Former Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett is disappointed there aren’t more protest voices in pop these days

Steve released solo album The Night Siren earlier this year, and will be bringing it to the Royal Concert Hall on May 16, along with a run-through of classic Genesis album Wind & Wuthering, his last with the band.

His newest work continues his exploration of world music, and he feels it has a point to make with the current political climate.

“My wife and I have travelled to all sorts of places, sometimes with a band, sometimes as tourists, and we’ve made friends all over,” he says.

“Many of them I asked to be part of this album, and we’ve got people with Israeli and Palestinian roots working together, people from Azerbaijan, Sweden, so many places.

“It’s very difficult to get across the scope of this thing, but we realised that we were working on a world music album, and we thought perhaps the idea of unity in the face of nationalist politics seemed a theme. I wanted to demonstrate that people could work together in the face of adversity.

“No-one seems to object if music has Caribbean roots, or Brazilian, or African – a good song can do what people can’t do, which is ignore borders and takes influences from everywhere. Look at all the white guys doing blues in the 1960s when I was growing up. It’s a strange beast, music, a wild thing.”

Unsurprisingly, given his love for travelling, other cultures and world music, he was dismayed by last year’s Brexit vote, and admits that one inspiration for The Night Siren was to react to both that and to anti-immigrant rhetoric.

He doesn’t believe that there has been enough of a protest voice from music over the past 12 months.

“If this was the 1960s I would probably be one of a number of protest singers, but there doesn’t seem to be any sort of unified objection, from film, from music, from the media,” he argues.

“Everyone seems worried about losing their readership or listeners, so where are the songs with the power of Blowin In The Wind? Recently my wife and I were in a record shop and found a Peter, Paul and Mary record – there was a simple, direct message there, just a good peace song, and I’m not hearing that these days.”

Steve has long had an interest in world music, and it has been part of his playing since towards the end of his spell with Genesis, who he departed back in 1977. Since then he worked on a solo career while also revisiting past Genesis records, and his Royal Concert Hall appearance will go back to 1976’s Wind & Wuthering.

By that time Steve was already enjoying solo success with Voyage of the Acolyte.

“Tony Banks thought I shouldn’t have a parallel solo career, he didn’t want that because I had already released an album that no-one thought would be a hit and it was,” he recalls, referring to the Genesis keyboardist.

“Once you had a taste of not compromising by doing music by committee and you have been captain of your own ship, it is very hard to go back to being a member of your own crew, especially when people are getting on your case.

“I didn’t have any guarantees that my songs would be done by the band, because Tony wanted to write the bulk of it, but I was coming up with as much material as anyone.

“Tony is a strange one, because at times he will compliment me for something and then at another point he will lambast me for the same thing. He’s known as a competitive guy, as is Mike [Rutherford]. Phil [Collins] and Peter [Gabriel] were less like that, but we did some extraordinary things in the 70s, and I cherry-pick from that at these gigs.”

Given the current political climate, he might stick around in Glasgow after his gig, too.

“I always look forward to coming to Scotland, more and more in recent years whether I’m playing or just to come and say hi to the odd pal there,” he says.

“You know, I might move there – if that enabled me to have a EU passport and stay within it, then I would certainly consider it. Scots have every right to object to Brexit, they’re the only sensible voices I’m hearing these days.”

Steve Hackett, Royal Concert Hall, May 16, £27.50, 7pm

JONATHAN GEDDES