Born on November 5th: Peter Hamill and his inner labyrinths

Peter Joseph Andrew Hammill was born in 1948 in Ealing, West London. He was the creative driving force behind Van Der Graaf Generator from the late 1960s onwards.

A brief but pivotal stint: he studied briefly at Manchester University, where he laid the foundations for what would become Van der Graf Generator (VDGG) alongside Chris Judge Smith, only slightly older than himself. Peter had already been composing his own introspective songs for a few years, performing them on acoustic guitar and proudly calling himself a poet. A significant advantage when joining one of the future giants of British progressive rock, who, to demonstrate his intellectual side, chose as his stage name the name of an electrostatic machine invented in 1931. No doubt with the secret hope that their music would send shivers down the listeners' spines like that strange metallic sphere found in some science museums!

He has participated in the various incarnations of VDGG (as they are known to their friends) to this day, the most recent since 2006 featuring a trio of Hammill, Evans, and Banton. When I first saw them on stage in 1975 (one of my very first concerts with... The Rubettes), it was Graham Smith's electric violin and David Jackson's countless wind instruments that impressed me the most.

While Peter Hamill's career revolves around VDGG, his very first solo album, the aptly titled "Fool's Mate," was released in 1971, following the band's initial major successes. Even though his career, punctuated by long periods of inactivity, has constantly reinvented itself, Hamill has always fiercely defended both his independence and absolute creative freedom. With a protean discography of nearly forty albums, it proves impossible to pigeonhole him, or even categorize him multiple times. Progressive rock is never far from his mind, but he also appreciates stripped-down ballads, electronic experimentation, a certain minimalism, and, conversely, grand, somewhat indigestible conceptual flights of fancy. As you can see, Hamill has always been and remains a free spirit who likes to be in control of his career.

He even created his own label (Fie! in 1991) and his own recording studio (Sofa Sound), which gave him complete independence long before the advent of streaming platforms.

Sometimes gentle and even languid, sometimes tempestuous (almost punk at times), his voice is one of his greatest assets. Equally at ease with musical scores and words, he weaves epic, poetic, and often introspective lyrics that explore solitude, the passage of time, and, of course, the ever-complex relationships between human beings. "The music world today resembles a vast IKEA where everything is prefabricated. For my part, I consider myself a bit like a carpenter who still makes everything by hand," he told the British newspaper The Independent. "And I'm fortunate enough to have been able to venture down all the paths I've wanted to explore for over half a century. That's rare enough that I appreciate every second of it for what it's worth!"

(MH with Stéphane Soupart - Photo : © Etienne Tordoir)

Photo of Peter Hammill on stage at Ancienne Belgique in Brussels (Belgium) on October 8, 1981