A feature-length documentary about Ozzy Osbourne is slated to come out later this year.
According to a post on the Black Sabbath singer’s social media channels, Ozzy Osbourne: No Escape From Now is currently in production and will be released via Paramount Plus.
Directed by BAFTA Award winner Tania Alexander (Gogglebox, etc.), the film will chronicle Osbourne’s life since he suffered a fall in 2019 that gave him spinal damage. He announced he has Parkinson’s disease in 2020 and retired from touring in 2023.
As well as Osbourne and his family, including wife/manager Sharon, No Escape From Now will feature Ozzy’s Black Sabbath bandmate Tony Iommi, Duff McKagan (Guns N’ Roses), Robert Trujillo (Metallica), Billy Idol, Maynard James Keenan (Tool), Chad Smith (Red Hot Chili Peppers), guitarist Zakk Wylde, producer Andrew Watt and friend/musician Billy Morrison.
Ozzy comments: “The last six years have been full of some of the worst times I’ve been through. There’s been times when I thought my number was up. But making music and making two albums saved me [2020’s Ordinary Man and 2022’s Patient Number 9]. I’d have gone nuts without music.”
Adds Sharon: “This film is an honest account of what has happened to Ozzy during the last few years. It shows how hard things have been for him and the courage he has shown while dealing with a number of serious health issues, including Parkinson’s. It’s about the reality of his life now.
“We have worked with a production team we trust and have allowed them the freedom to tell the story openly. We hope that story will inspire people that are facing similar issues to Ozzy.”
Sign up below to get the latest from Metal Hammer, plus exclusive special offers, direct to your inbox!
Ozzy will give his last-ever live performance at Back To The Beginning, an event set to also feature a set by the original Black Sabbath lineup for the first and last time since 2005.
The blockbuster show will take place at Villa Park in Birmingham, Ozzy’s hometown, on July 5. Metallica, Anthrax, Slayer and others will perform, as will a “supergroup” composed of The Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan, Rage Against The Machine’s Tom Morello and many more. Morello will be the musical director for the day while famed actor Jason Momoa (Game Of Thrones, Aquaman, etc.) will compere, and all proceeds will go to charity.
. @ParamountPlus today announced the production of OZZY OSBOURNE: NO ESCAPE FROM NOW, a new feature-length documentary that peers behind Ozzy’s public persona to reveal the devastating setbacks he has faced since his fateful fall in 2019. Currently in production, the project is… pic.twitter.com/BZj658s2KmFebruary 25, 2025
One of the UK’s finest rock exports of the 21st century gear up to release their brand new album next month, as The Darkness unveil eighth studio full-length Dreams On Toast to an unsuspecting world. To celebrate, Classic Rock have teamed up with Lowestoft’s finest for two exclusive bundles featuring a limited edition Classic Rock cover variant and special versions of the new album that you won’t find anywhere else.
Bundle 1 includes a special Darkness edition of Classic Rock magazine issue #339, on sale March 28, alongside a hand-signed copy of Dreams On Toast on lovely splatter vinyl. Look! It’s lovely! Pre-order yours here.
(Image credit: Future)
Bundle 2 includes the same edition of Classic Rock magazine, which also features an interview with the band, but with a glow-in-the-dark cassette edition of the album. You may OOOH and AHHH now. Pre-order yours here .
(Image credit: Future)
You cannot pick these bundles up anywhere else other than the official Classic Rock store, so jump in and get yours while you can. PLEASE NOTE THAT THESE ARE PRE-ORDERS AND WILL SHIP IN MARCH
Sign up below to get the latest from Classic Rock, plus exclusive special offers, direct to your inbox!
Merlin moved into his role as Executive Editor of Louder in early 2022, following over ten years working at Metal Hammer. While there, he served as Online Editor and Deputy Editor, before being promoted to Editor in 2016. Before joining Metal Hammer, Merlin worked as Associate Editor at Terrorizer Magazine and has previously written for the likes of Classic Rock, Rock Sound, eFestivals and others. Across his career he has interviewed legends including Ozzy Osbourne, Lemmy, Metallica, Iron Maiden (including getting a trip on Ed Force One courtesy of Bruce Dickinson), Guns N’ Roses, KISS, Slipknot, System Of A Down and Meat Loaf. He has also presented and produced the Metal Hammer Podcast, presented the Metal Hammer Radio Show and is probably responsible for 90% of all nu metal-related content making it onto the site.
Architects’ singer briefly wanted their guitarist to be dismissed from the band last year.
In a new interview with The Guardian, frontman Sam Carter admits he initially hoped for Adam Christianson to be dismissed after the guitarist shared a transphobic post on X (formerly Twitter) in January 2024.
The post in question contained a video of American MMA fighter Sean Strickland, who criticised beer company Bud Light for a 2023 social media promotion featuring trans activist Dylan Mulvaney.
Strickland says in the clip (via Loudwire): “Here’s the thing about Bud Light – 10 years ago, to be trans, was what, a mental fucking illness? Now all of a sudden, people like you fucking weaseled your way into the world. You are an infection, you are the definition of weakness. Everything that is wrong with the fucking world is because of you. And the best thing is, the world’s not buying it.”
The reaction to the post included Spiritbox singer Courtney LaPlante reposting a statement from Silent Planet vocalist Garret Russell lambasting Strickland’s words. Architects drummer Dan Searle appeared to call Christianson a “knob” in a since-deleted post.
Christianson deleted the repost and apologised in a since-deleted post, calling his sharing of Strickland’s words “accidental”. Carter later addressed the controversy onstage, telling an audience in Paris, “No one on this stage judges anybody for their gender, their race, and whoever they are in love with. We never have, we never will.”
Now, Carter admits he was a “mess” during the situation. “I was thinking: he [Christianson] has to go,” he tells The Guardian. “And then he wakes up and we have a phone conversation.”
Sign up below to get the latest from Metal Hammer, plus exclusive special offers, direct to your inbox!
However, the singer also criticises the people who went after Christianson via social media. “They wanted Adam crucified in the street, with no job,” he says. “Anything less than that would be an act of blatant transphobia.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Searle, who also writes Architects’ lyrics, admits he finds it “harder and harder to find authentic places to be angry from”. That includes the climate crisis, which the band have addressed on several songs in the past.
“Do you really need to shove this down the throats of these kids?” the drummer says of the perceived pessimistic messaging that surrounds climate change. “You’re just scaring everyone; there’s already loads of terrible mental health. There’s this constant message of: there is no future. At a point, it feels counterproductive.”
When the interviewer points out that Architects themselves have expressed such views in their lyrics, Searle counters: “But our music isn’t for six-year-old children!”
Architects release their new album – The Sky, The Earth & All Between – on February 28 via Epitaph. The band are playing a series of UK release shows starting Thursday (February 27), then will tour Europe from March 10. See dates and details on their website.
Corbis / Ebet Roberts / Paul Natkin / Michael Ochs Archives, Getty Images
The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is no stranger to criticism, and one of the most common complaints about the institution is its woeful lack of metal representation.
It took decades for Judas Priest and Ozzy Osbourne to enter the hallowed halls, and metal trailblazers such as Iron Maiden and Dio are still on the outside looking in. But if the Rock Hall seems prejudiced against traditional heavy metal, then one might say it outright despises hair metal.
That’s not a radical stance to take. Since the subgenre exploded in the early ’80s, hair metal has been widely reviled by critics, dismissed for its pigheaded lyrics and hackneyed songwriting.
Obviously, that’s a disingenuous take, one that denies the unshakeable hooks and technical prowess that categorized the best of the era. These bands were well-versed in writing larger-than-life anthems that captured the spirit of fun and rebellion that so many fans craved. (They even Trojan-horsed some clever chord progressions and melodies into their songs along the way.) What’s more quintessentially rock ‘n’ roll than that?
Thankfully, the Rock Hall has made some (glacial) progress on the hair metal front in recent years. Bon Jovi entered the Hall in 2018, followed by Def Leppard in 2019. Hopefully these nods to some of the era’s biggest and brightest bands helped legitimize hair metal in the eyes of the critical establishment and will pave the way for similar inductions in the future.
We’ve trimmed our wishlist down to the top choices, using a liberal definition of “hair metal” to include bands that massively influenced the scene or successfully adapted their sound to fit the times. Here are 8 Hair Metal Bands That Belong in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Hair Metal Bands That Belong in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
The tour kicks off May 3 in Wallingford, CT and is currently scheduled to conclude May 31 at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles.
Bonham’s late father Jason and his Zeppelin bandmates released the double album – considered by many (but not all) as the group’s masterpiece – on February 24, 1975. It is home to classic tracks such as “In My Time of Dying,” “Trampled Underfoot” and “Kashmir,” which singer Robert Plant considers the peak of the band’s career.
“This is my favorite Led Zeppelin album of all time,” Bonham said in a press release announcing the tour, while also promising to add more dates to the current itinerary. “Being able to celebrate it the way we are planning on this tour is something I am extremely excited about. I can’t wait for people to come out and see these shows and celebrate this extraordinary record with us. And don’t worry there will be plenty of other songs that you also love played that night.”
Bonham spent last summer touring with Sammy Hagar as part of the Van Halen-themed Best of All Worlds tour. 2024 also saw the release of V, his fifth album as a member of Black Country Communion. The group features Bonham alongside Glenn Hughes, Joe Bonamassa and Derek Sherinian.
Tickets for the tour go on sale Friday, Feb. 28 via Bonham’s official website.
Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Evening 2025 Tour Dates
Sat, May 03: Wallingford, CT – Toyota Oakdale Theatre Sun, May 04: Stamford, CT – Stamford Palace Theatre Tue, May 06: Syracuse, NY – Landmark Theatre Wed, May 07: Wheeling, WV – Capitol Theatre Fri, May 09: North Kansas City, MO – VooDoo at Harrah’s Kansas City Sat, May 10: Tulsa, OK – The Cove Margaritaville at River Spirit Casino Sun, May 11: Waukee, IA – Vibrant Music Hall Tue, May 13: Milwaukee, WI – The Riverside Theater Thu, May 15: Nashville, TN – Ryman Auditorium Fri, May 16: Robinsonville, MS – Bluesville at Horseshoe Tunica Sat, May 17: St. Louis, MO – The Factory at the District Mon, May 19: Austin, TX – The Paramount Theatre Tue, May 20: Houston, TX – Bayou Music Center Wed, May 21: Dallas, TX – Majestic Theatre Fri, May 23: Phoenix, AZ – Celebrity Theatre Sat, May 24: Indio, CA – Fantasy Springs Resort Casino Sun, May 25: Saratoga, CA – The Mountain Winery Wed, May 28: San Diego, CA – Humphrey’s Concerts by the Bay Thu, May 29: Paso Robles, CA – Vina Robles Amphitheatre Fri, May 30: Henderson, NV – Green Valley Ranch Resort Spa & Casino Sat, May 31 Los Angeles, CA – The Greek Theatre
The Best Song From Every Led Zeppelin Album
Choosing the best song isn’t easy, since many of their LPs come together as a piece – and they include so many classic tracks.
Skate legend Tony Hawk has penned a touching tribute to Nirvana and their late frontman Kurt Cobain.
Hawk, whose son Riley is married to Cobain’s daughter Frances Bean, recently took to Instagram Stories to share a picture of a ticket to a Nirvana show at the Vatican in Houston, Texas on October 20, 1991.
He calls the concert “transformative” and says he wished Kurt could have held his and Tony’s recently born grandson, Ronin Walker Cobain Hawk.
“Went straight from an S.U.A.S. [Shut Up And Skate] event at Houston Skatepark to this concert in 1991,” Hawk writes. “It was as transformative as live music can possibly be; we all experienced something rare and powerful that night. The world would never be the same.”
He continues: “I wish Kurt were here so he could see the incredible woman his daughter has become; meet her caring, devoted husband; and hold our wondrous grandchild.”
Riley and Frances Bean married in a Los Angeles ceremony on October 7, 2023. R.E.M. frontman Michael Stipe, Frances Bean’s godfather, officiated.
The couple welcomed Riley on September 17, 2024, with Frances Bean announcing the birth on Instagram 12 days later. “Welcome to the world most beautiful son,” she wrote. “We love you more than anything.”
The latest news, features and interviews direct to your inbox, from the global home of alternative music.
Last week, Tony posted a photo of himself and Ronin on a skateboard together. “What happens when all of your kids can skate on their own and no longer rely on you to give them rides?” he wrote. “You wait until they have their own kids. Circles (wheels?) of life.”
Kurt died at the age of 27 on April 5, 1994, and Nirvana disbanded shortly after. However, surviving members Krist Novoselic (bass), Pat Smear (guitars) and Dave Grohl (drums) have performed together since, most recently for a concert celebrating the 50th anniversary of Saturday Night Live where pop superstar Post Malone handled vocals and guitar.
Ratt‘s Stephen Pearcy and Warren DeMartini have begun adding more dates to their “Invasion Celebration” reunion, anchored around their headlining performance at M3 Rock Festival in May.
The singer and guitarist will close out the three-day festival on May 4, following headlining performances by Sebastian Bach and David Lee Roth at Columbia, Maryland’s Merriweather Post Pavilion. Today, they announced a pre-M3 show slated for April 5 at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut, with support from fellow ’80s rockers Vixen. Tickets go on sale to the general public on Friday.
Additionally, Pearcy and DeMartini are scheduled to perform at Rock the Dam 8 in Beaver Dam, Kentucky, on July 26 along with Slaughter, L.A. Guns, Vixen and Steelheart.
Pearcy and DeMartini Want to Play More Shows and Write New Music
Pearcy wrote on X earlier this week that he and DeMartini would be adding more shows to their 2025 itinerary, echoing his statements in an interview with Eddie Trunk last month. The singer said he and DeMartini were “entertaining” offers for future shows and wanted to write new music together. “Obviously new music is what I’m thinking, always,” Pearcy said. “If Warren’s writing, I’m in there. But M3 is definitely the perfect place to kick it off.”
Pearcy and DeMartini will be joined by former Ratt and Quiet Riot guitarist Carlos Cavazo, former Ratt and Rough Cutt bassist Matt Thorr and former Slaughter drummer Blas Elias. Thorr and Elias both currently tour in Pearcy’s solo band.
Classic-era Ratt bassist Juan Croucier and drummer Bobby Blotzer will not be taking part in the upcoming shows, and Pearcy and DeMartini intentionally declined to perform under their old band name. “It’s not about Ratt. It’s about the legacy of our music, and who better to deliver it?” Pearcy said. “Because we don’t have all the proper original elements, which would include Robbin [Crosby, late guitarist]. So we just decided, no, this is great, this is perfect. We don’t want to hit a brick wall. We want this nice and smooth.”
Roberta Flack, the singer and pianist who charted three No. 1 hits in the ’70s, has died. The North Carolina-born artist was 88.
A press release noted that Flack “died peacefully surrounded by her family.”
Flack was born on Feb. 10, 1937, in Black Mountain, North Carolina, and raised in Arlington, Virginia. The singer and pianist began playing the instrument at an early age. When she was 15, she attended Howard University on a music scholarship and was a classmate of Donny Hathaway, a singer with whom she had a Grammy-winning song in 1972.
Her first hit record came with her debut album, 1969’s First Take, which made it to No. 1 in 1970 and was later inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
Throughout the ’70s, starting with a cover of Carole King‘s “You’ve Got a Friend” in 1971, Flack was a regular presence on the pop and soul charts. Her first Top 40 entry was also her first No. 1: “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” spurred by its inclusion in Clint Eastwood‘s 1971 directorial debut, Play Misty for Me.
She had five more Top 10 hits over the next several years, including the Grammy-winning “Where Is the Love” and the No. 2 “The Closer I Get to You” with Hathaway. Her interpretation of songs by Jimmy Webb, Janis Ian, Stevie Wonder and Luther Vandross became hit singles over the years.
What Songs Did Roberta Flack Sing?
Flack was discovered by jazz artist Les McCann and signed with Atlantic Records in 1969. By 1974, she had scored three No. 1 singles: “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” which stayed at the top of the chart for six weeks in 1972 and won both Record and Song of the Year Grammys, “Killing Me Softly With His Song,” which was No. 1 for five weeks in 1973 and also a double Record and Song of the Year Grammy winner, and “Feel Like Makin’ Love” in 1974.
Flack placed nearly 20 singles in the Top 100 through 1991 when she reached No. 6 with “Set the Night to Music,” a duet with frequent singing partner Peabo Bryson.
In addition to First Take, Flack had three other Top 10 albums in the ’70s. Her run on the R&B charts during this period was no less spectacular. She hit No. 1 on the R&B singles chart for a final time with 1988’s “Oasis.”
Flack’s influence could be felt through generations of singers, most prominently in Fugees’ Lauryn Hill. The hip-hop group had a No.2 hit in 1996 with a remake of “Killing Me Softly With His Song” titled “Killing Me Softly.”
Even though Flack had a stroke in 2016, she was active in the last decade of her life, releasing a new single, “Running,” in 2018. She was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Berklee College of Music in 2023, and in 2024, Flack’s last recorded song, “Down by the River,” was included in an album titled On Imagination.
Disturbed have announced an arena-scale UK and European tour where they’ll play debut album The Sickness in full and have support from Megadeth.
The Chicago nu metal unit will perform across the continent from September 28 to October 28. The run is set to feature some of the biggest headline shows they’ve ever played, including a date at the 20,000-capacity O2 Arena in London, and will see the band do two sets: one celebrating The Sickness, then another composed of greatest hits.
Tickets will go on sale on Friday, February 28, at 10am local time. See all dates and details below.
Disturbed first released The Sickness via Giant and Reprise on March 7, 2000. The album features some of the band’s most famous songs, including Down With The Sickness and Stupify, and reached number 29 on the US Billboard 200. It’s since been certified five times Platinum in the US and Gold in the UK.
On March 7 this year, the band will put out a 25th-anniversary edition of the album. This expanded version will include b-sides, demos and previously unreleased songs.
As well as reissues, Disturbed are also putting out new music. The band shared new single I Will Not Break on Friday, February 21, with lyrics that reference suicidal thoughts singer David Draiman had several years ago. The song was their first release via their own label Mother Culture Records and marked their first new music since eighth album Divisive dropped in 2022.
As for Megadeth, the thrash metal veterans released their latest album The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead! in 2022 and are still promoting it on the road. However, in December, frontman Dave Mustaine revealed that he was in the studio working on new music.
Sign up below to get the latest from Metal Hammer, plus exclusive special offers, direct to your inbox!
“Right now I’m in the studio working with [engineer] Chris Rakestraw,” he said via X Spaces. “And everybody else is gone. Teemu [Mäntysaari, guitars] is in Switzerland and James [LoMenzo, bass] and Dirk [Verbeuren, drums] are in Los Angeles. So it’s just me here by myself with Chris.
“And Chris leaves tomorrow to go on a vacation, and I’m working up to the last second today to get as much done as I can before he takes off because we won’t be starting again until he returns somewhere around New Year’s Day. And at that point, it’s only a matter of a couple weeks before everybody converges on to the studio. And for that I’m pumped. And you guys are gonna be excited.”
Disturbed 2025 European tour dates:
Sep 28: Copenhagen Royal Arena, Denmark Oct 01: Dusseldorf PSD Bank Dome, Germany Oct 03: Stuttgart Hanns-Martin-Schleyer-Halle, Germany Oct 04: Zurich Hallenstadion, Switzerland Oct 06: Budapest Arena, Hungary Oct 07: Prague O2 Arena, Czech Republic Oct 10: Krakow Tauron Arena, Poland Oct 12: Paris Zenith, France Oct 14: Amsterdam Ziggo Dome, Netherlands Oct 15: Brussels Forest National Arena, Belgium Oct 17: Munich Olympiahalle, Germany Oct 18: Berlin Velodrome, Germany Oct 20: Birmingham Utilita Arena, UK Oct 22: Dublin 3Arena, Ireland Oct 24: Manchester AO Arena, UK Oct 26: London The O2, UK Oct 28: Glasgow OVO Hydro, UK
“Peter Gabriel started singing over my solos. I was pissed off – ‘You’re singing on my bit!’ But that half-minute is probably our peak”: How Genesis made Supper’s Ready, arguably their greatest song
Peter Gabriel performs Supper’s Ready with Genesis(Image credit: Getty Images)
Of all the ambitious and boundary-pushing work Genesis delivered since their formation in 1967, Supper’s Ready arguably stands head and shoulders above the rest. In fact, Prog readers voted it the greatest prog anthem of all time in 2017. Five years earlier, we looked into the construction of the 23-minute track from 1972’s Foxtrot.
‘The frog was a prince, the prince was a brick, the brick was an egg – and the egg was a bird. Hadn’t you heard?’ Decades on from the creation of Supper’s Ready, you probably have heard this invaluable information. You’ve heard the 23 minutes and seven sections of the definitive Genesis track and been transported by its breathtaking ambition. Its carefully cohesive meanderings lash together symphonic rock, heartbreaking melodies, surrealist lyrics and sky-high drama to build ‘new Jerusalem.’
Those involved were trying to conjure up previously-unheard music, while taking detours to rifle through the Book of Revelation and pay visits to Lover’s Leap and Willow Farm. Oh, and to soundtrack an apocalypse…in 9/8 time. “We wanted to go further,” says Tony Banks. “We’d all been wanting to push away from the regular structures.” With a very English, very Genesis reserve, he adds, “It turned out better than we’d thought.”
Foxtrot, the fourth Genesis studio album and the second with the classic line-up of Peter Gabriel, Mike Rutherford, Phil Collins, Steve Hackett and Banks, was where that ensemble fully coalesced and realised how far they could go. “It was about creating a film for the ear rather than the eye,” says Hackett.
Banks adds: “We felt that we were underway; that we were heading somewhere different. Foxtrot was where we started, in my opinion, to become significant.” As the song goes: ‘We’ve got everything; we’re growing everything.’
While the album sounds like a meticulously confident execution of a master plan, it actually came to be in a loose, relatively rushed manner. The band’s touring schedule was exhausting. Hackett recalls that, whereas with the band’s previous record, Nursery Cryme, they’d taken the summer to bond as a group while writing and recording together, for this one they were darting in and out of the studio. “I remember flying back from Italy to be there a day or two ahead of the others, who were travelling by road, just to finish off my guitar parts over the end of Supper’s Ready.”
Various locations were used for rehearsals but the bulk of the piece was crafted – prior to the absent Gabriel adding the words later – in, of all places, the Una Billings School Of Dance in Shepherds Bush. “We were below this dance studio, in a former refectory, with a counter and a gobstopper machine. There were girls upstairs learning their tap dance and what have you. The sound of those rhythms would come down through the ceiling,” Hackett says. “It was all a bit strange, and the atmosphere influenced our subsequent efforts. You couldn’t be too serious for long, because you’d hear them with this: clumpety clump clump. We’d break into smiles.”
Sign up below to get the latest from Prog, plus exclusive special offers, direct to your inbox!
While Foxtrot is more than just a series of aperitifs leading up to the main course – there’s social comment and sci-fi along the way – it’s indisputably the old Side Two which steals the show. Hackett’s instrumental Horizons is, in his words, “an hors d’oeuvre; an introduction,” and then it begins. The ascent of Everest. Even the sometimes lukewarm Gabriel remains a loyal fan of the work.
“It does feel like we captured some emotion there, particularly at the climax,” he says. “For my part, it was influenced by John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress – as, later, was The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway. It was that idea of a journey. Also we were trying, consciously, to break out of tradition. We were tossing together different ideas and influences to see if there was a fresh way of putting them all together. I still enjoy it now; I’m still attracted to it.” Indeed, he counter-intuitively considered performing it live a few years ago, but admits, laughing, that it proved incredibly tough for his band to learn. “We didn’t get far. There was some resistance – it’s not easy!”
We’d say: why have you got to go verse-chorus-verse-chorus, etcetera? That was fine for some, but it’s nice if you can go somewhere else
Tony Banks
This uneasy listening embraces short sweet pastoral songs, longer more savage cuts, trembling dreamscapes and jolting blasts of reality. Gabriel sings – though it’s more than singing; it’s also a delivery, an acting performance – of good versus evil, love, religion, Winston Churchill dressed in drag, firemen, farmers and even the link between walking across the room to turn the TV off and the Antichrist. And then of course there’s a flower. (A flower?) Genesis’ only side-long song cycle isn’t afraid to lull you into a cosy sense of security then jump out from behind the curtain. Rutherford has mused: “Supper’s Ready was a great moment… of luck. Because, sometimes, you don’t quite know what you are doing.”
So what were they doing? “We were not one of those boring bands that went diddly-diddly-diddly on the guitar,” Collins says, suggesting – as the members of Genesis often do – that if they were prog, they were not at the noodling, indulgent end of the spectrum.
“We did not do that!” Rutherford says similarly. “Some of the progressive bands were more about musicianship, but even though we did long numbers, they were very much song-driven. That’s the key to longevity.”
Flower Power! Genesis onstage during the Foxtrot era. (Image credit: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
Banks also “never liked being lumped in with anybody. We felt a slightly different ethos. King Crimson, Yes and ELP were selling technical proficiency a little more than us. Technique got displayed in the early 70s, but it was never our motivation.”
Hackett suggests that one of their unique selling points was what he calls “lead chords,” explaining: “Genesis constructed melodies from chords. We’d have that ‘swirly-cloudy’ feel – that impressionistic feel characterises much of Foxtrot, where you’re not entirely certain what you’re listening to.”
Banks recalls that they’d debate the very “rules’ of music. “We’d say: why have you got to go verse-chorus-verse-chorus, etcetera? That was fine for some, but it’s nice if you can go somewhere else. And you can tell more of a story that way, without the repetition.”
He says the band initially thought they were writing “a kind of follow-up to The Musical Box from Nursery Cryme.” It was coming along well; but there was also “this ‘pretty-pretty’ song called Willow Farm, all on its own, and we thought, ‘What if we suddenly went from there into this ugly descending-chords sequence?’ Nobody would be expecting it. That then brought in all the louder electric instruments, and once we got into that… well, we were there now, so let’s carry on! See where that leads us. When we put the whole thing together and heard it back for the first time, we went, ‘Oh, this is actually pretty good!’”
Bands just weren’t creating pieces of music like that. I think it was then the longest piece that any rock band had ever played live
Steve Hackett
If there’s one man more prone to English restraint than Banks, it’s Rutherford. “That end section happened effortlessly, as good music often does. The act of doing Supper’s Ready seemed quite easy. If things take too long, it’s a bad sign. When Pete put that ‘666’ vocal over that passage, it felt a bit special. The voice going over that strong instrumental wasn’t how you’d imagined it at all – the game got raised.”
Needless to say, quietly competitive school friends Gabriel and Banks took time to accept that they were on the same page in this brewing book of revelations. Banks had most of the Apocalypse In 9/8 section down as keyboard solos. “But then Peter started singing over them, because his lyrics required more information to get out. Initially, I have to say, I was pissed off,” he says with a laugh. “‘You’re singing on my bit!’ Then I realised it now had all the excitement we’d been hoping to create. Especially the ‘666’ bit. There’s a lot of drama in the chords themselves, but then what he did on top just took it to another level.” Hhe makes a very specific call, with which many long-term Genesis fans would agree: “That half-minute or so is probably our peak.”
Gabriel’s lyrics are a splendour of the fantastical and the intimate. He’s described them as being both a “personal journey walking through scenes in the Book Of Revelation” and inspired by nightmares his wife had. (A line in the Bible reference mentions “the supper of the mighty one.”) Gabriel was a fan of King Crimson lyricist Peter Sinfield, and perceived in his work an intriguing blend of British eccentricity and raging psychedelic visions. At the time of Foxtrot’s release, the singer agreed that there was an element of escapism – but denied it was anything to do with drug culture.
Genesis in 1972 (Image credit: Barrie Wentzell)
“I don’t think drug-induced states are valuable,” he said, while allowing that he was no stranger to mental anguish. “One of the great troubles with the mind is that it’s always lost between two extremes,” he continued. “That’s partly what Willow Farm is about. Wherever you are and whatever you do, there’s always a left and right, an up and down, a good and bad.”
Sombre as that sounds, and as gloriously melodramatic and occasionally macabre as much of Supper’s Ready is, there is lots of leavening humour to keep the journey palatable and unpredictable. The scene where Narcissus is turned into a flower (OK, you can do the response here if you like) takes its title How Dare I Be So Beautiful? from a catchphrase of the band’s erstwhile, not-then-discredited mentor, Jonathan King. In Willow Farm, there are flavours of Monty Python and The Flowerpot Men, and Gabriel’s onstage, in-character storytelling tendencies run riot throughout. You can, of course, take the young man’s purple verbiage as seriously or as lightly as you wish, but as effective as those “lead chords” are, his vocals are our indispensable guide, our narrator, our beacon to the far shore. ‘We will rock you, rock you, little snake/ We will keep you snug and warm.’
All these years on, Supper’s Ready has survived the slings and arrows of fashion and stands as the matchless, majestic monolith of prog. Every progressive band worth their salt since, from Marillion to Big Big Train and many more in between, have used it as a touchstone. Hackett recalls that Genesis did in fact think of it as “futuristic” in ’72.
This article first appeared in Prog 31 (Image credit: Future)
“I can’t remember whose idea it was, but we came to the conclusion that you could join any two bits of music together, no matter how disparate the styles, provided the bridge or atmospheric link was strong enough,” he says, laying out one of the definitions of prog. “It creates for the listener an adventure, an odyssey. You’ve got the stuff of concertos and symphonies, which nod to the past, but it was also futuristic at that point. Bands just weren’t creating pieces of music like that. I think it was then the longest piece that any rock band had ever played live.”
Collins also retains his enthusiasm for the song. “Supper’s Ready was great!” he says. “The music and imagery worked so strongly together. And then on stage the visuals boosted it too.” So fond of it was Collins that you can hear him subtly quote the lyrics – ‘There’s an angel standing in the sun’ – on the fade-out of Los Endos, the closing track on A Trick Of The Tail, his debut album as the band’s vocalist after Gabriel’s departure. He also sang Supper’s Ready beautifully on live album Seconds Out.)
Audiences at first were equal parts bewildered and exhilarated by the composition. “We’d gone out on a limb,” remembers Hackett. “It was labyrinthine. It was like when The Beatles released Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and then they worried whether they’d gone too far and might get the thumbs-down. Except we didn’t have their number of fans!”
“In the early 1970s we were lucky. The Beatles had started to go a bit further, then pulled themselves back. But they’d opened a door,” says Banks. “We – and Pink Floyd, King Crimson, and others – all thought: ‘We can do what we like now!’”
“Sometimes,” ponders Hackett, “you get a great crystallisation. You may not fully recognise it at the time – as musicians you may still be searching. But the audience, the true owners, will see it as a Mona Lisa. They’ll say: ‘Look no further – we’ve found it.’”
Chris Roberts has written about music, films, and art for innumerable outlets. His new book The Velvet Underground is out April 4. He has also published books on Lou Reed, Elton John, the Gothic arts, Talk Talk, Kate Moss, Scarlett Johansson, Abba, Tom Jones and others. Among his interviewees over the years have been David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Patti Smith, Debbie Harry, Bryan Ferry, Al Green, Tom Waits & Lou Reed. Born in North Wales, he lives in London.
