A Normal Life: Peter Hammill at 75
Looking back on the career of an English art rock icon
In the early ‘80s, Peter Hammill, the former lead singer for Van der Graaf Generator, was in the process of doing something similar to what his peer, pal and fellow Peter (Gabriel, ex-Genesis) was doing.
He was stripping away the extraneous stuff from his songwriting, excising the long and sometimes convoluted sonic path taken by his previous band.
“It’s a question of getting back to roots and developing as a songwriter,” Hammill told me, following a solo acoustic set at the Paradise Rock Club in Boston in 1981. “Packing the same number of things into three minutes instead of ten minutes.
“The fundamental difference with a band is the degree of physical power – you can power it through. By myself the power has to come from somewhere else” – pointing to his heart – “but it’s different aspects of the same thing.”
Hammill’s thematic forte was singing about the times things went wrong, when there were breakdowns, when despair kicks in. “Will there be anyone who cares?” he asked in “Mousetrap,” from the point of view of an actor losing touch with reality. In “Faculty X,” Hammill cut to the core: “What am I living for? Why am I here?”
AUDIO: Peter Hammill “Faculty X”
He played the first and final segments on piano, the bulk of the set on guitar, alternating calm and elegiac sections with tense and aggressive sections.
Of course, there were no answers, just a sort of Sartre-esque no exit scenario. The torment, the doubt, the frustration was almost always present. During the course of just one line, Hammill’s voice could mutate from a plaintive cry into a desperate snarl.
The demons that haunted his music were not present off-stage. He smiled when I mentioned that juxtaposition – he wasn’t a full-time miserabilist, mind you – and said he’s basically gregarious, noting he has “a normal, slow life.
Something takes over [when I write]. It’s serious stuff, writing. I do go through a transformation, obviously.”
I chuckled when he brought up “normal life” and mentioned Gabriel’s 1980 song, “Lead a Normal Life,” where the guy leading that life lives in out in an asylum. Hammill laughed.
“I can exorcise reality on stage and the people [listening] can exorcise reality,” he said, “as well, recognizing something of themselves in the songs.”
Comparisons to Gabriel were somewhat inevitable. Parallel lines?
“In a way,” said Hammill, “but it’s diverging parallels, really.” He added that while they were on friendly terms and lived in the same area of England – the town of Bath – “neither of us are anti-social, but we’re not particularly the greatest of sociable people. And I guess that’s why we end up being singers and songwriters in the first place.”
If Roy Orbison sang for the lonely, Hammill – who turns 75 on November 5th – sang for the emotionally tortured, or on the verge of it (or wanted to go there at least for a night), people who were seeking some some of connection or catharsis. Often his songs came from the interior monologue of a character he’d created.
Here are two lyrical snippets from a 1990 concert I saw in Cambridge: “A casual affair is all you can spare from your emotional change … If I was to walk out of your life, would you even know?” in “Just Good Friends” and “It’s a sad philosophy, but better sad than wrong … Face the truth/When you’re dead, when you’re gone, you’re gone … Nothingness or God? /Which seems more unlikely?” in “Four Pails.”
If you wanted melodramatic, highly intense, startlingly intimate art-rock, Hammill was your man. During a two-hour set – just his third Boston area date in a decade – he and his backing duo did not let up for a minute; every song was played for maximum impact, crammed with gut-wrenching emotion.
Lighter moments? Not in song. Those spare bits were reserved for self-deprecating between-song banter, such as when Hammill goofed on himself for breaking two guitar strings. (The man did hit the strings hard.)
Hammill played acoustic guitar, piano and synthesizer. Bassist Nic Potter (ex-VdGG) kept a subtle rhythm flowing. The violinist, Stuart Gordon, carried most of the leads, moving from warm, soothing passages to dissonant shrieks, often within the same segment.
“Although violin and bass are very standard instruments,” Hammill told me, “they both end up being fairly affected, so it’s kind of a modern chamber orchestra, I guess.”
The lanky Hammill is a strong, theatrical performer and a sharp, perceptive, songwriter, adept at creating both character and mood. “One of the functions of art,” Hammill said, “is that, for artists and audiences, there’s a liberation which comes from having faced something, confronted something, gone through some sort of catharthis. It liberates you not to have that unknown weight on your shoulders forever.”
As a solo artist, at that point Hammill had released nearly 20 albums, beginning with Fool’s Mate in 1971. (Add another 20 albums and by 2023 we’re at 40.) And there’s his continuing work with Van der Graaf Generator. The band split in 1978, but reunited in 2005 and continues on. Hammill works in both solo and band contexts now. There are eight VdGG albums in the first phase, five in phase two.
When we talked, Hammill had no trouble admitting most viewed him as a cult artist, but he defined it on these terms: “Not in the sense of being closed off and only those within the secret circle understand.” In other words, it wasn’t his intention to be a cult artist with a limited audience. Indeed, Hammill’s texturally and emotionally rich music was accessible, not unlike David Bowie’s more progressive side or that of Gabriel.
But was it pop, was it well-promoted, was there a radio niche he could fit comfortably into?
Not really. Hammill’s music could take dark, disturbing turns. His current album at that time, Out of Water, was both atmospheric and bracing. “One of the functions of art,” Hammill said, “is that, for artists and audiences, there’s a liberation which comes from having faced something, confronted something, gone through some sort of catharthis. It liberates you not to have that unknown weight on your shoulders forever.”
Hammill had some thoughts about the way rock music should or could function, not unlike those of Leonard Cohen or Lou Reed. That would be idea that he was writing for adults, that he was drawing from experience, yes, but creating worlds outside his own.
“I am a professional writer in the way that a novelist might be a professional writer,” he said. “In rock, you’re normally writing about a continuous character – which is yourself. And that isn’t something that appeals to me. I’m much more interested in the literary playwright tradition, that I’m writing about a certain subject viewed from a certain point of view. And, maybe, this is sometimes too complicated for the song world, but a degree of engagement, by the listener as well, should be called for. So, that’s my one ‘unreasonable’ demand.”
AUDIO: Peter Hammill “Vision”
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