The main theme of The Wicked Lady was originally intended for The Fugitive, but you had already rejected it for that album, can I ask why?

I’d written a lot of pieces for The Fugitive which were around and I was going to use what I felt was right for that record. I had two slightly more quirky instrumental pieces which ended up being called Charm and Thirst Threes, both were rather different for me, and this other piece which was more conventional and close to what I had done for A Curious Feeling. I had I thought that I wasn’t going to use it this time and when I was contacted by Michael Winner for the possibility of a film I thought: that theme, it’s a nice theme, I’m not doing anything else with it, let’s see what he thinks of it. Good timing for me, really.

Was it difficult to stop the process of The Fugitive at that stage? Did you have a studio or session musicians booked?

TB: No, just basically I just wrote the music for the film at the same time as recording The Fugitive. I was doing a lot of work, so what I decided to do was to create a few more ideas to make things a bit easier for me, if you like, so when I wrote the music for the film, a lot of the time I would write the bits and pieces for the cue as well. It came quite easy, I just didn’t really have a lot of time, I was really in the middle of The Fugitive and I didn’t want to stop doing it and I knew I had some fun before working to the next Genesis album… I had always wanted to do film music and I thought: I could probably do both at the same time but it’s going to take a bit of effort. In terms of the recording, I left a lot of it to the arranger, Christopher Palmer, he was very much responsible for the orchestrations and therefore he was the one on location with the orchestra and with the studio and all the rest of it. Yes, I went along to the sessions, but it was recorded in two days and then went back and did the album which was rerecorded in one day later on, after I finished The Fugitive. Actually, much later on.

What was your first impression when you saw the movie?

It’s a funny thing. I didn’t not like it. It was quite funny, it looked great. The actors were fantastic. I looked at it as the project right from the word go and honestly it wasn’t until I looked at it with an audience, with the music and everything, that I realised it wasn’t really the greatest film. Before that I thought maybe it was ok, I don’t know, I really didn’t think about it, nice music and everything. I was at the premiere and people were laughing at the wrong moments and I thought; this isn’t too good, it’s not going to do too well… go on to the next project.

How was to work with Michael Winner? It seems he was a difficult man to deal with.

Many people found him difficult. We got on well, actually. He would say outrageous things at times but he was very into music and he really liked the music I gave him, which was very gratifying you know, he could really tell and I mentioned on the liner notes I had the arranger a couple of times wrote some bits and pieces because I didn’t have time, and you could tell immediately because I was probably slightly more melody based I suppose. I found it a really satisfying project to have done and I think the music works well in the film. Unfortunately, as I said, the film may not be great, but the way the music works within the film is good.

Did the arranger Christopher Palmer get your complete demos or piano versions only?

He had the demos. I did the original demos which I then arranged for the record but I did each cue as well. I wrote on a piano, I just did improvisation on the piano for the film and then sent it to him and then he arranged it. He would take quite a lot of liberties obviously with it, which was fine, I just wanted to give him the basic… he was quite enthusiastic about it all because he wasn’t too sure about… he really liked the main theme which was good, he was experienced and I wasn’t. In the end he said to me: you can do this, he said you should do more of it, which for me was quite a compliment because he was an old pro. He’s obviously not with us any more. He died of AIDS.

In the liner notes you say that Palmer also used one of his own themes, I guess you mean Portrait Of Jerry Jackson. But he’s not credited as composer…

What happened was, because I was slightly lacking in time he just occasionally came up with this and other bits… it was just conventional not to credit the arranger, he got the credit as the arranger. It was quite a small part of the piece but he in many ways yes, nowadays I would probably credit him. The other thing was I didn’t think it was a very good bit. I said to him: look I’m not sure to enclose it on the record, but he said you should, because it’s part of the film. So I did, because why not, really? It didn’t make much of a difference one way or another. It sounds ok, it just doesn’t quite feel like me.

The Chase is the only track which doesn’t have an orchestral correspondent: why, as it is a brilliant theme?

There are little bits used of it. He (Palmer – ed.) didn’t really feel it was quite right for the… he wanted it for the horsy bits, which is really what it was being used for, more of a “du dum de de dum” sort of thing, so what he did was that kind of rhythm behind the main theme which is sort of what you hear on Jerry Jackson. I think The Chase was a good piece music but it never got used in the film, it’s I’ll never really used it for anything else I may as well stick it on the record.

Many composers for movies are able to deliver music in different styles. Your score has your trademark: was it a choice of yours or have you been specifically asked to do so?

I’ve been asked to do an orchestral score.

Would you have accepted the work anyway, if it was requested a specific kind of music such as "baroque"?

I’m not capable of doing that. I can just write my own way, I don’t know any other way. I write music ‘cause I like it. I’ve got to feel good about whatever it is I’ve written. Anything I’ve ever written, I’ve always felt at the time I’ve written it I’ve wanted to do this, this is right, you know? If you are doing film music sometimes you are required to write in a different style as the film might require a different style. I did try for a while to write music for films and stuff and I got myself an agent, and one of the things I was required to do was, I had to audition for it, if you like, I did try a couple of the things but I didn’t get any of the work, so it never happened, really. I can write in different styles, but if it’s something you don’t really understand then you don’t know whether what you’ve written is any good or not.

Why did you change for this re-release the running order of both the orchestral tracks and your demos?

Well, mainly what I wanted to do was put the best rendition of the main theme to open the album. Which was the instrumental music used during the soft core sequence in the middle, I wanted it to be the best track to begin with. In terms of the other side, I changed it so that my stuff comes second as well, I felt that the version with the drum machine sounds pretty dated, really. I was tempted to not put it on and I thought people would say “why didn’t you put it on?”, so I put it right at the end. I changed the order, changing the first and last pieces meant I didn’t have to change a lot of other things, just to make it all work. I’m happy enough with the way it turned out.

So you went to the premiere of the movie…

I did go to the premiere. I thought it was ok, it wasn’t fantastic… I’d never really been to a film premiere before or anything like that, it was quite fun.

In 2009 The Wicked Lady became a musical and it was represented in English theatres, did you know this?

No, I didn’t.

So I assume your music wasn’t used there…

I don’t think so, I think they started from scratch. I’ve never heard it, I thought someone might have told me.

This album had appeared 30 years ago with two different covers, both with drawings inspired by the movie. This time you opted for a completely new artwork, just reflecting the masked woman. Was it your decision to avoid any copyright problems?

We did look into the possibility of using the picture, but the people who owned the copyright on it wanted money and I didn’t really see the point actually. I would have quite liked to have the old cover… but there’s no real reason for it and now we’re just talking about the music and not about the film anymore. The film has come and gone, the music to people who’d liked what I’d done and heard Six and Seven might be interested in hearing it, because I mentioned that there was a possibility to rerelease it... and it wasn’t available on cd, so why not put it out there and with the emphasis more on the music, that’s one of the reasons for doing the cover that way.

Having worked with the orchestra in 1983, did you ever fancy using an orchestra with Genesis as well, maybe in quieter tracks such as Taking in All Too Hard or In Too Deep?

I always thought my place in Genesis was to take the place of an orchestra! We often thought of using other people, but the fun was doing it ourselves right from the early days and I thought quite successfully on a song like Blood On The Rooftops just by using synthesisers and a little oboe. I thought, let’s just do it like that, really. You could have done it a different way but it would have made it something slightly different and perhaps not… we did take, when we were in Australia, we had to have musicians on stage with us so we hired a string quartet and did versions of Your Own Special Way and In Too Deep. It didn’t really add much to the original. It was ok. The old string synth and mellotron tended to sound pretty good on the recorded versions anyhow, I think.

Although not a commercial blockbuster, The Wicked Lady was surely a nice "business card" for the movie industry. Did you ever think about moving to USA to pursue a career in film scoring?

I did want to do more films but I don’t think luck was ever with me on this. I did do three or four other film soundtracks as I’m sure you know, the Kevin Bacon one, Quicksilver, which of course was one of his least popular films, unfortunately (laughs – ed.). Not that bad a film either, but I couldn’t afford the experience and they wanted to have other songs in there, and they had Giorgio Moroder and a song I’d written with Fish which I wanted to have in there. So kind of frustrating but I did want to try and do it and I was offered one or two things, the script to Terminator, the first one, I’m sure I wasn’t the only person. When I did decide I wanted to write songs, it just dried up and nothing happened. I’d like to have done some more and I’m not totally closed to the idea right now but it’s just one of those things really. It never really came my way.

The album is released by your own new label Fugitive Inc. I imagine the plan is to re-release other albums like The Fugitive and Bankstatement?

Well, probably. The idea is in the Autumn, see how it goes really. Either I do that or I’m going to put them out through another record company. The idea was to do them all, but there’s no point if it’s going to cost a lot of money, what’s the point? I might as well just put them out with someone else and they can put them into their catalogues. I wouldn’t be remixing anything else, it’d be nice to have them out there I think, so the plan is yes, probably them all. It’s extraordinary if you look around: I wanted to call it Fugitive Records but I couldn’t do that, it’s been used. I couldn’t call it Curious Records, I then had to combine two words, Fugitive Inc which works ok, really. There may well be more.

Will these albums feature any extra tracks?

I don’t know if there’s anything else. The cd version of The Fugitive had two extra tracks, there was an extra track on Bankstatement as well, there’s an extra track on all of them in fact. The cds tended to contain them. We may decide to put something on that’s a different version of something or an instrumental version. I often feel that particularly some of the songs on Bankstatement like That Night, a great instrumental track with a slightly embarrassing lyric, those sort of things are possibilities, I suppose.

Did Six sell well?

It sold well over here in England. It made the top of the classical charts for what it’s worth. Yes, Seven was number two in the charts on the strength of Six. You don’t sell too many records in the classical chart, to be totally honest. It wasn’t bought by the classical cognescenti so much but I’m happy with the result, myself I enjoyed the record and I’m quite pleased with it.

I guess everyone is telling you that Strictly Inc is 18 years old, and it’s your latest rock album to date. Don’t you miss recording solo rock stuff?

Yes people do talk, has it been eighteen years? My God! Well the point was, and I have to be totally honest, none of my solo rock records did anything. Really, A Curious Feeling did little. It was extremely depressing to put them out one after the other and getting nowhere. Particularly when I realised the success of Phil, and Mike put his Mechanics stuff off. I don’t know if I want to put myself through this again, it was painful. But now, with expectations quite a lot lower, you know, a different era and everything, I have considered it. I do like drums, it’s probably what I sort of, you know… that’s the stuff, it’s great fun to do, you know, I’m one of many in that area, I’ve just gotta make certain I lower my expectations really.

So, have you composed new music?

I’ve got a lot of new things on the go, yeah, but I’m not sure what I’m working towards, some stuff feels more classical and other stuff are more rocky… I’m not sure what I’m doing next. I’m still working on it and see where it goes.

What about a best of, possibly including unreleased takes, for instance the Neap Tide demo, which was recorded at the time of Strictly Inc?

Oh right, there are things like that. I don’t know, it might be best to do a sort of Best Of in many ways for the people who might be interested can buy only one record with 70 minutes of music. I’d quite like to do that, it’s a possibility, particularly because I don’t have any problems with any record companies or anything, this might be the moment to do it. Some of the music hasn’t perhaps stood the test of time so if people hear it for the first time it’s not gonna work so well, but if you take only the best pieces I think it may make quite a good record actually. I’ve talked about it many times and having the Fugitive Inc thing going now may be the time to do it, rather than putting out the records individually first of all, do it the other way.

Would you ever consider the idea to arrange your own personal tribute to Genesis, revisiting some of your songs like, for instance, Mad Man Moon or One For The Vine, in a different way, perhaps with an orchestra or guests musicians and singers?

Well, I have sometimes thought about it, going back and rearranging some of the old songs, you mentioned Mad Man Moon which you could obviously do a great orchestral version of it.

I was very disappointed by the version done by Tolga Kashif, it bore little relation to the original song which I find a bit frustrating. I’m not really probably treating them instrumentally, is more interesting to me than just going back to do the songs again. As songs they kind of exist in a certain world, the way they were done originally, really. I’m not looking to redo them. Thinking about them in a different way would be quite a fun thing to do.

Steve Hackett recently recorded his tribute to Genesis and is currently touring with Genesis songs. What do you think of it?

It’s up to him, really. He left the group. He got fed up of doing these songs and now he’s doing them again. I don’t really know. Why not? I haven’t really heard it. I’m not terribly interested in cover versions of anything, I suppose. When it’s a different take, there have been a couple of versions of Land of Confusion out there which have been quite interesting because one in particular took a rather different take on the sound and made it sound good, I think. I don’t know about the earlier songs, though. He’s done it a couple of times now. If he gets something out of it that’s ok. I get royalties (laughs – ed.)!

Do you still see or hear from Mike and Phil regularly?

I think I see Mike just down the road, I saw him the other day, really. We do get together and everything. I saw Phil last year. He doesn’t come to England very much and when he does it’s a bit of a secret. I don’t see him very much and I’ve only seen him a couple of times since we talked, we keep in touch. Just not a lot.

Genesis recently got the Lifetime achievement award at the Prog Awards. The Genesis prog era was actually pretty short if we compare it to the whole career, nevertheless many people still rely on that phase of your career. While this is very complimentary on one side, don’t you find it historically incomplete to just focus on one part of Genesis complex art?

If people enjoy any part of what we do I’m good by that, really. Some people, so much depends on your age, if you were sort of sixteen when Selling England came out it becomes your favourite album, it tends to work out like that a bit. When we accepted the award… I did sort of go through our whole career, we wouldn’t be here if it hadn’t been for what came later, we wouldn’t have got the award if it had just been up to The Lamb Lies Down, we wouldn’t be remembered very well. We would just be an appendage of Peter’s history, it’s because of what we did later, playing these songs, things like In The Cage and all the rest of it, that the name became as well known as it is, and I’m very grateful don’t get me wrong. I felt when I was talking to people that a lot of them considered it the whole period, and for some people stop after Pete left, some people after Steve left. I don’t feel that the music changed very much between Trespass and Duke, we changed a bit from Abacab on, but there was always a lot that hangs in both areas, in both areas I’m in the middle of it. I can’t tell, other people see things differently.

The Carpet Crawlers 99 version… Did you and Mike at least work together to that version or did everyone record his part separately?

I think Mike and I went down to Real World and did what we did kind of together, but obviously Pete was going to sing. To be honest an awful lot of what I played, I didn’t use a large part at all… I’ve forgotten what the guy’s name…

Trevor Horn.

Trevor Horn, yes. The reason we got him on board was ’cause we thought we’d all argue with each other and we said: you do what you want with it really. I thought what he did was pretty good really, I wasn’t too sure about the little drum loop he used all the way through really, but I thought the way Phil’s voice took over from Pete’s is just an amazing moment I think. Their voice have always had a certain similarity in intensity but he has a sort of slightly higher pitch that Phil has that seemed to give such excitement to that third verse when he came in that, you know, when he came in and the combination is…I think it was good and if it’s better than the original I don’t know.

Can you tell me why the Seconds Out video was cut out from the bonus disc of the 1976/81 box set?

What was cut out? I can’t remember. I think that Tony Smith decided that Seconds Out was not going to be in the Boxed Set…

Yes, but I refer to the 25 minutes video… We have the Genesis In Concert film, we have the Lyceum ’80 live, but not this one…

I don’t know, I can’t remember. There probably was a reason for it, we did talk about what to put on, we tried to include everything but I’m not quite sure why that’s not in there. I have to check the box set. I’ll tell you why we did it, so you can ask questions like that, that’s why we did it! Something to talk about. Anyhow, I don’t know.

Last March in London the short movie filmed at the Roundhouse in 1970 was screened, featuring the Trespass Genesis line up. Have you ever seen it?

No, I think I’ve seen a little piece of it. It’s got no sound, has it?

It was dubbed, not the original sound.

Not the original sound… it’s one of those things, I don’t even remember playing it, people ask me about it and David Bowie came on after us and it wasn’t a good gig for him either and I’m a big fan, so you know, it was a weird thing really. The audience was completely drugged! ‘Cause Ant was in the group, wasn’t he?

Yes.

So it’s quite interesting to have a little record of Ant in the group, because that’s the only thing we’ve got of him. I’ll have a look at it at some point. I don’t think I’ve actually watched it. It’s worth it for that.

Can you remember anything of the The Jackson Tapes sessions? Did you see the film about the painter?

Never saw the film, I don’t know if the film was even made, was it? We were given the idea of the type of film they wanted, we used bits we had around. We pulled it to pieces and used lots of the bits of it later on. A song like Anyway had been quite a separate song anyway, stuff like In The Cage and stuff, The Musical Box, we finished it and pulled it apart to make lots of songs. It was quite fun, there were good bits on that, it’s worth it for that the final sequence was never used, it’s worth it for that.

The technology in producing sounds from electronic keyboards or computer based sounds has improved very much since 1983, so how this affected your writing for your orchestral albums?

Though I ended up in both cases using some help for the orchestration, I can nevertheless produce a pretty good idea of what I wanted, because I’d got the sounds there, so if I wanted oboe, strings or whatever I can actually use that instrument on an arranger, not really knowing enough about an orchestra right now you can get pretty close to it, it’s great fun and you can produce a sound that’s pretty good, almost good enough on a computer nowadays. It’s not quite the same as the real thing, obviously.

Does inspiration always come by fooling around on the keyboard, or do you ever happen to wake up with a tune in mind, or whistling while driving, or anything else?

Most of what I write nowadays comes from improvising around on the keyboard, normally I tend to do most of the writing on the piano with the strings. Sometimes I try very hard to not use the piano, so I’ll set up something on the keyboard like a flute melody with a strings accompaniment or something or use just strings. Almost the best piece I’ve done in the classical area was just one part on the strings and ninety percent of what you hear on the final version is there. I love writing like that. I do occasionally get the idea for a melody in my head, very much the chord sequence of Firth Of Fifth I remember coming out of my head, that was an interesting thing to try and do, and then I went to the piano and it actually worked quite well. Trying very hard to get your conscious mind out of it, so you’re just playing without really knowing what it is you’re playing and getting into a state which is quite difficult to do, and with the ability to record everything you do now, with the computer, now makes it very easy because you can always go back and listen to stuff and there’s always something.

Mario Giammetti transcription by Antonio De Sarno

Picture by Stephanie Pistel