Anthony Phillips That's My Vinyl Answer: Part 1 (of 2)

Anthony talks about the 12 string sound he developed with Mike Rutherford which featured on the earlier Genesis albums. He also talks about his latest album The Golden Hour (Private Parts and Pieces XIII) and how he balances his TV and music library work with his more elaborate solo work.

[@davidtellett179]

I could listen to Ant talk for hours...and I have! What a lovely, interesting and generous man ❤

[@LorraineHinchliffe-vg5cb]

Ant looks remarkably like the late, great Allan Holdsworth ❤

[@larrypeterson7992]

Absolutely agree!

[@vinylforcharity4132]

Hi David. Me too! It felt more like a chat with a friend than an interview!

[@MatthewMcVeagh]

One of the loveliest Genesis members in interviews.

[@vinylforcharity4132]

Genuine and warm person for sure.

[@larrypeterson7992]

@@MatthewMcVeagh they all are!

[@benharrison1837]

Bought Geese & the Ghost in 77 while attending art institute of Chicago. Been a huge fan ever since. Great musician and composer

[@thatsmyvinylanswer]

Hi Ben. Not sure if it was 77, but like you I bought Geese at around that time. Thankfully I kept the vinyl when CDs became the fashion!

[@memorythree70]

Wise After The Event. Wow!!

[@glasses42]

Superb interview! Loved it. Thank you so much for posting.

[@thatsmyvinylanswer]

Hi there. Really appreciate the nice feedback. Thank you very much.

[@stuartwaby3081]

Thank you so much for this wonderful interview and playing snippets of Anthony's new/old Music. I have most of Ant's catalogue but there are a few gaps which i keep meaning to fill, this new release has spurred me on to aquire said pieces as both of you gentlemen made such an interesting listen so thank you both for taking the time to make this riveting interview. Best wishes to you both and to Ant, thank you so much for your beautiful Music 🎶 ❤️

[@vinylforcharity4132]

Hi Stuart. Really appreciate the feedback, thank you. Happy hunting for the missing albums.

[@barryashton1404]

Wise after the event and sides are two brilliant albums

[@vinylforcharity4132]

Hi Barry. Thanks for the comment. I still have the original vinyl copies. They have certainly stood the test of time

[@LandOfGold55]

My hero! Thanks so much for posting this interview with Anthony. I just picked up "The Golden Hour" and have just listened to it for the 2nd time. Really enjoyed it! Always a great pleasure to hear new work from Anthony.

[@thatsmyvinylanswer]

You are welcome. Glad you enjoyed it and also discovered the new album.

[@larrypeterson7992]

50 years later The Golden Hour is as good as he's ever done!

[@thatsmyvinylanswer]

@@larrypeterson7992 Hi Larry. yes there's some really good stuff on there - amazing to think most of it was lurking forgotten on hard drives until Anthony's engineer Jon unearthed it.

[@larrypeterson7992]

His solo work is highly recommended. What an amazing fellow!

[@thatsmyvinylanswer]

Indeed it is, and he is. Thanks, Larry.

[@jamescpotter]

The Geese and the Ghost is my desert island album. It is PERFECT.

[@thatsmyvinylanswer]

Hi James. Thanks for your comment. Yes, it is an amazing album that has really stood the test of time.

[@alwayscurious413]

As someone who bought a 12-string in the late 70s purely because of that Genesis sound I’d like to thank you for the section where you discuss the guitar. The innovation of the way they used the 12-string on Trespass truly was groundbreaking. Prior to that as mentioned the 12 string was mostly used to augment folk songs played rhythmically but what Ant and the guys did was astonishing as a sound. The nice thing about a 12- string is that if you explore alternative chord shapes they sound like nothing else you can get from a 6-string guitar. You just can’t get that sound - it was interesting to note Ant’s comment about the piano chords not spanning the same notes as a 12-string. Thought provoking.

[@thatsmyvinylanswer]

Hi. Thanks so much for your feedback and thoughts. Yes, that 12-string sound is so special and has stood the test of time.

[@charlesnolan7602]

54 years "ex- Genesis member" I was 14 when he left, last century!

[@thatsmyvinylanswer]

Very fair point, and I'm not far behind you, Charles! It's a "hook" many are guilty of using (me included) hence my first question. Maybe I should have resisted the temptation, but as a very small record charity we aren't well known and the Genesis reference helps with the way algorithms and search engines work for people to find both of us if they are not familiar with Ant's solo work or the work Make a Difference with Records does. Thanks for the feedback.

[@enriqueprieto4189]

Amazing composer.

[@thatsmyvinylanswer]

That indeed he is! Thanks for watching.

[@Z-eb]

Anthony is always so humble and nice in interviews !!! Thanks !!!!

[@vinylforcharity4132]

Indeed he is. He made me feel very welcome and gave up a lot of his time.

[@Z-eb]

@@vinylforcharity4132 Thank you so much, i`ve gotta get "The Golden Hour" asap !!!

[@mikearchibald744]

@@vinylforcharity4132 Did he make tea? Thats adorable at the end of his Edginton interview when it ends with "ok who'd like some tea". Tony may have stayed in Genesis and got rich, but between the two, I can always imagine them being like what was said about David Gilmour: "even if he was busking he'd be making music". Thats a pretty rare thing. I lasted two guitar lessons and then went with "ah the hell with this I'll just LISTEN". I'm glad it worked out to the point of Ant not having to busk and end up like Danny Kirwan.

[@danielphillips8416]

Lovely interview, thank you.

[@vinylforcharity4132]

Many thanks for the feedback, Daniel, much appreciated.

[@juliemusique-tn4dp]

LOVE THE INTERVIEW the album sounds good

[@vinylforcharity4132]

Thanks very much, Julie, it's always great to get this kind of feedback. Interviews tend to work better if it's a conversation, and Ant was so engaging.

[@elmolewis9123]

Huge fan here with his albums in regular rotation for me on Spotify.

[@vinylforcharity4132]

Glad to hear it! Such a talented man and so modest.

[@Jiri-z-Lipe]

Ant never left Genesis as far as I'm concerned. I love some of his solo work as well. I recently bought The Geese and the Ghost on vinyl. It's one of my all time favourite records. I also love Wise After the Event. And the Private Parts and Pieces series is great. I own the first two and plan to get all that was released on vinyl. Needless to say, I love Anthony Phillips' work.

[@thatsmyvinylanswer]

I know what you mean. The 12 string sound continued to be used on later albums after he left, and Geese would have been a great companion to Trespass. Thanks for your feedback!

[@LorraineHinchliffe-vg5cb]

What a great interview. Ant looks remarkably like the late, great Allan Holdsworth to me, and is a lovely man like him too.

[@thatsmyvinylanswer]

Many thanks for taking the time to give the kind feedback, Lorraine.

[@thatsmyvinylanswer]

Hi David. Me too! He gave up so much of his time to talk to us.

[@snacklofter]

Good old Ant - One jolly good egg!👍👍

[@thatsmyvinylanswer]

Can't argue with that! Thanks for the comment.

[@keithf1652]

Ant Phillips and Steve Hackett MUST get together for a proper album. If you two are reading this, I ORDER YOU ! (Yes I do know that Ant has actually worked a bit on an old Steve Hackett album)

[@thatsmyvinylanswer]

That would be wonderful, wouldn't it, but sadly I don't think it will happen.

[@plakcanius4069]

Heb zijn elpee 1984 , niet verkeerd!

[@mikearchibald744]

I heard Anthony actually showed Phil how to play the drums. Phil was known as a good 'copycat' til Ant showed him....I'm just kidding, but you can definitely tell how Tony, not being mainly a guitar player, actually picked up a lot of Ant's melodic lines. Its no surprise that much of their solo works sound very similar, and not commercial in the way of, well, 'abacab'. I don't get why Tony and Mike keep saying they can't sing, they all sing just fine. Tony could certainly riff off Land of Confusion. That british reserve maybe limits him in love songs, but Anthony puts it all into 'Lucy Will' just as good as Phil could have. My favourite Genesis track is "Looking for Someone", not because of the song itself, but when you listen to the instrumental piece you can almost literally hear at least four guys-maybe even five, fighting for melodic dominance, which says it all about how you can even get competition in music. As Richard MacPhail says 'it goes off all over the shop!' Order from chaos from order. And a lot of that we owe to some random guy in a field at charterhouse. Just goes to show the importance of playing in public. Steve says he always felt like more of an employee so really couldnt 'fight back', so that kind of thing got lost. I disagree with Ant's statement that 'more than one writer is not a natural process'. I quote another great musical philosopher, Neil Peart, who said that the five person team he had to help him write BOOKS was the perfect number. HOW you do that is the political question of mankind. And in all Genesis music you can kind of hear or feel that, its why even the guys in the band say the music is 'not quite there'. Led Zeppelin and Yes always sound as good as Led Zeppelin and Yes can get, which is pretty damn good. Genesis always sounded like a really good garage band, even though Phil says they were MORE fussy than other bands and things took a long time to get to point X, there was always a sense of incompleteness about them. All those things are what make it interesting to write about these six or even seven guys. Its like 'music that never should have happened but did'.

[@vinylforcharity4132]

Hi Mike. Many thanks for adding your thoughts and perspective. Much appreciated. There's no doubt that they fed off each other and built on each other's ideas, just as it should be. Sad that it ultimately became too crowded artistically only a few years after Ant's departure.

[@mikearchibald744]

@@vinylforcharity4132 Yeah, thats a band. As Mike and Nick whatsisname said, its odd for people to stay in a band 'forever'. I think the most prescient comment of all came from Mike in the interviews: "if only we'd had a little chat". Or as Steve says "we were maybe bad talkers or bad listeners". Thats something I think MOST people should be able to appreciate and its a good lesson people should take away from learning about the band. Tony seems to have been the worst, but from all accounts has mellowed considerably, good for him. I think that was insecurity and maybe upbringing, and I know how it feels to have that monkey on my back.

[@CommuneRecords]

Would you say the line "god if I saw her now" means 'god [an exclamation]! if I saw her now [my heart would explode]' or 'if I saw her, she would be almost as a god to me'? Or something else? One of my favorite songs ever, but I couldn't say exactly what he mans there.

[@thatsmyvinylanswer]

Hi. One of the great things about song lyrics is that they can mean different things to different people, which is often given as one of the reasons some artists don't like explaining their lyrics in too much detail. For me however I have always taken it as the first of your two suggested meanings. I can hear the raw honesty of a man realising/admitting he never stopped loving her...