From The Times magazine, June 10th, 2000
One of the few people to have a good word to say about the Millennium Dome is Peter Gabriel, whose soundtrack is part of the daily show there. In fact, these days he's happier about a lot of things, he tells Alan Jackson.
Fans, in the purest, most engaged and, ultimately, fixated sense, are a demanding bunch. The artist needs them, of course,. Needs them emotionally, to buoy the ego and cheer the soul, and also commercially, to sustain a career and fund an appropriate lifestyle. But oh, are they ever demanding? Just take those of Peter Gabriel.
As a rock star of some pedigree, one who carries with him an impeccable portfolio of liberal causes and concerns, it is understandable that he should have become the focus of an extensive network of admirers. If asked to generalise, confidently you would place these diehards well away from the Rough & Rabid end of the fanbase scale. Articulate & Aware would be more like it -- more evolved than the average man, woman or dog with a Shakin' Stevens tattoo, certainly, capable even of giving Stings's supporters a run for their intellectual and sociological money. And then, while on the Net and with equal confidence, you might seek out his WebRing.
When I do so, I am struck instantly by the near-religious devotion of those who campaign in cyberspace -- voluntarily, and with no financial reward -- for the man "Vision of an Angel" is the title of one fan site. "The Beyond" and "Raiding the Divine Archive" are those of two others. Soon, as if hit firmly over the head with a hymn missal and befuddled by incense, I find myself entering "The Church" of Peter Gabriel.
What I gatecrash there is not, as might have been anticipated, an earnest analysis of old song lyrics, one punctuated only by a whip-round to aid flood and famine victims in Mozambique. Instead, it is what Mrs. Merton cheerfully would term, "a heated debate". The subject? Peter's head. Not what's happening inside it. Rather, what is or, indeed, should be happening on top of it. Eight years having passed since the last new solo recording was delivered, this is what it has come to...With no fresh songs to analyze or concerts to dissect, the subject of the Gabriel tonsure has become the chief talking point. And opinion, as they say, is sharply divided.
Says an Ann: "Sure, bald men give off pheromones. But those are naturally bald men! Shaving your head because you're going to go bald eventually is like killing yourself because you'll die someday."
Says a Beth: "Dear Peter Gabriel, we have followed your career for years, and listened to your music as it developed, savouring its maturity and complexity as you grew older. But your cutting all your hair off sends a discordant note. There's nothing wrong with ageing, and even less wrong with ageing gracefully. Also [a schoolmistressly tone asserts itself now] shaving your head must take a lot of time. Time that would be much better spent pursuing your many projects."
That's just the start of it. "Peter's obviously going thought a period in his life when he feels very insecure about his physical appearance" is the insight of male admirer. Counters another, tartly, "I'm sure that Mr. Gabriel has no insecurities, knowing that the body is just a disposable shell the soul inhabits for a short period." And so on. Well, what reply might the man in question make to these and the scores of other Church-goers eager to pass judgment on his newly peach-fuzzed pate. I hope for a "Mind your own business!" or a "Get a life!" but am disappointed. The star has always paid attention to detail, and detail is what interests him now.
"I'd contest the thing about shaving being time-consuming," he offers. "I don't want to do hairdressers out of a job but, for the man without too much on top, it makes much more sense to do it yourself. Takes less time, too. In my case, it's once a month, with my own clippers. The bald head stage isn't always so pleasant -- can be a bit sticky. Then there's the five o'clock shadow stage, which not every woman likes. Too prickly. But once it gets soft and furry, I find that they all want to stroke you. Which is good if you like that. And I do."
So wash and go, all of you Gabriel trichologists. Your hero has his own agenda in the matter. And how does he look? Well, some 15 years since I last met him, and even allowing for the flattering effects of a mellow Wiltshire twilight, I can say only that he seems especially well more solid than I remember, but some how serene. So, he will protest that he carries too much weight. And OK, the birthday he marked recently was his fiftieth. But contentment, or something close, is the expression he wears when walking me around his Real World studio complex. Is he then, and at long last, comfortable in his own skin, this outwardly gentle, beautifully mannered whose name has, variously and over the years, been synonymous with romantic upheaval, personal therapy and the compulsive philanthropic urge?
"More comfortable," he allows, smiling, pouring us each a glass of red wine. "And also more optimistic. Plus, I don't have the same need to be liked. Which, I think, is healthy for me. When did that leave me? Slowly, over time, during my forties. I'd entered them in bad shape, having just gone through divorce [after 18 years of marriage to Jill Moore, mother of his two daughters] and the break-up of another relationship [with the American actress Rosanna Arquette]. I hit my slough of despond and, through counseling, eventually crawled out of it. I can still get depressed, of course. But generally speaking, I feel lighter."
Even so, he would not describe himself as a good advert for therapy. "Medium-good, perhaps. Creative people, and those who achieve any sort of visibility in the world start off with more baggage than most, I'd say. Any achievement is in compensation for the stuff they need to deal with. The most visible people in the world are also among the most damaged. Not exclusively, bust as a rule."
A Charterhouse old boy who, for seven years, fronted a band formed there (Genesis, in its earliest, most prog-rock, lest Top 40 friendly incarnation), Gabriel seems both to have been programmed to achieve and to have obliged. His father, an electrical engineer with the television pioneers Rediffusion, helped to develop the world's first fibre-optic cable television system, a full three decades before couch potatoes everywhere became dependent on such technology for access to home shopping channels. "I grew up listening to him talk about that stuff. He was quiet, reflective. And my mum, by contrast, was impulsive and emotional. I'm the product of the both of them. From her, the compassion and the fire and, of course, the music. From him, the thirst for new ideas."
During a recent unofficial Genesis old boys' dinner, he became aware suddenly that he alone of those in the room had two surviving parents. He describes himself as being hugely grateful for the fact, and also fearful of the inevitable. "Hitting 50 has probably make me more death-conscious, and has reminded me also that relationships aren't just what they are; they can always be improved. In a strange, perverse way, it's comforting to have that awareness. I can't explain why. Perhaps because it wakes you up a little. Makes you try harder."
Gabriel has been spending more time with his parents holidays together and the like. Father and son took a week's break at a Devon hotel recently. "Just he and I and a yoga teacher. Fantastic! We really broke through some stuff." A song resulted, and will be included on the next album. Whenever that may be released The Church of Peter Gabriel knows better than to hold its breath.
But there is some new material to sustain the faithful. Not exactly a solo album, but not a mere side project either, OVO reaches the shops next week. With words and music by their Messiah, but featuring such additional vocalists as Elizabeth Frazer and the Blue Nile's Paul Buchanan, it comprises Gabriel's soundtrack to the centrepiece show held thrice daily within that beleaguered entity, the Millennium Dome. "A friend said to me about it, 'It's not often you're so closely linked with visible failure, is it?" he reports grinning. And had they been quietly gleeful? "Oh, I think so. Yes!"
The dream of creating a kind of artistic theme park somewhere in the world has been with Gabriel for yeas now; his father's son, he is a pioneer of the multi-media experience in pop. He, Brian Eno and Laurie Anderson pooled resources to help the backers of one such venture intended for construction within the former Olympic complex in Barcelona. In the end though, it came to nothing. So when set designer Mark Fisher sought him out in late 1997, asking for help with the then-fledgeling Dome project, Gabriel must have jumped at the chance. Actually, not. "I said, 'If it's just the music you want from me, then no. But if I get the chance to be with you within this big playpen and actually be involved in creating a show, then definitely.' I mean, how often do you get the chance to work on that scale and have someone else foot the bill?"
It is with trademark care and sincerity that he details for me his original concept for the piece. He had been asked to devise something that incorporated past, present, present and future, and which was broadly multicultural in reference a brief so gloriously vague and theatre workshop circa 1975-ish that it makes me want to giggle. "So at the beginning I had the idea of filling the place with a giant oak tree and..."
You old fool, I tell him. "Right!" he declares. "What a terrible old hippy I am!"
Logistical problems required the suspension of this particular idea at the acorn stage. Yet still, his enthusiasm for the project itself ran high. "Early on, I got very excited by the empowering possibilities of technology. I spoke to Peter Mandelson about it and said, "You've got to have a M campaign! M for Milliennium! M for empowerment!"
And did he reply, "But empowerment begins with an E?"
Gabriel laughs again. "No. He was just very polite and charmingly Mandelson-esque and shortly afterwards, went his own way."
Though the hired help found themselves unable to wield influence where overall strategy was concerned, at least they themselves remained free from excessive outside interference. Pragmatism may have been to thak for that. "Do you remember the French Bicentennial? Effectively, the nations credibility was entrusted to one man, one artist -- Jean-Paul Goude. And he came up with something incredible, something with humour, sex and style. In Britain though, we're afraid of artists. We won't give them full rein. So at the Dome, it all went by committee. A lot of the interesting stuff got ironed out. We were the exception to that, even if only because Mark [Fisher] was brought in late in the day and there wouldn't have been time to fire him hire someone else!"
I have to admit that I hated my own time at the Dome -- the dispiriting atmosphere, the sense of cultural weightlessness, the thin crowds endlessly circling. The show itself, though, I found oddly moving, particularly when I concentrated on specific details, rather than the confusing whole. The sheer endeavour of any one acrobat or another, say was breathtaking. And the interplay between Frazer's voice and Buchanan's was beautiful even on a Thursday lunch time, and when relayed at too low a volume over the PA.
"Good," notes Gabriel, nodding. "Thank you. Of course, the whole Dome thing is flawed. It has its weaknesses. It could have been done differently, and better. Think of it is a kind of Expo, and it's done a very good job. Think of it as a Disneyland or a Universal Studios type of experience, and it's very poor. Still, though, it's a beautiful building and represents a great endeavour by a great number of people. My hope now is that its life will be extended. I think that to keep it only for one year, as was originally intended, would be highly immoral. With so much public money invested it it already, it should remain in public hands. Every effort should be made until the content has been put right."
As a recorded work, OVO is not expected to rival past solo projects commercially. Gabriel last reached the Top 10 of the British singles chart 14 years ago, first with Sledgehammer and then with Don't Give Up, his duet with Kate Bush. But then a man interested only in maintaining his box-office draw would not be so active out of the spotlight, not would pursue such a diversity of business, charitable and other interests. Luckily, unlike some other artists of his vintage, he has the tools of self-production all around him. "I think I could occupy myself quite happily for the rest of my days, whether there remains an audience for what I do or not."
The bulk of his royalties from multi-million selling albums such as So (1986) and Us (1992) were ploughed back into the former flour mill that is Real World home not only to its attendant companies -- studio, record label, multimedia outfit but also to the Womad organisation. Gabriel lives nearby, and also in west London, with his partner of five years, Meabh Flynn, a costume designer. "She's a fiery Irishwoman. Very smart. Doesn't take a lot of shit. She's good for me." Meanwhile, his daughters, Anna, 26, and Mel, 24, are pursing arts-related careers of their own in New York.
Gabriel smiles when asked what sort of old man he might become: "I'd envisaged this enlightened old sage, at one with everything." He has noticed, however, a tendency towards the grumps, even to bitterness, among some contemporaries. "And maybe that's a better vision, to be a terrible curmudgeon, cussing and shaking your stick at everyone."
I can't see it myself. Too centred. Too concerned about other people. Not that there isn't a healthy streak of narcissism there. As I prepare to leave, he expresses interest in my print-out of the on-going hairstyle debate at the Church of Peter Gabriel. I hand the relevant wodge of paper to him and he slips it inside a jacket pocket. A little bedtime reading? Even, possibly, some food for thought? He strokes the contentious area fondly and then smiles a secret smile.
Thought you could read a Gabriel-related article and not have the Solsbury Hill Homepage Committee put its two cents in? Think again.
The bad news is that we go on another disorganized editorial rant. The good news is that we defend the honor of the Gabefans we feel may have been maligned here. Of course, we may be taking Jackson's comments way too seriously...but, oh well.
We felt Mr. Jackson did a pretty good job
on this article overall, and it was great that he put some focus
on the fans out there on the Web. But we have to take issue with
some comments. For starters, he took the Eve's "hair page" way too seriously, as if that
was the alpha and the omega for the Gabriel fan on the web (to
be fair, some of the hair page contributors took it too seriously
as well, but that's no excuse for Jackson).
Second, he chose to ignore all the deep, socially relevant material on the Gabeweb. On Eve's page alone there's the transcription of a profound conversation with Peter, the lyricomancy, Gabriel's views on interpretive dance, the FAQ pages. And, uh, we have the Gabriel's Political Views and an analysis of The Lamb, and this page, and this page and an Up Timeline and uh...all sorts of serious, relevant material.
[Jackson] "...more
evolved than the average man, woman or dog with a Shakin' Stevens
tattoo, certainly, capable even of giving Stings's supporters
a run for their intellectual and sociological money..."
"...instead, it is what Mrs. Merton cheerfully would term, "a heated debate". The subject? Peter's head. Not what's happening inside it. Rather, what is or, indeed, should be happening on top of it...This is what it has come to...the subject of the Gabriel tonsure has become the chief talking point."
Jackson is being kinda schizophrenic...first he praises the Gabriel fan as being of a higher caliber, even giving the Sting fans a run for the money (This is true. Us Solsburians met up with some Soul Pagers in a chat room once and a fight ensued. The Pagers wound up fleeing for their lives.) Then he makes everyone look shallow by his "Get a life" comments. See below...
[Jackson]"Well,
what reply might the man in question make to these and the scores
of other Church-goers eager to pass judgment on his newly peach-fuzzed
pate. I hope for a 'Mind your own business!' or a 'Get a life!'
but am disappointed."
Now, Jackson is being a little bit of a hypocrite here. First he chides the "Church-goers" for focusing on Gabriel's follicles (totally missing the tongue-in-cheek manner in which the topic was brought up), but then he rambles on about the topic of Gabriel's hairless state for half the interview, and titles the article "Dome Head".
Hey, Beth and Ann maybe were being trite, but they weren't making a huge deal about it, unlike some journalist did. They just thought they were making a comment on a page that presumably wouldn't get read by Peter (or appear in a magazine). And at least they wouldn't shove the physical appearance angle in Pete's face were they ever to meet him in person... unlike an uppity interviewer named Alan did. "Mind your own business/Get a Life" indeed!
[Jackson] "So
wash and go, all of you Gabriel trichologists. Your hero has his
own agenda in the matter."
Nobody suggested that Gabriel didn't have his own agenda in the matter, Mr. Smartypants Interviewer. One gets the impression that Mr. Jackson thinks this online "debate" shouldn't even exist, thus proving that Jackson doesn't "get" the nature of fan groups and the Internet. Debate and discussions, regardless of how trivial, even if it's about Tina Turner's toenails, is what we're here for!
Thank goodness Jackson didn't stumble across the alt.music.peter-gabriel newsgroup right after Gabriel performed at the Oscars. He would've walked away holding Gabefans in about as high esteem as we do of Phil Collins.
[Jackson] "Eight
years having passed since the last new solo recording was delivered,
this is what it has come to...With no fresh songs to analyze or
concerts to dissect..."
It's nice that someone acknowledges the fact that it would be great if Gabriel would give the fans some new shiny albums to talk about.
[Gabriel]"You've
got to have a M campaign! M for Millennium! M for empowerment!"
Between this and the "one, two, four" count-off on "Games Without Frontiers" we wonder if someone needs to reacquaint Gabriel with the basics of spelling and counting:)
[Jackson] "A
song resulted, and will be included on the next album. Whenever
that may be released The Church of Peter Gabriel knows better
than to hold its breath."
You can say that again. Can we get an "amen" here?
[Gabriel]"And
maybe that's a better vision, to be a terrible curmudgeon, cussing
and shaking your stick at everyone."
You don't have to wait until you're old to do that. We're like that now. It's great. We highly recommend it. We'll even mail Gabriel a good stick if he wants to try it out.
[Jackson] "Not
that there isn't a healthy streak of narcissism there. As I prepare
to leave, he expresses interest in my print-out of the on-going
hairstyle debate at the Church of Peter Gabriel. I hand the relevant
wodge of paper to him and he slips it inside a jacket pocket."
Perhaps this isn't "healthy narcissism" here, but perhaps Gabriel is open minded enough to listen to what the fans say about him, even if it's trivial or negative. There's a lesson to be learned here...
We're both happy and a teensy bit jealous
that The Church got this much deserved exposure. We wish Gabriel
would pocket a Hill page and stroke "the contentious area
fondly" and smile "a secret smile":) Then again,
Jackson may have also printed out and handed to Gabriel our little contribution to the hair page,
and we're not too sure if that's a good thing. We can envision
Gabriel, pajama-clad, sitting in bed poring over these papers
and fuming over the Giant Thumb comment. (Which doesn't even apply
to Gabriel anymore. Thumbs don't have beards.)