The Making Of Peter Gabriel's 'I/O'


"I hope it's a bit like buses, you wait a long time and then there are three of them."- Peter Gabriel


This diary has been pieced together using information from RealWorld Notes and various interviews and articles that I found on the web. It is not meant to be a complete diary of all of Peter Gabriel's activities but just those that are connected with his next album.

NOTE: Much of 'I/O' will be based on the "130 ideas" from Peter's recording sessions over the past few years. For information on recording locations, technical information and the people involved in these sessions before the release of 'Up', please refer to my 'Making Of Up' page. This new page will only cover new activity related to 'I/O'.

If you have further facts or dates that I have missed or you spot a mistake then please do let me know so that I can keep the diary updated.

Last update: 12th September 2005.

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Production Personnel
The Musicians
Recording Locations
Possible Tracks
Technical Information
The Diary
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
Credits

Production Personnel

Engineer: Richard Chappell


The Musicians

Peter Gabriel: Vocals/Keyboards/Guitar
David Rhodes: Guitar
Tony Levin: Bass/Stick
Manu Katche: Drums/Percussion
Steve Gadd: Drums


Recording Locations

Writing Room at RealWorld, UK

Big Room at RealWorld, UK

Peter's Studio at RealWorld, UK


Possible Tracks

Wild
Silver Screen
Curtains
Amazing
Funk Bone
Clap Trap
Sagrada
Macca
The Way Home
Tremolo
Egg Pain
Velvet
Courage
Escape
"...Will They Survive?"
Nocturnals

NOTE: All track titles (apart from "Nocturnals") are working titles.


Technical Information

None yet


The Diary

2000

May:
In an interview promoting 'OVO' Peter first mentions the possibility of two albums, "In fact there's sort of two records worth of stuff which we're going to try and put together."

July:
Peter says that he has so much material that there may be a couple of follow-ups to 'Up' before 2002 - unless he gets distracted.

2001

2002

26th April:
Peter makes the first mention of 'I/O' when the 'Full Moon Club' is launched on the Peter Gabriel website, "Which is the letters I and O and also "Input/Output", which you'll see in a lot of this equipment. And "In and Out" which would be my other version. I think 'I/o' is a good title because I noticed a lot of the songs were about birth and death and a little bit of in and out activity in between."

September:
In a www.pixelsurgeon.com interview Peter says "It shouldn’t take that long to finish because a lot of the writing has been done and some tracks are already done. It feels good to have something in the bank and it’s even got a title. I think we’re going to call it I/O. Depending on touring commitments - I hope we can put it out within 18 months."

27th September:
In an interview on vh1.com Peter talks about the albums that have come out the last few years worth of sessions, "During this period I had about 130 ideas that I was working on. Some went into my Ovo record, which didn’t get released in America. Then I did the soundtrack for the film Rabbit-Proof Fence. Then I did some other stuff for this current album, Up, and the next one, which will be called I/O."

October:
In the Tower Records Pulse magazine, Peter discusses how the exotic recording locations don't seem to have influenced the tracks on 'Up', "'Up' is more like a songwriter's album than a musician trying to explore the influences of the world...There's quite a few songs that aren't quite out but will come out, I think which will have some of the elements of percussion we recorded. But the places weren't directly influencing the music, except for maybe the Senegalese percussion."

In a Hi-Hi Magazine interview Peter says "I hope it's a bit like buses, you wait a long time and then there are three of them. I have got quite a lot of stuff started, but I'm probably not going to look at it till October as I'm touring now until early July, and then I'm going to take some time in the summer to be with my family."

3rd October:
In a VH1 interview, Peter says "I think there will be three or four records that come out of this period of writing, so that way it's not so bad. It's still slow by most people's standards, but sometimes I get writer's block."

These three or four albums are probably Ovo, Long Walk Home, Up And I/O.

2003

May:
Peter has stated that he will be back in the studio in late September/October to start work on the next album, due for release no later than 2005.

19th May:
In an interview for his show at the NEC in Birmingham Peter says "I'm hoping that within 12-18 months they'll be another record released. You get slower as you get older, but I've been following other things as well. I know I would be very bored if I only did album, tour, album, tour but there's a lot of material that I've been working on, so time will tell".

3rd November:
'Hit' CD compilation and 'Growing Up' tour DVD are released.

4th November:
In an interview for www.genesis-movement.co.uk Peter says "I will get back into the studio soon to see if I still like the material that I had left unfinished the last time. Some of them are just bits of ideas, some are songs, but very few of them are finished."

2004

18th April:
'Growing Up On Tour - A Family Portrait' tour DVD is released.

31st October:
'Still Growing Up - Live And Unwrapped' tour DVD is released.

2005

August:
The August edition of Mojo magazine features Peter in a regular 'In The Studio' article and lists the song titles 'Wild', 'Silver Screen', 'Curtains' and 'Amazing'.

It states that Peter has "absolutely no idea" when the album will be finished - "I went to the painter Howard Hodgkin's studio once and he showed me some things he'd started 20 years ago. I thought, Ah, I'm not the only one. Apart from new stuff, I have this chart of about a hundred ideas, which I'll revisit and sometimes you'll find gravity has started to pull on them. Curtains was actually the B-side of a single called Big Time. Through my website I asked people to vote for the songs they most wanted us to play on the tour and it came near the top. Probably one obsessive with nothing better to do, but I decided to rework it, so thanks to whoever it was."

"I do like carefully chiselled stuff. I still aspire to the way Brian Wilson works. I love to get out the magnifying glass and craft a song."

25th October:
'Play' video compilation is released on DVD.


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Credits

RealWorld Notes
Radio RealWorld
Anyone else that I've forgetten


Also, have a look my 'Making Of Up' page


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