Turning It On Again

Genesis are back, with a new tour and reissues of their entire back catalogue. Robert Haagsma asks them about revisiting the past, and what might lie in the future…

The Genesis comeback announced at the end of last year hardly surprised anybody. It was bound to happen sooner or later, as the band members always managed to remain best friends. The reunion does raise some questions though. Will Peter Gabriel and Steve Hackett participate? Can we expect a new studio album? Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks respond…

On 15 January 1981, Phil Collins performed his first solo hit, In The Air Tonight, before the cameras of Top Of The Pops. In the song, the singer and former drummer of Genesis reflects bitterly on his divorce from Andrea Bertorelli, his first wife. The clues were inescapable: Phil’s keyboard was balanced on a Workmate bench, with an open tin of paint placed clearly in sight. The former Mrs Collins had run off with the housepainter.

In The Air Tonight was taken from his debut album, Face Value, into which he poured a lot of the anger, frustration and sadness caused by the problems in his personal life. “One moment I had a wife, two kids and a dog,” he would later remark, “the next moment I had nothing. Everything I felt and experienced back then found its way to that particular record. I think that gave it its power. And I worked really hard on the songs. Anyway, it launched my solo career in a way very few initially …

by Robert Haagsma
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