Steve Hackett On Genesis’ ‘The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway’ Ahead Of New 50th Anniversary Box

One memory that British guitarist Steve Hackett has of making Genesis’ 1974 masterpiece, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, occurred when the band was working at Headley Grange, an 18th-century workhouse in Hampshire, England. At the time, Genesis – whose lineup consisted of Hackett, singer Peter Gabriel, drummer Phil Collins, keyboardist Tony Banks and bassist Mike Rutherford — decamped at Headley Grange, the place was in poor shape.

“I was washing my hands one day in the sink,” Hackett recalls. “And suddenly, the floor gave way. I just managed to get myself into the door jam. And all that was left of the floor was the sink on the wall. It was pinned to the wall. If I had been a second too slow, it would have been curtains. So talk about the album that nearly killed me. That was the one.”

That momentary hiccup aside, Genesis later ended up with arguably their most definitive record, a landmark release in the progressive rock genre. The double record also marked a major turning point in the band’s history, as it was the final studio album with their original lead singer Gabriel.

More than 50 years after its original release, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway is seeing a special anniversary reissue (due out Friday, June 13) that contains a new remaster of the original album mix from 1974; a Blu-ray audio disc featuring a Dolby Atmos mix under the supervision of Gabriel and Tony Banks; the complete Jan. 24, 1975, live concert performance of The Lamb at Los Angeles’ Shrine Auditorium; and a 60-page book containing Guardian writer Alex Petridis’ liner notes and new interviews with the band members.

“I’m pleased that there’s interest in anything that I did that long ago,” Hackett says about the album’s golden anniversary ahead of the reissue’s release.

The story of The Lamb Lies Down Broadway, whose concept and lyrics originated from Gabriel, centers on Rael, a Puerto Rican teen who goes on a surreal journey through New York City — the singer once described it as a Pilgrim’s Progress —”a spiritual journey into the soul.”

“The band, including myself, were working in one room, and Peter was working largely in another, working on lyrics and story,” Hackett says. “Obviously, we came together and fused those ideas. So there were lots of surprises on both sides. It was a group-written effort, but lyrically, and in terms of the story, it’s Peter Gabriel’s. So that’s really what took precedence at the end of it. There’s a certain amount of justification after the event, you know, give and take, push and pull — all of that because we were all engaged in trying to get the best out of ourselves that we possibly could.”

Work on the album occurred at the aforementioned Headley Grange, where Led Zeppelin had previously made the albums Led Zeppelin III (1970) and Led Zeppelin IV (1971)

“Led Zeppelin had been in there recording stuff,” says Hackett, “using the stairwell and getting extraordinary sounds. And so we had an idea that maybe we could record live. Recording live was pretty much in its infancy at that time. There were only a couple of mobiles at the time. And we ran out of time. We couldn’t get it all done.’

“It turned into a double album to encompass everyone’s ideas,” he continues. “There was a haunted house aspect as well. I know that Jimmy Page said he had a room at the top of the stairs. Ironically, that was the one that I had as well, and he said he saw a figure at the top of the stairs. When I was trying to sleep, there were so many noises going on that you just couldn’t sleep some nights. Now, whether that was the rats in the pipes or anything more sinister, I can’t tell you.”

Hackett acknowledges that the album was made amid difficult circumstances, especially concerning Gabriel, who drew interest from The French Connection and The Exorcist director William Friedkin on a potential film collaboration. But the project didn’t come to fruition, and Gabriel returned.

Additionally, “Pete had his pressures,” adds Hackett. “His wife was undergoing a difficult pregnancy and birth. We were very young. My first marriage had just broken up. There was a child involved. Lots of reasons to think that perhaps this idea of getting it together in the country wasn’t serving the best interests of men now who had families and responsibilities.

“It wasn’t just about the music,” he adds. “It was, ‘How the hell do we hold this together?’ So we moved on to a place on the Welsh border when our time ran out at Heavy Grange. I think it’s a place called Glasspant Manor. And we moved into a house which was semi-derelict.”

Among Hackett’s contributions to The Lamb were “Cuckoo Cocoon” and “Here Comes the Supernatural Anaesthetist,” according to Petridis’ liner notes.

“Cuckoo Cocoon—yeah, I had that,” Hackett says. “I’d submitted some words to Pete because he tended to sing other people’s words. He said, ‘Well, I really want to write the whole story. Do you mind if I do my own lyrics?’ ‘Fine, fine.’ I was thinking of [the song] as a rather more sort of West Coast-sounding thing with harmonies, etc. It didn’t come out at all like that. We had some effects put on things by Brian Eno, who came in for a day. That was a lot of fun working with him.

“There were various other things I’d come up with. “Supernatural,” at least that instrumental, that was something I was working on with Mike Rutherford. Many other things [I did]: atmospheric sections, playing backwards vibes and stuff I didn’t credit myself with on the album. On the album, we even used something that we’d recorded on cassette that was very, very lo-fi. You’ve got an idea of that really big distorted bass sound that Mike had at the time, and repeat echoes and odd experiments.”

Hackett also provides several memorable guitar lines to the record, including on the majestic “Hairless Heart.” “The first part is my melody,” he says. “And Tony plays wonderfully on it with organ, with repeat echo on the organ, light touch. Really, really good, very wonderful.”

The album would yield several memorable tracks that would later appear on Genesis compilations and tour setlists like the title song, “Back in N.Y.C.,” “Counting Out Time” and the haunting ballad “The Carpet Crawlers,” the latter a beloved staple of the band’s repertoire.

““Carpet Crawlers” was really a chord sequence,” Hackett says. “And then Pete added a melody line on top, and of course, lyrics. I played a kind of counter to that. I was influenced by Jeff Beck. He had done a track with the Yardbirds called “Turn Into Earth,” where the guitar was only just audible, but it sounded like a distant violin. And I thought, ‘Here’s an approach. I can have a counter melody going.’ Of course, in the first mix, it was barely heard. And I’ve played it many times…and made sure the guitar was sufficiently distant and not get in the way of the vocal.”

“[When] the last surround mix [was done], I could hear guitar parts that I’d not heard since we did them, like the fly buzzing around at the beginning. Whether or not that will be preserved with the forthcoming one, I don’t know. Doesn’t matter. There are these different versions that are out there, nothing’s precious to me now. It’s not like my life depends on it. If you like it and you want to include it in the mix, fine. I have to be extremely passive about it. I liked what happened with the box set mix.”

The accompanying tour for the album was very elaborate, featuring slides and Gabriel dressed up in costumes, including the Slipperman. It was during the American leg of the tour that Gabriel announced to his bandmates that he was leaving, but he stuck around for the rest of the dates. Collins would later replace Gabriel for the band’s next album, 1976’s A Trick of the Tail.

“I was heartbroken because I felt he was very much the heart of the band,” says Hackett of Gabriel’s departure. “He was very much the focal point. I think the very first conversation that he and I had was, and this was on the phone, talking about how a show should be ideally presented, how you could use darkness to fool people right at the beginning. I was into the art of illusion. So I think we shared many ideas that would have been considered radical by the band. In some ways, we’re very similar.”

“I was loath to lose him at the end of that time,” Hackett later says. “I tried to talk him out of it. But I understand the need to be a solo act. I was in the same position myself just after he left. I felt that I had to work out outside the auspices of the band in order to have sufficient autonomy to allow myself to develop.”

Meanwhile, Hackett is celebrating The Lamb’s milestone with his tour, which will include performances of several tracks from the album in addition to other Genesis songs and his solo material. On July 11, he will be releasing a new record, The Lamb Stands Up Live At The Royal Albert Hall.

“Much of what I do playing live, I tend to do it’s kind of 50/50 these days,” he says. “Fifty percent either solo stuff or new stuff or do the old stuff. So my shows tend to be a show of two halves, about three hours long in the end. So you get plenty of new and plenty of old. And I will be touring for the rest of this year. I’ll be doing nine tracks from The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.”

Looking back on The Lamb’s legacy and how it ranks among the six Genesis studio albums he appeared on from 1971 to 1976, he says: “I think it’s a very interesting album. It sounds sweeter with the passing of time. I like to be surprised by things not having heard them for a very long time. Then I can come to them fresh and say, ‘Yeah, I struggled at the time, but now it sounds rather fresh to me, and I’m not hearing the struggle.’ I’m just hearing the power of a band going for it.”