For Steve Hackett, 2022 was – even by his standards – a feverish period, seeing the release of a memoir, a live album and an acoustic record. He followed that with full-power LP Surrender Of Silence, which raised eyebrows, and even drew accusations of favouring quantity over quality. But the former Genesis guitarist took it all in his stride.
Nowhere on Steve Hackett’s album Surrender Of Silence is his desire to challenge himself and the listener more evident than the track Wingbeats. Fusing his core guitar sound with African-inspired world music – perhaps evocative of his former Genesis bandmate Peter Gabriel – has caused a rare division of his fanbase.
Musicians are familiar with the familiar, unsolvable dilemma: repeat yourself and criticism for being predictable will follow, but alter what’s perceived as your genre of choice and there’ll be accusations of disrespecting your fanbase.
“There’s always going to be that,” says Hackett. “You can gain some and you can lose some. That particular song was written after a visit to Ethiopia and I’d been struck by the beauty of the place. The response to it has been extraordinary.
I think brave music is bound to divide people – if you do a brave song, you can’t expect everyone is going to get it. Music is always having to justify itself and it isn’t going to sit still. The hunger for it is never going to go away. I don’t aim to please my core audience – I love them, but at the same time I want to go: ‘Have you thought of this? You might like it!’
During the early days of Genesis, audiences would boo and walk out during songs which, in time, became regarded as classics. Many things can be met with a stony silence; you have to allow a certain amount of time for people to absorb it. Music becomes more powerful and sweeter as you re-encounter it, like an old friend.”
In the instantaneous, disposable society of today, that space for fans to absorb and fully nurture material is often absent. Witness the scathing comments which appeared shortly after the release of the gallant – and occasionally awkward – video for Wingbeats.
“Most of our own social media was full of praise for it,” Hackett says. “I think that with YouTube, you open yourself up. For all artists life is a coconut shy with yourself as the coconut. A certain number of balls are going to hit you. But if you’ve got your helmet on, as a long-term performer, you’re going to go, ‘Well, so what?’”
