A collective musical vision

As a group that in the past influenced David Bowie, Mars Volta and Paul Lydon's Public Image Limited, Van Der Graaf Generator has always been a leader of personal expression in progressive rock rather than a follower of its trends. Early Pink Floyd may have set the cosmic key for much that would follow, but it was prog rock's second wave, which included King Crimson and Van Der Graaf Generator, that consistently matched existential lyrical themes with simultaneously jarring and beautiful music.

Speaking of his band's ability to keep the sparks flying, VDGG's co-founder and lead singer Peter Hamill tells The Prague Post, "We have never done music for anything other than its own sake, and that continues. You can say we are honest, and honesty will always help to keep things vital!"

For VDGG drummer Guy Evans, this vital journey began in jazz. "My parents ran a big band," he recalls. "So my most formative years were spent in a home filled with the sound of hot imports from Miles Davis and Charlie Parker." As the music of the late '60s bloomed, though, Evans moved away from jazz. The reasons, he says, "were part reality check, and part hormonal. I was never going to be Elvin Jones, and I realized that girls responded far more to a fat backbeat than a great flam-paradiddle. Besides, rock 'n' roll was getting exciting and electric, so I went with the flow. Then came the Beatles, electric R&B, Motown and psychedelia, so it was really a case of keeping up. But I always kept one ear in the jazz camp."

Outside of VDGG, Evans has always been a musical nomad. "Over the years, I've played country-rock, African styles, trancey-dancey stuff, take-no-prisoners improv, pure sonic assault, Japanese classical and Celtic music," he says. "Twenty-five years ago, I set up a group called Echo City with a bunch of other like-minded musicians. We perform on giant, self-made instruments collectively known as sonic playgrounds. I also play in an occasional psychedelic rock outfit called Subterraneans. They've all revealed different musical secrets."

Even though he is considered a historical icon in a genre associated with Moog workouts, VDGG organist Hugh Banton confesses, "I very rarely venture into synth territory." As a pipe organist since the age of 13, he has internalized the likes of Messiaen, Dupré and Reger enough to adequately expand VDGG's sound far beyond the occasional Baroque riff. Banton, who now also builds custom organs for churches, was legendary in the '70s for hacking his keyboards. Recalling one early Hammond B3 surgery session, Banton says, "I suppose the most radical thing in 1972 was to split the internal circuits so that I could separately add effects - fuzz, echo and so on - to one manual and not the other, and to amplify the bass pedals separately." Nowadays, for touring, he has harnessed sampled pipe organ sounds while trading in his B3 for the new Hammond XK-3c, which he claims "has cracked that [Hammond B3] sound at long last."

From their George Martin-composed anthem "Theme 1" to the dynamic angst of 1975's Godbluff, listening to VDGG in the '70s was like drinking the finest champagne of rock 'n' roll's most artful potentials. Since 2005, VDGG has been enjoying their third reunion, combining Hamill's emotional singing with Banton's cosmopolitan keyboard work and the well-traveled avant-garde drumming of Evans. As a power trio in recent years, VDGG's performances have satisfied audiences from Manchester to Moscow with both rearranged classics and potent new work. Listening to the tight dynamics on their 2008 CD Trisector (on Virgin), it's evident that VDGG is as focused as ever on a collective musical vision. As Hamill describes it, their vision is "driven by our own history, by the job of living up to that and not faking it in any way."

Darrell Jónsson can be reached at
features@praguepost.com