Peter Hammill’s life off the beaten track

“I’ve been lucky to have spent my whole life doing what I wanted, remaining true to my artistic independence, free from commercial considerations and the pressures of the record industry.” Peter Hammill, founder and lead singer of Van der Graaf Generator, tells Il Foglio that he owes “a great deal to the enthusiasm and loyalty of the public”. Between 10 and 16 November, he will be in Italy for five concerts in Rome, Livorno, Turin, Padua and Milan.

His musical career began in 1969 with The Aerosol Grey Machine, Van der Graaf Generator’s debut album, and has continued with over thirty solo albums. Over more than half a century, Hammill has forged his own path, without paying too much heed to trends or market expectations. In September, Tears in Time was released, an album of eleven songs composed at different times. Two tracks, Heavy Weather and Tabula Rasa, had been completed in instrumental form in the 1990s, whilst the others were written in recent years. “Recording should never simply be a way of retracing old paths,” he explains, “it’s a journey through time; it’s about encountering other versions of oneself.”

Time has always been a recurring theme in Hammill’s songs. But talking about it at the age of twenty is different from doing so at 77. “I’m still swimming in it,” he says, “and, as several songs on Tears in Time demonstrate, I keep finding new layers and nuances in the ways we travel through time.”

In 2003, a heart attack forced him to come to terms with his own fragility, leaving its mark on his music too. “I’d finished mixing Incoherence just a few days earlier. But it’s on Singularity that there are a few tracks which directly reflect on the heart attack and what I felt.” Looking back on those moments, he remembers above all the joy of having survived: “One of my strongest thoughts at the time was just how happy I was to still be here. It’s incredible how quickly one’s feelings – or illusions – of immortality return after events like that.”

Yet, despite such a long career, Hammill does not like to look back. “When I write, I’m always completely immersed in the present moment and I don’t really consider what I’ve done in the past or how I’ve tackled different themes,” he says. “It’s a whole lifetime of experiences, of triumphs and disasters, of victories and defeats, that gives colour and nuance to the picture.”

Even when discussing technology, his point of reference remains the human experience. For Hammill, not everything in music has to be perfect; ‘the real magic lies in the mistakes, the imperfection and the fragility of a live performance’. The Ealing-born artist’s powerful and expressive voice is one of the defining features of his music. Yet, at least according to him, it requires no special preparation: “I only use it when I’m performing or in the studio. I don’t follow any particular routines; I don’t do any preparation or warm-ups. Even the way I sing during soundchecks isn’t really singing: on those occasions, I use a different voice”.

Having been brought up in a Jesuit environment, Hammill now describes himself as “fundamentally a humanist”. He does not, however, rule out the possibility that existence holds something that goes beyond the material realm: “I think there is some spiritual element to being alive and to living a life”. In November, he will return to Italian stages with his solo repertoire and some classics by Van der Graaf Generator, including ‘Mirror Images’, ‘The Habit of the Broken Heart’ and ‘Still Life’. His connection with our country, after all, goes back a long way. “Italy has, and always will have, a very special place in my heart, both for the performances and for the professional and personal experiences. I’ve spent a great deal of time there,” he says. In 2021, this relationship also took the form of an album, In Translation, in which Hammill reinterpreted songs by Luigi Tenco, Fabrizio De André, Piero Ciampi and Mogol.

Hammill does not seem inclined to rest on his laurels. He continues to write, experiment and search for something he does not yet know. “Starting every new song is always the most fascinating adventure,” he says.