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MIKE RUTHERFORD
... A Brief History ...
Part Two 1988-2008
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In 1988,
following the massive commercial success of Genesis' Invisible Touch
album and world tour, Mike Rutherford returned to the studio to record a
follow-up album with Mike and The Mechanics, The Living Years. Like
the first Mechanics album, it was more of a guise f or Rutherford's solo
career than a true band, with the majority of the music again written by
Chris Neil, BA Robertson and Mike himself. One of the few exceptions to this
was "Black and Blue" which was actually a left-over sample of a track
demoed
during the last Genesis studio sessions for Invisible Touch. The
musicians assembled for this second Mechanics project included Paul Carrack,
Paul Young, Peter Van Hooke, and Adrian Lee, all of which played a
significant role in the success of the prior album and tour.
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As it turned out, the release was not an extremely dark album, but rather
slightly less commercial than what fans had come to expect in recent years.
Calling All Stations met with a cold response, selling only 109,583
copies in the United States. The weak U.S. album sales later resulted in the
scaling back and eventual canceling of the band's North American tour.
Genesis chose to carry on with a European tour using backing guitarist and
bass player Anthony Drennon along with Calling
All Stations session drummer Nir Z to support the new line-up in
late 1997 and early 1998, but the response from fans was significantly
less than that of their previous several tours. Shortly after the
conclusion of the tour, Banks and Rutherford notified Wilson that the
decision had been made not to record another studio album. Again, this
decision would remain secret for some time.
On May 11, 1998, former Genesis members Steve Hackett, Phil Collins, Peter
Gabriel, Anthony Phillips, and John Silver reunited with Tony Banks and
Michael Rutherford for a press conference at Heathrow Airport in England to
promote the Genesis' first box set, Archive 1967-1975. The box
set was released in June of that year, and included rare and previously
unreleased recordings. The collection sold a mere 35,237 copies in the
United States.
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Although the
album did not fare as well out of the box with the tepid commercial response
to the debut single, "Nobody's Perfect" (a Paul Young sung tune that peaked at
#63 on the Billboard charts), the follow up single would prove to become the biggest
hit in the Mechanics' history. The song, which was penned by Mike
Rutherford and BA Robertson over the recent loss of their fathers, and the
regrets that they had over the way things were left at the time, struck a
chord with Paul Carrack who lost his father at a young age. The end result
was the title track "Living Years" which skyrocketed up the Billboard
charts to #1 in the United States. Despite the level of success Mike
Rutherford had achieved both with Genesis and the Mechanics, this was only
his second #1 hit single following the equally successful title track from
Invisible Touch.
The success of the "Living Years" single drove the
album to #13 on the Billboard chart in the U.S. and eventually earned them a
Grammy nomination for Song of the Year. While the third single from the
album, "Seeing Is Believing" stalled at #62 on the U.S. charts, the momentum
caused by the title track and the popularity of the group's prior
self-titled effort fueled a very successful Mechanics world tour in 1989. |
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the box set, Banks and Rutherford enlisted former members Phil Collins,
Peter Gabriel and Steve Hackett to re-record a new version of the song
"Carpet Crawlers" from The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway.
While the track did not make the first Archive box set, it did
surface in October 1999 on the band's first sanctioned compilation, Turn
It On Again: The Hits. Turn It On Again reached the top five on
the UK album chart but failed to crack the U.S. top 40 chart. The
collection did, however, sell more than 500,000 copies in the U.S. earning yet another
gold album for Genesis. |
On
the latter part of that Living Years Tour, the band performed their cover
version of The Beatles "Revolution" which surfaced months later on the
soundtrack to the disastrous Cheech and Chong film Rude Awakening. Following
The Living Years album, the band released their first video anthology,
A Closer Look, which featured behind-the-scenes footage and the music
videos from their first two albums. The video surfaced on VHS and laserdisc,
but sadly to date has not found its way to DVD.
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1999 also saw the release of Mike Rutherford's sixth Mike and the
Mechanics project. The self-titled album (also known as M6)
featured the return of Paul Carrack and Paul Young on vocals who, by this
time, had both found a strong place in the Mechanics' songwriting
collaborative process.
Sadly, despite the album being
arguably the best of the band's career to date, the project was not released
in North America. The band still toured extensively in Europe in support of
the M6 album, including a number of sell-out concerts at larger
venues like Royal Albert Hall in London, England. |
The Mechanics
quickly returned to the studio to start working on a third Mechanics
project. Using the same musicians augmented with some additional studio
talent like Tim Renwick (who had toured with the Mechanics previously), Word of Mouth, started coming together. Despite this, the
project was not without its share of difficulties and unforeseen delays. Band members
Paul Young and Paul Carrack wanted more songwriting equality in the
Mechanics. Both were gifted, established songsmiths in their own right and
wanted more input into the creative process, which initially Rutherford
struggled with. While some songwriting control was relinquished, Mike also
brought in Producer Russ Titelman, which did not work out. Titelman left
roughly four months into the sessions under mutual decision that his
contributions were not what Mike was looking for.
To make things more complicated, sessions were delayed due to illnesses and
other personal issues pushing back the completion of the project. Due to all
of these unanticipated delays and the late completion of the third album, Mike
Rutherford was reluctantly forced to leave the Mechanics following the
recording of the Word of Mouth album to return to work on the next
Genesis record. This caused serious unrest within the Mechanics, who had hoped to
properly promote and tour in support of the Word of Mouth project. Ultimately, this
situation resulted in the departure of keyboardist Adrian Lee and, later,
drummer Peter Van Hooke.
The Word of Mouth album failed to achieve the level of commercial
success of its two predecessors, peaking at #107 on the Billboard charts in
the United States. The title track, which was the debut single, shared a
similar fate which was stagnant at #78 on the Billboard singles chart.
Follow up singles like the catchy pop tune "Everybody Gets a Second Chance"
and the soft ballad "Stop Baby" failed to chart. Whether it be because of
the sudden popularity of much darker, Grunge rock music from the likes of
Nirvana and Alice in Chains or the mere fact that the album never got the
support it needed, in the end, the project was deemed a major disappointment
on all fronts despite minor success with the title track in Europe.
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Unfortunately, the sixth Mike and
the Mechanics album and tour would be eclipsed in tragedy. On July 15, 2000,
shortly after the M6 tour had concluded, singer Paul Young died of a heart
attack in his home in England. As a result of Young's tragic passing, Mike Rutherford and Paul Carrack reunited shortly thereafter for a Paul
Young tribute concert along with former members of Paul Young’s other
noted band, Sad Café, in Young's home town of Manchester, England in front
of a sold out crowd.
The impact of Young’s death initially led surviving
Mechanics members Carrack and Rutherford to state that while the band would
continue, they will not tour in support of future efforts. This decision
would be one that the band would struggle with over the next few years.
Eventually, Carrack and Rutherford decided that Young would have wanted
them to carry on
with the Mechanics without him.
In 2000, Genesis released Archive #2 1976-1992. Like the first Archive
collection, this box set included rare and unreleased material. Also
like the first Archive box set, its reception was brisk with only
21,031 copies sold in the United States.
On September 21st of that year, Genesis members
Collins, Banks and Rutherford reunited with Daryl Stuermer at the Dorchester
Hotel
in London, England for a private acoustic performance in honor of their
long-time manager, Tony Smith, who was receiving the prestigious Peter
Grant Award for his accomplishments in the music industry (Peter Gabriel
was also in attendance, but did not perform).
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It had been four years
since Genesis released their next studio album, 1991's We Can't Dance. The
album was another record breaker for the group featuring five hit
singles and eventually earning multi-platinum status, selling in excess of
four million copies in the U.S. alone. Like their previous tour, the 1992
concert tour generated the highest average gross per venue of any act that
year. At this point in the band's career, Genesis was a musical juggernaut
and arguably had become one of the most successful acts in existence, if not
music history.
At
the conclusion of the tour, the band released their fourth live album, The
Way We Walk. The collection features two volumes sold individually.
The first part, The Shorts, which went gold in the U.S. selling more
than 500,000 copies, focused on the group's more pop-orientated songs.
Believe it or not, The Shorts also marked the first time the band
ever put their faces on the front of one of their albums. The second
volume, The Longs, sold only 260,351 copies in the U.S., and
included some of the band's more epic material (and a drum duet between Phil
Collins and Chester Thompson). |
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After several months of recording sessions and remixing in the studio, in June 2004, the
final Mike and The Mechanics album, Rewired, was released in Europe
and Asia (it was eventually released in North America in September 2005).
This time out,
Paul Carrack's name was also featured
prominently in the band's name signifying the equality of Carrack's role
in the Mechanics.
Despite the previous decision not to tour without the late Paul Young,
Rutherford and Carrack decided to tour Europe briefly in support of the Rewired
album, including a few European dates opening for Phil Collins in his
First Final Farewell Tour. In March 2005, Live From Shepherds Bush, Mike and the Mechanics first DVD
was released which captured the band on their 2004 Rewired European
tour. Just over one year later, Paul Carrack announced that he had formally
quit Mike and the Mechanics, ending the successful 20 year on again off
again partnership with Mike Rutherford.
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In 1993, Genesis reunited to perform at a charity concert co-organized by
Michael Rutherford in England. For this charity event, Genesis performed
along side of the equally legendary rock group, Pink Floyd. Unbeknownst to
the band or the audience, it would be the last time Phil Collins would be
performing live with Genesis in front of a public audience. Shortly after
the charity concert in 1993, Phil Collins informed Tony Banks and Michael
Rutherford that his personal life, solo career, and other outside projects
had become to difficult to manage around the band's schedule and tendered
his resignation as drummer and front-man. This news would remain a
well-guarded secret only shared with the closest members of the Genesis
camp. Tony Banks informed Phil Collins that the band would carry on without
him. Both Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford decided to take time off from
Genesis to work on outside projects before potentially looking for a new
lead singer and drummer for Genesis.
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In September 2005, Genesis released their seemingly posthumous 3-CD anthology, The
Platinum Collection, in North America. This new multi-disc 40-song
collection spanned the band's studio efforts from 1970's Trespass
through 1997's Calling All Stations. The release met with a weak
response in America selling only 65,328 copies, primarily due to the fact that the European
version was released almost a full year earlier in November 2004, and many
copies had been imported for U.S. sales.
In late November 2005, former Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett confirmed that
the band was to have a private meeting to discuss the possibility of a
Genesis reunion with the early 1970s line-up of Tony Banks, Mike Rutherford, Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins and Hackett.
The comments quickly circulated through out the media with everyone from Rolling
Stone Magazine to CNN reporting the news.
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 In 1994, Mike
Rutherford returned to the studio for the fourth Mike and The Mechanics
album, Beggar On A Beach of Gold. With the many changes that
transpired after the Word of Mouth album, Paul Carrack and Paul Young
both were given a little more creative input in the making of the
latest project. The Mechanics were a true band in every sense of the
word now. Unfortunately, despite the minor commercial success of
single "Over My Shoulder" in Europe, the album lacked any commercial
recognition in North America, much like its predecessor.
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 The
news was quickly squashed by Peter Gabriel in December of that year, and
Genesis' management released an official statement that there were no plans
for a Genesis reunion in 2006 - however, there was no denial that talks had
or were still taking place. Many fans have speculated that 2007, the band's
40th anniversary, seemed like an obvious time for a potential reunion. |
After
a European tour in support of the Beggar
album, The Mechanics returned with Hits,
a collection spanning their first four studio efforts and one new track, a
remake of their hit “All I Need Is A Miracle” sung by fellow Mechanic
Paul Young. Atlantic Records, the band’s U.S.
record company, opted not to release the compilation
due to the weak album sales of Word of Mouth
and Beggar On A
Beach
of Gold and consequently dropped the band from the label
(Hits eventually saw a North American release in 2005 on the Rhino
label).
The
Mechanics once again hit the road to tour in support of the Hits
album in Europe. Following the Hits tour, Rutherford, Carrack and
Young went their separate ways to work on outside projects. Rutherford used
the time away from the Mechanics to return to Tony Banks in the hopes of
identifying a new lead singer to replace Phil Collins in Genesis. |
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On November 7, 2006 in London and on March 7, 2007 in New York City, Genesis
held press
conferences announce an official 2007 reunion tour with members Tony
Banks, Phil Collins, and Mike Rutherford accompanied by long-time touring
members Chester Thompson and Daryl Stuermer, bringing back the vastly popular
late '70s to early '90s line up of Genesis. The tour included 48 shows (23 European
shows and 25 North American shows), climaxed with a free concert at the
Circus Maximus in Rome, Italy, in front of an estimated crowd of 500,000
people. The Genesis tour earned $129 million worldwide, making it the
second highest grossing tour of 2007. |
No announcement of Phil Collins' departure from Genesis was made public until March 26,
2006 when Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks announced the news for the first
time.
Banks and Rutherford confirmed that the search was on to replace Collins
who, like Peter Gabriel before him, left very "big shoes" to fill.
When he heard of Phil's departure, Chester Thompson contacted Mike
Rutherford about permanently taking over the drummer's chair. Much to
Chester's disappointment, the
band opted not to add any additional permanent members of the group,
splitting drumming chores between two session players, Nick D'Virgilo and Nir
Zidkyahu. Rumors began to spread wildly about Phil Collins resignation
and who would replace him. Fans and magazine writers speculated everyone
from fellow Mechanic Paul Carrack to Fish (formerly from the
progressive Genesis influenced band, Marillion) to the return of Peter
Gabriel... Obviously, none of which were true.
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In conjunction with the tour, in April 2007, the band released a 10-CD +
DVD box set called 1976-1982, featuring newly remixed and
remastered stereo and surround sound versions of the studio albums from
that era along with rare video, period music videos, and new interviews
with the band on each album. In September 2007, Genesis released Turn
It On Again: The Hits - Tour Edition, an expanded double disc
limited edition version of the album, which surfaced at the start of the
North American tour (it was released in Europe in June at the start of the
European leg of the tour).
The second Genesis box in the series, 1983-1998, included comparable material from the
studio albums from this period, and was released in November 2007. A third
such collection is anticipated for release in September 2008 featuring the
studio albums recorded between 1970-1975. |
On June 6, 1997, Banks and Rutherford officially announced that Collins would be
replaced by ex-Stiltskin vocalist Ray Wilson. Wilson h ad already
earned success in his own right with the Stiltskin single "Inside" which
had climbed to the top of the charts across Europe.
In September 1997, Genesis released what would be their final studio
album, Calling All Stations. Rutherford touted that the new album
would be "darker" than that of more recent projects, leaving fans to believe
that the project would
be reminiscent of Genesis' sound in the 1970s.
GENESIS In 1997: Rutherford,
Wilson and Banks |
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November 2007 also saw the release of Genesis' sixth live album, Live
Over Europe, which featured recordings from various nights of the
European leg of the tour. Live Over Europe peaked at #44 in Europe,
but did not fare as well in the North American charts. This release will be accompanied by When In
Rome, a video release recorded at the Circus Maximus concert in Italy.
The video is anticipated for release in May 2008 on DVD.
While no one knows what the future holds for Genesis, the band has chosen to
leave the possibility of further activity an option. Mike Rutherford
continues to write and record music; however, he has not released a new
studio album since Mike and the Mechanics disbanded. One can only hope that
a new solo project from Mike Rutherford will surface in the years to come.
Along with Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford remains one of
the most commercially successful solo artists in the world of Genesis.
David Negrin,
March 2008 |
Special thanks to Mike Rutherford, Tony Smith, Paul Carrack, WEA,
Billboard, the Recording Industry Association of America, Armando
Gallo, and
anyone else who in some way contributed to this brief biography. This
biography on Mike Rutherford is © 2008 by David Negrin. All rights reserved.
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Click here to read part
one
of the Mike Rutherford biography: 1950-1987
Click here to return to
the Discography Index |
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