Best known for his elaborate arrangements and ambitious solos, Genesis keyboard player Tony Banks has gathered his solo orchestral works for a new box set, 18 Pieces For Orchestra: 7-6-5. Prog catches up with the musician and composer to discuss the intense sound pictures he created over a 14-year period, going head-to-head in the charts with celebrity gardener Alan Titchmarsh and offering his old mate Peter Gabriel another gig.
After 1997’s Calling All Stations, Tony Banks realised for the first time in 30 years that he might have to consider a world fully outside Genesis. His five solo/collaborative albums to date had been support movies to Genesis’ main feature, but now the cinema show looked like it was coming to an end.
He remembered how much he’d enjoyed the experience of scoring Michael Winner’s ill-fated remake of The Wicked Lady in 1983, admiring how Christopher Palmer had extrapolated his work into discrete themes. It gave him an idea. As a result, over the next 20 years, he released three classical works, now compiled in a new box set, 18 Pieces For Orchestra: 7-6-5.
Classical music always held an appeal for Banks – from hearing Rachmaninoff as a child to some of his arrangements on Genesis records – but crossing the line into ‘serious music’ is not the easiest path to take. “In the classical world, they don’t really like rock musicians or upstarts,” he tells Prog. “The other problem is that people who like rock don’t have much time for strings and oboes. So you’re caught in the middle. I have always taken the stance that, when writing music, I’ll do something that appeals to me, and see where it goes.”
Working with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, he began the first of his forays, Seven – A Suite For Orchestra, at Abbey Road. He soon realised it would not be an easy walk over the zebra crossing. “I was totally green to it; I didn’t think the first recordings worked at all,” says Banks. “They needed streamlining. I had to get a different conductor so that we weren’t spending all our time just correcting the errors in the scores.”
In came Mike Dixon, who’d worked in both the rock and the classical worlds. Recording moved to AIR Lyndhurst in north London. Opener Spring Tide contains some classic Genesis-style motifs as well: “The slower pieces worked well on Seven. Perhaps the closer, The Spirit Of Gravity, was a slight disappointment; it didn’t quite go as well as I hoped. It’s complex – trying to do it in one three-hour session with an orchestra that’s not totally excited by the idea was a bit difficult.”
Although hemmed in by the structure and timekeeping of English orchestras, the album was released in 2004 and received rave reviews. Banks’s second classical work, Six Pieces For Orchestra, followed in 2011. It came off the back of Genesis’ first reunion and farewell tour, Turn It On Again, in 2007, when he’d announced that it was next on his agenda, even though he hadn’t fully considered it – or written a note.
“The first one had gone pretty well, and proved the most successful of my solo albums in many ways. So when being asked what we were going to do after the tour, I had to say something. Mike Rutherford was speaking about the Mechanics, Phil had another album coming out, so I talked myself into it.”
Six was to prove an exhilarating exercise: “I really had no ideas at that point. On Seven, I’d had four tracks ready in some form or another. So it was nice to start totally from scratch, to see where it would lead me.”
I had lots of ideas… in order to get them on a Genesis album, I had to pack them all into one song
It led him to Prague. “I wanted to spend more time and find more enthusiasm, which I got in both the Czech orchestras. You could rehearse and get it right and they didn’t mind if you double tracked.”
There hadn’t been orchestras to contemplate in Genesis – the group were their own ensemble. “We were very lucky how these things can work out,” he says. “Then, I was filling in the gaps with Mellotron. Often, when you use a synthesiser, you’re trying to arrange the pieces in a way to give them that sort of sound. I love doing that, particularly when I had a free hand – like the instrumental sequence of Tonight, Tonight, Tonight [from Invisible Touch], when I’m playing that arrangement of flute, oboes and strings over Mike and Phil Collins’ backing.
“I was proud of One For The Vine [from Wind & Wuthering]: the little theme that comes at the beginning, middle and end to show that it’s a cyclic song; the lyric starts and ends in the same place. In the 70s I had lots of ideas, and in order to get them on a Genesis album, I had to pack them all into one song! Sometimes on the records we’d fight a bit about what went on, but that’s the nature of being in a group. I fought with everybody. I often won. Those albums when there were five of us were very exciting.”
Coming across orchestrator/conductor Paul Englishby to work in Prague was a breath of fresh air. “Paul’s a pretty creative chap himself, and he was quite happy to do what I needed. With pieces like Blade, it’s all there on my demo, but Paul made it sound better – more professional. My brief to everyone was to make it sound like an orchestral piece, and not like some kind an arranged piece of pop music. It was great fun.”
A lot of people around me felt that Five didn’t really get a very good shot
By 2018’s Five, he was writing more like he’d been working with Genesis. With its warmth and variation, it could almost be viewed as the group’s final album; if Tony Banks is on it, it’s got to be Genesis, really, whatever guise it’s in. “I started with the basis of piano and built from there. I replaced the synthesised parts with real strings. That was a very satisfactory way to work, and I don’t think it sounds like I’ve done that. The result ended up very close to my original vision.”
Five – orchestrated by Nick Ingman (Paul McCartney, Björk) – came out of a piece that Banks had been commissioned to write for the Cheltenham Music Festival. “And the piece, that ended up as the opening track, was unpretentiously titled Prelude To A Million Years. I wrote a few other pieces while I was about it, and a couple of others were written as I went along. I was very confident when I was writing Five. One of the main reasons for putting out this box was that a lot of people around me felt that Five, in particular, didn’t really get a very good shot.
“It started strongly: it came on the classical chart at No.1, which was very nice. All the people who wanted it went out and bought it in the first week – after that it disappeared. I was knocked off the top spot by [gardener] Alan Titchmarsh, reading poetry to somebody who’d written some music behind it [The Glorious Garden, with Debbie Wiseman and the National Symphony Orchestra]. I thought, ‘Well, that sort of sums up the world. I mean, what is classical nowadays?”
Prog wonders if Five will be his final word in the classical realm. “Can I do anything that’s really going to add to what I’ve done – that’s the question, isn’t it?” he says. “I’ve imposed quite a lot of Tony Banks music on the world already, with Genesis and solo albums. I’m not sure if it’s crying out for any more. But if I was excited by something, I probably wouldn’t be able to stop myself from doing it again.”
Mike and I have been there all the way through… although Mike is always a little bit more detached from everything
What does his week look like these days? “Lots of gardening, a bit of golf, a bit of tennis. I play music and write, and just carry on. It’s part of what I do and I love doing it – but I’m an old man.”
There’s always talk of Genesis reissues, and Banks curated their recent BBC Sessions album. Does that mean he’s the Genesis archivist? “Not really. Nick Davis, our regular producer, was involved in all this: he was the one who made most of the decisions; but it was nice to listen back to the live versions, and it gave me a chance to look at the old videos.
“I’m probably the one who’s most aware of everything we’ve done, and I probably like our music the most. Mike and I have been there all the way through, of course; although Mike is always a little bit more detached from everything.”
He reports that communication is good between the band of brothers, who are on the verge of celebrating the 60th anniversary of their fledgling first shows at Charterhouse school. “I speak with Mike a lot; Phil a certain amount, but he’s in Switzerland, so we don’t tend to see him. I communicate with the others, particularly Peter Gabriel, every now and then, and Ant.
I was pleased to get the Prog God award; in the world of prog I have a status which I don’t have elsewhere
“Extraordinarily enough, I bumped into Steve Hackett the other day. I was walking down the street, and suddenly a voice said, ‘Hello Tony!’ There he was. We had a long chat, which was great. I was amazed to find him in the country – he’s always somewhere else. I look at his schedule so I don’t feel tired.”
The 7-6-5 box set comes complete with new Stefan Knapp artwork, which offers continuity of the series, in the same way as Soviet label Melodiya or Blue Note. It unmistakably enrobes the work of Banks the classical composer. “It needs to be heard by more people. The trouble is whether it’s the right way to make people hear it by giving them three hours of music. It looks good on a shelf.”
There’s one more question: Where does Banks keep the Prog God trophy, bestowed upon him by Gabriel at the Progressive Music Awards in 2015? “It’s in here in my music room,” he says. “I rearranged the bookshelves, and Margaret [his wife of 52 years] helped me do it, and she left one shelf completely free.”
She told him the shelf was free for “the next lot of awards.” He comically sighs. “I’m afraid there hasn’t been any, apart from this thing. It was a surprise to get it, because Peter had it the previous year and I thought maybe they’d run out of Genesis people. I was very pleased to get it; in the world of prog rock, I have a certain status which I don’t have elsewhere.”
I saw Peter’s last tour and he was great… I said, ‘We kind of could use a singer’
Prog can’t help but comment on the fact that Gabriel and Banks are one of the most amusing double acts. “Peter is absolutely right in saying we were the greatest of friends and could be the worst of enemies. He’s obviously an incredibly special person in my life. But banter about the hair is always good.”
There’s still a gap in the market for the pair to go out and do a two-piano tour – small venues, just stories and songs, like a prog Rostal and Schaefer or Flanders and Swann. Banks laughs at the thought. “Peter wants to do a bit more touring, doesn’t he? I saw his last tour and he was really great – in good voice. I said, ‘Look, we kind of could use a singer, if you fancy another gig?’” Banks chuckles at how unlikely it all is. “It was good to see him still sounding good.”
