Richard: [continues to answer the question from page 2] The foxes head and the red dress was a complete surprise to absolutely everybody, because there’s no way that Banks would have allowed that [laughter]. If Peter had said ‘by the way I’m thinking of going off stage half way through The Musical Box and coming back on stage with a foxes head and a red dress’, he [Tony] wouldn’t have agreed to it and Peter knew that perfectly well. Everybody was so totally astonished and you know it was in Ireland, in Dublin where he first did it. That says possible a little bit what your question was about. The rest of the band was just carrying on playing the music, Peter was becoming more and more outrageous in terms of the presentation and I don’t think it was very long after that he shaved his head. And that was just to get pictures in the paper. They were frustrated that they weren’t getting anywhere as quick as they wanted to.

Audience Question: In the 60ies there was an american band called Genesis. And they released an album In The Beginning and on this album is one song called Mary Mary. Now, in the early nineties, a bootleg appeared and on that CD was an acetat from 1967 called Mary Mary and everybody on the internet were pretty sure that is the american Mary Mary. Unfortunately it is a completely different song and this Mary Mary has got nothing to do with the american nor the english Genesis. Do you have any idea how it could got confused because this [bootleg] label is not known for doing hoaxes or fakes.

Richard: Absolutely no, no idea. To be honest, I knew there was an american band called Genesis, but I had no idea that they’ve released an album called In The Beginning...it’s kind of logical, isn’t it? But it was Jonathan King who came up with the name Genesis. He was also responsible for the names of 10CC and the Bay City Rollers. So no, I have no memory of a song called Mary Mary.

Audience Question: I want to ask something about his [Peter's] personality. I’ve read some articles that are lying in the showcases and it has been said that he was a very shy and intimate person but he changed when he stepped on stage into a different personality, more outgoing. What do you think about all this? You also know him as a private person, you know him from school days, what was he like at school, was he famous?

Richard: You know, it was quite shocking how his personality changed but it isn’t unusual in performing people. They need to perform on stage to release that side of themselves. Lots of actors and singers are quite shy and introvertive off stage. But it was a very strong contrast [with Peter]. He is still very shy away from performing. And at school, well [laughs], that’s a bit embarrassing really, because I was the singer at school. There were two bands, my band was – we were always meant to be called Anon, you know like when there’s a poem and you don’t know who wrote it. It’s short for “anonymus”. That was the idea of the name but people couldn’t cope with the name without a article, so we were always called The Anon. In fact it was worse than that, they put the accent on the A so it was more “The A-non”. We could never get this over. We were much more developed as a band. We put on this concert at the end of summer term 1966. There were three bands, one of them was Mike’s band and then there was Peter’s – The Garden Wall. Ant [Phillips] played in both bands. Tony Banks was down on the floor because they couldn’t get the piano up on the stage, but we all knew he was there, still playing a very important part. That’s was kind of a glimpse or view of the future. That’s when Peter started to emerge as a performer. He had this hat on. He has designed a hat. Basically what he was doing was selling hats. He has got this hugh stock of hats that he needed to sell. I don’t know if he did sell any. But a the end of that term, the bass player of The Anon which was Rivers Job, and I both left school. And that’s how Genesis got started. In fact I thought of him much more – before the Garden Wall he had a band called Millords and he was the drummer. He’s always been a bit of a frustrated drummer. That’s why he had the bass drum on stage, which used to drive Phil nuts [laughter] – he hated it, because he [Peter] often played it our of time. So you can imagine a drummer of Phil’s stature having this guy stomping along this thing out of time. It was already established, that was part of his [Peter’s] stage thing. It’s also something to hide behind. Because that’s a little bit of the shyness of him having that little bit of something between you and the audience. [download this answer in mp3-format!]

Audience Question: What is the reason for Anthony Phillips departure from the band? Was ist more the public pressure that Genesis began to perform and there were scouts in the audience looking for new band - or was it more artistic pressure from within the band? What part played Mike and Tony?

Richard: The reason Ant left is simply he just got stage fright. He got increasingly terrified. We were playing in a place that was a quarter of the size of this room with five people in the audience, there were more people on stage practically [laughter]. He was literally petrified with fear of playing live. To this day he has never performed in public again. And he’s found another way in making a living out of music. So that’s what happened to Ant. It all took place in a nine months period, from the time we moved into the cottage til the early summer of 1970 when we recorded Trespass. So that’s why he left, As to the others, particularly Mike & Tony – I’m not trying to blow my own trumpet here, but: Mike and Tony were seriously thinking of quitting when Ant left because Ant was an enourmeous personality musically in the band. What happened is that the vacuum he left was filled up obviously by the others. They were more and more discovering that they had more to give. But he was a very strong character. We played a gig at the Marquee Club in London and we were sitting in the van out side the back of the Marquee club, it was Peter, Mike and Tony and I, we were all talking about was was gonna happen because Ant had announced tha he was quitting. He actually had a bout of glandular fever, it’s a post viral thing where you have no energy and feel really unwell. It certainly wasn’t any kind of pressure of public adulation because there weren’t any at that point at all. We were conspicuous by our abscence on the top of the charts.
I was very keen for them to continue. Personally I felt they had a lot to offer. I didn’t feel until Foxtrot that they’ve been represented at all well on record – I never forget that - thinking about that thing in Belgium, they recorded it and we went back to the box to listen and the sound balance – to us it was just hideous – where’s the mellotron at this point and all the rest of it. It just didn’t represent them and I wanted them to go on. Certainly Mike and Tony have said that the fact that I was so keen for them to continue was quite a factor at that time. They weren’t at all confident in their ability to go on.
At that point Tony said ‘if we gonna go on, we have to get another drummer’. And in fact that is it that made it really possible because that person is Phil. I had no idea the difference a drummer could make. I tought generally until then it’s just the guy a the back of the stage keeping time. When Mike started teaching Phil the songs it as unbelievable how the music transformed having someone of his talent playing. We actually went on as a four piece. He brought his friend Ronnie Caryl, who has been in the band Flaming Youth with Phil before but he wasn’t right as a guitarist. So we got the electric piano on top on the organ, no mellotron at this point. Basically Tony would play guitar parts on the electric piano and we went on like that for quite a while. It was absolutely that Phil was providing underneath that made it possible. Then Steve came.
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