Nick D’Virgilio is responsible for some of the beat behind some of the most iconic songs in progressive rock. In celebration of the 50th anniversary of The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, Nick has refreshed and rereleased his recording of this timeless classic. Recently, Nick D’Virgilio took some time to sit and talk about this project.
Please press the PLAY icon below for the MisplacedStraws Nick D’Virgilio interview –
On the history behind the recording – It’s a strange story, and it involves a few glasses of wine. <y partner on, my partner on the record is named Mark Hornsby. He’s a recording engineer. I’ve made a ton of records with; he’s the reason I went to work at Sweetwater all those years and all that. We met in the nineties during stuff. He lived in Nashville at the time. Well, at one of the, at a NAMM show. I forget what year this was, but at a NAMM show. Which is a big music convention that’s held every year for music industry stuff, if you don’t know. We were hanging out after the show, at a bar and drinking some wine, and Mark always came up with crazy ideas of stuff to record. One of his crazier ones was, and I’m sort of paraphrasing now, I think this is how it went. “What if we recorded the “Colony of Slippermen” in a bluegrass style?” Now, he says, he never said bluegrass. He said, country. I still think he said bluegrass. However, it works. I said, “Yeah, let’s, let’s try it. Why not? Let’s do something crazy”. That was the start of it.
Somehow, we convinced a bunch of Nashville musicians who never heard the music before to come into the studio and record the song, one of the craziest songs on The Lamb, of course. It just was magical. It was incredible how it turned out. Our friend John Hinchey, who is a trombone player and an expert music arranger, he knows how to arrange for full orchestra all the way down to a funk band, that kind of stuff. He transcribed all of the music for the whole record and then it also arranged all of the parts. He arranged whether piano will play here, oboe will play there. That kind of stuff you really have to know. He did such a great job. So, he’s the one that chartered out all the music. We got together with these players, they listened down to the songs going, “What? Oh, okay, let’s try that”. Then we went for it. That was the start of the whole thing.
On changing the music while still being respectful to it – Well, to me it’s one of those things once I really got, I mean, listen, I was a fan of the record. It’s one of my favorite Genesis records. Literally they were my favorite. If you ask anybody who knows me, they know that I was, they were my favorite band and Phil (Collins) was my favorite drummer. All of those things as a kid. So, I really knew this record inside and out. Once we got into doing this thing, I realized that. Even though the songs sound difficult, it’s really just really cool songwriting and a lot of it is very bluesy in its core, not as hard as it sounds. Just creative, the way Tony Banks does chord changes and stuff like this is just very interesting. It’s not like it’s super difficult if you’re into the music thing and you kind of know what’s going on, but I mean, it’s just super creative. It lends itself to these different sort of interpretations.
We didn’t want to change the whole thing up, we just wanted to see if we could mess with the sound a little bit. The funnest part was having these players who are literally real expert musicians, they play every day in the studios, in Nashville, all kinds of stuff. They’re expert readers. You put a chart in front of them, they just read the music without hearing, really top-level stuff. To see how they played this stuff without not knowing what it was, was kind of the best part about it because it brought the music to life, it gave it sort of this freshness and it was really cool to see the reaction on these people’s faces once they heard it back on. They had no idea what this was before. So, it was it just kind of was a like a little perfect storm sort of thing, how it all came together.
On bringing this record back for the 50th Anniversary – It’s the year of The Lamb, of course. There’s so much stuff. Dave Kerzner put out a record. I’m on the road with Steve Hackett and he’s promoting The Lamb, of course. Genesis put out their box set. It was the right time to sort of do it and it’s been on the shelf.
The story goes is that we released it in 2008 and it sort of, we hit some hiccups, some bumps in the road with the company to put the record out and it just sort of disappeared and sat on the shelf for a long time. I’ve really wanted it to come out for an awfully long time. The anniversary was sort of the impetus to kick Mark back in the butt a little bit to say, “Listen, I know it’s gonna take some time, but let’s do something. This is the perfect time to put it out if we’re ever gonna do it again”. The little side record label that my band, Big Big Train Greg Spawton and my manager Nick, have. They said they would release it. So, we had a place, we had a home for it too. So, it just sort of worked and it was the right time to do it.
On having Steve Hackett guest on the record – How cool is that? ‘Steve, can you play on a tribute record of your own record?” “Sure.” That kind of thing. He’s super gracious. He’s such a cool, he’s a very nice guy. He’s super sweet and, and just a really excellent musician. He’s a lot of fun to play with, and he said, yes, I would’ve totally understood if he didn’t feel comfortable playing on a tribute record. I would’ve totally gotten that, but he said, yeah. So, we got him on “Fly on a Windshield” with one of the iconic guitar songs on the record. He also did the rhythm guitar for “Broadway Melody”. It’s really cool to have him ‘=because he’s one of the originators of the whole thing. It’s amazing.
On the impact of Phil Collins’ drumming – Well, Phil was, in my opinion here, my opinion, Phil was at the top of his game. I think he’s getting more as he’s an older guy now, he’s kind of retired. I think there’s more stuff online, at least putting out his abilities as a drummer back in the day to a younger audience. I think he’s getting a little more respect than he did, at least in the drum world that I’m sort of in all the time. There’s a lot of drummers that know of Phil, what Phil used to be able to do for sure. To me, he was one of the best ever. He really was. He was my favorite and a super big inspiration to me. One of the big reasons why I wanted to be a drummer in the first place. So, he was just on fire. They all were, they were young, they were in their twenties, that’s kind of prime time for a lot of musicians and stuff like this. They were super creative.
In the seventies you could make crazy music and still sell records and all that kind of stuff. So, the business was also different. He had a style of, he was like a funk r&b drummer because he loved r&b music and soul music. He had that sound and vibe in his playing, but also, but playing progressive rock. It was a great mixture because he had backbeat and pocket and soul to his playing, that’s what really appealed to me because I love funk drumming and I’m into all that kind of stuff. His style fits progressive rock in such a cool way because there’s real groove there, and there’s others that have done it for sure, but he was my favorite at it.
Then his parts on the record are super creative. Some are very simple. Just him playing a regular straight rock beat that fits. When he gets into the harder stuff on “In The Cage” or “Riding The Scree” or some of the other crazier ones, “Slippermen”, for instance, they’re just super creative drum parts. They’re parts that I don’t think in all the interviews that I’ve heard him talk about his drumming style, he never really knew what he was doing. He just sort of did it. It just sort of came out and he could kind of explain it, but not really. Well, not in a technical sense, at least. It’s just, that’s one of the greatest things about it because it just, it came right out of his body and it was natural.
On why this record has had such a lasting impact – Well, it’s a classic record. When concept records could be done in a way that, that appealed to more of the masses than just the prog heads. It’s Peter Gabriel’s last record with the band. There’s a lot of these little nuances in that, in the history that I think is good storytelling this many years later. With the internet and stuff around now it’s, it’s really easy to kind of spread the word into a wider audience, just with the lay of the land that the internet is. I think it’s cool that it’s getting some more attention for this anniversary.
On his favorite parts to play – There’s quite a bit actually. With the Steve Hackett tour that I’m on, he’s not playing any of the real hard songs he’s playing, but there’s hitting that first note of “Fly on a Windshield” after the vocal ends “on the freeway”, boom, and the band comes in. That is so powerful. Every night it’s slow and dirgy, but just it’s real rock and roll. It’s killer. It’s really good. Getting into the harder parts, “Slipperman” is so much fun to play. I redid the drum track for “Riding The Scree” on this new version because I never really liked the way I did it the first time. I dunno why and it didn’t fix it then, but I just couldn’t get back. I dunno why, but I always wanted to redo it, so this was a good time. I was back to the original. I studied Phil’s part much closer on the redo of the drum part, and I think it works a lot better. It’s one of those things, if you’re on top technical, Phil Collins drumming, it’s sort of like the way he played drums in on the song “Apocalypse in 9/8”, where we’re going deep into the Genesis Rabbit hole here, one of those hard songs where he’s just playing, he’s not playing with, it’s not typical bass drums stuff. He’s playing with the keyboard. He’s playing with the different rhythms that the other instruments are doing. It’s totally not typical. His grooves are very weird. But once you get into them, it’s like once you study it and you kind of learn, hear the nuances and you go, “Man, how’d you think of that stuff?” So that’s a really cool one too. “Back in New York City’s” always a lot of fun to play because it’s so heavy. There’s a lot, that’s what makes the record so much fun. There’s so much great things on it, on the original to take from.
On the upcoming year for Big Big Train – Big stuff. Big things. Got a new record coming out next year. I can’t, I don’t think I can say anything about anything yet, or my manager Nick will flog me. But I think everybody’s gonna, if you like, Big Big Train and hopefully we got some new fans too, I think it’s gonna be one of the best things we’ve ever done. We’re super excited about the next record. The band is really gelled and come together with Alberto (Bravin) and Claire (Lindley) and Rikard (Sjöblom), Oskar (Holldorff) and Greg (Spawton), and Paul (Mitchell), our trumpet player. It’s just there’s something really special in that lineup right now. Not that the other stuff wasn’t special, it totally was. I’m not saying that at all. But where we’ve come to as a group we’re very excited about. So, the new record will come out next year and we’re playing on the Cruise to the Edge again. Then we’re gonna tour about this time next year. So, we’re taking a little time off of touring for a couple of reasons, to have a little space from what we just did to put some money back in the bank because gosh darn it touring is so freaking expensive. That’s it. And then we’ll kind of go off from there. But the new record we’re super excited about.
On if there will be a third D’Virgilio, Morse, & Jennings record – I think so, yeah, Neal and Ross have already given us a few demos. Which is cool. I know Neal’s been doing his Morsefest, so it’s like a little busy period. I think we’re all totally up for making a third record, so hopefully we just need to find some time. I wouldn’t be surprised if we got into this sort of at the beginning part of next year to start working on another one.
On if he’s working on any other projects – Well, that’s a big part of it, but I am working on new Nick solo stuff as well. I’m working for Gretsch Drums now, so I got that is a side gig doing a lot of content for Gretsch and so yeah, life is busy for sure. But musically, Big Big Train’s the number one. I’m ending this year on our super high note touring with Steve Hackett. That’s just a great bucket list thing to be doing. Super excited about doing this. Then we’ll get on a Big Big Train next year, some solo stuff, and then hopefully another Nick, Neal and Ross record as well.
On if he thinks the original Spock’s Beard would ever reunite – I don’t know. I don’t think so, and I’m not saying that to be negative. We definitely live in different places and it’s one of those things that it would have to be really thought of and coordinated. If anybody can do it, Neal can. He’s always up for coordinating crazy things like that, so I would never say never. I love those guys. I wish them all the best. I think their new record is cool too. So, I mean, if something can come together, that’d be fantastic.
