Steve Hackett, became famous four decades ago as the guitarist in prog rock band Genesis. Now he's back on tour and heading for Newcastle. He talks to Mick Burgess

Your last couple of tours have been Genesis Revisited tours. Were you surprised at how successful they were bearing in mind you left the band 40 odd years ago?

I did leave decades ago, but I didn't leave the band because of musical differences. I've enjoyed cherry picking through the albums we did together and there`s very strong material in there, and I have always felt at one with that. Whether I do Genesis stuff or solo stuff, I don`t draw a distinction any more. I usually do half and half at my shows.

This tour you`ll be celebrating the 40th anniversary of Wind and Wuthering. When did you first come up with that idea?

There`s just something about that album and it being the last album Genesis did in a particular mould. In a sense, although Peter Gabriel was no longer with us then, Phil said to me when I came up with the lyrics to Blood on the Rooftops, that it was very Peter Gabriel. I hadn`t really thought about it, but maybe the influence was still there. There was also an influence of romantic music like Jimmy Webb and classical music on there too that me and Phil wrote together. I`m very proud of those, as well as the ones that address social issues. It's a little bit similar to the stuff I`m doing at the moment, so it just seemed the right time to highlight songs from that album in particular. From the Wind and Wuthering sessions we`ll be playing Eleventh Earl of Mar, One For The Vine, Blood on the Rooftops, In That Quiet Earth and Afterglow.

This time you'll also be playing songs from your solo albums, including your latest album Night Siren. How have you decided which?

When you do so many shows, you get feedback from the audience about what works and what`s the best order of songs, so I think we`ve worked out a really good set which will honour just about everything that we said we`d do.

Your band includes Nick Beggs on bass, who many people will remember from his time in pop band Kajagoogoo. That may surprise some that don`t realise what a great bass player he is?

Well, since then he`s worked with John Paul Jones from Led Zeppelin, so that`s considerably heavier than Kajagoogoo. He has that pop sensibility, but Nick has always said that his favourite music is the more progressive rock kind of stuff. He`s also good at working with other styles too. He`s a great player. He`s also trained as an architect, I think, and is a very good cartoonist.

You have Nad Sylvan on vocals, Roger King (keyboards), Gary O`Toole (drums) and Rob Townsend (sax/flute). They`ve been with you quite a while now. When did you first start playing together?

Back in the early 2000s, we went off and did a South American tour, so whenever I have any shows I tend to call them first of all. I like working with them and I think we work together very well.

How do you compare Wind and Wuthering to the previous five albums you did with Genesis?

I think it`s one of the very best as everyone was involved and could write really good stuff. What people were capable of writing was truly outstanding at that point. It`s one of their great albums which is why I`m celebrating it and I`ve deliberately not played things from this on previous tours in order to be able to celebrate it with a proper anniversary.

You are now an incredible 25 albums into your solo career. What inspires you to remain so creative?

I get inspired by all sorts of things from reading books, travelling, meeting people from all over the world, discovering instruments that I know nothing about and also realising that Britain and America have been in a very privileged position at being able to dominate the airwaves, but that the rest of the world is full of great musicians and great music too. I listen to it all and feel it`s as relevant to me as anything else.

Your latest album, The Night Siren, came out a few weeks ago. Are you pleased with the reaction you've received?

It`s been really well received and has been going up the charts in all sorts of places. I`m really thrilled to see it in the charts in France, Germany, Holland, Italy and the UK.

The album has a real international feel to it. You have singers from Israel and Palestine, and you are using a sitar from India and instruments from the Middle East and Peru. There`s even a digeridoo too not to mention uileann pipes from Ireland which Troy Donockley plays. Is this a reflection of the influences you have picked up over years of touring?

Absolutely. I've met many great musicians over the years when I've been on tour, discovered instruments I never knew even existed and heard music that I'd never heard before. so I picked up all of influences and I wanted that to come through in my music.

With such an international cast of musicians, were you able to record the album together or was it done remotely?

Some of it was done face to face, but a lot of it was done by file-sharing too. It was also a case of bringing instruments back from Peru, such as the charango and quena. The charango is a short scale string instrument and the quena is the fluttery kind of flute and as soon as you hear them, it immediately sounds like the Andes. Malik Mansurov plays the tar, which is an 11-stringed instrument that`s from Azerbaijan and he is the world`s foremost player of that. It sounds brilliant.

Behind The Smoke is a very topical song about the plight of refugees. Is this an issue you feel very strongly about?

I feel hugely strongly about it. I find myself watching the news channel Al Jazeera, I think it's the station of the underdog. I saw an article on a young boy going from camp to camp and no one was accepting him and it was awful to see. He was in tears, but didn't seem bitter and was sure he`d find a home, but I`m not so sure. My family were refugees coming out of Poland via Portugal 100 years ago escaping religious persecution and they made it over to England and were allowed in and they lived in London's East End. It`s the same with my wife's family. Her family fled Poland around the same time to Germany and then to the UK. Doing what I'm doing, I'm trying to honour the ancestors. I'm appalled that the world seems to be suffering from compassion fatigue and adopting a fortress mentality. Politicians are letting us down the world over and there needs to be a protest movement to support refugees. I`m happy to nail my colours to the mast. My wife is very socially aware and most of my socially aware songs are spearheaded by her.

* Steve Hackett plays at The Sage, Gateshead on May 17