The voice of Steve Hackett’s Genesis Revisited project, Nad Sylvan has moved further away from his onstage persona with his latest solo album, Monumentata. He reveals the story behind his most intimate songs, which see him mixing a range of influences from Pink Floyd and Keith Emerson to The Addams Family.
“Apologies if I seem a little tired,” announces Nad Sylvan. “I’ve been gardening.” He’s having a relatively rare day off. Usually he’d be on tour or in the studio with Steve Hackett, and most recently he’s been making Monumentata, his fifth solo album in 10 years.
One look at him shows he hasn’t made his living as a horny-handed son of toil. He has that naturally skinny physique that’s rarely seen among sexagenarians outside the performing arts; and there’s also that hair. He retains an extraordinary body of locks that helps preserve the image of a man born to be on stage.
He’s best known to Prog readers as the man who’s reimagined some of Peter Gabriel’s finest performances in Hackett’s Genesis Revisited band. The project has proved successful beyond anyone’s expectations, with the result that Sylvan’s creative relationship with Hackett has lasted well over a decade.
In the early 2010s, when the US-born Swede was touring with The Flower Kings’ Roine Stolt as Agents Of Mercy, Hackett invited him to contribute to the sequel to 1996’s Genesis Revisited album. “The plan was that we would tour Revisited II for a year in 2013,” Sylvan says. “I still had my day job, but eventually I had to abandon that, because there was demand for more tours. Now I’ve been doing it for 12 years – that’s a lot longer than Peter Gabriel was in Genesis!”
Sylvan is understandably keen to apply his own performing identity to his solo material, which he’s achieved with the five albums he’s released since 2015. “I strive to get away from the Genesis vibe on my solo stuff. But it’s hard to do, because it’s so deeply ingrained in my DNA. I was brought up with this music. But I try to incorporate jazz, I try to incorporate heavy metal. I’ve all kinds of stuff in there.”
Sylvan had previously self-released two digital solo albums, before making a Genesis-influenced record with Christian ‘Bonamici’ Thordin as Unifaun, then three releases with Agents Of Mercy. He adopted his Vampirate persona on his first three InsideOutMusic records, Courting The Widow (2015), The Bride Said No (2017) and The Regal Bastard (2019). Spiritus Mundi, released in 2021, moved away from the Vampirate trilogy with an album based on WB Yeats’s poetry. Now Monumentata opts for the most heart-on-sleeve songwriting he’s yet attempted.
His ambition to create a diverse, genre-agnostic collection of songs is largely achieved, his stall set out by the lithe hard-rock riffs of Secret Lover and That’s Not Me, the latter track fuelling a slick rock’n’soul strut. The knotty but feisty left-footed synth-funk of Make Somebody Proud is reminiscent of prog-influenced 80s pop such as Nik Kershaw or Howard Jones, with some surprises en route. “It’s like Keith Emerson going at it with his Hammond,” Sylvan says of the mid- point keyboard solo.
Meanwhile, Flowerland is sweetly gospel-tinged acoustic pop, while the title track catches the ear with tinkling piano and rich vocal harmonies – “A friend said it’s almost like a Steely Dan song.” There’s room for a more Vampirate vibe on the camp showtune I’m Steppin’ Out; which, he says, is “almost Addams Family-like!”
For the most part, though, the record is characterised by songs with a personal resonance for their author. “It’s basically a tribute to my father, who passed away last year at 96,” he says. Born Hugh Erik Stewart, he’s the son of US tennis pro Hugh Wright Stewart, which is why the sleeve art shows the artist looking through what could be a wire fence or a tennis net.
Sylvan, has been known to his siblings as Christopher ever since his parents divorced when he was a toddler. He grew up with his mum in Sweden and says of his father, “He didn’t care much for me, so I hardly ever saw him.”Nonetheless, with both parents now passed, he found fresh impetus to find his true self on record. “It was like, I’m an orphan now,” he explains.
Make Somebody Proud speaks of his own feelings towards his father, and his own motivations in life and art: ‘Make another smile for photo frames, as the colour of your eyes meets the colour of your face/Hey that’s OK! Add a token to your name/And a father to a son and to everyone – make somebody proud.’
One of the most moving pieces, though, is the dewy-eyed sketch of Monte Carlo Priceless, which urges its subject, a woman from Nova Scotia, to follow her dreams of a more glamorous life where ‘on every street corner a prince awaits you.’ He says the idea for the song came partly from playing there with Hackett, and partly from the knowledge that his parents went there too.
“I think my mother was expecting me at the time, and my dad played a couple of times there,” Sylvan says. He forms something of a fantasy scene where “I could definitely see them in a convertible car with her scarf flowing in the wind, some time in the 1950s.”
I know how difficult it is for Steve to keep going, paying for everything and getting the right people. And I don’t have his legacy behind me
The fictional story taps into abiding themes of staying true to one’s ambitions – something he’s evidently doing on the album. As much as he stresses his enjoyment of his role in Hackett’s band, helping audiences relive their favourite Genesis songs, he touches on the limitations of his position as a frontman and sideman rolled into one. ‘Behold the backseat driver up on the stage,’ he sings in Wildfire, ‘like Dave and Roger smiling in quiet rage.’
Can he mean the Dave and Roger we think he does? “When you listen to the music, it’s so Floydian – although I don’t think I copied them!” he says. “It was purely by accident.” As for describing himself as a backseat driver: “I’ve got to take the piss out of myself here,” he grins. “It’s about the position I have onstage. With Steve, I need to stand back sometimes because I’m so tall. And it’s his show at the end of the day.”
As usual, Hackett was going to contribute guitar to Monumentata – but as the title track took shape, the singer realised he needed a different sound. “Steve’s more of a soulful player, and I needed a shredder,” he says, “I found David Kollar from Slovakia, who played with Steven Wilson.” Tony Levin, Nick Beggs and Jonas Reingold also feature, but ultimately Sylvan wanted to present himself: the man behind the makeup and costumes. “I felt, ‘Fuck it, I’d just like to sing!’”
Nonetheless, the prospect of the big Swede stepping out on his own with a full solo tour is still a way off, thanks to the logistical difficulties involved. “I’m so busy with Steve I’d probably kill myself if I tried to do my own shows as well. I know how difficult it is for Steve to keep on going, paying for everything and getting the right people around him. And I don’t have his legacy or fanbase behind me.”
But as Monte Carlo Priceless concludes, ‘Stay alive until you’ve lived your dream.’ He acknowledges: “It is a dream, but I hope it’s gonna happen one day.” For the time being, an increasingly impressive body of solo work will surely be significant compensation.
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