Steve Hackett
By: Lori Smerilson Carson | Photos: Michaela & Lee Millward
When Florida is the only U.S. state chosen to kick off legendary Guitarist Steve Hackett’s Best of Genesis & Solo Gems 2026 tour, it’s clear that this show is not to be missed. Starting with world-renown rock band Genesis in 1971, he helped create music that has span the test of time, some reaching Gold RIAA status, then continued making international hits with his solo records, the first released in 1975 called Voyage of the Acolyte.
This Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee is still displaying his extraordinary musical talents with new music for fans to keep an eye out for, but this month, Florida fans can see and experience (or re-experience) his history of music when he and his new band play at the Ponte Vedra Concert Hall in Ponte Vedra Beach on February 25, Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwater on February 26th, The Plaza Live in Orlando on February 27th and at Au-Rene Theater at Broward Center For The Performing Art on March 1st.
Catching up with Hackett just prior to the Florida shows, he revealed some details that he and bandmates Vocalist Nad Sylvan, Keyboardist Lalle Larsson, Bassist/Guitarist Jonas Reingold, Saxophonist/Flautist Rob Townsend and Drummer Felix Lehrmann will be performing, a bit about his music in general, his latest book read, and what fans can look forward to.
SFL Music Magazine: What inspired the new tour Best of Genesis & Solo Gems that you are only playing in Florida here in the States?
Steve Hackett: That’s right. I’m just doing that. I mean, I did two months straight last year in the States. Basically, the idea is that we’re going to do just a handful of dates culminating in Cruise to the Edge, and then at the end of that, I’ll be touring in other places. South America, and Europe and the U.K. of this year. Then the following year, we’ll be back to the States doing it properly as it were. It’s all set. There’s a new band. There are a couple of new guys in the band who won’t be necessarily familiar with a lot of this stuff. So, it’s early days for them. I’ve been playing this stuff for a very long time, but we have a new keyboard player. He’s an incredible virtuoso, but it’s a case of breaking him in gently with these shows. I’m sure the audience is probably going to know every note of these things. Especially the Genesis things, so there’s no way that you can bluff that. It just has to be, just so.
SFL Music Magazine: The last time we spoke you had just released the Live album (Live Magic At Trading Boundaries). We spoke about the show having a touch of THE LAMB LIES DOWN ON BROADWAY.
Hackett: That’s right. Yes.
SFL Music Magazine: Will this show also have some of the same, as well as other songs?
Hackett: This time it’s going to be a sort of best of Genesis and best of solo stuff. It will be cherry picking across the whole thing rather than doing whole albums. I mean, I have done whole albums. I’ve done the whole of Foxtrot, the whole of SELLING ENGLAND BY THE POUND. What I think of as the best of THE LAMB LIES DOWN ON BROADWAY, but now of course, I want to do some other things. As regards to Genesis stuff, I want to be able to do “Watcher of the Skies” again and “The Musical Box” and “Dancing with the Moonlit Knight”, “Firth of Fifth”, “The Cinema Show”. These sorts of things, and they are from different albums, different sort of eras. Plus, some of this stuff is important to me. I spend most of my life recording new stuff and that’s important. I’m working with a violinist tomorrow which I’m really looking forward to doing. I’ve also been working on an album with Steve Rothery of Marillion. We’ve done an album together, and that’s going to come out in June, so I’ve been busy doing that. So, lots of recording projects. Lots of stuff. There’s a California wildfire charity I’m getting involved with, with a whole bunch of other guitarists as well. I’m doing something for that. So, that’s going to be interesting. A lot of people who are great players are involved with that. I would say that was charitable rather than political. It’s not political, any of that stuff.
SFL Music Magazine: Is it an album or a show?
Hackett: Well, as far as I know, I’ve agreed to play on a track. Other than that, I don’t know whether that’s going to be part of an album or how it’s going to be served up. I don’t know. A show hasn’t been mentioned so far, and I think most of the guitarists are on your side of the water so, I’m sort of keeping up the English end.
SFL Music Magazine: That’s good! Well, I was just there in London and loved it!
Hackett: Oh, really, you liked it, but the weather’s terrible of course, you know. I keep speaking to people from Florida who say, “oh it’s so hot here.” I say, yeah, forget it. Over here It’s been raining excessively for days and days and days.
SFL Music Magazine: Other than the sunshine, is there anything else in particular that you are looking forward to when you come to Florida?
Hackett: Oh my God. Well, it’s a funny thing, but I seem to be very well suited to doing touring and doing shows. It’s civilian life that’s much more challenging. When you’re driving somebody just to the rubbish tip, the local rubbish tip and you find that all the roads are closed off and that they’ve diverted everything and all of that, and then you’re late to see your mother who’s just been put into a care home. Domestic life, civilian life. When you’re touring, you get driven, you get fed, you get flown, you get boated, you get all that and all you’ve got to do is get up and play and say, hello to folks! That’s it. But civilian life means, yes, got to go to the bank. You’ve got to go fix the car. You’ve got to do this, fix the cat’s boil. All that stuff.
SFL Music Magazine: Reality, right?
Hackett: Yeah, exactly!
SFL Music Magazine: I saw that you’re going to be doing the Cruise to the Edge again. The last time we spoke you mentioned your mother was looking to go on the cruise.
Hackett: Well, you know what? She was booked to go on it, and my stepfather, but COVID hit and it got canceled. I don’t think there’s going to be anymore Cruises to the Edge for her. I’ll just be happy that she attends occasional shows because she’s ninety-five now. She did have her leather jacket ready for that one, but unfortunately, we were blighted with that awful plague otherwise known as the pandemic, and so that was extraordinarily times. The best thing that can be said about that era of not being able to do shows was the fact that I tried to stay in touch with people by doing lots of videos and to sort of do teasers for new material, and the idea of oh, what tracks would you like to see when we’re finally allowed out again on the streets? Different times.
SFL Music Magazine: Are those ones that people will see at the new shows?
Hackett: Many of them. Yes indeed, yeah. Absolutely! It’s driven by fans. The things that they ask to see and hear, they will get. In many ways, they have selected the set list more than me. I aim to please. I’m not trying to educate. I’m not ramming anything down people’s throats.
SFL Music Magazine: Will you be doing anything different on the cruise than the four Florida shows?
Hackett: Well, I think it’s essentially the same show. There will be at least one new song that I’ve not released on anything as a sort of taster of some things to come and it’s something that features rock, orchestral, cinematic, folk, all of those things. It’s a song that I’m really firm with and I hope it’s going to be the first thing on the new album, but I’m working on some new stuff to tell you the past few days with another epic in the making, and I have to say the new stuff, well it’s tough to get to this point where you’re really excited about it. You think oh, yeah well, that was going to be the flagship but hey, maybe I’ve got another flagship here. I’ve got something else here that I think is equally thrilling. So, the new album promises to be really, really strong. It’s got lots of wide instrumentation on it. Things that you wouldn’t necessarily expect to find on a rock album, but in a good way because we yank it back to rock all the time. I want music to be as inclusive as possible. To include so many different styles and instrumentation, but to be a rock album and to be powerful. I think the production’s getting better all the time personally, but there we are.
SFL Music Magazine: Is that something that will be coming out in the next year?
Hackett: I think it will be out at the end of the year. I’ve got a feeling it’s going to be ready to come out probably end of September. That’s what I’m hoping for at the moment because I will be doing lots of touring and so that keeps me away from the studio, unfortunately. I could do with two of me to run around. One in the studio, one live. That would be good.
SFL Music Magazine: Will you be doing any live videos as well?
Hackett: Yeah, I think we will. I’m trying to remember which gig we’re going to be doing this time. We are going to be doing one and I can’t remember which one it is. It will probably be once the band is broken in a little bit more with the additional people.
SFL Music Magazine: Would it possibly be in Florida?
Hackett: No, I don’t think we’ll be filming in Florida because it’s too soon with the new arrivals. I think that it may well be that the audiences may not notice the difference, but to be able to nuance this stuff and be able to make it work so the band as second nature, once it’s been around the block a few times, then is the time to record it.
SFL Music Magazine: One of the new members is Felix Lehrmann, drummer, correct?
Hackett: Yes, Felix Lehrmann and Lalle Larsson who’s Swedish. So, Felix is from Berlin, German and Lalle is from Sweden. It means that I’ll have three people from Sweden in the band. There’s Nad Sylvan. There is Jonas (Reingold) who lives in Vienna these days, and Lalle Larsson. So, three Swedes and Rob Townsend lives in Denmark these days. So, it’s a kind of united nations of a band. I’m happy just to run that (he laughed).
SFL Music Magazine: The last time we spoke you mentioned reading autobiographies. Is there anything new you’ve been reading that you would recommend?
Hackett: Well funny enough, pretty much all the various stages of autobiography written by Rupert Everett have been very good. The actor Rupert Everett, they’ve been very, very good, and I’m reading some Beatles stuff I’ve never read before. Another huge book of stuff, and they’re all talking about their early years. It’s so funny the stuff I haven’t heard before. George Harrison talking about all sorts of stuff. Incredible sense of humor. I thought I’ve read it all, but I haven’t. Just reading about Ringo (Starr), his early years. He only attended school for about five years because most of the time he was sick in hospital, so he wasn’t expected to survive. This poor kid who became the world’s most famous drummer. That’s the way the cookie crumbles sometimes.
SFL Music Magazine: From your years of experience with Genesis and your own solo career, what would you say is the key to being successful, and what would you pass along to newer musicians?
Hackett: Well, oh my goodness. There’s so many ways to learn to play and sing and write and do all those things that we musicians do, but I think the only one that really is of sustainable approach throughout all the years that may be good to you or may be awful to you, is to just love all of it that you do and don’t be cynical about it. I think that the more that you give to music, chances are the more that it will yield to you personally. I’ve been very lucky, but I do subscribe to the notion that you make your own luck. The only way you can do that is by coming back to the tables. If it’s all a big game, if you walk away from the table, you will never win that winning hand. So, keep it up and enjoy doing it. Even if nobody gets what you’re doing for years and years and years I think it’s so important. I think that the only one that can really fail you is yourself. If you keep going, no one’s going to tell you it’s the right way or the wrong way. So, sometimes just waiting, biding your time, waiting for the moment, but working on your craft, appreciating others, listening and figure that anything that someone else can do, you ought to be able to do by hook or by crook, some version of that. So, I think Joanna (Hackett’s wife) was right. There’s nothing you can do that can’t be done. I would say that. If you really want it enough, you will achieve it. You will surprise yourself.
SFL Music Magazine: That’s excellent advice! Is there anything else new for fans to look forward to?
Hackett: I’m working on the new album at the moment. I’m working with a variety of different people since Roger King is retired. I’ve been working in the studio with Jonas. Also, an Italian keyboard player called Riccardo Romano who worked with Steve Rothery and myself on a new album. It’s going so well. It’s rather wonderful. I’ve also reconnected with Nick Magnus. We had been talking about doing some stuff together. He’s going to do an acoustic show on another cruising ship. A rather smaller one, but it will be a cruise along the Rhine (River). Michael Clifford of Trading Boundaries fame is going to host that one. I’m looking forward to working with him again because we haven’t worked live for many years, but I know that he’s going to be great at that. He’s re-recorded something that we did many years ago with new technology, and we’re going to put real instruments with it and everything. It’s going to be rather wonderful. When I do revisits, that’s kind of thrilling to add real orchestral instruments. So, it’s all going very, very well at the moment. I’m back in that position that I was in when I first did Voyage of the Acolyte where I’d been working with Genesis up to then and I hadn’t done any solo work, but then we did the solo stuff, and I fell in love with the process of recording all over again at that point. That was of course, oh my God, we’re talking fifty years ago for that. Now I’ve got that same feeling again with the new stuff. It feels like it’s just come on so wonderfully. It’s funny. Maybe I was leading a commando troop before. This feels like a whole army of sounds and it’s just wonderful. Symphony orchestras. I mean, drum choirs. All sorts of things. It’s thrilling! I’m working with some wonderful people at the moment, and it’s not done yet, but it strikes the way music works. I find often you can’t see any light at the end of the tunnel. Then you get an idea of a new brick that will go in the facade of the building and sometimes it just comes at the speed of well, here’s is a new brick and now tomorrow we have to wait for another brick, another few bars or a phrase or whatever. But what happened yesterday was quite thrilling mixing guitar player from Azerbaijan with a hurdy-gurdy and making that work together with drums and turning that into a whole kind of interaction of something that was a solo performance by guitar player Malloch to precede the arrival of a rock band playing in a Middle Eastern style. Something I’ve always loved I think ever since I heard Jeff Beck’s guitar solo on “Shapes of Things”, on the original of that. It seemed as if English music was never quite the same. The East beckoned. The Beatles utilized it. Of course, Led Zeppelin celebrated it. Genesis to some degree, but mostly myself. I suppose it’s a little bit like when Jeff Lynne was saying that they wanted ELO to be an extension of where The Beatles had arrived at with “I Am the Walrus”. I would say yes, an extension of all those times when English rock in the main went Middle Eastern. But to go back to that powerful thing, a sense of a march through unfamiliar terrain, but none the less, the strength of that. I’m trying to get it across. It's very difficult to use the English language to describe something that’s music and heavenly and mystical, and all of those things, but I’m trying to get it across.
SFL Music Magazine: Was there anything else you want to add for people to know about the Florida shows?
Hackett: Just really looking forward to getting out and being in front of people again. Once you’ve been sequestered for a while in the dark and the rain which is so much of English and European life, it’ll be rater extraordinary to be able to breathe some fresh air and see the sun. That funny light up in the sky that we English call the sun.
