Genesis almost chose a different band name before Phil | Music News

Genesis are a well-known English rock band that have been lively on and off since the sixties, but some followers might not be conscious that they really bought their name from a close buddy – and chose not to change it once Phil Collins joined.

The iconic rock band’s founders, Peter Gabriel, Tony Banks, Mike Rutherford, Anthony Phillips, and Chris Stewart, almost named themselves one thing very different when they first shaped.

However, British singer, songwriter, and producer Jonathan King, who had a 1965 hit with Everyone’s Gone to the Moon, formally dubbed the group of college students from his alma mater, Genesis.

King attended the Charterhouse boarding college in Surrey, England, and graduated a number of years before the band’s members, according to American Songwriter.

The group of Charterhouse schoolmates had shaped a band and recorded some demos in 1967, but still needed a name.

Initially, King, who was working at Decca Records as an impartial producer at the time, recommended they go by Gabriel’s Angels, referring to Gabriel.

However, the group took his suggestion of Genesis instead, marking their starting, and King’s start as a producer.

The name match the group, as “genesis” means the origin or coming into being.

King went on to produce their 1969 debut From Genesis to Revelation, which was written by Gabriel, Banks, Rutherford, and Phillips.

The album got here from the gathering of demos they recorded while finding out at Charterhouse.

However, the file was also the last King would produce. Genesis went on to release 15 albums, with their closing album, Calling All Stations, in 1997. In 1970, the band struggled to keep a drummer, which led to Phil Collins becoming a member of.

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Guitarist Anthony Phillips also left the band around this time. Gabriel continued to be a member into 1974, but appeared for the last time on Genesis’ sixth album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.

Collins took over lead vocals from their 1976 release, A Trick of the Tail, until his retirement in 2022.

Throughout the Nineteen Eighties, Genesis discovered mainstream success as Collins, Banks, and Rutherford wrote a majority of the group’s tracks.

Despite the band’s reconfiguration in the Seventies and Nineteen Eighties, Genesis didn’t change its name. They wished to show that they had been going to keep together and that they weren’t just Gabriel’s backing band, Collins said in an interview.

Fans debated whether or not the group ought to have modified their name on a Reddit board called Should Genesis have modified their name, and when?”

The original poster mentioned that Joy Division changed its name to New Order after the death of Ian Curtis, adding, “This makes comparisons less seemingly. They added a member. They sounded different because they had been different. It was time for one thing different.

“Genesis pretty much just lost members and got worse. They never did the Yes thing and intentionally injected the band with new and fully empowered talent. They just retreated. Shrunk. But would it have been easier if Genesis had done this at some point?”

One argued, “I can’t roll my eyes hard enough at this. All bands (except for AC/DC) change and evolve their sound. I would say that in hindsight, perhaps Mike and Tony starting a new project after Phil would’ve been the way to go, but of course neither of them had the will or drive to build something up from scratch again, as we sadly learned in 1998.

“But up until then? Why on earth would they change the name, when it is all guys who had been in the band since Nursery Cryme? Absurd.”

Another added, “If everybody left in a band needs to transfer forward with polka music, they’ve every proper to file it under their name even if I hate it. So… no.”

A third penned, “No, from a business standpoint it might be very silly to change the name of the band after years of success.”