Less Than Jake 25 Years Borders & Boundaries - Steve Hackett Florida Genesis Shows

0:04 Hey, you have THENTO censure w for Wow, pray you. Wake up America. It's time for the Adventures of pipe Man on W four C. Why I com West pomp Beach is number one Internet radio station. Here's your host, the pipe Man. We run across that bridge all did wins up to Wavers city lights, all the lines. We're killing time. On the sun. This is pipe Man here on the Adventures pipe Man W four C Y Radio. And I'm very excited about our next guest. Who oh my god, like time just flies. They have an album called Borders and Boundaries. It's fricking twenty five years old. That that blows my mind. I don't even think I'm over twenty five years old. But let's welcome to the show. Chris from Lesson Jake, how are you?

1:06 I'm fantastic, how are you? You know? You said that like shockingly, you can't believe how much time has passed, right when you looked at my face. So I was like. Like that son of a bitch, I know right right, Listen. It is wild how quick time goes, isn't it. Like I sit there and I think about twenty five years I'm like, wait a minute, that's like my whole life. And I'm like, oh wait, it's not. Yeah. You know, when when I was a kid, I would notice all my elders, you know, people in their late forties, early fifties, elders, right, I would notice them just kind of checking out and not giving a damn about anything.

1:50 You're like, God, they're just so apathetic. You just stop caring. When you get older, you realize, man, I'm on the back nine here, Like I can't worry about all this you know, support for us stuff that I've been worried about my whole life, student stuff. I figured out the actual reason and solution for that. Actually yeah, because you know, like people call it midlife crisis. First of all, not everything has to be a crisis. But I figured out what it really is. It's not midlife crisis. It's like you have teenage you who is anti authority, anti your parents, anti everything except your friends. Those are the people you need to impress, is your friends and your peers. And then you become an adult, you know, a young adult, and then now it switches because you know everybody's calling you kid because and you're like, I'm not a kid. So you start like you know, you become this other part of you, which is adult you that does the opposite. It's like you want to impress, and people want to impress their bosses or they want colleagues, or they do sometimes while I'm impressed authority. And then once you hit like over that forty age, you're like, you don't have to prove shit to anybody anymore, and you can finally just be you, and you kind of I think it's a combination of that teenage adult you that you finally find the real you.

3:19 Yeah, you know, I mean I kind of think that that springs off what I was saying. I just think that, yeah, you get to the point where either you find the real you or you go down a path that's just destructive and dark, and you go through all that. You know, and we've all had our moments, but you know, I don't think I've ever had a midlife crisis so to speak. That's been a bad thing. I just, you know, you just stop doing things that no longer serve you. No doubt. I think of it more like it was a teen life crisis, because like, I'm thankful that I didn't, you know, go down another traductory and all the stupid shit I did when I was a teenager. But man, I love that you have to spec show twenty fifth anniversary reissue. So tell us more about it and like why people should get this cool, you know, reissue of what an amazing album.

4:12 Yeah, well, you know, we were going to print the record up for the anniversary so we could print the last reissue that we did or I was like, there's got to be extra stuff I know we have, So we went and the archives we all did, and look for extra demos and things that we've never shared before. So that that's what makes it on this re release. I don't think we're gonna be able to do that again. I don't think there's any other unreleased tracks at this point. I think this is like maybe the third time we've done this. I know Fat Records had done a reissue at one point, so again we would oppressed the record and celebrate at the twenty fifth anniversary either way, but we thought we would at least repackage it for the collectors and you know, put some extra extra stuff on there.

4:55 Yeah. So as far as the songs that haven't been released before, what makes them to where they weren't released in the past and that now is a good time. Again, just the re release. We these are stuff that I had found in my collection actually of you know, I have one of those huge tubs you put, like, you know, Christmas ornaments or stuff in in your garage, you don't you only use once a year. I have like a tub in there, just filled, you know, with with mementos and things from from our past. And one of them is filled with just CDs and cassette tapes and test pressings or records, et cetera. And I found a CD from the from the Sessions, a bunch of demos and stuff that we had done at Rogers House prior to going to California to track the records. So that's what that's what's made it on here.

5:48 See. I love stuff like that, because isn't it kind of cool when you do go through like these tubs of things you've stored that are like from time a time pass and you open them up and it's like it's like you're getting birthday presence because you forgot you even had most of that stuff. Yeah, you know, I've tried to do away with a lot of those boxes. Those boxes you open up, you move five times, and like there's this chords and there You're like, well, we don't use these anymore, but you know what I might need it someday. No, you don't throw it away. So I'm pretty organized here. I'm in my memento room. I have everything that Lesson Jake's ever released in this room right here. Really, really, the only thing I have shoved in the closet are all those extra CDs, cassettes of remixes and demos and practice tapes and those things. And I don't think the practice cassettes are ever going to see the light of day, but we'll see.

6:40 You never know, you never know, and listen to it. It is funny. I've gone through that recently too, where I'm going through stuff that I've I've probably moved twenty times, and I'm like, why am I saving this? But then there's other stuff that's gold, like what you're releasing on this reissue that is like, oh my god, this is cool. I need to do something with this. Well it's interesting too. You know. My mom was a big like she saved and sent it to me when I went away to college. She saved every birthday and Christmas card I got as a kid from all the rebels. She had him in books and she sent me with all this stuff and at some point I just would purge it over the years and I love you, mom, no offense, but you know, you just start you stop having room for stuff. And I remember talking to Rob Cavallo, who was green produced all those Green Day records and signed Green Day. Rob produced a less than Jake record called Anthem, which was the follow up to Borders and Boundaries. And we were talking one day and I'm like, he was talking about this band he was in the eighties, and like, oh man, you gotta dig up some pictures and come in and show me. He's like, I don't have any.

7:44 I go, what do you mean. He's like, I don't have any pictures of me from yesterday. And I'm like, what are you talking about. I'm like, you like, you know, you think, like is this guy in the Witness Protection program or something? And I'm like, what are you talking about. He's like yeah, He's like at some point I just threw all that stuff out. He's like, I don't need pictures. All my memories are up here. And he was dead. He was dead serious like anything. Yesterday's clutter that's already gone. It's a cash check. I'm moving here. And I'll never forget that about him. And you'll notice I consider Rob at least a musical genius in the way that he thinks. And you'll notice that with people genius and severe autistic like that can do crazy stuff, they don't listen to the noise. They're like this tunnel vision going straight ahead.

8:30 And I've thought about Rob a lot over the years when I've been cleaning stuff. Why am I hanging onto this for what? It doesn't serve me anymore? Get rid of it. And I'm a big believer too of that clutter. When you have that clutter, it clutters your mind. So to your point, if you're I think part of the reason is such an amazing musician is because there it's free in his head to be able to get creative. Yeah, I think so, you know, I know, when you know, sometimes negativity and strife can make a great song and create great art. I'll agree with that, but you know, everyday life, it doesn't bode well for.

9:11 Me right exactly? So what else do we have going on here in twenty twenty six that we want to let the listeners know, well. We're going to be releasing some songs. We got offered some different projects this year, so we recorded a couple songs at the end of last year that we're gonna throw around and then we're collecting ideas putting things together for a new record. We're kind of toying with doing an album. We're going to be over in Europe this summer playing festivals of course, doing the Winter Circus UK run that's coming up here, and just staying busy doing what we do. You know, we're out there for I don't know, probably one hundred shows a year, still flying around doing our thing.

9:57 Man, it's great. So I want to know as somebody that also goes to them as well as how do you compare the festivals in the UK, the festivals in Europe and the festivals in the US UH as an artist, Yeah, you know. I will always prefer the UK festival. Just the mystique of all the books I read growing up and now getting to see a lot of the YouTube videos of reading and leads from the seventies and you know, reading about Deep Purple being there, Whitesnake and all these bands that I grew up listening to and then getting to play reading and leads and download and they're just class festivals.

10:39 The enormity of it. You know, that was the first time I ever walked to a festival that big was reading and leads because Lesson Jacob had played there and I had been to other you know, amphitheater festival shows, warped tours in the United States, so certainly I've seen a lot of people, but this was an enormity on another level. When you look at the main stage, it was like six stories tall and you know, the scaffolding, what is going on like this is you know, uh, next level. So I'll say I'll go with the UK for still being my favorite. European festivals are dialed in and there's great ones in the US, and there's also crappy festivals everywhere too, And that's for another.

11:21 Podcast that's totally true. That would actually make a good podcast episode. Oh my god, I. Could talk for hours. I'd be your first ten guests there you go, yeah, you and everything from the rotten catering to the h the toilet accommodations. We could go on. Oh yeah, and you know, I have to agree with you with the UK festivals. I love doing the UK festivals, that's a press person. I think the way they treat press too is like next level compared to anywhere else. It's like they make the job easier for the musician, for the press people and everybody crew and everybody involved.

12:03 Yeah, you know, the UK is laid back in a sense where I wouldn't expect that that they the press at the festivals in the UK are dialed in better than anywhere in the world. That's that's just a true, a true fact. So I agree with you. I've never been a journalist going in, but they're always organized as an artist, like you're going here for ten minutes, and they drag you to the next one boom boom boom. Then then you're out. You're gonna go and enjoy lunch. So oh yeah, yeah, it's funny you should say that because it's kind of a peeve of mine because if I'm told listen, you have ten minutes, I'm gonna be finished at nine point fifty nine. Now, a lot of the US festivals, the person before you will go on for like thirty minutes, and it's like that domino effect.

12:45 But I think also the media people in the UK at the festivals, they work together like instead of all being separate andies, it's like they all have each other's back. So it does run very smoothly, which is better for you guys, the artists, because listen, you are a tight time schedule, so you know, doing stuff like that, it's important that everybody be on time. And then just the way you're treated, like, I've never heard anything bad said about anybody that runs a UK festival that I know of. Yeah, no, again, I've you know, we've had great experiences. So I'm sure there's bands out there that could tell you otherwise, but UK has always been been awesome.

13:26 And how about Fat Wreck Records because I love them, but I think it's really a testament to you know, when bands like you have been with them like forever, you know, because that doesn't always happen. Well, yeah, so our last couple of records we've been on Pure Noise, but Fat has still does reissues and does stuff for us. Of course we've done a couple of records with them. The original Borders and Boundaries was on Fat and Fat Records is now we're going to be re releasing our stuff with Hopeless because Fat getting Yeah, Fat is gonna Fat is getting absorbed by Hopeless. I don't know exactly when that's going to happen, but yeah, Fat Records came along at a great time for Less than Jake. We had recorded Borders and Boundaries for our third as our third Capitol Records release, so it was funded from Capital money and we got the mixes back.

14:19 We still thought we were on Capitol and then we got dropped. And during this time, the president, our a and our person and you hear this a lot from bands, that everyone was gone and we got to sign this this and our guy who had been Megadeth tour manager for years, I think he maybe managed Megade's for a little while, this guy, Ron Lafitte, and Ron came in and it just didn't, you know, for us. This guy came in and we were he was handed us and you know, didn't really know what to do with us. Is you could tell his heart wasn't in it. So when they decided to drop us, we were like, well, this is great. We got this record and Fat Mike picked it up immediately and stamped Fat Records on it, paid Capitol Records outright for the money they put into it, and it was the greatest thing that could have happened to us. In hindsight, at the time, we didn't really care because we had a fan base that we were touring on and luckily back then there was no such thing or thought of a three sixty deal, so we were just raking in at the box office. Building this career.

15:18 It's like, oh, we're not in a major anymore, it doesn't matter. We're still going to pull into Detroit and there's going to be fifteen hundred kids there wanting to see us play. So no harm, no foul. But it was the greatest thing because we now had legitimacy as a punk band on Fat Records. When we went to Europe, it was like our audience doubled because we were on Fat Records, which was really ironic because Borders and Boundaries up to that point was our most commercially accessible record. If you go listen to it, it was our cleanest production. We had some radio songs on there, and it wasn't that we were necessarily shooting for that. You know, we didn't have any outside writers. It was all in house still.

15:59 But we were growing and maturing. You know, we weren't just punk kids anymore. We were learning how to play our instruments. So it all worked out and it ended up being great. And speaking of that, like, it's funny you say learning how to play your instruments, because it's so true. You know, with anybody that's been in punk, what does it feel like to play in a punk band now after being doing it for so long? What's the differences for you as a musician. Oh well, at some point I realized that nobody's ever commented about how much energy I have on stage. I was talking about the band's energy. But you know, they've never once said a man, Chris is jumping off drum risers, He's jumping up in the area, he's po going half the set. And I've always been athletic. I've always exercised.

16:51 I still do keep keeping shape, you know, cardio. And I realized at some point, no one's ever said anything because they don't care. You're beating the hell out of yourself for what. And I realized that once I wasn't hiding behind that anymore because I was a defense mechanism in the early days. I knew I wasn't that great, We weren't that great, So just jump around and go crazy everyone's drunk anyways, no one's going to give them give a rats. But you know, you want to get better at you at your craft. And I realized that if I just moved a little bit less, I can still rock out. The cords are a little cleaner, I'm not as much out of breath, I could sing a little better. And so there was a little bit of that growth that's happened over the years. Taking care of myself during the day, you know, not burning my candles.

17:41 I go to bed at home at the same time every night I get up, and that's now the same thing with you know, being on the road. I try to try to keep the same schedule. Yeah, and you know, I love that you said that, because it is kind of true. I sometimes I look at musicians, specially the young ones, are doing what you're describing, and like, man, how do they playing their guitar jumping around and flipping around like that? And and I'm usually in awe. But then I listen to you and I'm like, well, that makes a lot of sense that you're actually going to be a better musician. You're actually well. Also, remember, you know, and this isn't any disrespect. A lot of the bands can go that crazy because they're using backing tracks today.

18:26 That's just that's just. A fact of of of modern music. We don't have backing tracks. It's we're we're out there warts and all. That's what you get. And so if I'm going to be out there, uh you know, uh naked at the class play, I might as well be halfway decent. Absolutely, And see you you said something I talk about all the time, and I think a lot of people don't even realize when it comes to punk bands specifically, is that you know, you do want to hone in on your craft and become at that or a musician, like you want to grow. A lot of times are hardcore fans as an artist, they want you to stay a garage band. But you as an artist, I mean, you're gonna want to grow if you're a true artist.

19:15 Yeah, I think so, you know, I think that there's you know, certainly, you know, Steve Jones is a better guitarist than he was in the seventies, you know for the pistols. But you know, how good do you want the pistols to be? You know what I mean? Like, how good do you want that to? You know? So you have to be reminded of that. It can't be too clean in pristine, because I also know that that frenetic energy and that looseness is what got us to where we were at, you know. I mean, I can look back to videos and just they're they're online and all the time. You know, once a year, I'll go to YouTube, just type in less than Jake nineteen ninety five, and inevitably someone found a VHS tape in their mom's closet over Christmas and they uploaded it to YouTube.

19:57 And I'm watching it and it's like an out of body experience. Man, I'll be I'm like, I know that's me. I have no recollection of this, but there's a thousand kids losing their mind in Cleveland in this video, and I'm listening to the band with my eyes closed, going it's not that good. Then you open your eyes, You're like, Okay, as long as I don't have to listen to the band with my eyes and my ears, I can just listen with my eyes. It's uh, you know, but it didn't matter, and it's also where we were always. We still are our own worst critics. You know. I can't tell you how many times I've gotten off stage and been like, man, I phoned it in tonight, or that sucked. I was awful and you got that kid standing there, or multiple those I've seen you twelve times, that was the best I've ever seen you. And you're like, Okay, what do I know?

20:41 Right? I'd love that feeling too, even I like, every time I get done with my radio show or I get done to an interview, I'm like, man, I fucking sucked, you know, yeah, But then I got like, oh, that was the best interview I've ever had. I'm like, oh really, and so yeah, I mean, I get it too, and but you guys are badass. I love that. Borders and Boundaries has a special twenty fifth anniversary reissue. Everybody has to go to Fat Records, Fat Wreck Records and go get it. Is there any other things that you want to let the listeners know that we haven't covered already. It's about it.

21:21 Go check out my podcast, Christy Makes a Podcast. It's a songwriting podcast where I interview guests from all genres of music to talk about one iconic song from their career. I've been doing it for six years and you can find out wherever you listen to podcasts. So thank you, I love it well. Thank you for making us great music all this time, and thanks for being on the adventures of pipe Man right on. Thanks take care of my friend. Hey, it's Christal Lesson Jake, and you're listening to pipe Man on W four cey Radio. Welcome to Rockville returns to Daytona International Speedway May seven. To ten with food fighters like Mical Romance, guns and Roses and bring Me the Horizon.

22:06 Plus Tony Style, five Finger, Dot Punch, The Offspring, Breaking, Benjamin A Data, Remember, Doc Smack, and so many more. Welcome to Rockville May seven through tenth. Passes on sale now for as low as one dollar down at Welcome to Rockville dot com. The Sonic Temple Art and Music Festival returns May fourteen through seventeenth with my Chemical Romance. Tool, Bring Me the Horizon. And Shine Down plus Pierce the Veil, Good Charlotte, the Offspring, Sublime, Dot Smack Breaking, Benjamin, Marilyn Manson, and so many more. Sonic Temple in Columbus, Ohio, May fourteen to seventeen. Passes on sale now for his low as one dollar down at Sonic Temple Festival dot com.

23:16 This is the pipe Man here on the Adventures pipe Man W four CY Radio. And I'm very excited about our next guest because you know, our main studio where I'm at right now is in South Florida, and this is one of the most amazing musicians that's going to have some very special tour dates exclusively in several Florida locations. So let's welcome to the show. Steve Hackett. How are you? Yeah, very well, thank you, Nice to be talking to you. How are you doing. I'm doing great. You're gonna be down here in Florida soon. That's going to be pretty fun. So tell us a little bit about those shows you're doing here in Florida. Sure, well, it's gonna be a kind of best of Jenna and solo stuff, so I'm looking forward to doing that.

24:06 It'll be the first dates with two new members of the band, one guy i've worked with before, Felix Lehmann, who's German from from Berlin, and a new keyboard player, Lali Larson from Sweden, so he'll be one of three Swedish guys I've got in the band and nice these will be the first dates we're doing with with him. So those guys have worked together before, I think in a band called Agents of Mercy, the Nats and Swedish, Jonas, Ryan Gold Swedish and now Lali Larson. Kind of a United Nations of a band, you know. I've had people from the UK, from Europe, from everywhere, and later in the year I get to work with guys and America and Hungry. I'm going to be working with guys from Hungry again soon. But the touring band that I'll have will be essentially my regular touring band with with the exception of Roger King, who's officially retired now. He says, but maybe maybe he'll he'll keep going doing classical stuff.

25:27 I don't know. I think his first love is his classical music, although he's done scores for films such as A Cliffhanger and the Name of the Father, and I'm very sorry to see him go. But I'm working with you guys who happened to be brilliant. Sometimes you guys bring a little more spark sometimes too, well, that's right, yes. I think you know that the level of enthusiasm from guys I'm working with in the studio won't necessarily be the same guys that I'm working with live and working with an Italian keyboard player called Ricardo Romano in the studio at the moment, and he's doing wonderful things. It's rather wonderful. I'm reconnected with Nick Magnus as well. We're going to be doing some things in the future. I did lots of albums with him back in the day.

26:21 A few years after I left Genesis, I was working with Nick. We were doing many albums together, so there's a kind of continuity. But I think British music has always been ambitious to include as many instruments and unlikely instrumentation as much as possible. So I think we've always orientated towards groups that can become orchestras that travel wander off into places such as Azerbaijan, India, instruments from these places to have that kind of exotica in other words, rock.

27:04 Maybe it's a little bit like cinematic orchestral plus rock, so that these atmospheres are interchangeable with each other. I owe a lot to film music. I think my style is probably hitting more towards film music than anything else. So if mister Demill wants to give me a call, that's fine, or his grandson indeed. Very nice. I love hearing this because it is kind of cool. I think when you can make music that comes from like all over the world, because there's so many different influences that can come into it to make it unique.

27:49 Yeah, I think so. You know when you think about the Russians with all the political suppression and all of that coming up with it's wonderful romantic music and all the experimental stuff as well, So those guys could really orchestrate and came up with great melodies. I suspect the weather had something to do with it. You know. You know why did England have Shakespeare? It's probably because he was stuck in doors because the weather was so awful. I say that all you know, that's it. But you know, hey, Florida, of course, yeah, we all long to escape to Florida. That's what we dream of. Well, you let speaking of weather, like, I go to the UK twice a year to do festivals coverage over there, and I love it there and I love it right everything about except the weather. It's like, yeah, man, I would I had one in a festival from ours, say you should move over here so you could do all the festivals, and I'm like, yeah, I would if the weather was different. It's like polar there.

28:51 Yeah, exactly. Well, at the moment it's been I might be doing England a disservice, but the reality is it has been running for days, if not weeks, and every day I'm going out, I'm feeding the animals and it's got to be there's the food on the workground. Get it quick, guys, because otherwise it's it's gonna be soggy in the extreme. So yeah, yeah, it's the downside of the UK. It's got a lot to recommend it, believe me, totally the UK On a sunny day, London is a wonderful place. But nobody comes to London for. The weather, that's for sure.

29:33 Yeah, but that party. But I do agree with that philosophy with the music because I think about it. You know, what do you do, like I'm originally from New York and New Jersey, what you do during the winter, you basically hibernate. So when when you hibernate, that's when your creativity can come out. Yes, I think so it's always been the case. You know. Have I spent so many hours pouring over a guitar. Yes, absolutely, England. England fails you on so many levels, most of which are are yeah to do with the Yeah, the conditions we're supposed to be going out tonight, you know, so it will be Yeah, you go out with an umbrella, you go in the car and you're trying to avoid the floods and and all of that because we've been working hard, the team have been working hard at home.

30:33 So I've got to take him out to dinner. There you go, that has to be done. Yeah, you know, it's it's it has to be born with with you know, with with grace, the the terrible, the terrible weather here. But you know, you guys have got it made over there. It's in some ways you have a choice. You have a choice of weathers and seasons with and within the borders. Well, I think it's like I think the United States is basically should be more like Europe because each state does have, like you said, different weather, different cultures, different types of people, different geography. It's kind of the same thing.

31:20 It's like, it's wild to me when I like drive all over Europe, that to me, it's just like I wouldn't even know I was going into another country, except I saw the language change. Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's funny, you know, and you watch the news every day and and you hear that the Greenland might become part of New Jersey. I mean anything, anything could happen, right, Oh my god. It is a wild when you get to our stage of life. It's a pretty wild world that we live in. When you think about, like I think about stuff that happened in the eighties that I thought probably wouldn't happen again, and I think we're kind of there again in the eighties.

32:07 It's like, well, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, it's we live in interesting times and nobody can really predict what's going to happen tomorrow. No, But it creates great music though, because like I think, if you take some of the music from seventies eighties, you could apply it to today just as well, you know, and like listen, just like the weather, if the If you're writing music, it comes from your experiences. After there's a lot of experiences going on to write about. It makes for a lot of creativity. Well, I think so over the course of a lifetime, you know, you know, when I was starting out, I was buying guitar records. You know, at the age of nine, I think and and I would buy all these guitar records, you know, Dwayne Eddie and the Shadows and stuff that all sounded like the Ventures. And then it wasn't really until I heard the Rolling Stones version of I Want to Be Your Man that I finally heard a guitar that ripped. And I always knew that it could somewhere in the back of my my you know, my esp somewhere back there. Even as a kid, I thought this instrument should rip, and now it does, of course, But then you know, once you've achieved that. I mean, I don't know about you, but I mean I was a harmonica player ten years before I was a guitarist, and

33:41 then having played for years, when I was sixteen, I saw Paul Butterfield playing harmonica and I thought, I don't know anything about guitar. I don't know a thing about harmonica playing, because he's reinventing the instrument. The sound of it was so powerful, so powerful, just incredible. I've been I did do a blues album at one point, which probably sold least well of all the things that I'd done, classical things. Proggy things, etc. But there's something something about it, you know, of the direct contact of that other instrument that I trained to do and within a blues context.

34:26 I like it very much. But I'm also working on the idea of a sort of a Middle Eastern influenced blues harp sound. I believe that's possible. It's in the margins of what's possible to create an instrument that people are not necessarily going to recognize, but that I can drive. I can handle shoving it through some of the stuff that I reserved for guitar, usually an angle amp, an old I think it's and the same fifty seven. I've got the one that looks rather like a gun. I wouldn't take it on on on a plane. You know they're going to stop it. Yeah, stand away from the microphone, so you.

35:13 Know, I actually get that. Like when I go to travel for doing coverage at festival time all my equipment, they always stop me like, what's this exactly? Yeah, it's a microphone. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we've heard all that before. It's it's a harmonica. You know, what do you do with that? You know, while you're blow into it and that's what you do. Yeah, it's it's the most portable instrument you can possibly imagine, right, But there's not too many gigs out there for even great harmonica players. Stevie Wonder usually does it for everybody. So yeah, he was. He was definitely great. John Popper of Blues Traveler, it's pretty great.

36:00 Yeah, Charlie mussel White, Paul Butterfield, Little water By Williamson. Yeah, they all have their own style. And you know what's it's interesting. You know what's interesting too, is that probably the most famous Sabbath song is one with Arsie playing harmonica and he's not even a musician. He always said he wasn't a musician. He was right, Yeah, But like my of the most famous song as harmonica in it. Yeah, I mean I in the course of a lifetime, I got to spend time with Larry Adler, for instance, and I was asking him for tips on a harmonica, even though I've been playing it all my life. I thought, I'm not going to play harmonica in front of this guy.

36:50 He's got it down, you know. He can play Rhapsody and Blue George Gershwin one hand on the piano, one hand on the harmonica, and that was a party piece for him. And he did it very well. It sounded really really lovely. He's gone now, but and and Butterfield. So you know, all my mentors in the harmonica world have passed on. But then I'm going to mess around with it, you know, put it through different octaves. And you can carry on the legacy of them. Yeah that's right, Yeah, that's right. You know. I think that, you know, it's another string to your bow. Really, if you can play another another instrument like that.

37:35 I think, if you're a true musician like U, y experiment with all different types of instruments, you know, and you look at somebody like Prince, and most people don't even know that loved Prince, that he could play. I don't even know there were so many instruments he could play, you know. And I think it's just it becomes like a hobby. You know. Let me see what other instrument. You know. I'm not even good at instruments, and I feel that way. Like I played drums, I played guitar. I was never really good. But I not walk into a store and I'll see a mandolin. I'm like, oh, maybe I should try that. Well, there we are, I've played a mandolin. I'm not brilliant at it, but with you know, patient attention to detail, I think you can record something like that. And then there's of course, you know, nylon guitar, classical guitar, flappingco guitar.

38:27 It's all very, very different to electric guitar. It's another instrument entirely, yes, under the heading of guitar. But I've also played it's a Vietnamese instrument which is like the koto dinshine, and that's very, very beautiful. So I've recorded that to good, good effect. Again, I think, you know, when you're recording, it's you have the possibility to start and stop pretty much like singing. You know, if you think, yeah, you know, I think I can I can do a better take as a singer, even professional singers will say, yeah, I think I can hit that note more squarely, or I can put more into it. And I was I was doing this yesterday. I was recording some vocal stuff and finding that I could if you let yourself go, you can really rip if you want, and it's really as strong as any rock singing I've heard. But you have to be prepared to, you know, put the edge on that. And I know a lot of people say you can't sing, but actually you can whisper, and you can shout and scream, and all of those things are different voices that come in the same voicebox here. So you can do that and you can learn to control it.

39:52 It can be learned. Peter Gabriel was saying this years ago. He was saying, I believe singing is possible, he said, he said, if I do it, than anyone can do it. Here we are. You got it from the horse's mouth. Oh there you go. I love hearing that because I think we need more art in the world anyway, because that's the ultimate uniter and it's the ultimate therapy, and like so, I think everybody should be able to exercise that art. Well, I agree, you know, you've got to be able to bring the world together. If we can get everyone singing off the same page, if not the same hymn sheet, then I think the subject of music, of course, is to re energize people and heal in some cases. It's very very powerful medicine, which is why we're involved with it.

40:49 There's so much too. I'm always telling the story of If you read any of the books that were written by Oliver Sacks, the doctor, the guy who basically wrote Awakenings, which became the movie. These sort of studies of the human mind and the outer limits of the diseases that people can suffer from. One woman had to think called akinesia one of his patients. She would become frozen and she couldn't move until she heard a piece of music that moved her emotionally, and then there was a direct correlation between her ability to be able to move physically having heard something which moved her emotionally. So if that isn't medicine, I don't know what it is.

41:31 Huh, no doubt, of course. You know. Listen, I actually have had this idea recently that we should have a music festival that's for the whole world, and the whole world it has to attend, and then we could just work out all her problems. Well, that would be really good, wouldn't it. You know at the Beatles kind of did that with all your Natives Love. You know how many million subscribers there were. You know, if you had a TV, you tune into that channel. And there I was sitting at home, black and white TV watching this stuff going on, and it seemed like, you know, the center of the world, and the most important thing possible was was that concert. Everyone was chewed into it. And yeah, there's the Moonshot, you're going to be there for that, a few other world events.

42:30 But it's beyond your favorite soccer team winning. It's beyond it's beyond sport. It's somehow. Yes, there's this song and everyone's in it. A piece of music that features so many other snippets of music as well. Yeah, that kind of I guess in a kind of pastiche a parody kind of setting. But it doesn't even start off with the Beatles. Starts off with French national anthem and lamasiers, you know, and wanders off into in the mood and all the rest. And music ought to be that free once again, to be able to have that confidence. If you've got the world's ear and all the eyes of the world are on you as well, you can do that kind of thing. But I can hear other musicians perhaps listening to the thing you were world music was.

43:34 It was a lot different than they could do what they liked because they were the Beatles. Well, you know, it's like, don't drain it, be it. Let's let's you know, I want to hear your wildest fantasies musically, because you know, it can't go on just being you know, this one horse trick and down home and yeah, mating ritual based and all that. Hey we've done all that, you know, come on, let's have some new stuff. Otherwise it's always going to be movies that are going to give you the new music because they are with a winning producer, always allowed to do so. But you know, I think, you know, rock formats has become very constrained.

44:23 I say, like nowadays it's a lot of rock music has to have this like formula that that that they have to apply to it. Where there is no formula. I think bands like the Beatles like made the formula. Well that's right, you know, and you should be allowed to stretch out and do what you want. Music was surprise and music that's inclusive and has surprises. If music doesn't have surprises in it, then I can't see why it's worth listening to. So I think about the greatest bands like It's especially from like the sixties and seventies, that they evolved throughout their whole career. They were never just one genre. You can't most of the bands from them, you can't pinpoint them to one genre.

45:12 I think you're absolutely right. The pan genre approach is the way forward. So if we all adopt the mantle of being character actors in music, we can wander into unfamiliar territory but equit ourselves reasonably. I think that's the main thing. And why not. You know, I was writing suddenly the other day that was in the style of early Danny k and I was thinking, I wonder if I can get away with this or not, you know, But it was just like a nonsense song. I thought, well, this is the kind of stuff that I listened to when I was a kid.

45:57 This was the stuff that was on radio, a lot of comedy songs. But you know, but but we loved them for that. That was. It's the simplicity, like we want to escape life, and yeah, life is complicated, So how we escape life? Yeah? Music, Yeah, that's it. Yeah. So you know, we're at the point where AI can do it all anyway. So the game's up, So you might as well change the game because if you don't, you will be caught out. Move on, my friend. Totally. Meanwhile, does it blow your mind that you're doing fifty fiftieth anniversary. Yeah, am lies down on Broadway.

46:50 I mean well as I say, you know, yeah, I sort of did whole albums. I was doing the whole of Setting In by the Pound, the whole of Trot, uh, maybe half of Lambert Down and Broadway and future stuff. I'll be doing a best of cherry picking across all of Genesis stuff and my own stuff, and to be able to serve up the best with I like to think of it as an incredible band I have with extraordinary virtuoses. It's a little bit like talking to our bass player Jernasi. He says, you know, you've got to have the real Madrid. You know you're talking about soccer.

47:34 You know the best players are Rail madridts of those who are unfamiliar with Rail Madrid. You need that in music, you know, this team has to be it has to be the best players. And I've arrived at that point. I've got the best players who are incredible virtuosos. Any one of them will blow you away tomorrow. You know. They can all hold the floor and do solos and they are all incredible. So yeah, they've got chops to die for, for sure. If you remember a time when there was you know, a Mahadition new orchestra where you know, jazz at that point had become extremely fashionable because they were boring from rock. So there were you know, great jazz players, but they were doing it with rock sensibility.

48:20 So whatever you're going to say, I'm sorry I interrupted you. Oh no, it's this is all about you. Who cares what I have to say? But well that's about well. It does blow my mind. And I fifty years of anything, like anything in my life, I'm like, oh, that was fifty I mean fifty years ago. Did you think that you'd be sitting here now doing some shows in Florida as a fiftieth anniversary. No, no, exactly. Yeah. I mean I started out professionally doing music nineteen seventy one when I joined Genesis. I've been with a band called Quiet World a year before that, and we've done an album together. But I'd been trying to make music since I was two years old, ever since my father had a harmonica and he gave it to me and he didn't get it back, you know, that was the thing. So ever since I was three or four, I was playing Scotland the Brave. Oh Susannah. What was my little repertoire in those days. Yeah, there was one other.

49:31 I think God Saved the Queen. Yeah, extraordinary stuff. Yeah, that was a few national anthems in there. I think Yellow Rosa Texas. I seemed to like that one too. I had no idea where Texas was, where that came from, where was the runaway train? All of that. But you hear those early kind of country tunes and cowboy tunes and they still sound great. I've still got a soft spot for Roy Rogers and four leg good Friend, all of that. I'm right there and it influenced my dad, and he influenced me with this stuff so long before I don Tchaikovsky or Bach or any of those guys.

50:14 And see, that's the key. Everything you're saying about is like it doesn't matter as long as it's music. You know, there's good music in every genre you know, and you just explore it. Yeah, and whether it's instrumental or vocal or whatever it is, it really energizes people, brings people together, heals people, does all sorts of magical things. So I definitely feel I'm in the right profession. It's most people have to work for a living. I get to play for a living, and that's a privilege, and I don't forget it for one single day.

50:56 And I love when somebody totally has passion for what they do, because in this business, if you don't have passion for music, it's the wrong business, because that's the best part of it, you. Know, absolutely, Yeah, it's amazing, it's absolutely wonderful. And of course, you know, I had all my heroes back then, and I see people now who I think are incredible players and singers. And Jimmy Web of course, who somebody gained something and he wrote a little note to me, and I was reminded of the days when Genesis, very early early years, we were all asked to give our favorite single when it was five of us and four of us without conferring all Joe's Richard Harris's MacArthur Park and we hadn't conferred, but we were all on the same page.

51:57 That's amazing. So you know, I think he happens to be the world's best living songwriter. And I'm sure that Glenn Campbell would probably have agreed with me. And the stuff he did with Art Golf Uncle is just to die force. So that's really wonderful, wonderful album called water Mark, which was a follow up to break Away. Should have been a huge hit. Whenever I play it to musicians, they say, I must have a copy of this album. It's beautifully produced. Funny enough. I was there in La looking at Cherokee Studios when the studio manager, Colin Merton I think his name was interrupted Art golf uncle when he was recording this song. I mean, how embarrassing is that he's recording this thing that was to become one of my favorite albums.

52:54 And there it was, how dare you interrupt? You know that to this Britain, this lamey he wants to read the studio But hey, sorry, you know we're just having a look in here, you know, yeah, you carry on fine, you know he could have been in the middle of Jesus, know what, you know? Right right? And my only problem is in one minute I have to do another zoom. Well I mustn't, I mustn't leave. Everything we need to cover. So fantastic talking a.

53:34 Mine, absolutely, and hopefully you know you'll have a lot of fun here in Florida. And uh, everybody, you check out the notes and you'll find the date and how to get tickets, and thanks a lot for making us great music for all this time. Thank you, thanks for being on the Adventures Pinte Man. Thank you. My floral shorts are ready for Florida in the sunshine there so much you got it. Hi there, this is Steve Hackett. You're listening to the Adventures of the Black Band on W four c Y Radio. Thank you for listening to the Adventures of Pipemin on W for c u I Radio.