10/10/09:
Well there are now two chances of something like that happening. One is his solo stuff which he's still cranking away at. The other is this band. Obviously it is the beginning stages so we don't even know yet if there will in fact BE a band or what it will be called... or what exactly it will sound like except that "Keep It Dark" was more of a collaboration between Simon, myself and Kelley than say U-Catastrophe which was more of a collaboration with co-producer Kevin Churko. I played some keyboards on about 4 or 5 tracks on the album - Disappearing, Unconditional, Good Son, Powerless and the most I did on the album was on "The Big Bang" where I was also credited with co-writing which to me is more production than writing but those are just labels. Basically I had the most of my style influence in The Big Bang and the rest of that album's keyboards were mostly Simon's very competent work. Kelley played on various tracks too on the album but everyone played at different times overdubbing various parts from different places around the world (Steve Hackett for instance emailed his solo for "Fast Forward The Future" while we were working on KID).
So, this approach we're experimenting with this month is entirely different. It's a bit more how Genesis would do it where they'd jam and see what comes out. I personally love that method of writing because you get the chemistry of the people involved and a great mix of spontaneous ideas. I LOVE improvisation. I also enjoy co-producing with Simon.
So, I am looking forward to doing more of that. Anyway, we'll see what happens. I just thought it'd be rare to see these sort of behind the scenes things and even if it didn't turn into anything if you could see whatever does happen... well, perhaps that'd be cool for fans of Simon or even if you just want to see all of Tony Banks' vintage keyboards which I have in the studio! CP70, Mellotron, Arp Quadra and ProSoloist, VP330, Prophet 5... Take a little trip back with those sounds.... but of course there's also a lot of modern keys and software like a Korg OASYS, SampleTank, Sonik Synth 2, Miroslav Philharmonik and Infinite Player... stuff Sonic Reality makes. Quite a range of sounds for this! Should be interesting.