Gentle Giant released one of their most daring albums in 1973. In A Glass House was written and recorded during what vocalist Derek Shulman refers to as an “emotional, dark time.” He tells Prog about the album’s creation, the technology that made the recent reissue possible, and the modern prog band for whom he has high hopes.
Derek Shulman will always be the genial, jovial pop star he became in 1967 when Simon Dupree & The Big Sound, his family’s R&B group, suddenly shifted direction and covered the hippy-dippy Kites, reaching the UK Top 10. He’s beaming on the screen from New York 59 years later as he tells Prog about In A Glass House, which his next band, Gentle Giant, released in 1973.
Their fifth album and their first for the short-lived WWA label is often seen as the one that got away in their canon; it’s never been as lauded as its predecessor, Octopus, or the record cited as their career best, The Power And The Glory.
To add to that, the events of the time – elder brother Phil Shulman leaving the band on tour, a rushed recording process, a new record label and underlying management issues – clouded opinions. It’s all coupled with the fact that, in recent years, the album’s master tapes couldn’t be found to give it the glow-up of their other releases, and left it somewhat obscure.
But no more. Using AI/ Demix technology, Brazilian producer Eber Pinheiro and Shulman himself worked on the album to give it a moment in the sun. “In A Glass House is a milestone,” Shulman says. “It was the first as a five-piece, without my brother Phil, and we had to refocus. It was hard to make. I’m glad we were able to find a way to make it sound the way it should have sounded back in 1973.
“This album was the one Steven Wilson really wanted to work on a decade or so ago, with Ray – rest in peace.” Derek’s younger brother Ray, integral to Gentle Giant as bassist, songwriter, arranger and multi-instrumentalist, died aged 73 in 2023. He worked with mix wunderkind Wilson, who first remixed Gentle Giant in 2014. The sticking point that had stymied them at every turn was the missing tapes. “We looked everywhere for the masters. We put out an APB: every studio, copy room, everywhere.”
But during that period the world turned and AI technology, used so transparently in The Beatles: Get Back, Peter Jackson’s salvaging of Let It Be, became widely available. Shulman found engineer/ producer Pinheiro in Brooklyn; he was able to split the mixed-down In A Glass House into stems of the various instruments so they could work as if it was a 24-track master.
In A Glass House was written, recorded and mixed in a four-to-five-week period of summer 1973, at Advision Studios in London with engineer Gary Martin and tape op Paul Hardingham. “We had an American tour lined up,” Shulman recalls. “We had no time to make it sound the way we wanted it to. And at the same time we were trying to refocus ourselves into a streamlined version of Gentle Giant. It was an emotional, dark time.”
Gentle Giant had been quite literally a band of brothers. Phil is 10 years older than Derek, and at their then-young ages, a decade is a quantum divide. But the gap didn’t seem to matter: “Our focus was completely on the band, and that was everything,” says Derek. “We all lived in Portsmouth and if we weren’t touring, we were rehearsing; if we weren’t rehearsing, we were writing. If we weren’t writing, we were recording.
“Phil did the right thing; I understand that his family was of number one importance for him, and we were working ourselves nonstop. It was weird, for Ray especially, as Phil had been there from the start of Simon Dupree.”
To draw a line and make a statement, the album crashes in with glass smashing, marking the opener The Runaway, which was soon to become one of the group’s most cherished songs. “We had a BBC recording of old sound effects of glass shattering. Ray and I thought it would be good to put it on. Paul Hardingham said, ‘What about making a loop of that crash?’ He literally had to splice pieces of tape to a five-four beat and then put them together.”
Immediately the group felt rockier, less restrained. “It loosened us up completely – I think this album was the one where we melded into the quintessential sound of Gentle Giant,” says Shulman. There were plenty of oblique references to Phil’s departure: he was the runaway, ‘lie low the wanted man’. “And,” he adds, “Way Of Life talks about what you want to do in your time.”
We took our music seriously, but not ourselves. When we changed instruments or played recorders, our audience were smiling
It’s a full-on album, broadly four rockers: the title track, Way Of Life, Experience and The Runaway, then the gentle A Reunion and the striking An Inmate’s Lullaby. The latter seems to be part of the pervasive presence of mental illness in popular culture in the 70s: psychologist RD Laing signed to Charisma; Stanley Kubrick adapted Anthony Burgess’s novel A Clockwork Orange; and Pink Floyd made The Dark Side Of The Moon.
“We were all realising that being in a band was stressful,” Shulman says. “There was an openness to write about it. Our band was pretty dramatic, generally, because we were workaholics. We didn’t really have time to take a breather or go on two weeks in Spain.”
Singing about wetting yourself wasn’t something other bands did. “Well, we didn’t listen to other bands,” Shulman says. “We were very secluded. Being in Portsmouth, we weren’t part of a scene – we didn’t hang out at the clubs in London. When we finished recording or touring we went home. We saw plenty of stuff that you could write about there.”
The irony was, when Giant arrived in the States, Columbia refused to release In A Glass House because they thought it was too uncommercial. Now, even the most casual Prog reader knows that every one of their previous four albums had been chock-full of hits… Not. “Exactly!” Shulman laughs. “Non-stop hit after hit! God almighty! So we went over there and it only came out on import, and became the biggest import that year, going gold, which is bizarre.”
It was with little surprise that they eventually won over their audiences in the US. “Phil’s departure focused us live, because six is a bit of a mess. Five, you’ve got the monkey in the front – me – and you’ve got four other musicians. Kerry Minnear was a classically- trained musician with a degree in composition. Ray was a classically-trained violinist. I loved R&B and soul, and Gary Green was a bluesman. John Weathers was a straight- ahead rock drummer. All these influences were melded together, and we always had fun onstage.
I’m amazed the book has been well received. It tells the truth about who I am and who we were as a band
“We took our music seriously, but not ourselves. Whenever we changed instruments or we played recorders, our audience were smiling, and we loved that. I guess it was a carry-over from the days of our apprenticeship in a pop band. We wanted to be entertaining as well as being musical.”
Recent years have proven busy for both Shulman and Gentle Giant, whose legacy was cemented by the huge box set, Unburied Treasure, at the end of 2019. Since then a live US set, a souped-up Playing The Fool in-concert album, and his autobiography Giant Steps: My Improbable Journey From Stage Lights To Executive Heights have all arrived.
“The book took a lot of wind out of my sails, let me tell you,” he says. “I’m amazed that it’s been well received. I’m happy that I did it. It tells the truth about who I am and who we were as a band, and what I went on to do.”
After Gentle Giant split in 1980, he become a senior record executive and A&R for a variety of US record companies, signing and developing bands such as Bon Jovi, Cinderella, Slipknot and Nickelback. Were any starstruck by their A&R man? “A couple, yes. Dream Theater were fans. The other artist who knew everything about us was Ivan Doroschuk from Canadian off-kilter pop-rockers Men Without Hats: all the various albums and all the instruments. Not many bands went into details of my inglorious past. But then, we were big in Montreal.”
Always admired by the hip-hop community, Shulman Minnear and (posthumously) Ray, had the unexpected honour – and windfall – of Proclamation from The Power And The Glory being generously sampled at the beginning of Hyaena, the opening track from rapper Travis Scott’s double-platinum, 2025 album Utopia. In 2025 Giant were bestowed a BMI Award in recognition for radio plays for their contribution to the track. “I went to a couple of Travis’ shows,” Shulman says. “It was just unbelievable seeing 40,000 kids singing along to our song! We filmed it for a documentary that will appear at some point.”
Does this 79-year-old A&R guru and musician keep up with the current scene? “I’m dismayed with how music is heard and how little melody and creativity there is,” he says. “It’s all technology and analytics. Every hit pop song I hear, it’s that same computerised sound. It’s just a beat, with no change of chord or choruses. It’s all about five seconds of TikTok.”
I thought, ‘How did we come up with that? And that? And that?’ You can hear youthful creativity
He continues: “However, there is one band that I think are great, and that’s Angine De Poitrine. Apparently they’re Gentle Giant fans, which is even better.” It’s possibly the least surprising comment Prog has ever heard. “I hope this is the beginning of musicians playing well and interestingly, being fun and having a ton of creativity – uniqueness is a rare thing now.”
A bit like Gentle Giant were, then. His love of his own group is rekindled. “Sitting next to Eber and listening to In A Glass House, I got goosebumps,” he says. “I became a Gentle Giant fan for the first time ever. I thought, ‘How the hell did we come up with that? And that? And that?’ You can hear youthful creativity – creativity without boundaries.”
So, after all this, what’s next on the Gentle Giant bill of fare? “There’s going to be a new version of our live American box set coming out through Snapper, with four or so unheard shows. And after that...” Shulman pauses. “I think I’ll take a nap.”
The remastered edition of In A Glass House is on sale now.
