Steve Hackett talks about his new live album 'Time Lapse' and his current US tour to "The Waiting Room's" roving reporter Bill Brink on 22nd August 1992.

It has been six years since we last saw you. Ostensibly you are touring to promote the live album that seemed to have a fairly murky beginning, but I gather that the primary focus of this venture is to prepare for a new album?

Well that is true, yes. I am routining new material in front of audiences to see what the reactions are like and also to shake those numbers up in front of a crowd and to get the input of the musicians I am working with. I think that to a degree you get to the point where tours are intended to facilitate albums, but I suspect that the reverse is true; that the former is an excuse for the latter. I actually enjoy touring just of its own accord. What I generally find is that the more emotional moments move me extremely emotionally (laughter). The wilder, more tricky moments..the more pyrotechnic moments, one hopes to sail through without striking a reef. The emotional moments..when I say emotional, I mean the more..passive type things like "Walking Away From Rainbows".

You have established yourself as "Mr. Sustain", with the music following a slower and more reflective pace. With the more recent electric albums - GTR and the live record, you seem to be speeding the tempo up a bit. Is this a cumulative effect?

No. Actually, one thing is the live LP and the other is the material I'm working on at the moment. I would say that no, I haven't abandoned the slow motion feeling, it's just that that's not particularly present on the album because it's full of things that became stage favorites. There is that feeling on one or two of the tracks but I'm not a great fan personally anymore of slow rhythms I must admit. I find that if anything, if I write something slow these days it will be without any rhythm at all or I'll write a slow melody on a fairly bubbly rhythm, and I think that's a development to a degree because I think that ever since I worked in Brazil in 1983 and I was surrounded by percussionists, I feel that I am able to think instinctively like a percussionist or drummer now, even though I don't have the technique to be able to do half the things that they can do, and I've never felt the need to actually play drums myself, but drums myself, but there is an appreciation of what it takes to make something work for a percussionist or drummer and, in fact, a lot of the new material which I've demoed and intend to record with the band, there are quite a lot of slow things; "Flight Of The Condor", "Walking Away From Rainbows".. there are quite a number of things actually. By no means have I abandoned my roots.

Is there any sort of timetable on the next record?

That's beyond me because..that's not something I can control. It's like saying when is the next major film release. I can write the script, I can pick the cast, I can film it because I have my own studio, but I'm not the one who's in the position to release it, distribute it, advertise it etc. All I can do is what I'm doing. My major commitment is to go out on the road and say "Hi" to audiences and to play. That's my end of the bargain which I am delivering. Beyond that..business will be resumed as soon as possible. I don't think that the people who enjoyed what I did in the past will be disappointed, I think they'll be surprised. I'd like to think that because I'm surprising myself with it, and the guys in the band are coming up with things that surprise me, so..I think it's going to be a return to a band feeling rather than the number of sequencers and considered changes. I'm humanizing it again and I think that's a good thing, don't you? Otherwise to a degree the test tube babies which I've worshipped and adored and raised lovingly from my various sojourns into the laboratory have all been very well but there's something special about kicking ass with a band live and that's what's happening at the moment.

Do you plan on touring in Britain?

Doing charity work for the Vietnamese boat people. We worked on a thing called "Rock against repatriation", which we spearheaded and were tremendously supported in the UK. We made one recording out of it and we had Queen, Tears For Fears, some of the guys from Genesis and Bonnie Tyler..we had half the business involved and lots of people gave things to it..we had an auction Marilyn Monroe's swimming costume that Elton John gave us..marvellous things actually. These are the things that you don't always get to hear about.

Given your very unique writing style, it would seem that you need an amazingly flexible vocalisl keep it up. Have you got a vocalist that can, so speak, keep up the pace?

I continue to sing my own vocals and in fact I've changed the style of material to suit that, I think. No, actually, I've worked with some marvellous singers..with cast iron throat and lungs but for the type of material I'm doing now I don't actually feel the need to have someone who can do that. I enjoyed working with..I've worked with some of the best singers in the world..I've been very lucky but I'm not setting myself up in competition with them, it's just that I've been taking a far more poetic approach to the lyrics. I mean, I write them down and see if they work on the printed page before I turn them into a song and I think it creates a stronger Iyric and then you get the music away from the words. I don't use the Iyrics as an appendage to the song anymore, it's an important factor for song writing. I'm enjoying singing myself very much whether I sing flat all evening or I surprise myself and hit all of the high notes, it doesn't actually matter to me the degree that it would say to a band that were concerned with creating ; creating say "radio friendly" material. I'm not doing that, what I'm doing is increasing more private. I write from the inside out much more now. I wrote about things that concern me. I haven't tried to write a commercial song for many years, I haven't tried to write anything that was remotely "radio friendly".

Can't that get you into an area where your music could be categorised as "New Age"?

Fortunately I'm too old to be new age (laughter). That's one of the nice things about old age I can tell you! It's one of the nice things about middle age I should say. I'm forty two, I'm honest about it. It's bad enough that I'm perceived as progressive..but..I'm being flippant about it because the term "progressive" has been used as a pejorative term by its detractors and I think to a degree..they have a point..the detractors, because I no longer feel comfortable being called a progressive or..we're not very happy with labels us musicians even when we're doing well, we don't like it. It's important to jettison this stuff when it becomes too heavy so I think I don't owe an allegiance to any time or form or period or type of song. I just try to surprise myself. I think possibly my stuff has become earthier if anything.

You have a performance of "In That Quiet Earth" on the live album. This raises the question of whether you can freely draw on old material, or are there proprietary boundaries?

No, there's no problem I can play what the hell I want and I can record what the hell I want. But I think just in general if I do just the occasional Genesis piece it will be something that was spearheaded by the guitar or it will be something that I kicked off and it will be something that was initially arranged by the band so..Actually live I've been doing Los Endos as well because that was a melody of mine which was developed by the band and so I thought it was time to claim the birth right again. It can be traumatic you know, you think Oh I mustn't do that and I guess that was good. My band loved playing that and so it's very good and they'd never heard before you see. With all the guys in my band, one assumes that they must be full of fans but not one guy in the band had heard that before I played them the tape of that and I played them the live tape of it and they assessed it as anyone of twenty potential numbers we were rehearsing them up for and the reaction was, "oh, that's a good one why don't we do that?". My young drummer, Hugo, who's aged twenty three, Hugo Dengenhardt is very much a..although he's come from a rock 'n' roll background, he loves jazz and all types of music, so he played those rhythms unlike most young drummers that I come across who have a somewhat limited repertoire of moods simply because they're not even required to play with that level of technique or whatever.

A compilation album has been mentioned to me several times. Is this moving along now?

Yeah, that's moving along, there will be a compilation of what we thought was the best stuff from the past. Basically it's the material that Virgin owns so that will be a Virgin compilation. I think various things will become available at certain points and this will be done for them it's just that..I've released rather a lot of product now an gradually it will all be out there and I'd like to think that the committed fan will rnanage to get hold of everything. I mean, I feel the same way about certain artists myself and I can't get hold of their records and it drives me up the wall..I want to get Paul Butterfield albums you know and I'll have a long wait!

Well Steve, we all have had a long wait but we're patient (hence the name of this magazine) and thanks to both yourself taking time out to speak to Bill and indeed to Steve himself for taking the trouble to do such a lengthy (both in time and in distance) interview - we hope it answers at least a few of your questions. Perhaps we will still have the opportunity of talking to Steve some more in the not too distant future!

Interview conducted for "The Waiting Room" magazine by Bill Brink.