All began at Chaterhouse
School. The group had its roots in the Garden Wall, a
band founded by 15-year-olds Peter Gabriel and
Tony Banks in
1967 at Charterhouse School in Godalming, Surrey, where fellow
students Michael Rutherford and
Anthony Phillips were members
of another group called Anon.
The two groups initially
merged out of expediency as the older members of each
graduated; Gabriel, Banks, Rutherford,
Phillips, and drummer
Chris Stewart soon joined together as the New Anon, and
recorded a six-song demo featuring songs primarily written by
Rutherford and Phillips.
The Charterhouse connection
worked in their favor when an ex-student, recording artist and
producer Jonathan King, heard the tape and arranged for the
group to continue working in the studio, developing their
sound. It was also King who renamed the band Genesis. In
December of 1967 the group had their first formal recording
sessions. Their debut single, "The Silent Sun," was
released in February of 1968 without attracting much notice
from the public. A second single, "A Winter's Tale,"
followed just about the time that Chris Stewart quit -- his
replacement, John Silver, joined just in time to participate
in the group's first LP sessions that summer. King later added
orchestral accompaniment to the band's tracks, in order to
make them sound even more like the Moody Blues, and the
resulting album, entitled From Genesis to Revelation,
was released in March of 1969.
Music seemed to be shaping up
as a brief digression in the lives of the members as they
graduated from Charterhouse that summer. The group felt
strongly enough about their work, however, that they decided
to try it as a professional band; it was around this time that
Silver exited, replaced by John Mayhew. They got their first
paying gig in September of 1969, and spent the next several
months working out new material. Genesis soon became one of
the first groups signed to the fledgling Charisma label, and
they recorded their second album Trespass that spring;
following its completion, the unit went through major
personnel changes -- During the Trespass tours, guitarist Ant
Phillips began experiencing extreme bouts of stage freight
which were effecting his health, and was eventually advised by
a doctor to leave the group. Genesis was now auditioning for a
new guitarist, and, at the same time, for a new drummer who
would better match the playing acumen of the other band
members.
CHAPTER 2 : Gabriel Years
(1970-1975)
Enter Phil
Collins, a onetime
child actor turned drummer and former member of Hickory and
Flaming Youth. The group's line-up was completed with the
addition of guitarist Steve Hackett, a former member of Quiet
World. With their two new members, Genesis went on to release
their third album, Nursery Cryme in late 1971. This was
the first of their albums to see a nice amount of commercial
success. It entered the top 20 in Italy, and thus forged a
special relationship between Genesis and their Italian fans
which has lasted to this day.
During one of the performances
in the Nursery Cryme tours, Peter Gabriel attempted a stage
dive and broke his leg. While recovering from this, he began
writing Genesis' most ambitious project to date,
"Supper's Ready," a 23-minute masterpiece which
occupies the entire second side of their fourth album, 1972's Foxtrot.
About this time, Peter also began the habit of dressing up in
costumes ("Dressing up in costumes/Playing silly
games/Hiding out in treetops/Shouting out rude names!"
Peter Gabriel, "Games Without Frontiers", 1980)
during Genesis live shows, and telling mysterious stories and
narratives between songs. This won Genesis a great deal of
press.
Foxtrot was quickly followed up
by 1973's 'Live', Genesis' first live album and the
only one officially released with Gabriel at the helm. Later
that same year, Genesis released Selling England by the
Pound, their artistically most ambitious work to date. It
contained songs like "I Know What I Like (In Your
Wardrobe)" and "Firth of Fifth" which remain
popular enough today to have had portions of them performed
during Genesis' 1992 tour.
The culmination of the original
Genesis came in 1974 with the release of the surrealistic
two-disc concept album 'The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway'.
The Lamb was a continuous story which tracked the adventures
of Rael, a striving graffiti artist, through a
psychadelic underworld in a journey of self discovery. It was
an extremely abstract work.
In order to play Rael on stage,
Peter Gabriel rendered himself into a much more
"normal" look than the one which he'd become used to
over the previous years.
During the production of 'The
Lamb', Peter Gabriel's first daughter was born, and,
originally, some questions were raised as to her health and
chances of survival. The stress of coping with this
uncertainty, combined with the stress of the ambitious musical
project and a number of other factors, brought about Gabriel's
decision to leave Genesis at the conclusion of the Lamb tours.
CHAPTER 3 : When They
Were Four
With Gabriel gone, Genesis
began looking for a new singer. They found him within their
midst. Drummer Phil Collins stepped to the front and became
the new singer. In the studio, Genesis was now reduced to four
people.
They released their first album
without Peter, 'A Trick of the Tail', in 1976. Though
it did not in any way compare to The Lamb, their last album
with Gabriel, which most dedicated fans still hold to have
been their best album, it did maintain a progressive and
experimental sound and featured a number of extraordinary
songs. "Dance on a Volcano," for instance, was
featured in Genesis' 1992 concert in the same medley as
"Firth of Fifth" and "I Know What I Like (In
Your Wardrobe)" from Selling England by the Pound.
Later that same year, Genesis
also released their second album without Gabriel, 'Wind and
Wuthering' It, too, maintained a progressive and
innovative sound and included some uniquely styled guitar work
by Hackett on "Blood on the Rooftops."
"Afterglow," another track from 'Wind' would prove
to be another favorite later on when performed live.
'Wind and Wuthering' was in
fact followed by a large string of live performances. Without
the benefit of studio recording equipment, Phil Collins was
unable to both play the drums and sing on most more
complicated songs. After brief experiments with 'Yes' drummer
Bill Bruford, 'Weather Report' drummer Chester Thompson
became
Phil's supplement during live shows.
The live performances which
took place at this time are the source for the material which
ended up on 1977's 'Seconds Out', the live double
album.
After these group of tours,
Steve Hackett left the group, supposedly because of musical
disagreenments with Tony Banks. Mike Rutherford took over his
role, playing both guitars and basses within the studio. To
accomodate Mike during live shows, guitarist Darryl Struermer
was hired to perform Steve's parts during performances of
older songs and the bass parts in newer songs.
Now reduced to a trio in the
studio, later in '78 Genesis released 'And Then There Were
Three'. This album was, for the most part, quite progressive.
Its sound differed significantly from that of the previous
two, however. With Hackett gone, Banks began making much more
extensive use of synthesizers and Collins began taking a more
extensive part in the writing of song lyrics. The last track
on the album, "Follow You Follow Me," became
Genesis' first top 20 hit in the US. It was at the time an
unusually poppy sounding song for Genesis, and, along with
"Many Too Many," another song on the album,
comprised the beginning of another new path for the band:
romantic songs.
CHAPTER 4 : And Then
They Were Three
Phil's growing involvement with
Genesis in the late 70s caused stress within his personal life
and the decade ended for him with his first divorce. To give
him time to recooperate without hurting the band, Tony and
Mike decided to pursue solo projects. This led to the creation
of Tony's A Curious Feeling and Mike's Smallcreep's
Day. Tony's solo career developed into a successful career
of film scoring. Mike has formed a second band, Mike and the
Mechanics who have since had such hits as "The Living
Years" and "Silent Running".
Having settled his personal
life, Phil found his band members firmly engaged in their
work. As such, he began work on his own first solo album, Face
Value, which started with the mega-hit "In the Air
Tonight."
1980's 'Duke'
was a
clear demonstration that Genesis had opened a new leaf, and
was now a commercially oriented pop band. It featured such hit
singles as "Misunderstanding" and "Turn It On
Again." A series of attacks by previously dedicated fans
who felt that Genesis had "sold out" followed.
Nevertheless, every single album since then has continued to
have its progressive aspect. Alongside songs like
"Misunderstanding" and "Turn It On Again,"
there have always been such progressive songs as
"Cul-de-Sac" and "Man of Our Times."
1981's 'ABACAB' (the
name is the name of the title song and corresponds to the
sequencing of the different pieces of music which comprised an
earlier version of the song) united Genesis with producer Hugh
Padgham, who had previously worked with The Police, and who
pushed the band further into the direction of pop music.
Nevertheless, among poppy songs like "No Reply At
All," Genesis continued to include songs like
"Dodo," which featured' Banks' trademark churning
synthesizer melodies and some extremely unusual lyrical work.
1982 saw the release of another
live double album, 'Three Sides Live'. The original US
releases of 'Three Sides Live' also included a fourth,
non-live side with songs left over from the previous few
albums. European versions of the album had several additional
live tracks instead of these on the fourth side. The
remastered version of 'Three Sides Live' now predominantly
available in the US has the same tracks as the original
European version. The five additional tracks on the original
release, "Paperlate," "You Might Recall,"
"Me and Virgil," "Evidence of Autumn," and
"Open Door" are now, to some degree, rarities.
In 1983, Genesis finally
released a 'Genesis' self entitled album. With this
album, Genesis began a new writing technique. Instead of
coming to the studio with prepared material to work on, they
now arrived at the studio and simply sat down to improvise and
later decided on combinations of musical pieces to be put
together and the lyrics to go with them. This produced
"Home by the Sea," a 10+ minute long, synthesizer
intensive creation of Tony's which related the story of a
thief who, upon entering a beachfront home, finds himself
trapped inside a haunted house.
1986 saw the release of 'Invisible
Touch' and gave Genesis their first American #1 single,
'Invisible Touch' (the album's title song), 17 years after the
release of their first album. It also featured Domino, another
long and creative project of Tony's which included vivid
lyrics and complex synthesizer melodies. With the solo careers
of all three band members growing steadily by this time, 5
years were to follow with no new release from Genesis as a
group.
Late 1991 saw the release of a
new Genesis studio album, 'We Can't Dance'. It
contained several new hit songs. "No Son of Mine,"
"Jesus He Knows Me," and, of course, "I Can't
Dance," which became Genesis' latest "anthem"
song.
A comparison of "I Can't
Dance" with "The Knife," Genesis' first
"anthem," can bring about a rather intensive
appreciation for the changes Genesis has gone through.
1992 and early 1993 saw the
releases of 'Genesis Live: The Shorts' and 'Genesis
Live: The Longs', two albums covering the series of
tours which followed 'We Can't Dance'.
In Mid 1995, rumors began to
surface of trouble between Phil Collins and his second wife.
They soon after divorced. Shortly after this, Phil left the
group.
CHAPTER 5 : And Then
They Were 2 + Ray
In September of 1997, Genesis
released their most recent album, 'Calling All Stations'.
On this album, Phil Collins was replaced by new vocalist
Ray Wilson, formerly of the European grunge band Stilskin, and
drummers Nir Z and Nick D'Virgilio. This album had a much
darker sound than the Collins-era Genesis material and
included such songs as "Congo" and "The
Dividing Line."
Genesis followed this album
with a short tour. To the dismay of many American fans, the
American leg of the tour was cancelled due to the poor sales
of the new record in the states.
On June 16th, 1998, Genesis
released a 4 CD box set entitled The Genesis Archive,
Volume I: 1967-75. This box set featured a complete
recording of a live performance of The Lamb Lies Down On
Broadway album, as well as a number of other previously
unreleased live performances and early studio demos.
