Steve Hackett
By: Lori Smerilson Carson | Photos:
When you grow up with the love of music, you end up making music your life. This is exactly what world renown Guitarist Steve Hackett has done and is continuing to do, very strongly. His latest album Live Magic At Trading Boundaries has topped the charts featuring his outstanding musical talents, as well as the amazing musicianship’s of his brother Flutist John Hackett, Keyboardist Roger King, Flute and Saxophonist Rob Townsend, and Guitarist/Vocalist Amanda Lehmann.
From Genesis to GTR to his many solo projects, Hackett has not only created extraordinary rock music, but classical as well. He also with Genesis was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2010. Now, Florida fans will have the opportunity to see his live show on April 3rd at The Parker in Fort Lauderdale.
Catching up with him just after his birthday and before this current tour, he revealed some details about the new show and album, as well as some great stories of the past, and what fans can look forward to.
SFL Music Magazine: What can fans look forward to with the new show in Florida?
Steve Hackett: Well, it’s nothing like that live album, if it’s the one the Live Magic At Trading Boundaries. That’s an acoustic gem which has done extraordinarily well, but it wasn’t intended to be a hit at all. It was just a kind of thank you to friends and family frankly. The show in Florida, that will be highlights of THE LAMB LIES DOWN ON BROADWAY, several new songs, other things, about three hours long. The show, it’s extremely extensive over the whole of my history, Genesis history. So, yeah, it’s a full-on rock show. The band are brilliant. I think it’s a very explosive show. It’s very good, he said modestly. And there we are.
SFL Music Magazine: About the live album, what prompted you to make it?
Hackett: Friends and family, a thank you to friends and family, and the guy who owns the venue. He’d been trying to talk me into doing it for many years. Doing an album from there, and I said, ok. Just so as another album, a document, but it went to the top of the rock and metal charts in the U.K., and the top of the download charts in the U.S. It was never intended to be a hit! I didn’t design it that way. People get the idea, “oh this is what Steve does now.” No. That’s recorded over fifteen years of highlights, acoustic things. So that’s nothing like what I’m doing at the moment. No, the show celebrates THE LAMB LIES DOWN ON BROADWAY. We do nine tracks from that. We do I think, two or three at least as much from SELLING ENGLAND BY THE POUND. Stuff from The Circus And The Nightwhale. Stuff from Voyage of the Acolyte, amongst other things, and everyone gets a chance to play and kind of show off a little frankly.
SFL Music Magazine: A couple songs were from Amanda Lehmann’s album INNOCENCE and ILLUSION?
Hackett: That’s right. Yes.
SFL Music Magazine: Songs like “Jacuzzi” which was originally on your solo album DEFECTOR, what inspired you to put it on this album?
Hackett: Well, originally, back in the day we did demos that were acoustic, and it was often my brother playing flute taking the main melody, me playing a supporting part of guitar. So, whenever we did acoustic shows, we featured an acoustic version of “Jacuzzi” as we featured acoustic versions of many things that went back way before my solo stuff. So, it’s got moments from Lamb Lies Down “Hairless Heart” for instance, but that’s not the version that we do live. I do this once a year. I do an acoustic show once a year in front of basically friends and family in East Sussex, which is near Brighton in England. So, every now and again, I make an acoustic album. I release that, and I sometimes work with orchestras, sometimes work with a duo, quintet, sometimes solo, trio, quartet, all of that. So, everything you hear on that is paired down versions of things. I realize there’s some confusion about the latest album and what I’ll be playing live, but what I do live is rather more full on, with a very loud band, and so you get stuff as I say, from the latest rock album of mine. We do “People of the Smoke”, we do “Circo Inferno”, “These Passing Clouds”. So full on electric guitar things really. There’s plenty of that. I realize as I say, there may be confusion. I thought this one album would be a complete escape rather than a release. Lots of things that I do, I don’t intend to be successes. It’s a bit like if an actor goes and does Shakespeare, he doesn’t think he’s going to get an Oscar for it. You know what I’m saying? You do it for love of not only guitar. I love working with my brother, playing wonderful flute, and Rob Townsend playing wonderful soprano sax and flute, whistle, and the things that Roger King brings to it, piano, strings, and a couple tracks from Amanda where I get a chance to play harmonica. This is not what I do normally in my live show, so I get to be a harmonica player. Harmonica was my first instrument when I was a kid. I took it very, very seriously ever since I was two years old. I copied my dad who could play and my grandfather who could play. So, it was kind of all around the family table with the spoons and harmonicas. It was that kind of you know, folks at home type thing, and then I got interested in blues. Originally via The (Rolling) Stones, hearing harmonica played in a way I never really heard it, bending notes and doing all that. In later life of course, I listened to the blues masters Sonny Boy Williamson, Little Walter, Larry Adler. Funny enough, I spent time with Larry Adler. I was asking him about harmonica techniques. Larry Adler kind of made his home here in the U.K. I think he may have been blacklisted during the time of McCarthy, etc, So, he had a right to play the blues. Yeah, very interested of all of what has happened. I got to see the late great Paul Butterfield with Mike Bloomfield, the late great Mike Bloomfield in the mid1960s. That was a big deal for me. I thought it was the best blues show I’ve ever seen. Elvin Bishop on guitar too. I saw a brilliant evening of them playing to about twenty people. I know that Eric Clapton was a huge fan of theirs. I believe eventually he got to work with Paul. Paul Butterfield used to jam after hours with Jimi Hendrix. No one ever recorded it. Why? We don’t know, but that’s just one of those things, wouldn’t you have loved to have been a fly on the wall? Isle of Wight Festival in 1970 and a friend of mine, we were there. Six hundred thousand people. He just brought me a DVD from it which I’ve never seen the entire thing. Hugely interesting watching Hendrix two weeks before he was to die. Important to guitarists. Young guys as we were, well, we were just into our twenties at that point.
SFL Music Magazine: The last time we spoke, you told me how supportive your parents were of you and your brother when you were young. From those experiences and what you were explaining about writing something and it taking off, what would you say is your thought process when you write your music? Does it just come to you?
Hackett: I think that Oscar Wilde, there’s a very good quote from him saying that the artist yields to his material. Sometimes you’re doing something, and I’m just doing it for practice. Then I come back to it again and I think, if I’m enjoying this, then there’s a chance that other people will enjoy it as well. It just so happens these days, I’m able to play really fast. I’m worried that people may not enjoy my joy of the sprint as it were, of doing that where the frets are catching fire, but I get drawn back to it time and time again, especially if I’m using a harmonizer on some of the notes for some unlikely combinations. It really does sound like the guitar can take it all on its own without any accompaniment at that point. So, if it seems like there’s too much ego in that and it seems like I’m just going off on one, then I apologize, but in my time, I’ve recorded composers Bach. I’ve wrote with orchestras. I’ve done lots of different styles, but when I’m at home, I like to really go for it and it gives me a lot of energy, and so far, it’s nice to keep me young.
SFL Music Magazine: That’s important.
Hackett: It’s important when you’re in your mid blah blah (he gestured with his finger over his mouth). Allow me to reverse those figures.
SFL Music Magazine: I like that you put “Blood on the Rooftops” on the album. You also did a more classical “Black Light”. What would you say inspired that one?
Hackett: Oh, my goodness. Well, I was practicing something that afforded fast triplets. It’s like a tremolando study. Again, this sort of stuff comes from practicing, and sometimes when you practice you find a melody. If you start with chord checks and scales and various things, then you’re approaching things pretty much like (Sergei) Rachmaninoff used to approach piano where he would start off with scales every day, according to his daughter. So, I think a lot of classical music is born that way. I think a lot of classical stuff presupposes, but you’ve got great technique in the first place to be able to pull it off. Now, technique shouldn’t be a pursuit and an end in itself. It’s part of what you can do. There’re other things. There’s melody for God sake. There are chord changes. There are all these other things and thematic stuff. Funny enough, I’m just reading a book by Jimmy Webb who I happen to be a huge fan of. He’s talking about the songwriting process and it’s very interesting. Having read his auto biography where you would read that and think that he was just after kicks and thrills in a way. Maybe he was trying to come across as rock and roll as possible, but this is dead serious. There is no act with this. It’s deadly serious pointers of how you can go. So, I do find myself reading autobiographies. I’ve enjoyed reading (Bob) Dylan’s autobiography, lots. Reading that and re-reading it and realizing that you would think someone like Dylan was resilient to criticism and not hard on himself. You realize what a tortured soul he’s been at times trying to get to the essence of what songwriting’s all about. Sometimes he struggles to find that, to reinvent himself sufficiently to justify singing some of the songs that he’s better known for, but that’s tricky. When the stuff that you’ve done when you shine so young, it’s tricky. It’s like oh, well, we remember you for what you did fifty, sixty years ago. But really what we’re interest in is “Mr. Tambourine Man” and “Blowin’ in the Wind” and of course, great songs. Who can doubt that, but it’s the same effect for all of us who made any kind of dent on the world of popular music back in the day. You’ve almost got to be remembered for the good stuff you wrote.
SFL Music Magazine: You’ve recorded over thirty albums, you’ve been inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, you have written an autobiography, and you’ve worked with many world renown musicians. What would you say is the key to success and longevity?
Hackett: Oh God. Well, I think that if you love your work, whatever that might be, I think it’s its own currency, music. I think it’s nice to have the money of course, but it’s I think, infinitely more valuable to have an idea that you think may pass the test of time. If there’s something really good that came out of all those endeavors. Of course, loving it is key to it. So, I think that’s the most important music lesson to not be too intimidated by it. Initially, one is either excited or intimidated by it, and we all realize our own limitations. I mean, no one can do everything. You can’t sound like (Johann Sebastian) Bach and Jimi Hendrix at the same time, but I’ve had a damn good go of it. Yeah, these are different schools, baroque and blues, but sometimes they crosspollinate and they are both player-based mediums. Well, good to have a great voice like Roy Orbison. I’m talking about some of my favorites here. If you were to combine those three, you might have something extraordinary. Who knows, when we shuffle off this phone call, perhaps they’ll all be working with each other. I have no idea.
SFL Music Magazine: You previously talked about working with Roger and your wife Jo, that you all are honest and when you work together, you can say if something could be stronger. Is that what you would recommend to a new musician for them to incorporate into their music?
Hackett: Well, I think that’s writing in a team and I’m lucky if I get to work with Roger and my wife Jo. Jo and I talk about songs often before they’re born in terms of wouldn’t it be nice to do something in this area. So, Jo often comes up with concepts for things like for instance, the Under A Mediterranean Sky we did in lockdown where you had different countries around the Mediterranean portrayed with separate tracks that were done in the style of something that was typically Spanish sounding. Something typically Italian, something Greek sounding. So, she came up with that idea as she does melodies, top lines. It’s interesting, when you work in a team, I think you can achieve a lot. You pass the ball or the bat to someone else and say, what do you think this needs? Does this work for you? I think we’re honest enough with each other to be able to say, yep, I think that’s good or if you think there might be a stronger line or stronger lyric or a melody or a variation. It often gets to happen, and I got to work in a team most successfully with Genesis and then also successfully with GTR, as well as solo things. If somebody says well, I don’t think it’s going to quite make it, usually something gets altered for the better. It is nice to work with a team. It’s being constructive. The main thing is, if you’ve got a constructive working relationship with people, you can achieve more substance, extraordinary things. You need to have a team of songwriters or a group that are sufficiently cooperative, but not too competitive with each other. And I say this having come from Genesis that were a very competitive team, but when everyone dropped their guard and cooperated, something extraordinary happened. I’m very proud of that. I’m amazed at the quality of many of the songs, and the different schools of approach. Still, it was very much sort of syncopated master of ceremonies. Tony, you have this extraordinary ability to use lots of different chords and be very, very good at harmonies. So, he was a very, very good accompanist as well as soloist. The combination of those two very different styles sometimes came together when you get something that could swing in a very unlikely kind of way. I’m thinking of something like the middle section of “Can-Utility and the Coastliners” where you’ve got a chord, a couple of chord shapes (he sings) dank a dang, dank, dank, dank. So, it’s Mike trying rhythmic ideas that Phil had, and then Tony is playing a kind of adagio string stuff at the top with mellotron, and then Phil is doing improvisational drums around it. The only thing that’s really anchoring is the rhythm guitars and a bass pedal that’s been toning like a bell. Then you get something that’s truly Genesis. There was a moment many, many years ago when Charisma Records were above the Marque in London at The Marquee Club. I used to go down very often and hang out with my buddies from the record company and the other people and watch bands. They used to let me in for free because we lived upstairs, in the record company. This German guy was on the door behind a kiosk, and I heard something, and I said, oh who’s that? That sounds intriguing, and he says, “you’re kidding!” I realized it was that section from “Can-Utility and the Coastliners”, but that’s very pleasant when I’m wrong footed and I don’t recognize something, and I think, oh is that something that I heard Purple Harm do or who is this band working with an orchestra? Then the illusion is complete of something. Occasionally that’s happened with other things that I’ve been involved with. I don’t recognize it. Then I find out later, it was me. When you don’t catch beat number one and you’re later in the melody, and it intrigues and draws you in, you think oh, that’s lovely. That’s sweet or dark or whatever it is, and it’s lovely to have it return to you and not recognize it, and be sufficiently moved, challenged by it.
SFL Music Magazine: That’s a great experience!
Hackett: I know. It makes me sound very vain (he laughed).
SFL Music Magazine: You also re-released a couple of classical albums Metamorpheus and Tribute. Is there anything else new that will be coming out for fans to look forward to?
Hackett: Well, I think eventually they will re-release A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but they didn’t want to flood the market. A Midsummer Night’s Dream has got the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra on it. I was very proud of it. It took about ten years to complete because at that time, I was stockpiling classical pieces of things that were done in a classical style, and each time I did something I thought, ooh, a nice title for this piece would be A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but Shakespeare’s done that. Oh, what a shame. I better find another title. Meanwhile, it went on the shelf, and then eventually when I had a meeting with EMI Records, they said they were interested in it. Stuff that was done over a ten-year period. I said, I’d like to have an orchestra on this. So, I had an advance, spend all my money of course in two days on the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Got to record it in George Martin’s studio, AIR Lyndhurst in North London, which was a wonderful studio. It was a converted church. It was something I was and still am very proud of. My cousin was involved, Roger was involved. My cousin was involved doing arrangements. Roger and I worked out the harmonies and orchestra sketches. My cousin Matt Dunkley, first time he was conducting an orchestra. He went on to do lots of stuff, music for loads of Hollywood block busters and still does. He’s a very, very busy guy in the world of film.
SFL Music Magazine: Was there anything else you want people to know about the show?
Hackett: Just how much I’ve been enjoying doing LAMB LIES DOWN again. Very much enjoying doing things from SELLING ENGLAND (BY THE POUND) in particular. That’s a favorite. I realize it’s a fans favorite as well. So, we do three things from SELLING ENGLAND where the songs are rather longer than the rather shorter songs that we do from THE LAMB LIES DOWN (ON BROADWAY). So, we do nine things from THE LAMB LIES DOWN ON BROADWAY, highlights of stuff. It’ll be a great show, and I’m looking forward to doing that Caribbean cruise once again. We will be doing Cruise to the Edge straight after the Florida gig. That’s always a lot of fun. The Cruise to the Edge has been really good to us. The audience were just amazingly wonderful. I think it’s a great tradition. My mother was going to do it. This is a funny thing. My mother is about to turn ninety-five. The year that we had COVID, and it got canceled, she was really looking forward to it. She had her leather jacket on and everything, but now she’s maybe thinking, don’t think so now. There’s a special treat that we’re going to give her, a gift of it. I thought that was going to be really great. She would love it, but maybe, I don’t think she’s quite up to it now. She comes to British gigs though, she loves them. She loved coming to the (Royal) Albert Hall, the last one we did. My brother as well, so she could see both of her boys up there. It was very important to her, I think. She was very taken with that. Down the line there will be a product from that gig as well. It’s being mixed at the moment by Chris Lord-Alge, so I’m interested in how that comes out. It was a great evening. We had a great time. It was a wonderful gig; it’s a wonderful hall.
SFL Music Magazine: Is there anything you want to add?
Hackett: I’ll be touring throughout the year. There aren’t any official dates over your side, but it will be coming. I’ll be over as soon as I can. As soon as all the things are negotiated, the news will be out. Meanwhile, there will be European dates, Japanese dates, and it will be great to be back the other side of the pond, across the water.
