Fantastic Voyage

Recorded while he was still the guitarist in Genesis, Steve Hackett's debut solo album Voyage Of The Acolyte and its commercial success gave him a confidence he had previously lacked. Along with what he saw as winds of change blowing through Genesis, it helped him to soon make the decision to follow his group pal” Peter Gabriel out of the band.

-  James McNair

Some solo careers are born of turmoil; a sudden, dramatic rift between an artist and the band in which they made their name. Steve Hackett's solo debut album Voyage Of The Acolyte wasn't born like that. After its release in October 1975, the Genesis guitarist made two more albums with them: February 1976's A Trick Of The Tail and December 1976's Wind & Wuthering. Indeed, Hackett wouldn't bow out of Genesis until after their May 1977 EP Spot The Pigeon.

"You have to remember that my experiences in Genesis were largely extremely positive," Hackett says today. "In fact, when we were touring Selling England By The Pound, a bit of Foxtrot and a bit of Nursery Cryme, I felt like I was in the best band in the world.

For me, Selling England... is the epitome of the form. It's got elegiac lyrics and hugely accomplished songwriting.

I was thinking, "This is it. This is where I belong."" It was while making the follow-up to Selling England..., the double album The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, that Hackett tells Prog that his sense of belonging began to falter a little. The Lamb... was his fourth album with Genesis, and the one after which singer Peter Gabriel, who had brought Hackett to the band after seeing his ad in Melody Maker, left the group.

"I'm surmising here," says Hackett, "paraphrasing, perhaps, but my memory of making The Lamb Lies Down... is that Peter didn't really want to be part of Genesis any more.

Composition by committee had become anathema to him, and his first wife, Jill, had had a difficult pregnancy.