<\/p>\n The fact that he would stand on stage clutching a pink teddy bear while singing Me And My Teddy Bear added to the whole incongruous image. \u201cThat was actually the first song I ever performed in front of an audience,\u201d Gabriel told Classic Rock in 2014. \u201cThe contrast was deliberate. You want to believe that packaging isn\u2019t the main priority for making initial decisions about people, but sadly it is. So by changing the packaging I was hoping to change the perception.\u201d<\/p>\n Latest Videos From Louder<\/p>\n And did you? \u201cTo an extent. I think it worked in America but in England I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever outgrown that middle-class, ex-progressive rock persona.\u201d<\/p>\n Strange but true. Most people\u2019s first acquaintance with Peter Gabriel dates back to the mid-80s and the Sledgehammer video that brought a touch of class to the rapidly expanding MTV channel and dropped him right into the laps of a new generation. And yet 29 years after he walked away from his original prog-rock persona in Genesis<\/a>, the ghost still lingers.<\/p>\n You may like<\/p>\n It\u2019s not too hard to establish some kind of link between the middle-aged chap walking around upside down on stage singing Downside Up on his latest tour and the same bloke stuck inside a fox\u2019s head wearing a long red dress back in 1972 singing Watcher Of The Skies.<\/p>\n The connection is Peter Gabriel\u2019s sense of the dramatic. It\u2019s what got him hooked on rock music back in the mid-60s when he was a pupil at the stuffy, class-ridden Charterhouse public school where rock\u2019n\u2019roll was considered subversive. (If you want to sample the flavour, try Lindsay Anderson\u2019s 1969 movie, If \u2013 Gabriel auditioned for a part, although he didn\u2019t get it.)<\/p>\n Gabriel isn\u2019t normally one to get reflective about his career. Not when there are Bonobo apes to interact with. Not when the internet is transforming the music industry, giving artists the opportunity to take more control of their work. (When he suggested a couple of decades ago that people would soon be accessing music via the telephone he was laughed at.) Not when there\u2019s an award-winning stage designer finding a way of enabling you to walk upside down on stage and an award-winning director to film you doing it.<\/p>\n But sitting in a cosy corner of the Covent Garden Hotel restaurant, Gabriel is allowing himself to wallow in a little nostalgia.<\/p>\n Genesis – Supper’s Ready (Live 1972) – YouTube Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n Gabriel\u2019s formative rock\u2019n\u2019roll experiences outside the gates of Charterhouse \u2013 frequently illicit, which only added to the thrill \u2013 were Otis Redding<\/a> and The Nice<\/a>. \u201cI got to see Otis Redding in 1967 at the Ram Jam Club in Brixton. It was a bit of a moment for me,\u201d he recalls proudly.<\/p>\n What to read next<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve never really been a technical singer as such, or a musician. I\u2019m someone who goes for the feel of something and tries to build pictures. And hearing the voice and the emotion of Otis Redding was just beyond words.<\/p>\n \u201cI saw The Nice several times as well. I always thought The Nice got branded by ELP in some ways. There was a time when Jimi Hendrix<\/a> wanted to join The Nice, and nowadays people might look back and wonder why, but if you saw The Nice they were exciting both musically and in terms of showmanship, which I think was part of the appeal to Hendrix.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we [Genesis] wrote The Knife, that was very much inspired by [Genesis keyboardist] Tony Banks<\/a>\u2019s and my enthusiasm for The Nice. Terrible name, though. But then words were never Keith Emerson<\/a>\u2019s strong point,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n But that was a couple of years down the line. Back inside the Charterhouse gates, simply forming a band was regarded as an act of rebellion against the establishment, regardless of how whimsical the early efforts of Gabriel, Banks and their school mates Michael Rutherford<\/a> and Anthony Phillips<\/a> actually were.<\/p>\n Their early band names \u2013 The Anon, the Garden Wall \u2013 are testament to their diffidence, although musically they were well-organised from the start. Gabriel had suggested they call themselves Gabriel\u2019s Angels, which could have laid him open to Keith Emerson-style criticism, but the others were not impressed.<\/p>\n In fact they were given the name Genesis by Charterhouse old boy Jonathan King, who was the first to spot their potential. He\u2019d had a hit in 1965 with Everyone\u2019s Gone To The Moon and it wasn\u2019t as if they had many other contacts in the music business, so they sent him a tape. King recorded their first album in \u201968, From Genesis To Revelation on the Decca label, which almost nobody bought.<\/p>\n But they knew they could do better, and once they\u2019d wriggled out of King\u2019s clutches they took themselves off to a country cottage just outside Dorking where they spent six months eating, sleeping and rehearsing. Apart from taking afternoon walks they never left the place. As Mike Rutherford later observed: \u201cWe were far too intense to enjoy ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n It meant that by the time they started to play gigs they had a carefully prepared show. But at this point Gabriel became aware that he was the only one standing up on stage. \u201cAnd the others had absolutely no understanding of the stress that it put on me,\u201d he recalls. \u201cBecause I was the one who was actually having to sell it at gigs.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd it was a lot of pressure,\u201d he continues, \u201cbecause there were audiences that weren\u2019t the least bit interested in what we had to offer. What\u2019s more, we had all these 12-string guitars that had to be retuned between each number. They\u2019d be sitting there in silence, tuning up, and I\u2019d be trying to speed it up because I could feel the energy from the audience just dissipating. That\u2019s when I started, out of desperation, telling stories.\u201d<\/p>\n Gabriel\u2019s monologues soon became a feature of Genesis gigs as the band built up pockets of support in places like Aylesbury, Godalming and Bath. But progress was painfully slow. Despite package tours with Lindisfarne<\/a> and Van der Graaf Generator<\/a> \u2013 Genesis\u2019s labelmates at their new home on Charisma \u2013 the band\u2019s Trespass (1970) and Nursery Cryme (1971) albums sold pitifully few copies.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were plodders,\u201d Gabriel admits. \u201cI remember, after we\u2019d been going for two or three years, talking with this guy who said he was forming a band called Curved Air<\/a>. And within about three months they\u2019d shot past us into the charts. We were quite depressed that they could do far more in a shorter space of time than we could.\u201d<\/p>\n But then Genesis had very little in common with their rock\u2019n\u2019roll peers. While other bands would head down to the fish and chip shop or the pub after setting up their gear at a venue, the Genesis chaps would get out their lunch boxes and chow down on their egg-and-cress sandwiches.<\/p>\n Sex and drugs were not a prime motivation for their rock\u2019n\u2019roll, either. \u201cWe had read about those things,\u201d Gabriel observes. And as for the drugs: \u201cI had the odd experience with hash cigarettes and walked around with the giggles or threw up. It wasn\u2019t doing it for me. Part of it was that I had a very vivid imagination and I didn\u2019t really want to lose control.\u201d<\/p>\n \n (Image credit: Getty)<\/p>\n Genesis were even different from other prog-rock bands. They took a democratic, collective approach to their music, and there were no wanton displays of instrumental flamboyance. \u201cIt was much more a composer\u2019s approach rather than a player\u2019s approach,\u201d Gabriel agrees. \u201cSome of the other bands were better players than us but didn\u2019t have the same approach that we did. Tony and Steven [Hackett]<\/a> would have their moments but they were all within the group context.\u201d<\/p>\n Another problem for Gabriel was that while his vocals provided much of the songs\u2019 foreplay, the climaxes were often instrumentally driven, leaving him standing around, useless and frustrated. \u201cThe most I could do was to bang a tambourine. Actually, I should have been utilised on a keyboard or some other instrument, but that was all down to politics within the band.\u201d<\/p>\n For all the musical drama Genesis could conjure up, it wasn\u2019t until they developed a visual element that they started getting recognition. Gabriel had tinkered with eyeliner and shaving a wedge out of the hair above his forehead. Then he donned his wife\u2019s (he got married in 1971) Ossie Clark designer dress (\u201cIt was a struggle getting into it\u201d) and a fox\u2019s head for a show in Dublin in October 1972.<\/p>\n \u201cBack then Ireland was not the hippest country in Europe,\u201d Gabriel says, with understatement, \u201cand there was a palpable sense of shock as I walked out on stage. I thought the dressing up was fun, but the rest of the band were pretty uncomfortable about it. There was a lot of heavy discussion about whether I should be doing this sort of stuff. But I\u2019m an obstinate bugger, particularly when people don\u2019t want me to do something.\u201d<\/p>\n Just as the others jealously guarded their instrumental domains, Gabriel protected his wardrobe. \u201cWhen we started the Supper\u2019s Ready tour I didn\u2019t show the band any of the visual things I\u2019d planned. I thought: \u2018If these masks come up for band discussion they won\u2019t go with it.\u2019 I knew it would work, but I was going to have to do it furtively.<\/p>\n \u201cI brought them along to the rehearsals on the day of the show. And I think the others realised at that point that they couldn\u2019t stop me because it was too close to the show and it would really rock the boat. Fortunately the audience reacted well and I got away with it, although it was a close-run thing.\u201d<\/p>\n The masks included a geometrically enhanced cardboard box, and a faintly ridiculous flower ensemble with Gabriel\u2019s head framed by petals. With the addition of a white muslin curtain behind the band, lit by ultra-violet lights, the audience now had something to focus on apart from their own shoes.<\/p>\n Genesis I Know What I Like (Live 1973 Shepperton Reworked) – YouTube Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n Through 1973 and 1974 Genesis developed a cult following. They had already become big in Belgium and Italy, and their new musical tales of mystery and imagination on the Foxtrot and Selling England By The Pound albums proved particularly popular in the industrial towns and cities of northern England. They even almost had a Top 20 hit with I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe), but it stalled at No.21. And when they started touring America, their strongest areas were the blue-collar cities of the US Midwest and Canada.<\/p>\n \u201cI think some of them were trying to escape from their backgrounds, and we had a romanticism that cut through to people,\u201d Gabriel explains. \u201cWe were much more Harry Potter than The Terminator. The critical thing for me was how much feeling we were able to put out, and I think there was a real emotion getting through at our gigs.\u201d<\/p>\n Emboldened by the band\u2019s success, Gabriel\u2019s stage outfits became more elaborate. On a couple of occasions he was even hoisted into the air on a wire to sing The Musical Box.<\/p>\n He also started getting more possessive over the lyrics, which caused ructions with the others who felt that words were part of the \u2018group thing\u2019. Gabriel didn\u2019t help himself by being late with the lyrics. So it was with some reluctance that the rest of the band allowed Gabriel to write the lyrics for their conceptual tour de force The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, even though it was his concept.<\/p>\n \u201cI insisted, although there were two songs in which the others got involved because they didn\u2019t want it to be a hundred per cent. And I think that really was the reason, although they would probably give you other reasons. But I did put a copyright on the little story I wrote on the sleeve, jumbled as it is, because while I was an equal contributor on the musical ideas I knew that I was doing a lot of this work in addition. It was pure ego.\u201d<\/p>\n Ego \u2013 or the flattering of it \u2013 also had a part to play in the episode that nearly wrecked Genesis during the recording of The Lamb\u2026 The Exorcist director William Friedkin had read an earlier surreal story by Gabriel on the sleeve of their Live album, and got in touch about writing a script. Already behind with The Lamb\u2026 lyrics, Gabriel asked the group for time off. When they refused, he quit. Matters were resolved only when their management warned Friedkin that he was breaking up the group. Friedkin backed off, and Peter sheepishly returned.<\/p>\n \n (Image credit: Getty Images)<\/p>\n More traumatic was the birth of Gabriel\u2019s first daughter, who after a complicated birth was in intensive care. \u201cWe were recording in deep Wales,\u201d he recalls, \u201cand my daughter was between life and death in Paddington. So there was this five-hour drive to visit my wife and daughter. It was absolutely exhausting.<\/p>\n \u201cThe rest of the band were sympathetic but they couldn\u2019t understand. The Band had always been The Boss and our duty. Our life was our work, and any kind of life outside this all-consuming entity, whether private or professional, was something the others found pretty threatening.\u201d<\/p>\n His daughter survived (and in the mid-noughties made a movie of her dad on tour), The Lamb\u2026 was completed after round-the-clock mixing sessions, tours were booked, and a new show conceived and prepared. But Gabriel\u2019s perspective had changed irrevocably. Four dates into their US tour in late 1974 he told the band he was leaving, although it was another six months before he could extricate himself.<\/p>\n \u201cOur manager was booking tours 18 months ahead, which is normal business practice, but I was just feeling the whole weight of commitment and thinking, when is life going to happen? Is it all just tours and records? I wanted to stop every now and again and have time with my family. But you couldn\u2019t because it was fucking up the band.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd the irony was that I had all that really strongly when I said I wanted to leave, because we hadn\u2019t paid off our debt and things were really beginning to take off and now I was fucking it up for them. So the reason I stayed with the band for a European tour was guilt.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd the thing that was hardest for me was that I had agreed that in order to give the band a chance to build a new identity I wouldn\u2019t say anything for another six months. And I felt like a fraud. I was performing in front of all these people and I couldn\u2019t say anything. But strangely enough I was more confident that they would do all right without me than they were.\u201d<\/p>\n Peter Gabriel – No Self Control Live – YouTube Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n But the press and public didn\u2019t see it that way. When news finally leaked out and Gabriel wrote a \u201cconvoluted letter\u201d to the press, Genesis found themselves reading their own obituaries while everyone speculated on Gabriel\u2019s next move.<\/p>\n Except that there was no next move. \u201cIt was time out rather than time off,\u201d he explains. \u201cAfter I left Genesis I wanted to be outside the music business. At first I was just growing vegetables and looking after the baby. I also looked at this commune that I was actually quite serious about joining. They\u2019d put together different elements of spiritual traditions, and they auditioned prospective members with psychological testing and stuff like that. It was quite a weird experiment. Even weirder, it was called Genesis!<\/p>\n \u201cBut the more I was without music, the more I realised I still loved it and I wanted to get back. And they said: \u2018If you do go back, we can all decide when you should go.\u2019 And I thought, hang on a minute.\u201d<\/p>\n Having rejected Genesis for a second time, Gabriel got back into the swing of writing songs. But who to play with? Apart from his old band, he hadn\u2019t really hung around many musicians, although he had got to know Robert Fripp<\/a>, the leader of King Crimson<\/a>, and a London-based American keyboard player called Larry Fast. For Gabriel the prospect of forming a band was daunting.<\/p>\n He ended up going to Canada to work with Bob Ezrin, on the face of it a strange choice. Ezrin had made his name producing Alice Cooper<\/a> and had recently worked with Lou Reed<\/a> and Kiss<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the attractions of Bob was that he seemed really good at organising people, and it was nice to feel that some of that pressure was not going to be on my shoulders,\u201d Gabriel explains.<\/p>\n \u201cI was very nervous doing the first sessions with him so I took my little English contingent with me, and he introduced me to these other musicians, one of whom was Tony Levin, who has been my bass player ever since.<\/p>\n \u201cBob helped enormously. He\u2019s very talented. We still work together on projects. But at that time he was also a bit of a coke-inspired control freak. And that would manifest itself in various ways. There was one particular occasion when a beautiful guitar solo from Robert [Fripp] was erased and we didn\u2019t quite know why. And that created tension.<\/p>\n \u201cThen there were the sessions for Here Comes The Flood, when I wasn\u2019t sure about the drum part so I wanted it isolated so I could erase it if necessary. But when I listened back the drums had been mixed in with the orchestra, and there was no way I could get rid of it. There were several moments like that. But we found a way through, and I think there are bits of that album [the first Peter Gabriel] that are really good and focused. There\u2019s just a few bits where it goes off the rails.\u201d<\/p>\n His first tour that year put further distance between him and his former band \u2013 no dramatics, no costumes, just a simple but effective light show. \u201cI was definitely trying not to play Genesis songs, although I did do Back In New York City [from The Lamb\u2026]. And there were a couple of covers \u2013 Marvin Gaye\u2019s Ain\u2019t That Peculiar and The Kinks<\/a>\u2019 All Day & All Of The Night \u2013 which were outside the prog-rock background I was associated with.\u201d<\/p>\n He had also been thinking about the barrier between the performer and the audience, and \u201chow much more interesting it could be if you tried to break through that\u201d. The newly developed radio microphone gave him the first chance: he\u2019d disappear off stage during the introduction to Waiting For The Big One and reappear at the back of the stalls or the balcony before making his way back to the stage through the audience.<\/p>\n \u201cYou couldn\u2019t pre-programme the show if there was a physical interaction with the audience,\u201d he explains. \u201cThey could determine how long you were out there. It certainly added a sense of alive-ness to the show. Because I was putting myself in a place that was potentially vulnerable. And things like trust start to come into play.\u201d Later on he would take that a big step \u2013 or fall \u2013 further.<\/p>\n Having put clear daylight between himself and Genesis \u2013 and had a hit single as well \u2013 Gabriel now had to decide which way to go on the next album.<\/p>\n \u201cI was worried about getting drawn back into the pop thing. So the second album was a deliberate attempt to go somewhere else, and I asked Robert Fripp to produce it. He said: \u2018That\u2019s a wonderful idea. We\u2019ll do the whole thing in six weeks. No pussyfooting around.\u2019 I thought that sounded exciting and I decided to go for it.<\/p>\n \u201cBut what I learnt was that I don\u2019t do good work in a hurry. I may get moments of things, but not a proper body of work. The songs weren\u2019t as good as they could have been, the lyrics weren\u2019t as good as they could have been, the arrangements certainly weren\u2019t as good as they could have been, and the sounds weren\u2019t as good as they could have been.<\/p>\n \u201cIt took until the next record to find out what I was as a solo artist, or could be. That was in the framework of feeling more settled with the band, and having the great team of [producer] Steve Lillywhite and [engineer] Hugh Padgham.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo I said no cymbals. And that meant that the drummers \u2013 mainly Jerry Marotta but also Phil Collins<\/a> and Morris Pert \u2013 couldn\u2019t do what they normally do. Suddenly they had to think differently. And that affected the spine of the piece, the rhythm. And everything else.\u201d<\/p>\n Out of that quest for new and different drum sounds came the gated reverb, an effect that engineer Padgham had tried out on an XTC<\/a> album shortly before. \u201cHe was playing with it in the studio, and I got quite excited and asked him to turn it right up. I remember saying: \u2018This is going to revolutionise drum sounds.\u2019 I wanted to do a track that was entirely based around that sound. And that track was Intruder. Phil was playing on that track and he got excited by it too.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a minor thing, but when people listen to that song and say: \u2018You took that Phil Collins [In The Air Tonight] drum sound,\u2019 that niggles me.\u201d<\/p>\n That sound gave Gabriel\u2019s third album a potent, if ominous, sound that ran from the opening Intruder through to the closing anthem Biko. Even the poppy Games Without Frontiers had menacing undertones. It was all too much for Atlantic Records in America, who decided to pass on the record. \u201cApparently after they heard Lead A Normal Life they asked my manager whether I\u2019d been in a mental institution,\u201d Gabriel says. \u201cThe head of A&R, John Kalodner<\/a>, kept wanting me to sound more like the Doobie Brothers<\/a>, who were very popular at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n The album \u2013 his third to, confusingly, be titled simply Peter Gabriel \u2013 turned out to be his most successful so far in both the US and the UK, justifying his barbed comment about Atlantic\u2019s \u201cshort-sighted and bigoted attitude\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d avoided all of that stuff and had a very pure, Stalinist line against the business, but I did embrace the selling of my music at this point, and I didn\u2019t really feel much the worse for it. I didn\u2019t feel that the angle of bending over had exceeded my natural comfort zone,\u201d he adds with a smile.<\/p>\n The This Way Up date schedule included all but one of the So songs, and expanded the light and space concepts from the previous tour. This time Gabriel used mobile lighting cranes, which were at their most effective when they crowded round him while he sang Mercy Street. And the rousing duet with Youssou N\u2019Dour on In Your Eyes was an inspired piece of world music alchemy.<\/p>\n Gabriel was reaching a new audience, drawn in by the videos and his media profile. \u201cIt was a pop audience that I hadn\u2019t had before. And I\u2019m afraid some of the cult followers were not very happy to share with the casual viewers,\u201d he recalls.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd then, just as everything was beginning to wind down, the album got another boost from the Say Anything movie, with John Cusack holding up a radio playing In Your Eyes as a Valentine\u2019s Day offering for his girlfriend. You never quite know when these external events are going to help or hinder you.\u201d<\/p>\n Typically, Gabriel managed to dissipate much of his new-found rock-star status by taking six years for the follow-up, Us. Admittedly there was another soundtrack (Passion) and a compilation (Shaking The Tree) in between, but he acknowledges an almost wilful intent: \u201cI have tended to follow a successful album with a less successful album. I think I\u2019ve protected myself with obscurity whenever I was threatened with success.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d done those hippy psychological games, falling backwards and trusting people to catch you, so I thought I\u2019d do that on stage and hope that they caught me. When you go forwards that\u2019s one thing, but when you go backwards it\u2019s another completely. For the most part I got caught. But early on, in San Francisco, they thought: \u2018This must be part of the act. We\u2019d better move away.\u2019 And that hurt!\u201d<\/p>\n Even when they caught him the audience were not always reverential. \u201cI was debagged on a regular basis. And in Chicago I barely held on to my underpants. I clambered back on stage holding my belly in as best I could. Later on I saw an REM<\/a> video where Michael Stipe dives into the audience and I thought: \u2018Damn, I should have done the video while I was ahead.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Gabriel\u2019s stage-diving antics began on the mysteriously named Tour Of China 1984 \u2013 it was only 1980 at the time. \u201cWell, there was this big thing about who would be the first rock act to play China. I knew I wasn\u2019t going to be the first, but I thought I might as well do the merchandise. And 1984 always struck me as a scary year ever since I read the book.\u201d<\/p>\n The closest Gabriel actually got to China was when the Tianjin Song & Dance Ensemble performed at the first WOMAD Festival in 1981, which he was heavily involved in. That event is now seen as the catalyst for the burgeoning world music scene, but at the time it bankrupted Gabriel and exposed him to a few unpleasant realities. Genesis bailed him out with a benefit show the following year.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople were saying: \u2018Who is this fat cat watching us suffer?\u2019 when in fact the debt was far more money than I had to my name. It was extraordinary to see what happened when it all went bankrupt. I got death threats, and the liquidators actually forged a signature of one of the WOMAD directors so they could get their cut of the Genesis benefit concert.\u201d<\/p>\n The Genesis reunion concert at Milton Keynes the following year paid off the debts, but Gabriel emphasised the one-off nature of the reunion by entering and leaving the stage in a coffin.<\/p>\n Peter Gabriel – Don’t Give Up (ft. Kate Bush) – YouTube Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n The unrelenting intensity of Gabriel\u2019s fourth album \u2013 musically even the hook-laden single Shock The Monkey was like a coiled spring \u2013 scuppered its chances of being his breakthrough album. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t a big seller,\u201d Gabriel confirms. \u201cSome of the hardcore fans think it\u2019s the best record but others thought it was too wacky. Maybe that\u2019s because I was taking a bigger role in the production.\u201d<\/p>\n The complex and sometimes impenetrable videos didn\u2019t help, either. But live the musicians had developed into a cohesive, energetic unit that attacked the songs\u2019 dynamics with a cavalcade of synthesised rhythms and loops. The stage was sparse, the lights white and bright, and \u2018the dive\u2019 took on an almost religious significance. David Bowie<\/a> was so impressed that he took Gabriel along with him on the North American leg of his Serious Moonlight \u2018comeback\u2019 tour in 1983.<\/p>\n Gabriel began work on the next album the following year, but got waylaid by soundtrack projects for Birdy, Against All Odds and Gremlins, not to mention domestic strife and temporary separation from his family. But when So finally emerged in May 1986 it was emphatically a case of right record, right time.<\/p>\n \u201cIt exceeded all our expectations, in terms of making music as well as commercially,\u201d Gabriel admits. \u201cI had hooked up with Daniel Lanois, who co-produced the album with me, and all the elements were fitting together. But then it\u2019s always easier to look back in hindsight. I mean, even though Sledgehammer felt strong and the groove was great it didn\u2019t feel like a big hit record. People go: \u2018You must have known it was the commercial track,\u2019 but it wasn\u2019t until we started doing the video that we got a feeling about it.\u201d<\/p>\n The Sledgehammer video was when Gabriel\u2019s complicated ideas were made accessible. \u201cI think it was looking forwards and backwards at the same time,\u201d he muses. \u201cPeople think it was done with a lot of computer effects, but it fact it was old-fashioned animation techniques. It was a slow, tortuous process. And the day I spent surrounded by stale fish that had been under the bright lights the day before was not a sensual experience I want to repeat.\u201d<\/p>\n Peter Gabriel – Sledgehammer (HD version) – YouTube Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n Us may have sold only around half of what So did, but it probably wouldn\u2019t have sold much more even if it had come out four years earlier. Where So was direct and accessible, Us was pristine but introspective. The cult following had their man back again. \u201cI didn\u2019t feel the production caught the energy sometimes, but I felt good about the songs,\u201d Gabriel reflects.<\/p>\n The accompanying Secret World tour was an ambitious leap into the unknown. It was the brainchild of acclaimed designer Robert Lepage, who, Gabriel says, \u201ccreates theatre for people who go to the cinema. It was not just about words and performance, it had what I call a high moisture content \u2013 a mysterious environment, if you like \u2013 and I wanted to see if we could incorporate that into our show.\u201d<\/p>\n Set in the round, the set had two stages with a walkway between. \u201cThere was the male square stage and the female round stage, and obviously some random stereotyping in that sense,\u201d Gabriel explains. \u201cBut having two places to go, the feeling of playing two stages, was quite different from the usual show where everybody\u2019s pointing the same way and the energy is going in the same direction.\u201d<\/p>\n But despite the show\u2019s complexity there were no dazzling affects to wow the audience. \u201cA lot of acts were in the \u2018weapons race\u2019 back then: how many lights you can have, that sort of thing,\u201d Gabriel says. \u201cWe went out with about a tenth of the weapons of some of these bands, but we were trying to use them in a more interesting way. I think it\u2019s an important distinction; it\u2019s not all about quantity.\u201d<\/p>\n Some of it was about choreography, though, given Lepage\u2019s theatrical background, and some of the band had to learn to skip in unison. But skip they did as the Secret World tour traversed the globe for most of 1993 and 1994, visiting countries off rock\u2019n\u2019roll\u2019s beaten track like India, Egypt, Chile and Venezuela.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>By now it was 1977 and, as Gabriel had predicted, Genesis had already risen, phoenix-like, and were more commercially successful than ever. Suddenly it was \u2018Peter who?\u2019 Thank goodness, then, for Solsbury Hill which gave Gabriel a Top 20 hit and the exposure he needed to launch his solo career. \u201cThat was something Bob Ezrin kept pushing me to finish. He\u2019s very good at motivating people to get on with writing.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/a>The framework for that third album also included an odd rule: no cymbals. \u201cI\u2019d been thinking about the things I didn\u2019t like on rock records,\u201d Gabriel explains, \u201cand one of the things was cymbals splashing around all over the place. They take up an incredible amount of space in the higher sound frequencies. And if you take them out you give yourself a whole country to explore.<\/p>\n
<\/a>But it worked. Sledgehammer was a worldwide hit \u2013 No.1 in America \u2013 and the So album topped the UK charts and spent three weeks at No.2 in the US. Finally, Gabriel was a star and, having kept the music business at arm\u2019s length for 20 years, suddenly he went high-profile, turning up at awards shows.<\/p>\n
<\/a>On stage Gabriel, who had now gone skinhead, continued his walkabouts, sometimes \u2018surfing\u2019 the audience on a piece of plywood which was carried along by four strong roadies acting as pall-bearers. When he occasionally fell off, the audience, far from ripping him to shreds in a frenzy, helped him back on to the board. From that developed the idea of deliberately falling backwards into the audience from the lip of the stage.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>His own enthusiasm for world music was evident from the opening track of his fourth Peter Gabriel album (titled Security in America), The Rhythm Of The Heat. \u201cI\u2019d been working with this Ghanaian drum band, Ekome, in Bristol, and that\u2019s where the final section of that song came from. Getting that change of rhythm down was incredibly exciting \u2013 one of those moments when you think: \u2018Nailed it!\u2019 A great feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n
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