
as a live act. On their 1981-2 world tour they broke box office records
in North America when they went out with a revolutionary lighting system,
Vari*Lite. Ten years later they were the first stadium act to employ the
Sony Jumbotrons - giant high definition video screens.
The 1980's proved to be Genesis's most commercially successful decade yet.
Their 1986 album, Invisible Touch, broke more records when it yielded
5 US top 10 singles. "Despite the media's perception of us, we didn't
think of ourselves as a singles band," says Rutherford. "In
our minds we were a band that did long songs but just happened to have a
few hits."
The accompanying Invisible Touch tour generated the highest average gross
per venue of any act on the road that year. A total of over 3 million people
worldwide attended . In 1987 Genesis were voted Band Of The Year in Rolling
Stone magazine's Readers Poll.
Following a lay off during which band members pursued individual projects,
Genesis re-convened in 1991 to record, We Can't Dance. "We were quite
surprised Phil still wanted to make a Genesis album," Banks recalls.
"We felt incredibly loyal to one another, but the pressures of his
solo success made it increasingly difficult for all of us to function as
a band." Difficult, but by no means impossible.
We Can't Dance sold more than 10 million copies to become Genesis's biggest
seller so far. A triumphal romp around the world saw the band play to their
largest ever British audience when they sold out 2 concerts at Knebworth
in the summer of 1992.
After another break for soloing, Genesis and Phil Collins finally parted
company early in 1996. "It did briefly occur to us that we should
put Genesis to rest," Rutherford admits. "But Tony and I have
never stopped writing songs since we were teenagers, so we thought, why
should we give up now?"
Most of the songs for the new album were written before the selection of
new vocalist Ray Wilson - a singer whose voice has more in common with Peter
Gabriel than Phil Collins, an appointment that signalled a return to Genesis's
rockier roots.
Banks: "We liked Ray immediately because of the sort of sound pictures
his voice conjures up. It has a natural darkness. With Ray we can write
in a heavier, more atmospheric way than we did with Phil. We also like the
fact that he doesn't have have much history."
For Genesis history is still in the making. Calling All Stations is their
20th album.
"A group is a compromise. Phil was good at concise moments; we've
always been happier working with larger, longer structures. Now the balance
has shifted again," Mike Rutherford commented.
"I don't think Genesis have ever made a definitive album, which is
one reason why we've never got bogged down in our own past." concluded
Tony Banks.
Genesis í dag