As they prepare what could be their final tour after 54 years, the British rock greats reflect on who they lost along the way, how they survived punk – and why Phil is skiving off his vocal practice
‘Genesis have always been slightly below the radar,” says keyboardist Tony Banks. “We’ve never been part of a current trend; we don’t tend to get awards; we’re just sort of … there. People that like us really like us, though, and that’s all we care about.”
“Below the radar” may be a strange way of describing a band who have sold more than 150m albums. But, then, Genesis have always been peculiarly self-effacing. From their early-70s, Peter Gabriel-fronted iteration, where they quickly ascended to the upper echelons of progressive rock with a combination of theatrical whimsy and fiendish technical complexity, to their slicker, poppier, staggeringly successful 80s years, they remain a wildly popular – yet pleasingly eccentric – proposition.
