Dave Kerzner – Interview 2025 (The Lamb and other projects)

Dave Kerzner has been part of the Genesis cosmos for quite a while now. He helped with gear setup during the preparations of the Turn It On Again Tour in 2006 and 2007, then he worked with Simon Collins and was the driving force behind Sound of Contact and their album Dimensionaut. Both also appeared on Steve Hackett’s Genesis Revisited II album. Kerzner also purchased some equipment from the Farm studios and for a long time, he had the idea to put together a tribute album for The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway. In March 2025 we took the chance to discuss this project and his other projects in an interview. The interview was conducted by Andrew Head via Email:

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Genesis News Com: What was your interest in music growing up? Did you start playing keyboards at an early age and what led you to interest in prog and especially Genesis?

Dave Kerzner: I took piano lessons when I was around seven years old. But, as I grew older I was turned onto various rock bands by my neighbor who collected records and had an incredible stereo system. In the early 80s, I saw Kansas perform live and saw the Turn It On Again video and realized I wanted to play synthesizers. I started reading Keyboard magazine and listening to all the Genesis albums that came before Duke. I was totally into it. They were and still are my favorite band.

GNC: What were favorite albums and do you prefer an era or are you into all their eras? Peter, Phil, Ray..

Dave: I really like every album from Trespass to Abacab. The albums after Abacab have individual songs I like, but, they don’t have the same full album appeal to me like the ones from the 70s and early 80’s. I like the Phil era just as much as the Peter era. I don’t love Calling All Stations, but, I do think Ray is great and there was untapped potential with him which you can hear on his subsequent solo material. Also a nice guy. We’ve talked about possibly working together.

GNC: What is your favorite Genesis “moment” and have you seen them live?

Dave: I’ve seen Genesis live on every tour since the Mama tour. Of course I wish I had seen earlier tours, but I was too young. I did get to see the very last shows of both the 2007 tour and their most recent final tour. I have many favorite Genesis moments so it would depend if we’re talking about a musical moment or personal experience. If it’s an experience, I would say sitting in on their rehearsals for the 2007 tour and taking a picture with the band.

GNC: When did you become “serious” about writing and producing your own music and was there a time when you knew that this was what you wanted to do with your life?

Dave: When I was 14 I bought a high quality 4-track recorder and all throughout High School I wrote songs and recorded my band. I played the producer and keyboardist. The only thing I didn’t do until much later was take on the role of lead singer and front man. I didn’t even know I could do that back then. But, production, arrangement and songwriting was always something I gravitated toward naturally. I knew even back then that this is what I wanted to do in life.

GNC: Tell us how Sonic Elements came into being and how has this influenced your music career?

Dave: Sonic Elements is essentially the musical side of my company Sonic Reality which does sound development for keyboard and software manufacturers. I started Sonic Reality in the mid-90s and have sampled sounds for famous music artists like Madonna, Crowded House, Tom Waits, Smashing Pumpkins and others as well as for major companies like Roland, Yamaha, Steinberg, Apple, Propellerheads, Native Instruments and especially IK Multimedia who I partnered up with in 2002. After sampling legendary drummers like Neil Peart of Rush, Jerry Marotta from Peter Gabriel’s band and other musicians and producers like Alan Parsons, Hugh Padgham and Nick Davis, I decided to make a project and label called “Sonic Elements” to be creative with Sonic Reality sound library content and have some fun paying homage to some of my favorite music growing up.

GNC: I know you’re an avid collector of vintage keyboards and equipment, tell us a little about your collection and some favorite pieces?

Dave: It’s actually part of my job as a sound developer to collect and sample instruments. I don’t always keep them forever. A lot of times I’ll sell or trade them to get other instruments to own for awhile and sample. There are certain instruments I like to use in my music that I’ll keep around. Others are around temporarily. Then, there’s the keyboards I bought from Tony Banks that I not only love as instruments but their specific history means a lot to me. I own bits of Tony’s Lamb and Abacab rig as well as his Arp 2600 that he used in the late 70’s.

GNC: Was it through Sonic Elements that you have met some of the people who appear on your albums?

Dave: I’ve met a lot of musicians via Sonic Reality and IK Multimedia who make tools musicians love to use. I have also had the chance to work with many of them for the first time through the Sonic Elements music project. For instance, my first session with Fernando Perdomo, who is now the main guitarist in my solo band, was on a cover of Digital Man by Rush that I did with Billy Sherwood. That hasn’t been released yet but it will be along with a version of YYZ I did with Steve Hackett and Keith Emerson.

GNC: Before this current Genesis project, what has been some of your other solo and band incarnations?

Dave: The bands I’ve been in are Kevin Gilbert’s Thud, Sound of Contact with Simon Collins, Mantra Vega with Heather Findlay, In Continuum, Arc of Life with members of Yes and I do solo albums under my own name. I have side projects like Squids Out To Sea and various things in the works. There’s always something musical going on and so much of it hasn’t yet been released.

GNC: You have been a strong advocate on artist getting a fair deal from streaming services, where do you see the industry moving in the future and what would you like to see change?

Dave: I could say a lot about this and I have. What I would like to see are international laws or at least some big market territories putting rules in place that would prevent the highway robbery that has been occurring since Spotify’s unfair business model of streaming and paying tiny royalties started that trend with others that followed. They’ve effectively cripled the music industry because only the artists who stream in the millions make any money from it. Indie genres like Prog typically cannot recoup an album’s budget from the royalties they pay.

They don’t seem to care or have any conscience about it. Daniel Ek is worth billions while his company, Spotify, pays the artists a pittance. It’s disgusting. He and all the others should be required by law to pay fairly or at least operate with business practices that don’t exploit the artists. That’s what I’d like to see. Will it happen? Who knows?

GNC: Do you think AI will make an impact on the industry of the future and if so, how?

Dave: Probably. I’m not a fan of AI-generated art or music. But, AI can be useful for creative tools as long as it isn’t used to take the place of human creativity. I’m very concerned about it being used irresponsibly or in ways that diminish what humans can do. We’ve seen all that can happen with AI in science fiction yet we go toward it full steam ahead. That’s what worries me.

GNC: Are there any artists that you haven’t worked with so far that you really would like to?

Dave: Of course! But, I don’t have to. I’m not greedy. I’ve already worked with some of my favorite music artists. I’d love to co-produce a Tony Banks or David Gilmour album! There are many things I would love to do if the opportunity presented itself. In the meantime, though, I am content just working on my own music. It’s my favorite thing to do and when doing that I go with what flows and collaborate with who seems to fit musically and in other ways.

IT- A Celebration Of The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway

GNC: OK, on to your latest Collaboration, What is the Genesis (pardon the pun) of this new project and how did it come about?

Dave: In 2009 Nick D’Virgilio did a tribute to The Lamb with a project called Rewiring Genesis. On it, he sang lead, played drums and our mutual friend Mark Hornsby co-produced and engineered it. They decided to use an orchestra instead of the synthesizers and keyboards you’d expect to hear on Genesis music. I thought it was great, but, I said to them that I wondered what it would sound like with keyboards.

I also thought it’d be cool to morph what they did into a tribute that sounded like it was a film soundtrack by embellishing the orchestra with my Sonic Reality orchestral sounds, the same sounds Tony Banks uses to mock up his classical albums by the way. So, in 2011 I licensed a bunch of these elements like drums, voice and orchestra from Nick and Mark to create my own tribute and that was the genesis of “IT”!

GNC: Tell us about your selection of artists appearing with you and what is your relationship with them?

Dave: The lead singer on the album is Francis Dunnery of the band It Bites. He’s an incredible singer and guitar player who really gets Peter Gabriel and Genesis like no one else I’ve ever heard. We’re also good friends. I’m friends with pretty much everyone who plays on the album. Nick D’Virgilio, Billy Sherwood, Fernando Perdomo, Martin Levac, Steve Rothery, Roger King, Ian Benanou, Matt Thomas, Dave Schulz, Stan Cotey, Dan Hancock, Lee Pomeroy… They’re all really great musicians who happen to be cool nice people I enjoy seeing when I get the chance. Each of them have their own success yet they share a deep love for Genesis with me.

GNC: How did you approach this? Did you want to remain faithful to the album or did you want to put your own spin on it?

Dave: Both. In my opinion, Genesis is a tricky band to cover. It’s very easy to do something that cheeses it up or ruins it. Like, if you sang certain Genesis songs with a Dennis DeYoung style Styx vibrato it wouldn’t work, at least not for me. So, certain elements I wanted to be very authentic sounding to the point where it could almost pass for a version of Genesis if say one or two of us had joined the band.

Ironically, Nick D’Virgilio DID play with Genesis on Calling All Stations and Francis Dunnery had also auditioned to be in Genesis at that time as well. So, it’s not that hard to imagine how they’d sound playing with Genesis and this album is a good example of how I would sound if I co-produced Genesis since I approached it creatively with the same level of intensity and depth as I would if I was in that role. But, I did have to put my spin on it because I see little point in trying to recreate it exactly. There are already great tribute bands who do a fine job of that such as The Musical Box, Genetics in Argentina or The Genesis Show and others.

We’re not a tribute band trying to compete with what they’re already doing. We don’t have a Slipperman outfit for example. Haha. Each of us was taking time away from doing our own music to pay homage to this great band and album. So, to give it something more than just being a carbon copy, I re-imagined it as if it was a broadway stage production with full band and orchestra OR as if it was a symphonic rock film score to a film that was never made.

GNC: Were you mindful of the original concept album and how fans of the album were going to receive it?

Dave: Naturally yes. But, being picky fans of the album and sticklers on certain things ourselves helped us understand that perspective. For instance, there are keyboard sounds some would use that would make me cringe. So, while I’m picky about keyboard sounds, Francis is picky about vocal phrasing.

What I love about him vocally on this is that he sounds like Peter Gabriel meets Phil Collins and yet still somehow like him. He never sounds like some dude trying to imitate Peter Gabriel like a tribute band would. No, if you already know the incredible albums he did with It Bites like Once Around The World, this is just Francis Dunnery doing it the way he’d do it and he already sounds like Gabriel and Collins in the first place. His voice has characteristics of both but a lot of his own character as well. I am actually surprised Genesis didn’t grab him and Nick D’Virgilio to be in Genesis. It would have sounded a lot like this!

GNC: What are your favourite moments on the album? (original and your version)

Dave: I love the whole original album. It’s brilliant as it is. You can’t really improve classic rock albums like that per se. The original is embedded in our minds and untouchably great! But, you can enhance the songs, arrangements and production  if you’re tasteful about it and I feel good about the places where we took liberties. For example, on their original version of Chamber of 32 Doors it ends with the vocal “take me away” and then Tony plays a little high chord on the piano and that’s the end of side 2! Nothing wrong with that, but, it’s probably the least grandiose ending for a Genesis song they’d ever done! Think about all of those lush outros to songs like Entangled and so many others.

So, if I was the co-producer or musical director for an imaginary 50th Anniverary 5-man band reunion of them performing The Lamb with an orchestra, something fans could only dream of actually happening, I would have suggested what we did which is an instrumental tag that comes back in after “take me away” with a long fade filled with mood and emotion. That fits well with the lyric too if you think about it. That could be my favorite moment on this album because right there and a few other places you can hear more my Genesis-influenced next generation style that you hear on Sound of Contact, In Continuum and my solo albums.

Our version of The Waiting Room has some moments like that too. But, they only happen when it’s appropriate. Never in place of something crucial from the original such as a melody or sound you expect to hear. Even down to the thwak of timbales or roto toms or a ride bell or a Mellotron. Although when a melody is great and it feels like it could be repeated I’ve done that as well such as the end line from The Light Dies Down On Broadway or the solo on Riding The Scree where I am trading back and forth between the synth and orchestra. I love both the original album and our album.

The moments I am most proud of on ours are where we dared to change anything about it and got away with it without disrespecting the songs. What we did I feel shows a deep love for the songs and an appreciation for their melodic elements and musicality.

GNC: How challenging was it for you to record?

Dave: It wasn’t as challenging to record as it was to arrange and mix. But, to produce it and do all the keyboards was a bit overwhelming for me. At a certain point I thought to myself “why only have non-keyboardist guests on this? Why not ask some of my keyboard playing friends if they’d like to be part of it and it’ll be a bit less work for me?” That’s when I invited Roger King who plays with Steve Hackett, Ian Benamou who plays with The Musical Box, Matt Thomas Overdrive who plays with The Genesis Show and Dave Schulz who has played with bands like Berlin to play keys on a few tracks. I still took care of most of the keyboards on the album, though, and it was a lot of work. But, even more work was the  mixing of band with orchestra.

GNC: Where was the recording made and were you all together or did you put the album together remotely?

Dave: Everything from the time I started on this was recorded remotely. But, the original orchestra tracks were often groups.

GNC: Tell us about the keyboard rig you used for this album and how does today’s keyboards compare to what Tony had available in 1974?

Dave: I used a combination of my samples in IK Multimedia’s SampleTank 4 plug-in (some I’ve released and some I have yet to) as well as my Arp ProSoloiost and Tony’s old RMI, Mellotron and various other things. Both myself and the pianist guests like Roger and Dave all used IK’s Pianoverse which is amazing for realistic piano sounds. I probably used some of my other keyboards too. Working on an album on and off for 15 years does make it difficult to remember everything. I love a combination of what modern keyboards and samplers can do with the original keys Tony had in 1974.

This album is a good example of how they can reside together side by side even along with an orchestra. In other words, there’d be times where I’d blend Mellotron violins with real strings or a Tron choir with a real choir like on Silent Sorrow In Empty Boats. That’s what I mean by enhancement. You hear the classic beautiful haunting sound of that Mellotron we all love from the original but there’s more to it now on this. You hear these beautiful female voices on top. That was mostly Kat Bowser who sang with Mark and Nick. But, they never used the Mellotron.

To me, combining both on that and songs like The Lamia where the sirens are women it gives it a female sounds that Genesis never did on the original. I tend to incorporate female voices in a similar way Pink Floyd does. I even have Durga McBroom who used to sing with Pink Floyd in my solo band. So, where I felt it was most appropriate I would blend real voices and symphonic elements with those vintage keyboards.

GNC: How did the other guys on the album approach their parts? Did they really give the original album a study or did they prefer to apply their own “take” on it?

Dave: If this was my solo album the guests would have a lot more freedom to be creative. There were some strict rules and a framework to do their parts. There were also often “placeholder parts” where someone like Roger King’s task was to replace the current piano part on Anyway with his performance. There’s not much room to change it. When Dave Schulz played piano on Carpet Crawlers he asked me if I’d be cool with a sort of Beatesy piano intro. I listened to it and told him I’d be ok with it if he and I also overdubbed iconic arpeggiated parts because they’re such a big part of the vibe of the song. To me, the arpeggios kind of represent the multitude of crawlers.

So, I had tight reins on where anyone could get creative and change anything only because the nature of this album and the potential sacrilege you could run into. But, right when I thought I was almost too picky about it, Francis would listen to a song and say “No the guitar player can’t play that! He has to respect this melody Steve did and oh I’ll just do it hang on” and I’d get another cool guitar solo from Francis just because he was being a perfectionist. Then he’d do it in a way that wasn’t exactly like what Steve Hackett did, but, it was in the ways it needed to be and different in ways it could be without a listener raising an eyebrow or being distracted.

GNC: How will the project be released? Physical and digital media?

Dave: On CD in two versions. The standard 2 CD version has 25 tracks. We added a few compared to the original. Mostly orchestral intros and reprises. Then we have a 3 CD version that includes outtakes with other singers like Nad Sylvan and Billy Sherwood plus other bonus material. There are download versions of those two plus a Hi Res Deluxe Edition that has 46 tracks (6 more than the 3 CD version). On top of that, there’s some slightly different mixes/edits on the Carpet Crawlers single/EP. That’s digital download only but it is also streaming whereas the full album is not on streaming services. We need people to buy it after all the blood, sweat and tears put into it.

GNC: How can fans order their copies?

Dave: Best place to get it is from my Bandcamp page which is: http://sonicelements.bandcamp.com/merch or http://sonicelements.bandcamp.com But, they’ll eventually be able to get it from Justforkicks in Germany, Burning Shed in the UK, Amazon, iTunes and other stores.

GNC: Are there any plans to take the concept live on the road?

Dave: No plans for that. People ask why and the answer is this. We’re not a tribute band. To tool up to play this music live the way it is on the album with an orchestra would take a lot of time and money. If I win the lottery or some rich Genesis fan just wants to see it happen then YES! Otherwise no. But, we will be performing some of the songs here and there when we get a chance such as on Cruise to the Edge coming up.

GNC: What are your plans for the future after this album? Other projects?

Dave: Believe it or not this is actually part one of a 3-part Genesis tribute album suite. The next one involves songs from other Genesis albums with a variety of singers. Some of the same cast of musicians will return while others will be joining that weren’t on IT. I also have two solo albums in the works, another In Continuum album and a secret project with members of Yes. I keep busy!

Interview: Andrew Head
Photos: Erik Nielsen

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IT – A Celebration Of The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway is out now and is available on Bandcamp