Sonny Rollins: Beyond The Notes
New Arena documentary and rare 1974 gig to be screened later this month...
12:18 PM GMT 01/02/2012
News
Peter Gabriel: Fox Heads Stalk This Land
2:49 PM GMT 12/02/2010
PETER GABRIEL MARKS the release of his first album in eight years with a revealing interview in MOJO magazine.
Self-actualisation cults, divorce, depression, therapy, playing keyboards with apes and why Genesis were "like 10CC": Gabriel takes the lid off all this and more in a psychologically frank encounter... "It takes a while to find out who you are," he tells MOJO's Mat Snow. "It took me 20 years."
Gabriel's new album is Scratch My Back, a collection of covers setting the singer's soulful bleat against purely orchestral rearrangements of songs by Radiohead, David Bowie, Regina Spektor and more. It's both more brilliant, and more harrowing than that sounds.
"I think that genuinely happy music is one of the hardest things to write," Gabriel tells MOJO. "Misery is a more natural human condition. You may want to go out with the 'up' song, but you want to marry the 'down' song, haha."
Gabriel also delves into his formative period fronting progressive rock legends Genesis, where he brought a flamboyant visual element to an often drab and earnest genre. "You could hear the sharp intake of breath when I came out in the red dress and fox head," he recalls. "I thought, well, that's interesting - I'll try a bit more of that."
He quit the band in 1975, leaving them to achieve greater chart success with drummer Phil Collins behind the mic, but there was never a moment of regret. "Genesis in those days was like the army," he says. "You had no commitment to anything else... You'd sometimes work for 70 to 100 hours and there wasn't any room for lives as well."
Gabriel's solo career saw him negotiate the metamorphosis from prog seer into new wave-simpatico art-popper, peaking commercially with 1986's burnished but still quirky So. But in his life outside music, sailing was rather less than plain.
"The first stages of divorce were the most painful thing I've ever had to deal with," Gabriel confesses.
His latest album is described as a "song swap" project, and will be followed by a record of covers of Peter Gabriel songs by the writers represented on Scratch My Back. For instance, The Magnetic Fields' Stephin Merritt has already delivered a hi-NRG version of Gabriel 3's Not One Of Us. Here's Gabriel explaining the concept in more detail...
Forthcoming Gabriel shows at London's O2 Arena will feature Scratch My Back tracks plus orchestral reworkings of songs from the Gabriel catalogue. MOJO even has some tickets to give away...
Click here to win tickets to Gabriel's O2 Show!
Then listen to a full stream of the album here...
Read more in the next issue of MOJO, on the streets from February 23.
Posted by Ross_Bennett at 2:49 PM GMT 12/02/2010
Previous News
-
-
LISTEN NOW: New Choir Of Young Believers Track
Melancholic pop wonder from the Danish collective's second album...
10:00 AM GMT 01/02/2012
-
Happy Mondays: Original Line Up Reunites, Tour Dates In
Baggy heroes hit the road in May...
5:16 PM GMT 31/01/2012
-
"Oasis Ruined It For Everyone"
Music-savant BritArtist Jeremy Deller on Iggy Pop, glam rock and the sharp end of history.
3:02 PM GMT 31/01/2012
-
LISTEN NOW: Mark Lanegan Band's Blues Funeral
MOJO has an exclusive stream of Lanegan's new LP...
11:59 AM GMT 31/01/2012
-
HOW TO BUY... Charles Mingus
The best comments and recommendations will appear in the next issue...
5:40 PM GMT 30/01/2012
end of body content back to top
Footer
Join us on:
© Copyright Bauer - all
rights reserved.
Reproduction of this
website, in whole or in
part, in any form or
medium without express
written permission from
Bauer is prohibited. All
use is subject to our
Terms of Use
|
|
Comments
Comment on this post
"the next issue of MOJO" link is NOT working.
Posted by bill at 12:48 PM GMT 15/02/2010 Report Abuse
Reply to this post
His finest hour was "The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway." Should have never left Genesis ! Once Hackett left the band they were artistically done !
Posted by Brien Comerford at 11:26 PM GMT 15/02/2010 Report Abuse
Reply to this post
His finest hour was "The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway." Should have never left Genesis ! Once Hackett left the band they were artistically done !
Posted by Brien Comerford at 11:27 PM GMT 15/02/2010 Report Abuse
Reply to this post
Did someone say cunt?
Posted by Phill Collins, Facking Spain. at 1:55 AM GMT 16/02/2010 Report Abuse
Reply to this post
RE: Phill Collins, Facking Spain.
yeah, your mum.
Posted by Terry Waite at 3:44 PM GMT 16/02/2010 Report Abuse
Reply to this post
I really hope this album works for me...would've just preferred an album of all new material (I/O)...
Posted by spaceboy at 12:17 AM GMT 20/02/2010 Report Abuse
Reply to this post
RE: Brien Comerford
Oh, come on Brien! Don't be daft!
Posted by spaceboy at 11:02 PM GMT 20/02/2010 Report Abuse
Reply to this post
Wow, I'm a lifelong fan and I gotta say, this album just isn't "doin' it" for me...oh well there's always "I/O"
Posted by Spaceboy at 10:07 PM GMT 05/03/2010 Report Abuse
Reply to this post
The voice that has been in my life ,since i was 12 ! To this day the music of Genesis with Pete
is like a time music machine .it either takes me to meadival times but in another galaxy !
I like his solo work a lot . The
Best for me : Passion and Lamb + Foxtrot !
Posted by ALEX GALLO at 4:25 PM GMT 23/03/2010 Report Abuse
Reply to this post
The voice that has been in my life ,since i was 12 ! To this day the music of Genesis with Pete
is like a time music machine .it either takes me to meadival times but in another galaxy !
I like his solo work a lot . The
Best for me : Passion and Lamb + Foxtrot !
Posted by ALEX GALLO at 4:28 PM GMT 23/03/2010 Report Abuse
Reply to this post
Peter gabriels ~ barry williams show is a corker of a choon an a great parody video of the daytime junk t.v.
Posted by finaman of E.F.C. la at 6:31 PM GMT 23/04/2010 Report Abuse
Reply to this post
Comment on this post