Intuitive Music

Peter Hammill

Born Peter Joseph Andrew Hammill in Bonfire Night, Ealing, UK, on November 5, 1948, Peter Hammill is one of the most creative and personal rock artists from the last decades.

Vocalist, guitarist and keyboardist, Hammill was a founding member of the progressive rock band Van Der Graaf Generator in 1967, which was one of the most innovative and expressionist bands from the late 60’s scene in the UK who fusioned different styles such as jazz, psychedelic rock, classical, and avant-garde music.

During 1968, Peter Hammill left the Liberal Studies in Science at Manchester University to concentrate in the band. After the departure of drummer Chris Judge Smith from the band, the lineup remained with Hugh Banton (keyboards), Guy Evans (drums), Keith Ellis (bass) and Peter Hammill (vocals, guitar, keyboards). This lineup remained until the band’s split in the end of 1968, when their gear was stolen. During this first period of the band, they released the album “The Aerosol Grey Machine” in 1969, which was originally supposed to be a Hammill’s solo work. The album was recorded in just two days at London’s Trident studios with the assistance of Ken Scott.

In 1970, the band was reformed after the departure of Keith Ellis and Guy Evans, being replaced by saxophonist David Jackson, and bassist Nic Potter who left midway through the recording of the “H To He” album. This period is widely considered the classic Van Der Graaf Generator era, which gave birth to the albums “The Least We Can Do Is Wave to Each Other” (1970) and “H to He, Who Am the Only One” (1970), both considered master pieces of early progressive rock and experimental music. That same year, Peter Hammill retired to his home studio Sofa Sound close to Bath, Whiltshire, and started a prolific solo career parallely to the band with the release of the album “Fool’s Mate” with the collaboration of Rod Clements and Ray Jackson of Lindisfarne and Robert Fripp of King Crimson.

In 1971, Van Der Graaf Generator released the album “Pawn Hearts”, which was wrote at Luxford House, which was a country cottage in Crowborough, Surrey, property of the Charisma label manager Tony Stratton-Smith and had the reputation of being haunted by a ghost. The album was originally supposed to be double, but two sides containing live studio sessions and an unreleased track were taken off. The release of “Pawn Hearts” was followed by their split. Since then, Peter Hammill concentrated in his solo career releasing more than 30 solo albums during the last 3 decades. Out of his solo discography all of the albums produced by Hammill during the 70’s are wonderful works where the artist shown his tremendous inquietude for experimenting with new musical languages including sounds, structures, genres, communication and poetry. As a poet, Peter Hammill turned into a cult figure during the 80’s who was acclaimed to be one of the richest poets and songwriters in rock music. Hammill created a personal and intimate style where he focus his personal world from the psychologic, sociologic, and philosophic points of view.

Peter Hammill

In 1974, Peter Hammill released “In Camera”, which was his real first solo album since he played all of the instruments himself. The result was a dark and deep work with influences from avant-garde, free progressive rock, and symphonic music elements, and was later catalogued by the artist as “probably the most lasting of all my solo albums”. That same year, Hammill also published the poetry book “Killers, Angels, Refugees”, including a selection of his lyrics, poems and short stories. A second poetry book ‘Mirrors, Dreams, Miracles” was published later in 1980.

In 1975, Peter Hammill’s work influenced the UK’s emerging punk scene with the album “Nadir’s Big Chance”, a sarcastic parody of glam rock and a pioneering work of punk. In fact, Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols this album on a Capital Radio show in 1977 as one of his most important influences. For this album Hammil created the alter ego of a rock star called Ricki Nadir, as he explained to the press: “I do have several alter egos. Nadir, a later arrival, is my pop component, and he is the perpetual sixteen year-old who loves smashing guitars - but there’s very much a place for him.”

That same year, Van Der Graaf Generator rejoined again to record the album “Godbluff”. This was followed by another Hammill solo album, “Over” (1976), which was a collection of love songs, though during this period he was basically involved in the band’s projects. These included the release of “Still Life” (1976), which was rehearsed at the Led Zeppelin’s country studios in Hampshire called Headley Grange, the live album “World Record” (1976), and their last studio album “The Quiet Zone, the Pleasure Dome” (1977) .

Peter Hammill

The double album “The Future Now” was released in 1978, which is a wonderful collection of songs, some of them including very creative electronic experiments including samples and effects. This coincided with the release of Van Der Graaf Generator’s double live album “Vital”, recorded at the Marquee Club in London on the 16th January 1978, which also contained a version of “Nadir’s Big Chance”.

In 1979, Peter Hammill collaborated on the first solo album of the guitarist Robert Fripp “Exposure”, recording the vocals in several punk oriented songs.

David Jackson and Graham Smith collaborated again in the forthcoming Peter Hammill’s solo album “PH7″, which was the last album of the artist for the Charisma label. The next two albums “A Black Box” (1980) and “Sitting Targets”(1981) are considered as some of the most achieved works of Hammill’s discography, featuring an extreme grade of innovation, and originality where Hammil combines the sound experimentalism of songs like “Jargon King” with the mastering simple pop songs like “Ophelia” and “The Spirit”. For the next album “Enter K” (1982) Hammill had again the collaboration of his band mates Guy Evans, Nic Potter and David Jackson, plus John Ellis on sax, which means that the album has a very ‘vandergraafian’ sound.

In 1982, Hammill collaborated in the backing vocals of the fourth album of his neighbor (both of them live in the same area near Bath) Peter Gabriel, repeating the experience ten years later in the album “Us”. In 1986, the sound of Peter Hammill had a new turn when he entered more in the world of electronics and sequences after his collaboration with the programmer Paul Ridout, which started being noticeable in the albums “Skin” and “And Close As This”. This sequential work reached it’s peak with the album “In a Foreign Town” (1984) for which Hammill worked basically with an Atari computer and the Atari and the Steinberg’s Pro-24 software, apart from adding vocals, guitar and the violin collaboration of Stuart Gordon. After a 5 year studio hiatus, Peter Hammill released the album “Out of Water” in 1989, featuring again Van Der Graaf members Stuart Gordon, David Jackson and Nic Potter, plus John Ellis on sax who also designed the album cover.

Peter Hammill

During the 90’s, Peter Hammill maintained his reputation for being one of the most prolific solo artists, releasing the studio albums “Fireships” (1991), “Fireships” (1992), “The Noise” (1993), “Roaring Forties” (1994), “X My Heart” (1996), “Everyone You Hold” (1997) and “This” (1998). A big part of these productions were mostly oriented to Hammill singing and performing solo accompanied by electric piano and acoustic guitar, and he started performing live in this manner. During the 90’s, Hammill also released two electronic oriented works: “Loops and Reels”, and the collaborative work with Guy Evans “Spur of the Moment”. Also in 1999, Hammill released a collaborative work with Roger Eno titled “The Appointed Hour” and the opera based on Edgar Allan Poe’s work “The Fall of the House of Usher”.

During the 00’s, Peter Hammill has continued with his personal, intimate, rich, and deep vision of the world from different angles which includes sociology, psychology, spiritual and philosophical points of view. These includes the albums “None of the Avobe” (2000), “What, Now?” (2001), “The Thin Man sings Ballads” (2002), “Clutch” (2002) and “Incoherence” (2004).

On May 6th 2005 Van Der Graaf Generator rejoined after 27 years to perform live at the Royal Festival Hall in London playing new material.