In 2010 Prog looked back on supergroup GTR, formed by Genesis ex Steve Hackett and Yes’ Steve Howe in 1985, lamenting the fact that the promising project never moved beyond one album, and that their first single turned out to be their greatest moment.
On the surface it was one of the world’s more fascinating supergroups – the combination of guitarists Steve Howe (Yes) and Steve Hackett (Genesis). But ultimately the project never got the chance to develop and fizzled out in a matter of months.
“The idea came from Steve Howe’s manager, Brian Lane,” explains Hackett. “Steve and I knew each, of course, and Brian thought our styles would be complementary.”
So GTR was born in 1985, with a line-up completed by vocalist Max Bacon, bassist Phil Spalding (who’d worked with Mike Oldfield) and drummer Jonathan Mover (briefly associated with Marillion), and the first song the guitarists worked on was to prove their biggest hit.
“We played each other some stuff we’d worked on separately,” Hackett says. “Steve had an idea for the instrumental opening for a song. I had a tune that we could add, so we started to construct When The Heart Rules The Mind.”
It would to be the debut single released by GTR in 1986, making it to Number 14 in America – proved their most successful market. “We were lucky to sign to Arista Records. The owner was Clive Davis, a real mover and shaker in the music business. That helped us to get noticed in the US, and that’s where we did most of our work.”
However, the band had to fight hard to have When The Heart released as the first single. Davis, for instance, had other ideas. “We had another track called The Hunter, and that’s the one he wanted out.” That would eventually be the second GTR single, which barely touched the US Top 100. “But we insisted When The Heart should go first.”
Hackett puts down the track’s failure on home soil to a lack of media support. “We got a lot of airplay in the US – MTV were playing the video every hour. The same never happened in the UK.”
Although their self-titled debut album did well in America – making it to Number 11 – the band soon fell apart. “I thought we could have followed a similar path to Queen. But in the end, When The Heart Rules The Mind was our strongest song, and the whole thing was short-lived.”
Hackett revamped the song in 2018, in collaboration with another Steve – this time Marillion’s Rothery. “I think it’s the strongest thing Steve Howe and I wrote together,” he explained, “and I always wanted to do a version where I would sing it myself with the use of today’s production techniques.”
Looking forward to his upcoming tour, he predicted: “It’ll be great to play both North and South America again celebrating Genesis, solo and GTR.”
