Dave Kerzner is well-known in prog circles for his time with bands such as Arc of Life and Sound of Contact. He has now assembled some of the top musicians in the genre to pay tribute to a classic. IT – A Celebration of The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway is just that, a star-studded recording celebrating the 50th anniversary of the iconic Genesis record. Recently, Dave Kerzner took some time to talk about the making of this amazing record.
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On the musicians who join him on the record – Well, the first person to mention would be appropriately Nick D’Virgilio. Nick and I go way back to the beginning of his, both of our careers actually playing with Kevin Gilbert the late Kevin Gilbert. So, we played with him in a band called Giraffe and Thud, two bands. Actually, with Giraffe, we performed The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, actually about an hour of it in 1994 at a, at a festival called Prog Fest, and we’ve been working together ever since. Of course, for those, I’m sure people know in the prog world, Nick was in Spock’s Beard, he’s in Big Big Train, he played with Genesis, he’s played with a lot of people. Tears for Fears, great drummer. Great guy. He did his own tribute to The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway called Rewiring Genesis in, I think 2008 or 2009, around then, with a mutual friend named Mark Hornsby. When it came out, I was like, “Oh, this is cool”. They, they didn’t use keyboards, they decided on orchestral instruments instead of keyboards. I thought, “Oh, that’s interesting”. Then Mark had played me a version of, “In The Cage”.
I don’t think I’ve ever told this specifically. Kind of interesting for those who are into these things. So, Mark was doing some kind of session at Abbey Road for something else, or just somehow there with an orchestra. I think John Hinchey, who he works with is a conductor and arranger and they managed to do two additional songs or something. One of them was “Long Day’s Life” by Kevin Gilbert, and they later released like an orchestral version of that, which is a beautiful song. Then they also did “In The Cage”. A different version than what’s on Rewiring Genesis with, I think the London Philharmonic or whoever was there, and so they played it for me and I was like, “Wait, don’t release it. What if I license this and the whole, all the stuff, just the drums and the orchestra that you did, because I have this idea”. I own, I mean back then I owned Tony Banks, the keyboards he used. Today, I have the actual keyboards. I bought his Lamb rig, most of it, and I have a cab rig and, and when they close their studio, but even before that I had, I had mellotrons and stuff, so I was like, “Let me do a version with keyboards, maybe different singers and stuff like that”.
So anyway, long story short, they agreed, and it helped them recoup their expenses because they all these expenses like, okay, maybe this is a good idea. Crazy, dude, the keyboard guy worked on his own version. That was in 2011, and it only took me till 2024-25 to release it. Finish it.
Then I did, so here’s the key story to the whole thing in terms of the bonus tracks, because there’s bonus tracks on a three-disc version deluxe that have outtakes. Sme of those outtakes are alternate versions with different singers. One of them was Nad Sylvan before he sang with (Steve) Hackett. Actually, on “Chamber of 32 Doors”, and Steve told me that that’s what he, what he used to get the gig. So that’s how it happened. Interestingly enough, not many people know that backstory. Of course, Nad’s been with him forever and he’s done Steve Hackett Genesis Revisited, and I was also on Genesis Revisited album. I played the solo for “Supper’s Ready” with Roger King, we do a little solo on that one. Billy Sherwood was also singing on it. So, there’s a couple of those from Yes. Randy McStein, which he sang “Back in New York City”, but we couldn’t find it, then Francis Dunnery from It Bites.
What happened is we started singing. He started, he was singing a few tunes, and he loved it, and he said to me, he is like, “I’ll just sing the whole thing”. He said, “It’ll be better”, because, he just wanted to do it, but at the same time, he made a good argument, which was, it’s a concept album, it’s Real, and you can’t just have different singers, he’s also a hardcore Genesis fan. I am too, but not as hardcore as him. He sort of represents the kind of picky Gabriel era fan. I’m pals with him, so, I like that as a barometer of it was a good idea. Anyway, he made a good point. So, I ended up with him singing the whole thing there.
The other singer is Martin Levac, who played the Phil Collins role in The Musical Box. He does the Phil Collins singing, he has that timbre really. He also drums on a few tracks that we redid from the Rewiring Genesis sessions. So, yeah, it ended up being a good move. On top of that, I gotta say, I mean he is the MVP because he was my bouncing off barometer, whatever you wanna call it, test to see. I just wanted him to like it because he was so involved in it. “What do you think of this mix? What do you think of the final arrangement and mix and everything”. And you know, he would say, he would either give a thumbs up or he would make a critique. In a few cases, most of the time it was just a thumbs up, we were on the money and a few other times he would say, “As Genesis fan, I would be offended by that”.
On “Counting Out Time”, we went, I went a little more Beatles with it. It’s cool, the amount of that we did, he was cool and people generally like it and I love it. But I went further with that and like into Abbey Road medley territory with Fernando (Perdomo), like some solos in the left and right and right in the middle of the song. He was right. It was like a little too much. With me, I mean, I still like it, so it’s a bonus track, instrumentally. It didn’t work because it kind of interrupted the vocal. You were sort of waiting for the next line, what is this tangent? But musically, it works instrumentally. You get to hear what we were going for, like a fun little ride as a bonus track, but we cut the fat and he helped me do that. It went through two of approval. I had to like it. Then even though I’m the producer and he was like a production assistant, it was like, “Alright, do you like it too?” “We do”, “Okay, good. It’s good to go”. That made it take longer, but it was worth it. So anyway, those are those guys. Steve Rothery from Marillion’s on there. Roger King from Steve Hackett’s band is on there. Ian Benhamou from The Musical Box. Matt Thomas Overdrive from Genesis Shows.
I had tapped into some of my friends from tribute bands. Even the guys from Genetics, for “Pictures of a Slipperman, they made the Slipperman outfit. “Can I have a picture of that for my thing?” I’m not gonna do all that. So like, there’s so many Genesis loving musicians. Dan Cody, Dan Hancock, who were in the original Giraffe with me are on it. Lee Pomeroy, who played with Steve Hackett, has played with people is [ on “Back in New York City”. Billy Sherwood’s on it. Fernando Perdomo. Dave Schultz is there. It is full of love. These are great musicians in their own right, and some of them do their own albums. Some of them are in tribute bands, some of them aren’t. The common denominator is we just love this album. We love Genesis, so it’s very heartfelt.
On if there were challenges to working remotely – I mean, yeah, probably. I’m very old school meets new school in terms of production. I’m really into it more than the typical, like Tom Lord-Alge, who I work with a lot is a good pal of mine. He makes tons of records, him and, and his brother Chris. They’re not as particular, they are particular in their own way. They’re my mentors. I learned from them. Also Nick Davis as well, who’s another mentor, he produced and co-produced, engineered Genesis. Those guys all use SSL consoles and their particular racks of stuff, and that’s what they do. People wanna emulate their sound. So, and I do too sometimes, but what I’m really into is flavors of the consoles that were used on the actual records. So, I’ve got a pair of Helios, actually I have two pairs of Helios, which is the console that they, nerdy here for a second, but on with me. Trident Studios had a Sound Techniques console, so I’ve got several channels of that. Abbey Road, I’ve got channels of that. Whether it really makes a difference or not, it’s, I think it’s more of a subtle thing that most people notice, I’ve got all the color sound effects.
I sit down with Steve Hackett. Even just this past, I gotta say I screwed up one thing. I mean, I didn’t screw it up. It’s fine. We did our own version, but I, so I saw him for Cruise to the Edge, Steve, and I’m proud to say that I’m actually friends with Steve. I’ve helped Tony Banks, have worked him in certain ways remotely and, and helped him with sounds and all that stuff, and we’ve talked or whatever. I don’t go out to dinner with Tony. Steve, I’ve had dinners with, and we hung out and had some pina coladas. It was great. He’s the best. Anyway, so I asked him this question and I haven’t yet told anybody, and I know when I was doing the album, and it’s fine because we were doing our version, but had I known this, I probably would’ve done it.
To be honest. I’m gonna tell you this little secret and gonna do it anyway on. The guy is so underrated for how innovative and creative he was. I was talking to him about the Lamb and I gave him the cd. He hasn’t listened to it yet, very interested in what he thinks, but he loved the idea of it and everything with an orchestra, like a film score. That’s our approach. He loved it, and I thought he would, and I purposely didn’t ask him to play on it because, A, he’s doing his own Genesis Revisited and B with Steve, I’d rather he play on one of my own songs, and he’d probably rather do that too. He’s, he’s such a creative, vital modern, he’s a creative force still. He loves playing on new music and stuff. It’s a gift every timehe does it with me. I’ve done like seven or eight times already, so it’s amazing. So, what was I saying? Oh, I was about to, oh yeah. Okay. Okay.
He was indulging me with my questions, I don’t always remember to ask. I’m just hanging out. Okay. This time I’m gonna ask, “what did you use on the blah blah?” So, we were talking about the Lamb, and I said, first thing I asked him was, “okay, what is Eno-fication?” You know, Brian Eno? Because there’s all this kind of, and he explained it was mostly like manipulating Peter’s voice and I think the guitar solo for “Counting Out Time”, probably with his EMS synthi. I am into all the keyboards that we used on Genesis albums from different times, and there’s a Pro Soloist right behind me, and that’s what he used. There’s, I’ll show this room that’s a 2,600.
But he didn’t have that. He had that for Wind and Wuthering and onward, Then There were Three. But he didn’t have a 2,600. Anyway, long story short, the 2,600 could do like wind effects but Pro Soloist can’t. So I said, “Who did the wind?” I thought maybe it was Brian, you know, because the EMS synthi, which is Dark Side of the Moon synth and used a lot, and he said, “Ph no, that was me”. I said, “Really, how?” He took two fuzz pedals into each other, into a Wahwah, into an Echoplex. They were so noisy. Yeah. Wahwah was the filter, so he’s just messing around. It’s like, “Dude, you’re a genius”.
That’s why you’re never gonna get that sound from a synth, because it’s not a synth. If I knew that, I probably would’ve done that. Ironically, I did do another effect with a Wahwah that I learned that was how they do Pink Floyd “Echoes”. You run into a Wahwah with a certain type of guitar, backwards and then the Wahwah sounds like eagles or albatrosses and that’s how they do that. I did that on Dimensionaut from Sound of Contact, “Mobius Slip”, and I used it again on “The Waiting Room” here. So, but this other trick.
Now I will say, for what it’s worth, obviously there are fellow musicians who, or music fans who really love that stuff. They ask me like, “Did you use vintage gear?” They just enjoy that. Other people who just like, “Look, I just listen to music and I don’t know what a mellotron is. Whatcha talking about?” It helps me achieve what I wanted to achieve, which was a balance of something nostalgic and authentic. Something that sounds Genesis. Doesn’t sound distractingly modern, like using a DX7 or something. Like, whoa, what? What just happened? Like what are they? But modern in other ways that would be palatable would be acceptable to a Genesis fan to where, I mean, even to be fair, and I’ve actually tried to help change this, but some people are bummed out when Tony Banks uses a Korg to play an old sound or some new sound that just like doesn’t have portamento, with that sound or a choir that’s not the Mellotron choir.
I had a little argument with Tony about the Mellotron choir. He doesn’t like it. And I’m like, “What? It’s great”. He’s like, “It’s not great. It’s terrible”. I’m like, “No, it’s great.” I mean like art. But you like this Mellotron strings, he likes it. And he said to me straight up, he’s like, “I’m just not nostalgic about those attached to them like you guys are”. So to him, I think like if he had a Korg Oasis back then he would’ve used that. So a lot of the sounds that we hear from these keyboard, and he’s not the only one are literally, they’re great because that’s all they had back then made it work. What I love, again, from them is what a pain in the ass that was.
I had to run through a spacing. Now with a button, I have the patch. Because I bought all their pedals too. So the MXR pedal and all those things. So to me you know, learning about, okay, they’re ran it through an echo box. So they ran it through Space Echo. They did that. Then I tried, I’m like, “Man, this is magic”. It has a sound that is just grittier or more character specific and less generic. I love all that stuff. So I’ve researched and dig into it. My point, my long-winded point was just that, that’s my job. I’m the engineer and a keyboard player.
I am the geek who’s fully into it and search, and I collect and I do all that work so that I can present something that to be great for layman or just someone who’s just a listener and doesn’t know about the gear goes, “Wow, this is half authentic Genesis sounding and half something new”. I think that recipe has worked really well. I’ve gotten really good response about as good, actually, no, I would say way better than I expected. I have no ego about it. In fact, if anything it’s like this is a celebration of someone else’s work, but through our eyes. We probably love the album more than Tony does.
But they go to the Lamb, and they have, they have their own personal feelings about it and all that, but to us it’s like every melody on this thing is a masterpiece. Repeat that melody. That was good. We can do things like that with love and with an understanding of our sensibility, let’s say. Because it’s subjective. Where to extend something, where to change something and where, where it would be sacrilege and you need to preserve and respect the song.
On if there will be a new Arc of Life record – I don’t think so. It’s probably done. That one, interestingly, was born out of Billy (Sherwood) and Jon (Davison) having material that wasn’t quite right for Yes, per se. Now they’re pretty busy and Yes is very prolific. Then the other thing is I was brought on just because we’re friends, (they) need a keyboard player. I didn’t do much. I, I added some keyboards. I didn’t write anything I didn’t sing. Billy was playing in my band on Chris the Edge and a few other things, and he is like “I didn’t know you could sing like that”m so anyway, long story short, I have another project that’s with Billy, Fernando Perdomo and some other people. It’s similar to Arc of Life, a bit more retro. Bit more seventies influenced by Prog, Yes and King Crimson, and other influences, maybe a little bit of Genesis. It’s a bit more, I wanna say it’s a bit more proggy or it’s a bit more seventies prog than the eighties that I normally do, and I normally kind of do. So it’s a little more indulgence in the vintage instruments and stuff on my part. I’m producing it. So it’s, it’s kinda like on these things, Billy’s a producer, I’m a producer.
The thing I love about Billy and Fernando is, we share a kind of philosophy of, okay, who’s the captain of this ship? You, okay? What do you need? Take it. And the other way around. So, if Billy is working for you, he’s amazing. He’ll do anything you want, and Fernando too, like anything you want for the fastest in the world, two of them are like workaholics. Other times they’re like, “Oh, I’m producing. All right, so I’ll let you know if I need you”. I played on like one of his prog collective things, or no, it was the Supertramp one with Joe Lynn Turner and it was great. I’m like, “dude, anytime”. And he’s like, “Well, I’ve got Rick Wakeman and all these people”.
