“It kicked off”: Why Genesis claim to have invented Brian Eno
When Phil Collins first joined Genesis, he could tell that the band already had something special, and their songwriting ability was tightly locked down.
As such, when Collins started working with the band, he decided it would be best not to get involved in the actual songwriting because the unit felt so well put together. He was happy just trying to arrange the songs rather than actually write tracks for the band.
“The spirit of Genesis was Tony, Mike and Peter,” said Collins, “I didn’t regard myself as a songwriter then. But there were things in Genesis I was highly influential in. My strength was arranging […] I was very into the first line-up of Yes, the one with [guitarist] Peter Banks. I remember listening to them and loving the way they took other people’s songs […] And did something different with them.”
Steve Hackett spoke incredibly highly of Tony Banks’ guitar playing in particular. While his songwriting ability was always evident, it was his unpredictable means of playing the guitar which really appealed to him. “I think Tony’s [Banks] fluency was in chord sequences, which were always ‘Oh, where’s he going with that? That’s very interesting’,” he said, before concluding that his sound was “harmonically sophisticated”.
It wasn’t just the band’s songwriting ability that helped cement Genesis as such a great force within the world of prog rock, though. They were also very open when it came to using different effects to their advantage. By playing around with different pedals, tone and volume, they could really elevate their tracks to the next level. In fact, one of the greatest moments from Genesis’s early work, according to the band, all came down to the clever use of volume.
“Peter and I,” said Tony Banks when talking about some of the band’s greatest work, “both agreed that probably the best moment in early Genesis is the moment when it goes loud in ‘Fly On A Windshield’”.
With a good songwriting ability and an affinity for playing around with various effects, Genesis were in the perfect position to work with a producer who had a penchant for the same. Enter Brian Eno, whom the band brought on to help elevate their sound even more. They were both working with the same kind of technology, but Eno just needed to work with some other bands who were keen to experiment with sound as much as he was, which is why they made such a good team.
Steve Hackett went so far as to suggest that the freedom Eno experienced with Genesis essentially launched his career. Without a doubt, this is a pretty controversial statement, but whether you agree with it or not, there’s no escaping the fact that the two were able to come up with some exceptional music together.
“Then [Brian] Eno came in for a day, and he was using something like the same technology,” said Hackett, “So, using things on vocal performances, making them more wobbly and interesting. Yeah, it kicked off his career in a way, as a producer.”
