Chris Stewart – Interview 2002

He was one of the protagonists of the early Genesis era. Chris Stewart played drums for Genesis and can also be heard on the first album. Chris has lived in Andalusia for a long time and is now also a writer. We conducted an interview with him in 2002.

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GNC: Let’s start at the very beginning. When and where were you born?
Chris: (laughs) That is indeed at the very beginning. I was born on March 27, 1951 in Crawley, Sussex, in the south of England.

GNC: What can you tell us about your family, your parents or siblings?
Chris: I have two younger sisters and my father was a merchant. Well, that’s basically it.

GNC: What was your childhood like up until the time you came to Charterhouse School?
Chris: It was free of worries and very family-oriented. We lived pretty quietly in the country.

GNC: When did you come to Charterhouse?
Chris: I was 13 years old, so that must have been 1964.

GNC: What were your first impressions of the guys who later became Genesis band members with you?
Chris: Well, before we became Genesis I hardly knew them. I knew Anthony Phillips. He and I were in the same house as Peter Gabriel and Tony Banks, who happens to share a birthday with me. But Tony and Peter were older than me and I didn’t dare speak to them. I kept a certain distance from them. Anthony was younger and we got on well together. We had the same sense of humor.

GNC: But how did the band come together?
Chris: Well, it was indeed difficult to get in touch. We lived in a house with about 60 other boys of different ages. We ate meals together, but you only ever sat with people your own age. You wouldn’t have dared to sit with older boys. These kinds of schools were very unusual. It was a strange, bizarre kind of education. I don’t think many people survived that unscathed, but I think we did. (laughs)

GNC: Almost all the Genesis band members who went to Charterhouse obviously have mixed feelings when they remember the school.
Chris: Probably none of us really fitted in there, with the exception of Tony Banks maybe. Tony was good. He was clever and musically very talented.

GNC: How did The Garden Wall come together and was it actually a real band in that sense?
Chris: Yes, I think so, but it was a long time ago. I can’t remember the details. It was a jazz band that played at school concerts and house events. I can’t remember who exactly played in the band – probably Peter. I’m not sure about Tony. Ant and I had nothing to do with it because we were a bit younger than the others. I think that was the beginning. It was the beginning of the hippie generation.

Jimmy Hendrix played in London. There was a lot of blues and soul. Peter was crazy about this kind of music and somehow he introduced us younger people to it. In the evenings we would listen to John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers or Peter Green for hours. Back then, we all wanted to be in a pop group. Little by little, something happened.

GNC: But that contradicts the previous information about the line-up of The Garden Wall, according to which only Tony, Peter and you were in the band. So you think that there were other people in the band?
Chris: Oh, Tony, Peter and me? Well, it’s not easy to remember. I don’t think so, no. I only played with Ant and maybe someone else on trumpet or saxophone. Maybe Tony was also there on piano. But I can’t say for sure. Peter played drums in The Garden Wall. I only joined later, when the band was no longer The Garden Wall. Peter taught me to play the drums so that he had his hands free to play the flute.

GNC: That would have been the next question – why didn’t Peter continue playing drums, but you did?
Chris: I played drums because at Charterhouse there was something called “The Corps” which was a sort of military cadet troop at the school. That was one of many oddities about boarding schools like that. Once a week or some weekends you had to play soldier. That was really awful. The best thing to do was to try to join the music group where you had to play the trumpet or the drums instead of doing all the ridiculous things the other boys did.

So that’s what I did. So I learned to play the drums and I was actually quite good. Peter then showed me how to drum to jazz instead of military rhythms. I really liked that. One day, Peter asked me if I wanted to be a drummer in his band so that he could concentrate on singing and playing the flute.

GNC: Do you remember the legendary school graduation concert in the summer of 1966?
Chris: A little, yes. I was so engrossed in my playing that I couldn’t stop. I was lost in thought and didn’t look around me. They finished the song, but I kept playing. So they played the final part again. But I still didn’t realize what was going on. Eventually they played the end three times before someone tapped me and said it was time to stop.

GNC: What are your memories of the founding phase of Genesis?
Chris: Well, I think Anthony, me, Peter and Tony and maybe someone else on trumpet did a gig for our house and Peter thought we were good enough to play some stuff he’d written. It absolutely wasn’t that one day we decided to form a band and be Genesis – not at all. It happened automatically over the course of several months. We were pretty excited when we finally went to London to start recording. When you’re a fifteen-year-old schoolboy, it’s pretty exciting to suddenly be on the verge of pop stardom.

GNC: Why did you become the drummer for Genesis and not Rob Tyrell, who was the drummer for Anon?
Chris: God knows why. You should ask the others. I guess because we had become friends. Rob was a good friend of Anthony Phillips and he was a brilliant drummer. He even had his own drum kit. I had only borrowed mine from Peter. It should have been Rob, because he was much better than me. Maybe Phil Collins would never have joined Genesis. Rob left school to make money as a drummer, which he did for many years until he couldn’t do it anymore because of an injury. So Genesis wouldn’t have fired him because he was a bad drummer.

GNC: In the founding phase of Genesis, many songs were written and some demos were recorded. Can you remember which songs were written when you were still in the band?
Chris: I played on The Silent Sun and That’s Me.

GNC: And what about A Winter’s Tale, One Eyed Hound or the early demos that are included on Genesis Archive Vol. 1?
Chris: The two singles – A-side and B-side – were the only thing I recorded with Genesis, so four songs.

GNC: Do you remember one of the following tracks: Try A Little Sadness?
Chris: Uh, I remember that we played it back then, but certainly didn’t record it – at most for a demo, but not for a release.

GNC: She Is Beautiful?
Chris: Yes, I remember that. I played that too.

GNC: Then a couple of demos from 1968: Hairs On The Arms And Legs?
Chris: (laughs heartily) I don’t think I played that song, but I remember the name.

GNC: The Mystery Of The Flannan Isle Lighthouse?
Chris: Yeah, very possibly I played the last two with them at school. We at least rehearsed them, but I can’t remember if demos were recorded.

GNC: Sea Bee?
Chris: Hm, no.

GNC: Hidden In The World Of Dawn?
Chris: Yes, I remember that.

GNC: A track called Hey?
Chris: Yeah, ok, hmm, I can’t say for sure about those tracks. I can only say for the first four.

GNC: Were you involved in the writing of the songs?
Chris: No, absolutely not. I was never good at writing music or lyrics. I just played what they wanted me to play and even with the drums I took advice from Peter because he was a better drummer than me.

GNC: Why did you leave Genesis?
Chris: They kicked me out. (laughs) Jonathan King decided that I wasn’t going to help the band with their future success. I just wasn’t a good drummer, and I had to keep going to school because my parents wouldn’t let me leave school for a career as a drummer. Jonathan King didn’t like me very much. He decided that I had to leave, and I did.

GNC: That must have been frustrating for you.
Chris: It was very sad, but I got over it – today, 35 years later, anyway. (laughs) It probably didn’t affect me as much as you would expect. I got £300, which was a lot of money at the time.

GNC: What did you get the money for?
Chris: They bought all my rights to the recordings with Genesis.

GNC: Is that why you are not listed in the credits of From Genesis To Revelation, even though you played with The Silent Sun, among others? After all, you would be entitled to a small share of the sales proceeds from that record.
Chris: The £300 was the end of it, and I never got any money after that.

GNC: Did you stay in touch with the band after John Silver joined Genesis for you?
Chris: No, I didn’t see any of them for many years. I met some of them again through Richard Macphail. Richard is a friend of mine.

GNC: So you stayed in touch with him?
Chris: No, but I met him by chance at a party in London ten or fifteen years after Charterhouse. I got to know the others again through him.

GNC: Were you interested in what happened with Genesis?
Chris: To be perfectly honest, no. I didn’t listen to any of their stuff. I just wasn’t interested in their music and I still haven’t listened to most of it. The last Genesis album I listened to was Trespass.

GNC: So the question about your favorite Genesis song or album is kind of over.
Chris: (laughs) That would be Trespass, the only one I’ve ever heard.

GNC: In 1998 you met all the Genesis band members at a dinner in London that took place after the Archive Vol. 1 promotions. What can you tell us about that?
Chris: I had a really good evening with some damn good food. It was great to see everyone again after such a long time. I met Phil Collins for the first time and spent most of the evening talking to him and Anthony Phillips. It really was a very nice evening. The food and wine were great and it was great to catch up with old friends. I also met Steve Hackett. We talked about guitars and he was interested in some of the things I know about flamenco.

GNC: Did you continue to play drums or another instrument after 1968?
Chris: I continued to play drums after Genesis. I was annoyed that I had missed out on becoming a rock star and worked very hard on my playing for a few years. I was in smaller bands and later became the drummer for a circus. We toured the north of England and it was a great experience. That was probably the zenith of my drumming. At the same time as I was learning drums, I also learned to play guitar, but soon gave it up again. It wasn’t until I started farming at the age of 21 and stopped playing drums that I started playing guitar again. I haven’t forgotten how to play the drums – I just don’t do it anymore.

GNC: Would you play with the band at a Genesis reunion concert if you were asked?
Chris: Of course I would – just for the fun of it. I don’t know any of their songs though. (laughs) At the dinner in 1998, Phil told me about a big band tour of Europe that he wanted to do, and then he wanted me to play a second drum kit alongside him. (laughs) I don’t know if he was serious – probably not.

GNC: But you still play the guitar?
Chris: Not professionally, just for myself.

GNC: Do you have a favorite composer or band?
Chris: I listen to quite a lot: Classical, jazz, a bit of world music, rock and folk. I like quite a few artists, but my all-time favorite is Jimmy Hendrix. In my eyes, no one has ever played like him again. I also think Peter Green is great. On the classical side, I really like Bach, which I play a bit of on the guitar – it’s great for relaxing in the evening.

GNC: What did you do from the time you were kicked out of Genesis until you moved to Spain?
Chris: I didn’t finish school with good results. Not only was I a bad drummer but I wasn’t very smart academically either. After that I played drums in various small bands and in the circus. At the age of 21 I started farming and turned to the guitar. In the early ’70s I studied guitar in Spain and came back to Spain very often afterwards. I learned how to shear sheep and earned my living as a shearer in England and Sweden for a long time.

I used the money I earned from shearing in Sweden to study guitar in Seville. This also gave rise to the dream of living in Spain one day. Later, I had my own flock of sheep in England and bred sheep. At some point I got married and went to live in Spain. That’s the story in a nutshell.

GNC: Let’s talk about your book, Driving Over Lemons, which was published in 1999 and has been quite successful. The German translation, Unter den Zitronenbäumen, has also been available since the beginning of 2001.
Chris: My doctor’s wife, who is German, said that she liked the German version better than the English one. (laughs)

GNC: The book leaves the exact time period of the plot open. What years are we talking about exactly?
Chris: We came to Spain in 1988 and the book describes our first five years, I think. So it’s about the years 1988 to 1993.

GNC: How did you get the idea to write the book and when did you start?
Chris: During the long period that I just briefly touched on earlier, I was also in China once. I wrote the China edition for the Rough Guide book series. I got to know the editors and they visited us in Spain about six years ago. They found my story interesting and liked the place where I live and thought I should write a book about it. So I did. They were in the process of splitting from Rough Guide to set up a new publishing house and the first book they published was mine.

I don’t know how many hundreds of thousands of authors are looking for a publisher. In my case, though, the publisher was looking for me. It took a long time to write the book because I wasn’t working on it all the time. Before that, I had only written travel guides like the one about China – but also others.

GNC: In the book, you write autobiographically about your life and that of your family and friends. Did you ever have any reservations about giving the world so much insight into your private life?
Chris: (laughs) Well, there’s nothing really private in it. I like writing a lot but I can only write autobiographically. I’m constantly surprised by the people who come here and know more about us than we do. It really happens that people suddenly turn up at the door.

GNC: What do you think of these people?
Chris: It’s a bit problematic. (laughs) It’s a bit of an invasion of privacy. On the other hand, I’m also flattered. So I’m nice to people. It’s eased off in the meantime anyway. It used to happen two or three times a week and we had people from all over the world here: Germans, Dutch, Italians, Americans and even Chinese. Yes, the book is also published in Chinese. It’s very flattering when someone from so far away comes looking for us and goes to a lot of trouble to come out here to our farm.

GNC: Did you ask your wife and friends for permission to write about them? How did they react?
Chris: I didn’t ask my wife. (laughs) She had to be part of the book. I spoke to everyone else who appears in the book about it beforehand. I only didn’t ask Pedro Romero in advance, but I told him later.

GNC: Did you ever meet Pedro again after he left El Valero?
Chris: Yes, we met again. It wasn’t that long ago and we became friends again.

GNC: Did you speak to him about the lies he spread about you and your wife back then?
Chris: No, that wouldn’t have been very diplomatic. (laughs) It didn’t matter. We are quite well known in our community. People know who we are and I think we’re quite well liked. I don’t think people here would take anything Pedro says about us seriously. I hadn’t seen Pedro for a very long time, but I was very pleased to meet him again. He’s an old man now.

GNC: How is he doing without the farm?
Chris: He’s doing well. He’s old and walks on two sticks. He lives near the city and doesn’t do much anymore. I think he misses the farm already. One day I might put him in my car to show him what it looks like here today. But he probably wouldn’t like it and would be very upset. Or maybe not. I had the machine here at the time to push the way to the farm. And I also wrote about it in the book.

I thought how bad it was to destroy the beautiful nature because of it. Pedro didn’t think it was so bad. He was more enthusiastic than me. He would probably even like everything. We live quite comfortably here now. But it used to be quite hard. It was absolutely marvellous to look at, but living like that was hell.

GNC: What is the level of comfort like in El Valero today?
Chris: We have no television and only solar energy as a source of electricity. But it’s a pretty good solar system. It’s light enough to read at night. We have running water from a spring. Even in the coldest winter, we heat the whole house with a single open fire. It’s very primitive compared to Western European standards, but we love it.

GNC: Has Driving Over Lemons been translated into Spanish in the meantime?
Chris: Unfortunately not. It has been published in many languages, but not in Spanish. I hope that will happen when my next book is on the market.

GNC: But has anyone who plays a role in the book read it?
Chris: Our Dutch neighbours have read it in English and Domingo’s girlfriend, who is also Dutch, has read him the parts where he appears translated into Spanish. But she said he wasn’t interested in the rest of the book. (laughs) Pedro Romero knows that the book exists and I told him that it had made him famous – famous as a chef. (laughs) People all over the world would now know who he is and that he is famous for his ‘papos a lo pobre’.

GNC: How did he react to that?
Chris: He laughed.

GNC: What has happened on El Valero since the end of the book?
Chris: (laughs) A lot of it will be in my new book. But as you can imagine, life has changed quite a bit. We were very poor for a long time. Of course, we didn’t come here to write a book. We just wanted to live here and didn’t really know how we would earn a living. Now we live from sheep farming, from growing olives and oranges and we also have a holiday home.

We survived, but we were never rich. Sometimes we lived on nothing but onions and potatoes for a long time. That’s no longer the case today. It’s easier for us and we can now do things around the house that we used to only dream about, such as painting or sealing the roof. There will be a lot more about this in the new book.

GNC: Do you already know when it will be released?
Chris: It’s due to be released in England in June 2002. I don’t know if it will be published in Germany. If the first book has sold well, you can normally assume that the publisher will also buy the rights to the second book.

GNC: You used to learn German. Can you still speak it?
Chris: (in German) A little bit, yes, but very little.

GNC: But that sounds very good.
Chris: That’s all I can do. I learnt German at school when I was fifteen years old. Later I studied German for a year in Altaussee in the Salzkammergut in Austria. I can still remember one or two things. I liked speaking the language. It is very appealing.

GNC: Do you know how successful Driving Over Lemons has been in the various countries where it has been released?
Chris: Not really. It was very successful in England. I was told that it was also well received in France. I was very pleased about that, because the French are very chauvinistic when it comes to foreign literature. It has also sold well in Finland. But beyond that, I don’t know how the book has been received in other countries.

GNC: How did it come about that Peter Gabriel’s commentary on the book is printed on the back?
Chris: It was my publisher’s idea. He thought a short review by Peter Gabriel on the back of the book would be something unusual, because he’s very well known and there’s this connection between him and me. And he’s not normally someone who does this often. I hadn’t seen Peter for ages, but as my publisher also knows Richard Macphail, who knows Peter quite well, Richard arranged it for us.

GNC: Driving Over Lemons has also been published as an audio book. However, some passages and even some chapters of the book are missing from the three CDs. Who chose which parts to leave out and wasn’t it a difficult decision?
Chris: I’m sure it would have been hellishly difficult for me to decide. I had nothing to do with that. The author never really has. The publisher has employees who do this work professionally. It’s a difficult job, but I think they’ve managed it very well.

GNC: You speak the text yourself. How did that work? Did you read the whole book and the relevant parts were left out later?
Chris: No, I only spoke the abridged version. But I spoke the whole book again for another company that publishes audio books for the blind. Audio books aren’t really that interesting. I don’t buy any. You only get very little of what the actual book contains.

GNC: But it’s interesting when, as in your case, the author himself speaks.
Chris: It certainly is, and it was really fun to speak it. My publisher came to me one day with the news that a company had bought the book to publish it as an audio version. Someone else should speak it. I suggested that I do it myself. I was told not to be so silly – it takes a skilled narrator to record an audio book. But I got my chance and they were delighted.

GNC: Are you happy with the way the lyrics were shortened for the audio version?
Chris: Yes, I am, because I wouldn’t have wanted to do it myself. I know that an audio book is never nearly as good as a printed book. But they didn’t do it badly. To be completely honest, I didn’t listen to it once after the recording was over. (laughs) I didn’t feel like listening to it again. It would just be too boring.

GNC: Your new book is coming out next. In your greeting for the fan club CD you already revealed that it will be called A Parrot In A Pepper Tree, right?
Chris: Yes. What’s it called in German?

GNC: A parrot in a pepper tree.
Chris: Ah, a parrot in a pepper tree. That sounds good in German. I think it sounds better than in English. (laughs) A Parrot in a Pepper Tree – yes, that’s the title. It’s about what happened here, but it also refers to earlier years. It tells the story of how I published a book so that a lot of money came in and I was able to change my life. It would be a lie not to write about it. I think the new book is quite good – a bit different from the first one, but there are similar elements. It’s now finished apart from a few finishing touches and I’m looking forward to publishing it.

GNC: What are your plans for the future?
Chris: I’d like to spend more time with my family here on the farm, play more guitar and write more books. I’m really into writing now. It’s been so much fun. I would like to get to know Spain even better. It’s wonderful to live here in the south of Spain. Andalusia is a wonderful region. Andalusia and Morocco are paradise for me. I would like to know more about the country and its people, read a lot about it and write about it too. That and my life here on the farm – that’s what my future might look like. We are currently in the process of planting a garden here and I’m really enjoying it.

Confucius says: If a man wants to be happy for a day, he should get drunk. If he wants to be happy for a week, he should take a wife. If he wants to be happy for a whole month, he should slaughter a pig. But if he wants to be happy until his last day, he should plant a garden.

GNC: Finally, we have our 5 trivia questions that we …
Chris: (laughs heartily) What is my eye color? Who is my favorite pop star? Okay, go ahead!

GNC: … that we ask every interviewee. What job would you like to do if you weren’t a farmer and book author?
Chris: I’d like to be a drummer in a rock band. Or no, I’d like to be a guitarist in a rock band.

GNC: What do flying ants do with their wings after landing?
Chris: I think they drop them. That’s a great question. There are a lot of these ants here and their wings are so big they can barely walk. They must be doing something with them. (laughs) So I guess they’re dropping them.

GNC: That’s right. Number three: What’s 9.48 trillion kilometers long?
Chris: Probably a beam of light from Mars.

GNC: That was close. It’s exactly one light year. Number four: How many times a year do penguins have sex?
Chris: (laughs heartily) 365 times – once a night.

GNC: No, only once a year.
Chris: Once a year – I hope it’s at least nice then. (laughs)

GNC: Who would you like to meet one day?
Chris: With a penguin – once a year. (laughs) Well, I think Helen of Troy would be interesting. But I’d even rather meet Nelson Mandela, who I think is one of the greatest men of this century. Maybe I will meet him in June. My new book will be launched at the Hay-on-Wye Literary Festival and Nelson Mandela will be there. So this wish may come true. I certainly won’t meet Helen of Troy there, but maybe Nelson Mandela, which would be something. (laughs)

Interview, transcript: Helmut Janisch, 2002 (carefully re-translated into English)
Driving Over Lemons is available on amazon