Steve Hackett On "Foxtrot At Fifty + Hackett Highlights: Live On Brighton," Touring Plans & More
[Music] about true cats now with their Bell draw Blitz get ready to listen to your favorite art artists [Music] it's good morning here it's a good afternoon by you yeah it's it's it's about a half past two uh in the afternoon and it's a beautiful sunny day in downtown Teddington got it well you are busy as ever right now because you just put out the foxtrot live album with the highlights a couple of weeks ago you're always on tour you're back in the U.S in a couple of weeks that's right the most down time you've had it looks like you've been off the road for about a month well yeah we did I managed to finish off an album a studio album I managed to fit in a trip to Turkey to Istanbul um and now foxtrot at 50. the currently released them is number two in the British Rock charts and that's really that's really great somebody at the door trying to trying to break in um crazy yeah somebody knocking on the suddenly there's going to be so much going on it's unbelievable I'm sorry I'll have to shout above what's going on this is life it just keeps crashing into life and it's a point to be speaking with yeah exactly it's great to be great to be alive and um yeah you know yeah Keith look it's a great to be here great to be anywhere as Keith said you know exactly yeah so as I was alluding to earlier you know there's a new live record there's an upcoming tour in the last three years it seems like you've gotten out four or five albums while heavily touring and recording and writing so when I say you know hey you've had a month you've had down time no you're still making stuff while all that is going on so yeah the words you're busier than ever at this point in your career did you ever think you'd be retired at this point in your career uh I don't know I didn't have any idea what I would be doing at this age when I was you know 22 or so when foxtrot was being made I I had no idea um I was just hoping that our contract would get renewed uh but you know some things sometimes you can be lucky with something an album if it's Sprouts legs that's good if it's Sprouts wings and keeps going for 50 years that's even better so as I say it's gone into the Rock charts and metal charts here number two uh it's got a chance of being my first number one hey you know that would be uh that would be something but of course there is the Genesis body of work that uh supports it so you know that's that's an extraordinary thing and um and uh it's it's wonderful that there's so much interest in it all over again when it comes to playing the entire foxtrot album live how much rehearsal is needed for you is it all in the back of your minds or did you go oh I know these three songs and then I have to relearn these few um yeah something like that I I I I know these songs and others I need to rehearse but I've been through the rehearsals to do that and we've turned it pretty much extensively throughout Europe and Scandinavia uh so um it has been told believe me in recent years so I just had a I had a run through yesterday I think it was uh um to make sure it was still there and and it's still there so that's that's really good we kick off in Montreal uh I fly out tomorrow an overnight flight get the red eye to Montreal and then and then you know we we kick off in French Canada and um we'll be with you guys soon you know I'm I'm looking forward to that was that your like 35th world tour at this point oh geez you know what I I I've lost count by now you know I'm just uh I'm still making a noise for a living um people are still showing up coming to the gigs that's that's a great feeling um that's what keeps me doing it is is the level of enthusiasm from significant others the audience that's that's so important to me you know I I do it for them I I don't do it for me so much anymore but I love watching people getting turned on by it and turned on by it all over again like the crescendo uh water of the Skies yeah the intro the authenticity of that the the power of it the sheer power of it um and with the band that lays the balls off this material so you know my my band I have to say you know are extraordinary um they play with a level of precision that I could only have dreamed about when this was going around first time you know we didn't have the technology the technique or or you know experience to be able to I live up to the power of the ideas but the ideas came when we were all young now the performance you know is is something else they were going to start out with with these with these things so uh we'll be shouting over the sound of river motorbikes are you okay with that yeah if if it's Steve Hackett I'm okay with it that's okay fine fine okay some of those bandmates have been there for about 20 years or more in yourself that's right yeah I started working with uh and Roger in in in in the 90s and really um Rod Townsend from about 2000 or 2001 so they some of them have been there for a while uh the Rhythm Section more recent years you know five years or so of working with them and they've been incredible you know Jonas reingold on base is probably probably the world's best he's extraordinary he can play anything including I've heard him play Bach on a base which is extraordinary and um he can either be Mr Rickenbacker almost the upright basis here's something else um Craig Blundell on drums extraordinary um I can't believe how hard he hits those things every night um even when he was having back trouble at one point he was still beating them to death these things and uh it's very exciting to watch him yeah to his credit hitting them hard and doing crazy time signatures you cannot do both that's right yeah yeah yeah so I I don't know how he does that he's a sort of progmeister of the uh of the sticks yeah so a question for you here I find that artists who have Decades of world tours originally when they come on the road they go I'm gonna I'm gonna go to Every bar and restaurant that I ever can I'm going to see every sightseeing thing then they kind of get burnt out then they go to their face of hiking or golf when they're on tour when you're on tour and you don't have to do media which one of those are you are you you at the hiking golf point of your of your career that when you come to a city you're going to the park uh uh usually my life means that most of the time I've got two hours off maximum on any given day so um we'll go visit something you know we're we're if there's some history we'll check it out when we were in um turkey a couple of weeks ago um I wanted to see the eyes of fire that most it was originally a Byzantine Church um huge thing uh the Blue Mosque incredible incredible incredible um the system which was underneath built by the Romans which was used funnily enough in the movie From Russia with Love at one point but but it's so modern that's built by the Romans it's extraordinary um Roman brickwork was was built to last um so yeah if there's anything like that obviously if I'm touring Italy there will be plenty to see they'll they'll be they'll be so-called ruins but they'll they'll be modern apartment blocks that were built by the Romans they with this joke This Woman This Woman said how come the Romans built so many ruins I was like well you know this was two thousand three thousand years ago you know they're still standing uh uh uh what chance um some of the other stuff that we've that we grew up with you know I mean the apartments that I grew up in as as a kid they're scaffolding around it you know they're stopping it falling apart that's that's it well I grew up facing the um the buddhistee power station uh Pink Floyd's Pig in front of the battery power station that was the view from my bedroom window as a kid now you can take a trip into that power station you can go up one of the Chimneys in an elevator lifts to the to the British you go up inside the thing and you're at the top you've got a a 360 degree view of London it's absolutely unbelievable it's an incredible trip they do it so well it's it's extraordinary it's got nothing to do with music but everything to do with my background so I recommend that if you're coming to London check that one out you won't you won't be disappointed when you come home from a tour do you usually come home with five new guitars in other words as a stand this is a compliment to you a compliment slash a question we'll call it a a question a compla a complexion whatever you want to call a complimentation but as one of these standout influential guitar players because you influence a lot of the influential guitar players from where I stand do you come home with an extra five to ten guitars for people from guitar shops go try this there are times when that has has happened um uh I think when I was in when I was in Spain there were a couple of guys from Portugal they gave me a Portuguese guitar which is basically a 12-string guitar so that's the last one I was given um but um uh in the main that doesn't tend to happen every now and again it'll happen but um of course I'm completely out of space to put them anywhere sensible so I I have to rent space to keep to keep the Museum of guitars going and I've got I have a small Museum of guitars it's extraordinary thing yes I should charge people money to go and see them pay for my lock-up you know I think so dude do you know Rick Nielsen from Cheap Trick In His guitar collecting uh I've heard about that yes yes I know that Steve Howe has an extensive collection or certainly did do um at one point and um and some of them were very rare indeed yes A friend of mine who signed a RCA Steve schultze a great band called long wave and now it's just October okay so Steve told me when he got his record label Advance he invested it in vintage guitars and that's in value that's something that I don't think the average person realizes that that even though recorded music keeps going down in value vintage guitars keep going up over time so do you have a collection of like hundreds of guitars no not not hundreds no I I you know I I haven't counted them recently but you know they're at various times there might be 40 50 of them and they're dotted around in different places but I need to move house and be able to have these things to hand to check them out because some of them are beautiful but in the main I've been recording recently with three electric guitars and and those are in in the main um there's a Les Paul 1957 there's a Fernandez which is more recent of course and one that belonged to Gary Moore Oh and I've been playing that on the album and uh Brian May design guitar red special same as he designed so he and I did some work together years and years ago and then I a pal of mine had one of his guitars and I I swapped in my Les Paul for that not not an ancient one not not not a vintage one one from from the 80s pretty vented at that point yeah well that's it some dealer might well say well that's it you know from the 80s that's pretty Ventures you can say that you may maybe he got the better half of the deal but on the other hand the Brian mate guitar does sound um spectacular it has another phase facility that um gives you that upper harmonic almost like an onboard Wawa almost you know it's um it's an extraordinary sound um it's the sound that you've kind of been looking for and then for all these years but then there's there'll be another time I'll plug in the Fernandez to the music with a um a tube screamer or a thing called an iron boost invented by Pete Cornish I asked him to do me a treble booster and he did this thing and I I am boosted and that's an extraordinary sound again I think Brian uses one of those who run me um but you know these these things sometimes it's the guitar and sometimes it's the pedal of the amp the thing that gives it that boost and then suddenly it comes alive and you go oh wow yes this is this is the thing so it's partly in the fingers it's in the ears but um it's not a mess it's not a mystical thing but when it hits you the right sound hits you it's magic and you go Yep this sound I can go anywhere with this sound and that's the moment that you're that you're waiting for where there's there's hardly a dead spot on on the guitar anywhere and and then you go okay yeah the field is open let me at it let it Let It Fly let it run well I have three quick questions and then I'll let you go okay okay the first question is relating to all the touring Logistics your fans really are everywhere in the world uh so your touring isn't like hey he's gonna play these five U.S cities and that's
it you got the US and North America fans you have the Europeans you got for the Japanese uh gold or platinum records you got for Genesis Revisited so the fans are there as well do you have like three touring rigs that you keep all over the world or do you have to Freight everything all over the world every time you tour well I've got I've got a couple of pedalboards there's one that's that's smaller than than the other you know a sort of um a touring rig if I'm gonna do something like play with with not a band and and guess for them to do something like with job aid for instance and then there's my there's my major one so as far as I'm aware there's there's two um but it's not like I've got one in the states that is a go-to there but you know that would probably be a very sensible idea it may well be the gear stays over there because we're going to be coming back here um you know just before Christmas and then we're out again before you know it and uh so that would be it's a very sensible idea and and that's probably what we're going to do yeah I mean the logistics of leading a life living out of a suitcase it has its complications but you know it has its benefits and its drawbacks of course uh but you know I'm I'm a touring animal that's what I do have guitar will travel um that's a Future album title for you well I remember that you know there was a TV series and I'm trying to think of the guide something about will travel and I can't remember the exact thing but somebody will remember but it's for me I think we've have gone World Travel that might have been the series way back and now it's well for me yeah have guitar will travel and do have traveled are traveling is yeah you you don't stop traveling now question number two the album that you did squack it that yes a great title right there you had a collaboration with Fran Healy from one of my favorite bands Travis how did that one happen was he a fan of yours and he reached out let me see uh you'll have to remind me here of are we talking about the thing with uh Chris Squire yes the album with Chris squire and I'm thinking about um so remind me because my memory is going it's it's crazy the older I get oh looking at the uh the writing credits there's once on that Fran Hal uh Fran Healy did with you and sometimes when you see a car ride it's just because the publisher has connected you and so you know what that much that must be that must be must have been something with Chris then I suspect I think because you know the things that I did with him we we credited to uh myself and uh and and Roger King if I remember correctly Roger King and also um the couple of other writers on it as well you know Chris and I sort of just decided to split the thing down the middle that was great fun to do um sad that I didn't get to do any of that stuff live with him but we did get everyone together on the on the cruise to the edge we got the lake great Squire the great great John wetton we were all playing together um we did An All Along the Watchtower you know which is kind of Easy On My Level because it's basically three chords and um I had great fun doing that and I've done that with a few pounds we did a tribute to John recently and did that with with the Paul Green um musical Academy they were working with John Anderson name drop named laughs yeah and it it was great to be able to um celebrate John because John was was something else you know his music still holds up and my my last one for you is a stupid one I know his real last name is not Hackett but did you ever get to meet Buddy Hackett did I ever get to meet buddy no I never got to meet Buddy Hackett but I did meet Les Paul and um I get I got to talk to him about about guitars and about his band and everything and uh uh the man who invented multi-tracking where would we be without without that so um Les Paul Mary Ford I don't think I've ever met Buddy Hackett I don't think so I might have met or been to see Bobby Hackett so at least my brother John Hackett okay so some of the hackets got to meet each other well yeah yeah that's right yeah yeah it's true the bottom line Steve I'm I'm glad to see you're busies ever there was still the autobiography within the last three years besides the collaborations the touring et cetera so look at what's to come from you in the near future hope to see you live in New York in the near future and just keep up all the greatness out there thank you for the many years of great Art thank you so much lovely talking to you Darren all the best
2023-10-07 19:45
