"The Magnificent Seven" Tony Banks talks about his new orchestral album: Seven to Alan Hewitt and Mark Hughes. Interview conducted at Tony's home on Saturday 13th March 2004.

Well, Tony obviously we are here to talk about the forthcoming orchestral album: Seven and I suppose the first question is when did you decide to record an orchestral album as opposed to a rock album?

TB: Well, I had… after the last… the Calling All Stations thing ended.. I was just writing in the normal way I was and I had this thing this idea which was all done on a string synthesiser and I thought…rather than try and make it into something I would do myself…I thought what about the idea of trying to do this with real strings and see how it sounds, and once I got that idea in my head I thought.. oh well lets see what else you can do… and I started writing some other pieces specifically thinking in those sort of terms. Also the first time in a while to let it go where it will really and not try to tie it to verses and choruses or anything. That is the way I feel most comfortable writing anyhow.. I like to go from piece to piece to piece. It just seemed to lend itself to these kinds of pieces and three or four of the pieces I wrote at that sort of time they came one after the other really. And once I had got three or four together I thought about anything that was from the past that I could include and I had this piece that I had written ages ago that I thought if I ever did anything with an orchestra would probably be good and I had kept it back as a possible film theme over the years but they never came up (laughs) so… I decided why not do it on this and expand it a bit and make it slightly less systematic in that way.

I had another older piece that I had… a shorter piece that I had done around the time of Strictly Inc and put all those together and then decided that I needed another piece because it was all a little bit slow and soft and I tried a more bouncy sort of thing and I wrote that specifically for the project…that was the most recent one. All of the recordings were done in 2002… I had already done it…I had re-recorded it about six months before when I had done three or four of the pieces and the pieces had been around a while before that. So it really has been quite a long birth really just tying to find out how to do it and getting people involved and the record companies and stuff and to find people who would get behind it.

How did it…it is probably a rather silly question but how does it compare to work with an orchestra after all the years of working with the band? What are the biggest differences you noticed… apart from obviously a broader canvas to paint on, I suppose?

TB: The main difference was at the recording stage really, just that the recording thing…you record the whole thing in two or three days and you are recording it with an orchestra who have never heard it before and they have to learn it. Also you are hearing it back for the first time done with real instruments and there are so many changes you have to make; there are typographical errors… all these things take time and I said this in the album sleeve notes; after three hours you have got to have ten minutes of music done otherwise you have failed. If it is very slow sort of simple stuff it is not too difficult but if it taking a while for the orchestra to get it, it can be quite a strain and I did find the first sessions… that is why they didn't turn out as well as they could and it was rushed and I didn't really know all the sorts of things I would have to get together because you are not just criticising typographical errors, but harmonic things that you don't think are right and tempo and just mood and everything, you know There was so much to talk about and you found yourself constantly saying… you've got to change that or that and it was so negative and it is a very difficult thing and I did realise that to do it I would have to… once I had done it I thought this was good when I listened back to them… I didn’t get it the way I intended to really and a lot of the things I allowed to go through because I thought maybe they are OK wasn't right and I should never have let it happen. So, when I went into it for the second time I got together as much as I possibly could.

So I take it that the demos that you did, you said you multi-tracked them so they are quite detailed …

TB: Oh yeah, in so far as arrangement a lot of what you hear was there. My brief was when I worked with Simon Hale… we weren't going to change any structure, any notes; any basic harmonies that was all going to be 100% how it is and any arrangement ideas that I had incorporated , he would use but he would do more with it because he understands better how an orchestra works than me really. I thought, much as I love doing everything myself as you know over the years I have played all these instruments (laughs) rather badly! (laughs) but I would have liked to have done the arrangements and on a couple of pieces I think I could probably have got away with the arrangements absolutely as I did them but he definitely enhanced everything and where he didn't I was able to say ..this isn't right.. re-do it and he did some lovely things which I think are good and what I wanted him to was make them sound convincing as orchestral pieces . That was the most important thing to me. I did not want this to become a hybrid I am not really fond of that kind of thing anyhow and I have never heard a sort of band/orchestra combination that I thought was really good or orchestras playing the band music. I didn’t like the London Philharmonic "We Know What We Like" … I didn’t like that at all. I didn't like things like the Deep Purple and stuff and I am told that there is some German one at the moment that is supposed to be quite good. I am not saying that it could never work; there have been instances where violins have been used on rock songs and they sounded great and that is fine but it is difficult to do an expanded, extended piece I think. Because they have such a different feel of rhythm that is the first thing you have got to cope with.

So, when you actually started all of this you originally wrote the demos solely on piano?

TB: Well, some of them are on piano. I think three or four of them were on piano and two or three of them… one was done just on string synthesiser which was the second piece: Black Down and I suppose I did most of them on the piano the other one I didn’t do was apiece called Earth Light which again was just done with the string synth setting the thing up so I could play some other sounds such as oboes brass and so on just to embellish it slightly. So that is how I put them down…the piano I used was a pretty artificial piano on the first piece: Spring Tide and that was one of the biggest problems to recreate the piano part because I used the piano and midi'd it with a kind of bell-y, tinkly sort of piano bit also I put it an octave down so you had this octave split on everything and it was very difficult doing the thing to decide which octave sounded best and to try to get it. It was a bit of a struggle and there are a couple of bits that do not sound as good as they would if you had the double octave effect but you couldn't do it. Somehow it didn't work I tried doing it with the piano double octave and it just didn't work.

What specific keyboards were you using in the studio at the writing stage?

TB: Piano mainly and using orchestral sounds so Emulators and stuff like that and I have these Virtual Instruments now although sometimes I was just using whatever came to hand and I was not trying to get it 100% faithful I was bit for the slow string sounds I have this 01W sound which I think is a great sound and I find it very easy to write with. It has got a very slow attack and so everything I write on it is very slow. It is B57 or something (laughs) it is a factory pre-set nothing special but I fond it a good one to write with. I quite like it too when I just Midi it up with the piano and it just tootles along in the background while I am playing and it gives me an idea of how big a sound would be.

That is one of the things… I am not a musician, so some of it will be probably over my head but the one thing I have great difficulty imagining and conceptualising is how you have managed to take a demo recorded on a piano and envisaged how it would be like with an orchestra…

TB: It is not that different from doing something with the band you know, you have got to imagine everything else that comes with it and the nature of keyboards is that you are replacing an orchestra and you are doing the work . I listen to a lot of Classical music anyway so I know how it is put together and it was a matter of every detail and I knew I would get stuck and the things I wouldn't think about and the thought of having someone else if he was compatible looking at it as well would introduce ideas that wouldn’t occur to me which would work and I really do think that Simon did enhance some bits and that was very well worth doing.

How did you link up with Simon?

TB: He was someone who had worked with Nick Davis on a thing… he had done some arrangements on a couple of things Nick had done in the past but he is also a great keyboard player himself. He has worked with quite a lot of other people although I did not know that I just knew about his arrangements and that he sounded interesting. I did quite like the idea that he had a foot in both camps he is a very musical guy actually and we just got together and he liked it and was into it and we talked about it and we seemed to come up with ideas very quickly. He got the music very quickly. I have worked with people over the years and for some people it is quite a struggle for them to understand what is going on and others get there very quickly. I have worked with people like Nik Kershaw for example, who is so musical; he knows everything that is going on immediately whereas others whom I won't mention (laughs) it takes an awful lot longer for them to get the idea across. It was great with Simon; he is like me in some ways because he talks very fast and his mind is working all the time on things and he seemed to get it very quickly. We bounced ideas off each other eventually although initially I gave him the pieces and had a bit of a talk though them saying roughly saying what I had seen and he would go away and try some stuff and come back and we would work it through then and some ideas would come; some would go and things would happen. But it isn’t until you get into the studio that you realise some of the things are not working and you have to try and work out if it is the writing or the playing or whatever…

Were there any other pieces written which didn’t end up being recorded…

TB: No I used all the pieces …at one point I was thinking that I might leave one off but then I thought well they all sound fine and I think …the one piece which I was worried about was the most recent piece, the fourth piece: The Ram which was much more up tempo and optimistic and was this rhythmic thing but without that I suppose it was quite slow which is what I like best you know…"Adagio Man" you know but once I had got that in there it was a question of whether I could sustain it really and it was just a question as to whether I had both of the shorter quieter pieces in really and I think it is good to have them, actually.

How difficult was it for you, when you were putting this stuff together with the orchestra to try and avoid, if you did avoid; the influences of say… that sounds like Rachmaninoff …or that sounds like…Elgar…

TB: I never worried about any of that actually because what I have found when with the group we have wanted to sound like anybody else we have never really succeeded and we sounded like something in between which works ok and can sometimes be quite effective in itself . There were no direct influences although obviously everything I listen to has an effect but if I am writing melodies that I think I have heard before ..but with this I do not think that there is any sort of plagiarism going on . After you hear it everyone says that it has got hints of the English composers and stuff.. Vaughan Williams, Elgar and stuff but I don’t think in terms of any specific melodic moments you would think that is that… but sometimes it is just the style can be a bit similar.

Now that you have done this album is it something that you could consider doing again as another project?

TB: I really don't know. Yes, I would love to do lots more of this really but I think a lot depends on how this one is received really and see how it goes… I don't know really. In all honesty what I said to myself after the Calling All Stations thing was that I am not really sure if I want to carry on doing this thing being a professional musician because the solo stuff has always been a struggle in terms of every time you put one out it never gets a great response and then when we did Calling All Stations there was some sort of similarity to a solo album where there was amore subdued reaction than we had had on previous albums.

So it was kind of … I wasn't sure I wanted to do it but one thing I had always promised myself before I put my boots up I am going to do an orchestral album I had always wanted to do it. So I have done it and even if at the end of it all nothing much seems to happen that may well be it… If it does great I might do another one or in six months' time I might feel like doing another rock album I don't know. I was in no hurry to do another album like Strictly Inc, I felt "well what's the point?" Really. I think I would struggle in all honesty to get any major label behind me if I did it now. OK, that is much less important than it was but I do not want to go through all that fighting you go through all of that and then you get smashed on the head by every critic in the universe and it is not a great feeling and I did not enjoy it. I love making records… I love writing and I love making them but putting them out can be very difficult.

Something like this is different and what I would like with this is that it is heard by people who might not consider listening to this stuff in the first place and non Genesis fans and obviously Genesis fans and I will be very happy if anyone who hears it likes it but it has an appeal that is wider than that and hopefully if you can reach it a bit but it is very difficult because it is not associated with a film or a TV series…

The great thing though, is that it is with Naxos and they are remarkably good at getting music to people who might not necessarily think about

TB: There are two or three advantages they have. One is they are a very kind of positive company and the records are cheap to so people can pick it up on a whim and they do a lot of this stuff under the banner "21st Century Composers" and the thing I found when I was talking to one or two of the other record companies was that unless they got big sales, they were not really interested. I talked to EMI and I said to them… "How much did Steve's album sell?" you know, And they said …as a yardstick I was looking for… and they said… "It sold 15,000" and I said… "Great if this one sold that many I would be very happy" and they were not really interested in something that just sells that amount. EMI want to subsidise the sort of classier Classical composers whom they have got who sell 600 copies but who nevertheless have a very strong reputation. And I found all of that a bit difficult really … I went to EMI in the first place and they were quite helpful and friendly enough but it didn’t come to anything and finally I came to Naxos after reading an article in the Saturday Times when it was talking about the people who are prepared to take more chances and trying to do different things and they came across very well in that. They were really enthusiastic right from the word go, they really liked it.

AH & TB at Tony's home (photo: M Hughes/TWR)

I feel that people who have known me in the past will say "Oh.. I will give it a go.." or people who, you know are totally outside it but whom will buy most of what Naxos produces and all of that will help I think but ultimately you then have to see what people think of it when they get it and whether they like it or not! (laughs) That is the stage I am at, the moment really. The other way it could lead to is a film I suppose because when you are telling people you want to do film music you have no sort of pedigree really because it has been years since I did the ones I did before and they don't trust you… they want to use someone they know and this at least shows that I can actually do it. So from that end there might be something in that zone and that is something I would quite like to do I think.

Was it a conscious decision to steer clear of it becoming a piece for the piano supported by the orchestra….

TB: I know this is going to sound silly but I am not really a piano player… I am not really a pianist I have never really thought of myself as one… never have done. I play the piano because in Genesis…back in the very early days there were four of us, you know.. originally and each of us played the instrument that was most logical for us to play. Peter played the drums; I played the piano; Ant played the guitar and Mike played the bass… now Ant and Mike were both guitarists but Ant was better than Mike and Mike played the bass. No-one else could even think about playing the drums, so Pete played the drums and I was the better keyboard player out of Pete and I. So that is how it happened. OK, so I use it as my writing tool and that but I think of myself as a composer and that is far and away the greatest contribution I have made to Genesis and that is far more important than what I have done as a player. OK there have been things like Cinema Show and things like that but it has been one area, the writing right through the Genesis thing…from the simple stuff to the complicated stuff and the lyrics and that is what I have done.

So what I wanted to do on this; I didn’t want to play piano on this at all. Originally I didn’t think the piano was going to feature because I was going to try and take it all off the piano and although when I finally worked it out there was obviously going to be piano in the first piece : Spring Tide, there wasn't intended to be any piano in the other two pieces but the way I played on those three pieces is pretty background on the other two and it is really there just to give it body, because particularly on the last piece: The Spirit Of Gravity was where I was least satisfied with what the orchestra did and some bits were well enhanced by putting the piano in there but it is subliminal at times, almost. It doesn't NEED piano and it shouldn't have piano on it as shouldn't the other piece which I played on which was The Ram which has got piano on it but they were not intended to have piano on them.

I just wonder if you have one of those childhood dreams of performing in front of an orchestra….

TB: No.. that is the last thing I want (laughs). Performing in general is not my favourite thing as you know and no… I have no desire to do a piano concerto if that is what you mean. If it came to writing a piece where I felt that I wanted the piano to lead and be more extravagant then maybe… It is not the music I like. I listen to and like symphonic music… orchestral music really and there are the odd piano based pieces that I like Rachmaninov's piano concertos; Ravel's piano concertos and stuff like that but they are not pieces…even with Rachmaninov I would prefer the symphony. I am not a great fan of the piano as a sound in itself. I don't listen to solo piano music much because it doesn't do that much for me I am making this out that I don't like the piano… The piano is my favourite instrument to play and I love it as an accompaniment particularly within the world of rock music I think it works great. Leading an orchestra … obviously you get things like Shostakovich's second piano concerto and pieces like that and they are occasions where it really works but in much the same way that I am not really a violin concerto man although there are some marvellous violin concertos there is something about all that, that I don’t like. I don't like all that virtuoso stuff I find that all very tedious all that fast stuff and I lose interest. I tend to like slower pieces. If the orchestra can be rhythmic all together then that can be very effective I think. So, that was what I was trying to do with this really I wanted the slower… maybe it is the way my brain works I suppose that slower pieces are better.

We didn’t quite get that impression last night listening to it that it was "slow"…

TB: Well there are one or two faster things .. I like.. I don't want to overemphasise this because obviously I like fast stuff and have done it myself many times over the years. I think there is something exciting about hearing a person play fast and it all works. But just in terms of writing I like … I love chords you see…and you have to give them a chance to linger and if you move on a chord too quickly then it all gets a bit too awkward.

There are some classic Banks chords in there…

TB: Well, these things follow me around I can’t help it really (laughs) Yeah there are certain things I like to do the change into things which you could set it up and if you have the right sort of change you can have a real release by having a particular key change happen when you have a significant piece. I have loved that in other people's music as well and it is something that comes out a lot on this album.

Carol (Willis) mentioned yesterday that there is the prospect of the Malvern Festival being interested in performing this by the orchestra…

TB: That is something we have got to find out the and figure out the score sheets and the other thing is the piano parts because I played all the piano afterwards on to the album and I couldn't just play the old parts I played, it was a question of finding out what would work and often I would stop and start and so now I have got to listen to the tapes and find out what it was I played and transcribe it which is something Simon could probably do… these guys can do those things so quickly.

What do you think about the idea of a live performance…?

TB: Well.. the live performance thing I have no great desire to play it myself and also because if I as the lead thing then it would probably be much easier to do but the orchestra would have the piano stuck in the middle and not at the front … Obviously live performance would be fantastic of any kind. I think what would be the most interesting would be for one or two pieces to be taken out of context and played in another concert because that would introduce people to the pieces in a way that you are not preaching to the converted to a certain extent.

Just play it without the piano part in…?

TB: No the piano would just be a part of the orchestra; orchestras often use piano on symphonies and such like. Originally back when we did the first version of Spring Tide we used the orchestral pianist but then it seemed almost silly in a way if there as going to be piano there and it wasn't complicated; I might as well play it. It also meant I had more flexibility with the one thing I could actually change once I came out of the studio was the piano which was quite useful because it meant I could do a few things that weren't done before. I didn’t want to fake anything else at all.

The one thing about it as you have said is that it is an orchestral suite but the pieces do have a life of their own…

TB: Yeah, as I said two of the pieces were written well outside the period of the rest of them and I don't see them as… that is why I called it Seven really, because that it means that they are separate pieces and not meant to be particularly linked apart from two of them there is no real linkage. If a performance happens that will be down to me… if people come and they want to do it like the Malvern thing but I suppose you have to wait and see and if there is a bit of action you can suggest it to places because people do pieces here or there and a ten minute piece is not going to be too much of a problem.

What sort of promotional work are you doing to push this album..?

TB: It has just been radio and I have talked to Bill McCormick (Genesis Webmaster) and I will talk to anyone really (laughs). In terms of radio they will only do interviews if they like it I suppose. I am going to do an interview with Classic FM which will be useful and they seem quite keen on it.

Is there no way of putting on and publicising an event yourself with the London Philharmonic?

TB: Well, you could do but you must appreciate that to do that is extremely costly… it was extremely costly to make the record in the first place… not in terms of making a rock record but it is extremely costly because you have an eighty piece orchestra there and to get it to the standard of playing on the record which took three days… to get it to concert standard would probably take ten days if that was anything to go by… it would certainly take twice the length of time. The real problems would be with the fourth and seventh pieces they are just… particularly the seventh which is tough and it was recorded in quite a few sections to get it right. It is difficult because it does go though.. the way the time signatures work is strange in it and it should sound natural and some bits sound more natural than others and I played it all on the piano originally and it all worked great. When it came to the orchestra, the problem was that the brass players just got slower and slower and by the time it got to that final theme it was so much slower than I intended it and I also wanted those strings arpeggiated with the brass players but I just couldn’t get them playing in time so I just changed it in the end and said OK lets make it slower and more ponderous (laughs) and lets add the stings to the brass.

It is difficult for these guys... if they have heard it before you know if they have played Beethoven's Fifth Symphony they have heard it a million times and they know what they have got to play and the conductor is working on his interpretation of it. But if they have no idea and if some aspects of the rhythm are a bit alien to them and there was one bit in that final section which they couldn’t get the feel of it at all and fortunately the lead violinist got the hang of it and he showed them how to do it and from then on it was fine no problem because there was a very important rhythmical part which the last pieces has in it, and it sounds great now and it is just different and these guys are brilliant musicians and there is nothing they can't do or play and it is just getting the whole orchestra together with the rhythmical feel of a piece. Obviously these guys do this a lot… most of the music they play is for things like films and they only ever play it once and it is not really a problem they could learn it and it could be done but I am not sure what the best way of doing it is. If I did it, I could play and it would be great fun to do… It might not sell out the Festival Hall or something like that but you are playing to the converted aren’t you? It is fun to do but that is all you are doing really and with this what I want to try and do is reach beyond my usual audience in a way… OK… I want everyone to like it I suppose and an area this could appeal to is there are a lot of people who liked Genesis and who might be about my age and have moved off a little bit and who don’t really listen to Pop music anymore and I think those people are listening to Classic FM and Radio Two and if they heard something like this it might interest them.

I am pleased with the way it sounds and it is convincing orchestrally and I don't think it sounds the natural thing… there is actually a very good review on Amazon but the one thing they so day is that some people might dismiss it as film music but I don't actually think it is that… Film music is all about themes and stuff like that and this is very much about developing from one section to another which is something that all Classical music is about and also the more involved sort of rock tracks we have done.. taking people through things… I won’t say that some of these themes couldn't work in films but the idea is that it shouldn’t sound too much like film music but on the other hand if people like it then that is not really a problem.

I am quite surprised by how accessible it seems to be. When I was writing the stuff I was trying to be and steer it away from but listening back to it I… the nature of orchestras is that when the chords get a bit funny then it doesn’t sound so peculiar and when you do on a guitar and you have some guy struggling with a shape here (laughs) and it sounds a bit stranger but with the orchestra you kind of lead them into the next chord or anticipate and some of those stranger shapes sound fairly normal and so I am surprised in a way I thought it would sound more obscure than it has turned out.

Just a few quick fire questions.. were there any tines during the project, that you thought "this is not living up to my expectations"?

TB: Oh yeah… many times. The first sessions were the most depressing time for me and I went in there and I was a bit nervous before I went in because I didn’t know what to expect and when I heard the first piece back I said… "I'm off… I can't take it…." (laughs) We got it sounding better by the end but it was very uphill I felt very… you obviously have a bit of an inferiority complex because you have all these Classical people around you and I found that very difficult and when I came out I thought… and then I listened to it and I thought… "this isn't good enough… What do I do now? Can I really get this together?" And I went through whole areas of things and then I got in touch with Nick (Davis) and lets see if we can work out a way of doing this and what I thought of doing originally was to do piano versions of all the pieces that I could and get them to just play to them… build them up artificially really and I did quite extensive piano versions of all the pieces which were alright.

Then we got back in to the stage where we were going to start doing it if it didn't sound right and then the first piece we put on and it immediately sounded pretty good without anything and I think the other difference was having this guy Mike Dixon who was doing the conducting and again he is a guy who straddles both camps he is doing the Queen musical : "We Will Rock You" and I think having people like him plus Nick the whole thing became easier. I also had other people who put my side forward to and I didn’t feel quite so in awe of everything and it came together much more easily. So, yes… I did really think of giving it up at that point and particularly since the original record company response which was not Naxos; wasn't very good and it was quite a tough moment. I also saw an episode of Frasier at that time (laughs) where he was doing this jingle and they wanted a jingle for the radio station and they had all done these things and he had got the Seattle Philharmonic Orchestra and done this extravagant thing… and I thought… "God…that is what I have done! " (laughs) and his father than ended up singing some little thing which they used as the jingle! I got over that but you have really got to bear in mind that some people are going to think… "God he is only doing this because he has got the money" and you have to fight through all that really and be confident that it can sound good and when it did sound good some of the orchestral guys were very enthusiastic … some didn't give a shit (laughs) there were a couple who would play a couple of brass notes and then sit there reading The Sun (laughs) but that is the way that it is really and you can't blame then for that. Having said that; the lead players; particularly the flautist who was quite extensively featured; and when they were showcased they took it quite seriously and they did a great job. You watched these guys and they didn't all play all the time and if they are not quite sure what they should be doing and you could see them sometimes sort of… miming (laughs) and we had this one area where we had this bum note that kept on coming up.

In terms of rhythmical things there was one particular not difficult but faster brass riff that occurs in The Ram again which we did as an overdub because we had to really because we were taking just too long to get it right at the time with everybody else and I just didn’t see the point. Other than that everything was done natural and all at the same time.

The highest moment I assume was on that final day when the take had been done and …

TB: Yeah…well there were moments all the way though when it was being recorded and it was sounding good and it was moving you as an audience member that was exciting and there were lots of moments when it happened like that I mean particularly with my favourite piece which is Black Down, the second piece and once you had got the important theme in that and when you really did it… because the first versions of these things which I did at Abbey Road the problem was that none of the main themes were delivering at all… they just didn’t sound right. The rest of it was sounding ok in a way but when it came to the big moment it was just no good so that was very critical because the piece builds to a moment and if it doesn't get there then it doesn't do it.

MH & TB at Tony's home (photo: A Hewitt/TWR)

Our thanks to Tony for giving up so much of his time on a Saturday afternoon to speak to us and to Carol Willis for organising things with her usual skill and expertise and for the hospitality!