Steve Hackett - The Making of Wolflight | Prog. | Louder - video Dailymotion

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Steve Hackett interview with Prog Magazine about the album: Wolflight

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00:00Genesis

00:18Genesis always was a hard act to follow.

00:21And I've always been aware of that.

00:23I think for all the guys in the band that's been the case.

00:27Whether you have individual hits or whatever,

00:29there's always that sort of...

00:31It's a bit like the mothership, isn't it?

00:33When I write a song, I think,

00:35would this have passed muster with the other guys?

00:38Would Phil have liked it rhythmically?

00:40Would Tony have liked it harmonically?

00:43Would it have worked for Mike?

00:45Would it have worked with Pete lyrically?

00:48And you have all of that,

00:50but at the same time, of course,

00:52you want to do your own thing.

00:54And I just thought, yeah,

00:57I've really got to push the envelope harmonically with this.

01:00You know, it's got to be as good as some of those things

01:02that I've listened to.

01:03It's got to be as good as Grieg.

01:05It's got to be as good as Tchaikovsky.

01:08You know, it's got to be as good as that first day

01:10when I worked with Phil in the rehearsal room with the band.

01:13He started playing me something.

01:15I said, it sounds fantastic.

01:17And he said, oh, that's Ringo Starr's drum solo off of,

01:21what's the one, Abbey Road.

01:24And I always remembered that.

01:26And I thought, you know, I want to do something like that.

01:28That's a little bit like Keith Moon, isn't it?

01:30You know, so it's got the bass drum going,

01:32but it's like doing fills all around that.

01:35So we had the Wolves at the beginning singing away

01:38and a frozen reverb note of that.

01:41So they hit a seventh and then the drums come in

01:45and then it's band kicking in

01:47and the orchestra and choir and everything.

02:08Every time I've done an album, I've always thought,

02:24well, I need to get orchestral perspectives in here,

02:27but how do we enlarge everything?

02:29And even if you've got a real orchestra on it

02:31or you've got several people tracked up,

02:35it's quite hard to not have the orchestra impoverished

02:40by the group because groups make a big noise.

02:43But there's this area of marcato stuff

02:48where they're playing with the edge of the bow

02:50and reinforcing some of the bass things with brass

02:55so that it's not just the sort of,

02:58the kind of definition of bass end

03:01that when you get a great bass player

03:04with a really extraordinary sound,

03:06like Chris Squire, who's on the album.

03:09There's this thing that orchestras,

03:11they have a more amorphous bass end.

03:15It's not dependent on great speakers

03:18and sharp definition.

03:21It's more than that.

03:23So I wanted to get that idea of infinite bass.

03:27So we stacked up a lot of that, you know,

03:30we have more than one thing playing basses, you know.

03:33I mean, I think on one track we had about 20 different things

03:37all doing bass.

03:39There's a lot of things on it that shouldn't really work.

03:42Orchestras with rock groups shouldn't really work, you know,

03:46because they're not supposed to be as percussing.

03:49And I wanted it to sound like an expanded rock band,

03:51but not just an expanded rock band that sounded like it had an orchestra with it,

03:55but also with world music instruments as well.

04:00So the Arabian ud, the didgeridoo, the deduk, the tar from Azerbaijan,

04:05all these various things that helped to expand it a bit, you know.

04:09And I and time on the record a little bit, and I think there's a story here about it.

04:13I don't know if anybody's singing.

04:14You know what, what are you playing?

04:16I know what happens about it!

04:18But then I just want.

04:19Like to tell you in the background.

04:20You know what?

04:22It just needs it to feel the same thing.

04:23You just need that.

04:24Right-click.

04:25It shit is information.

04:27Here you have a friend and the son.

04:29You still need it?

04:32Yeah.

04:33Like to tell you something you think

04:35does it still need something,

04:37especially with the strong band?

04:38Working with these other instruments that I'm not familiar with, working with Malik

04:47Mansirov, who plays the tar, the tar, small stringed instrument with sympathetic strings,

04:55same family of instruments as the guitar and the sitar, and Malik from Azerbaijan, where

05:0350% of the people are still nomadic, I believe. He's a little bit like, he's got the speed

05:10of John McLaughlin, and in a way, the mysticism of Ravi Shankar. He's incredible. And of course,

05:18the other instruments that might be less familiar to people, the Arabian Ud. I bought that in

05:25London, it's a fretless lute. I learned to play it a little bit. I'm not the level of virtuoso

05:31on it that Malik is on the tar, but I took some things from him, the idea of playing

05:39on one string, more things on one string than you would normally do in sliding, and so on,

05:45Dust and Dreams, that kicks off. Some of these world instruments, they often set the scene

05:51before the song starts. It's almost as if when Malik is playing on the beginning of War

05:57Flight. You've got almost like the flickering flames of the campfire. You know, the kind

06:05of music that they might have played at one time when they just sat around to entertain

06:09themselves. And I wanted to get an aspect of that. A little bit like different relay teams.

06:14So you've got the world music musicians, you've got the aspect of folk songs. So, you know,

06:22at times I wanted to build back as far as Peter, Paul and Mary. I wanted to have that. But then

06:29I wanted to have rock as well, you know, the edge of that, and then whatever orchestra could

06:33do on top of that. It's my proudest moment, to be honest, you know, this album.

06:52Of course you.

07:10You

07:13You

07:15you

07:18you

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Steve Hackett - The Making of Wolflight | Prog. | Louder

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