Credit the illusion to Canada’s the Musical Box for going way beyond the realm of a mere tribute band, and operating as nothing short of a Peter Gabriel-era Genesis traveling repertory company, performing spot-on recreations of early Genesis shows—replete with authentic period instruments, costumes, stage sets, props, lighting, visual backdrops, set lists, and even stage announcements.

“There is an entire mythology surrounding the staging and Gabriel’s costumes and theatrics for the early Genesis tours,” says the Musical Box founder and musical director Sébastien Lamothe. “When we formed the band 15 years ago, we realized it wasn’t just about playing the songs, but about recreating the whole package. We want people to feel like they’re attending an original Genesis concert. But it’s more than just putting on a show. We’re trying to preserve something that has historical significance and musical and cultural value.”

Interest in Gabriel-era Genesis has only increased since he left the band in 1975, paving the way for the Musical Box to build up what is perhaps the largest fan base of any tribute-themed act. They regularly fill large venues such as Toronto’s Massey Hall and London’s famed Royal Albert Hall. Their scrupulous attention to detail has also earned the blessing of original
Genesis members Phil Collins and Steve Hackett—who have both joined the Musical Box onstage—and Tony Banks, who invited them to Genesis’ personal studio, the Farm, offering carte blanche access to archival pictures, soundboard recordings, and album master tapes.

In the Musical Box, you take on Mike Rutherford’s dual role as rhythm guitarist/ bassist. Were you able to acquire any of his original custom-made doublenecks?
No, but I’ve had very similar ones custom built. Originally, he actually took separate Rickenbacker bass and 12-string guitars and had them bolted together. For the The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway tour, Micro-Frets built him a custom instrument with a 12-string on top and a baritone guitar on the bottom. Before we did our recreation of The Lamb, I was able to study Rutherford’s original instrument and have a Montreal luthier known as “Luthier MF” make me a copy. For the acoustic sections, I’m using an early-’70s Eko 12-string with a vintage soundhole pickup. It’s not exactly what Rutherford used, but it’s very similar.

People often associate Steve Hackett’s leads with the guitar playing in early Genesis, but Rutherford and Banks’ layered 12-strings were the bedrock of the band’s sound in many ways.
Rutherford was a bit in Hackett’s shadow, but he and Banks were really the main music writers. Certain songs—such as “Cinema Show” and the beginning of “Supper’s Ready”—are just layers of 12-string guitar arpeggios. When we visited the Farm, we were able to unlock a lot of the secrets of the song arrangements by listening to the individual tracks. On “The Musical Box,” for instance, Tony Banks is playing an acoustic 12-string in standard tuning, while Rutherford plays an electric Rickenbacker 12-string in his own customized F# tuning—F# F#, AA, DD, F# F#, F# F#, F# F#, low to high, with the lowest four string pairs in octaves, and the highest two pairs in unison, but the first pair is in a lower octave. He would fret the A- and D-string pairs on the fourth fret, giving him ten F#s and two C#s. This was his version of a power chord, and you find it and similar voicings on many tracks. F# was a key that must have resonated with the band, because many songs from that era—“Watcher of the Skies,” “Supper’s Ready,” “Dancing with the Moonlit Knight,” and “Cinema Show”—are in F#, or have significant instrumental sections in F#.

Were there any other “Aha!” moments when you visited with Tony Banks at the Farm?
Sure. We knew that he used to run his entire rig—all his keyboards and his 12-string guitar—through a Leslie speaker cabinet, but our keyboardist, David Myers, couldn’t seem to replicate the sound. Tony told us that in the early days, Genesis was so broke that the band couldn’t afford to buy Leslie cabinets, so they built their own. Mystery solved.

What was it like playing with Steve Hackett and Phil Collins?
We wanted to be respectful, because we were asking them to relive a period in their lives that happened more than 30 years ago, and they’ve since moved on to other things. But they were perfect gentlemen about it. During rehearsals we’d ask them about a technical point, and it would trigger a memory of something they hadn’t thought of in years. They’d say, “Ah, we did used to do it that way didn’t we?” In a sense, we were reminiscing for them. For the actual shows, we only brought them out for the encores, because we didn’t want to detract from the overall vibe of the performance. We wanted to pay tribute to them without turning the concert into a spectacle.

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