GTR (band)

GTR
General information
Genre (s)	skirt
founding	1985
resolution	1987
Founding members
singing	Max Bacon
Guitar, vocals, keyboards	Steve Hackett (until 1986)
Guitar , vocals, keyboards	Steve Howe
Bass , vocals	Phil Spalding
Drums	Jonathan Mover (until 1986)
Last occupation
guitar	Steve Howe
singing	Max Bacon
bass	Phil Spalding
Guitar, vocals	Robert Berry (from 1986)
Drums	Nigel Glockler (from 1986)

GTR was an after-spread in the English language acronym for guitar ( " guitar named") rock band the two guitarists Steve Howe of Yes and Steve Hackett of Genesis in 1985 as a guitar-based supergroup was founded in 1987 already again came to an end.

Band formation

In 1984 the former Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett, frustrated by the fact that his instrument was increasingly playing a secondary role in the English pop and rock scene, came up with the plan to counter this trend with strongly guitar-oriented music. His wife suggested he start his own band together with a second guitarist. Former Yes and Asia manager Brian Lane , who knew Steve Hackett personally, took up the idea. He was thinking of the guitar-oriented bands of the 1960s and 1970s, such as the Yardbirds or Wishbone Ash .

Around the same time, at the end of 1984, the former Yes guitarist Steve Howe left the initially very successful band Asia due to artistic and personal differences with singer John Wetton . After not pursuing a particular project for about two months, Lane suggested that he join the project that Hackett had planned. Howe and Hackett got along so well that they decided to start a new band that would be shaped by a strongly guitar-oriented style they had given them. Although both musicians came from progressive rock , they wanted to tailor their music, similar to Asia, to a wider market.

The vocalists were John Wetton and Paul Carrack , but Hackett had heard Max Bacon sing in the heavy metal band Nightwing , and Howe, who had recently fallen out with Wetton, stood up for him. As other colleagues were found Phil Spalding (bass), already with Mike Oldfield had played, and Jonathan Mover , the short time drummer of Marillion had been one. Mover had previously auditioned for Hackett. It was clear from the start, however, that Hackett and Howe would be the band leaders. Lane took over the management of the band and the record company Arista Records , which wanted to move from pop / dance / rhythm & blues to rock at the time, signed them.

Debut album

Howe's former Asian colleague Geoff Downes was hired as a producer , who had time for a new project after the hoped-for success of the third Asian album Astra (and the corresponding tour) had not materialized. He also contributed a song called The Hunter to GTR's debut . The album, simply self-titled with GTR , was a success, it reached number 11 in the US Billboard charts and thus achieved gold status, the first single When The Heart Rules The Mind reached a top 20 position in the US charts. However, the album disappointed many fans of the two guitarists and their main bands Yes and Genesis , as it contained more American-influenced AOR rock, and little progressive rock, which had shaped the early careers of the two guitarists. Two instrumentals in particular, Hackett To Bits (Hackett) and Sketches in the Sun (Howe), stood out from the otherwise mainstream song material. Of the songs, Here I wait , Jekyll and Hyde and, above all, the rhythmically complex Imagining showed some progressive rock characteristics.

Origin of the songs

Shortly after Hackett and Howe had agreed on a band concept, the two musicians started writing pieces. The single When the Heart Rules the Mind and the pieces Here I Wait , You Can Still Get Through and Toe the Line were created during this collaboration. Later the other GTR musicians also took part in the songwriting. The song The Hunter was written by Geoff Downes, stylistically it is quite close to Asia and would have been on an Asian album if the band had not split up shortly before. Hackett and Howe also agreed that each of the two should contribute a solo piece to the album.

1. When the Heart Rules the Mind (Hackett, Howe) - 5:24

• The piece goes back to an idea Howe called Follow Your Heart . The original version was released in 2000 on his archival album Homebrew 2 .

2. The Hunter (Downes) - 4:51

3. Here I Wait (Hackett, Howe) - 4:54

4. Sketches in the Sun (Howe) - 2:29

• Howe's solo contribution to the album, an instrumental piece that was created in 1979 around the recording of the Yes album Tormato . It can be heard as a bonus track in an early version under the title High on the Rhino release by Tormato .

5. Jekyll and Hyde (Bacon, Hackett, Howe) - 4:42

6. You Can Still Get Through (Hackett, Howe) - 4:53

• The riff on this song is taken from Howe's Getting Through , which was released on his archival album Homebrew 3 in 2005 .

7. Reach Out (Never Say No) (Hackett, Howe, Spalding) - 4:00

• This song goes back to an idea Howe called Reaching Out . The original version was also released in 2005 on his archival album Homebrew 3 .

8. Toe the Line (Hackett, Howe) - 4:29

9. Hackett to Bits (Hackett) - 2:10

• An instrumental piece, Hackett's solo contribution to the album.

10. Imagining (Hackett, Howe, Mover) - 5:49

• Part of Imagining is Howe piece The Last Word . This song was also released on his archival album Homebrew 3 in 2005.

tour

Due to the success of the album, the band went on a short tour in 1986 through smaller halls in the USA and Europe. Since Steve Howe, Steve Hackett and Geoff Downes operated the keyboards on the album, keyboardist Matt Clifford had to be hired as a guest musician for the tour .

The concerts should also appeal to fans of the previous bands by Howe and Hackett, Yes and Genesis. Therefore, in addition to the GTR pieces, songs by these bands were also played: Roundabout (from the Yes album Fragile ) and I Know What I Like (from the Genesis album Selling England by the Pound ). They also performed well-known solo pieces by the two, including Pennants (Howe) and Spectral Mornings (Hackett).

The tour also featured a new GTR song, Prizefighters . This was intended for the second GTR album, which has not been released until today. On the live album Live On the King Biscuit Flower Hour (1997) it can be heard in an early version, in which a guitar riff of the later independent song Slot Machine was integrated.

A concert on July 18, 1986 is noteworthy because Brian Lane met there with the Californian singer and guitarist Robert Berry , who would later become a member of the band. A day later the concert, published in 1997 under the title Live On the King Biscuit Flower Hour , was recorded.

Dissolution of the original line-up

Tensions in the band, especially between Hackett and Howe, but also between Hackett and the producer Downes, as well as financial disputes led to the end of the tour that Steve Hackett left GTR to continue his solo career. Attempts to continue GTR without him failed because of the record company Arista, which only wanted to support a band called GTR (guitar) if they could come up with more than one well-known guitarist, so that the original line-up of the band finally disbanded.

The unreleased second album

Howe then tried to revive the band with new members (from October 1986 to October 1987): Nigel Glockler replaced Jonathan Mover on drums and for Hackett came the singer and guitarist Robert Berry . Californian Berry moved to London , where, equipped with a keyboard and drum machine borrowed from Geoff Downes, he immediately began writing songs for GTR - or for Steve Howe & Friends , the status of the new band was unclear at the time. Names like 'Nerotrend' and 'Nero and the Trends' were also discussed. At Steve Howe's farm in Devon, Berry and Howe worked together on the songs for the second album. Among other things, they worked on Talkin '' bout , a piece that would later be released on the album To the Power of Three by Berry's next band, Three . Other songs that Berry brought in included The Love We Share , Tomorrow and Away , later renamed No One Else To Blame , which were later released on Berry's solo album Pilgrimage to a Point , as well as a song called Freedom , which sparked tension in the Band provided. It was intended for the soundtrack of a film, which however never came about, and was created by Berry as a duet for himself and Max Bacon. Bacon declined the song, however, it sounded too much like Bruce Springsteen for his taste . He didn't want to share the vocal work with Berry at all, and Howe gradually got into trouble with Berry's very American songwriting style. Another problem was that Berry Arista wasn't well known enough to continue promoting the band as they had been before Hackett left. Downes then withdrew. When Berry got an offer from former ELP and Asia drummer Carl Palmer to start a new band with Keith Emerson in the spring of 1987 , he accepted and left GTR / Steve Howe & Friends. In June 1987 the new band Three recorded their first demos. GTR / Steve Howe & Friends broke up completely a few months later.

A second GTR album had been recorded by March 1987, still with Downes as producer, but this has not been released to this day, as there is disagreement between the musicians involved as to who the tapes belong to. Over the years, however, songs from the second album have appeared again and again - on bootlegs , but also on regular albums by

• Steve Howe ( Running the Human Race , sung by Robert Berry, was later released as an instrumental on Turbulence )
• Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, Howe ( This World's Big Enough , sung by Max Bacon, is a composition by Howes that was later reworked into the song Birthright on the Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe album )
• Steve Hackett ( Cassandra , Don't Fall (renamed from Solid Ground ), Slot Machine , Oh, How I Love You and Prizefighters (the one in an early version, with a guitar riff from the later slot machine , also on the King-Biscuit -Live CD from GTR) from the album Feedback '86 ). Maybe an instrumental by Steve Hackett called Beja Flor , which was released on Feedback '86 under the title Notre Dame des Fleurs , was also planned for a second GTR album. It was released under the title Beja Flor on Hackett's live album There Are Many Sides to the Night in 1994 .
• Robert Berry ( No One Else to Blame , The Love We Share . Tomorrow and Freedom on Pilgrimage to a Point )
• Asia
• Max Bacon : Two of the lost GTR tracks can be heard on the album The Higher You Climb with No One Else to Blame and Hungry Warrior .

So far unpublished are:

• Young Hearts sung by Robert Berry, another version sung by Max Bacon
• These Eyes sung by Robert Berry
• Loneliness sung by Robert Berry
• Young Blood sung by Robert Berry
• You Can't Do That , sung by Robert Berry
• Endless Nights sung by Robert Berry
• Sharp on Attack , a Howes instrumental
• Listen to the People sung by Max Bacon

After the end of GTR

After leaving GTR, Steve Hackett turned back to his solo career.

Steve Howe would return to Yes a few years later via Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, Howe . On his archive releases "Homebrew" and "Homebrew 3" you can find interesting original and demo versions of some GTR pieces. On "Homebrew": "Sketches in the sun", on "Homebrew 3": "Reaching Out" (later as part of "Reach Out (Never Say No)" on "GTR"), "The Last Word" (later as Part of "Imagining" on "GTR"), "Getting Through" (later as part of "You Can Still Get Through" on "GTR"). A cover version of "The Hunter" can be heard on the Asia album "Anthology".

In 1987, after a brief and unsuccessful attempt to revive Asia with singer John Wetton , drummer Michael Sturgis and guitarist Scott Gorham (ex- Thin Lizzy ), producer Geoff Downes turned to a new project with Max Bacon , Sturgis and Gorham called Rain , the however, it was never realized.

Max Bacon initially worked on Geoff Downes' Rain project and then attempted a solo career, but his first album "The Higher You Climb", which also featured two of the lost GTR tracks, was not a great success . All GTR band members except Robert Berry can be heard on this album, including Phil Spalding and Nigel Glockler from the second GTR line-up.

Robert Berry became known to a wider ( progressive rock ) audience after GTR through his collaboration with Keith Emerson and Carl Palmer under the name Three . The band recorded a single album called "To the Power of Three" and then fell apart. Since then he has been working as a producer and solo artist.

On January 23, 2008 the CDJapan label released the DVD GTR Live , with recordings of a concert broadcast by Bayerischer Rundfunk in the Munich Alabamahalle on September 22, 1986. It contains the songs Jekyll & Hyde , Here I Wait , The Hunter , When the Heart Rules the Mind , Prizefighters , Imagining , Hackett to Bits (edit) , Roundabout , You Can Still Get Through and Reach Out (Never Say No) .

Discography

Studio albums

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)					Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	US
1986	GTR	DE39 (7 weeks) DE	-	-	UK41 (4 weeks) UK	US11 (26 weeks) US	First published: June 1986

more publishments

• 1997: Live on the King Biscuit Flower Hour
• 2002: Roundabout
• 2008: GTR Live

Singles (chart successes)

year	Title album	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes)					Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	US
1986	When the Heart Rules the Mind GTR	-	-	-	UK82 (2 weeks) UK	US14 (16 weeks) US	First published: April 1986
	The Hunter GTR	-	-	-	-	US85 (6 weeks) US	First published: August 1986

literature

• Gallant, David: Asia. The Heat Goes On. The Authorized Asia Biography. Summerside, PEI, Canada 2001, ISBN 0-9688584-0-6 .
• Gallant, David: Asia. Heat of the moment. New York 2007, ISBN 978-0-9796881-0-2 .
• Pilato, Bruce: Liner Notes for Live On The King Biscuit Flower Hour (1997).
• Watkinson, David: Perpetual change - 30 years of Yes . London 2001, ISBN 0-85965-297-1 .
• Welch, Chris: Close to the Edge. The story of Yes . London / NY / Sydney 1999, ISBN 0-7119-6930-2 .

swell

1. ↑ ^{a b} Chart sources: DE UK US