Peter Brian Gabriel
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Peter Gabriel left Genesis in 1975 to pursue a solo career that produced the 1986 album So, which included the US number-one single Sledgehammer. He founded the WOMAD festival and his label Real World to promote world music. A committed humanitarian, he co-founded The Elders with Nelson Mandela in 2007 and received the Polar Music Prize in 2009.
Names, aliases, and relatives of Peter Gabriel — birth name, kin, and personal ties.
Peter Gabriel by the numbers — life, work, and family.
Peter Gabriel — early life, career, personal life, and legacy.
Peter Brian Gabriel was born on 13 February 1950 in Woking, Surrey, England, to Edith Irene Allen, a musician, and Ralph Parton Gabriel, an electrical engineer. He attended Charterhouse School, where singer and record executive Jonathan King discovered him and later made him the frontman of Genesis. Genesis became one of the most influential progressive rock groups.
Gabriel was the lead singer of Genesis from its inception until 1975, during which the band released notable albums such as Foxtrot, Selling England by the Pound, and the concept album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. After leaving Genesis, he launched a solo career with his 1977 debut album, which included the autobiographical song Solsbury Hill. His greatest commercial success came with the 1986 album So, which earned him the Brit Award for British Male Solo Artist and featured the hit Sledgehammer, a video that won numerous MTV Video Music Awards. Gabriel pioneered digital music recording and distribution, co-founding OD2 in 2000.
Gabriel married Jill Moore on 17 March 1971; they had two daughters, Anna-Marie born 26 July 1974 and Melanie born 23 August 1976, before divorcing in 1987. He later lived with actress Rosanna Arquette for several years. In 2002 he married Meabh Flynn; the couple have two sons, Isaac Ralph born 2002 and Luc born 5 July 2008. He suffers from bipolar disorder, according to some sources.
Gabriel’s work has inspired numerous artists including U2, R.E.M., Kate Bush, Moby, and Marillion. His song Biko was banned in South Africa during apartheid and later became an anthem for the anti-apartheid movement. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Genesis in 2010 and as a solo artist in 2014. Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2008. He is considered a leading figure in progressive rock, world music, and human rights activism.
The complete filmography of Peter Gabriel — every film, TV show, and documentary credit, ranked by popularity.
Every award, honor, and recognition received by Peter Gabriel — Grammys, hall-of-fame inductions, civic honors, lifetime achievements.
A wall of memorable lines from Peter Gabriel — lyrics, interviews, and off-the-cuff remarks captured over a lifetime.
There Has Always Been a Strong Relationship Between Music and Religion. It Is Because They Both Plug Directly into the Heart and Can Have Real Power for Good or Evil.
I’m an Artist Who Works Incredibly Slowly.
I Have Always Loved R.E.M.’s Music and Respected Their Commitment to Social Change.
Music Is a Universal Language, It Draws People Together and Proves, as Well as Anything, the Stupidity of Racism.
Just to Stay in an All White, All Male, All Middle Class Preserve Would Be Very Boring for Me and Very Boring for the People Who Listen to What I Do.
African Artists Are Strong, Charismatic and Compelling, and I Think They Hold People’s Attention.
Radiohead, for Me, Are One of the Great Bands and One of the Reasons Is That They’re Always Trying to Innovate and Push Back Boundaries, Both in Their Musical Work and in Their Video Work.
There Is Something Childlike About the Basic Concept That Poverty Might Be History, That by Doing Something, Some Lives Might Be Saved. I Would Argue That It Doesn’t Matter How Many Records Get Sold or How Many Balding Semi Retired Musicians Like Myself Get an Audience, Even If One Life Gets Saved, It’s Better Than Sitting on Our Fat Arses Complaining About Things.
John Lennon Was Definitely One of My Heroes. I Think He Always Wrote from His Heart. He Was a Very Complicated Individual, but There’s an Honesty About His Songwriting That I Think Makes It Very Powerful. Sometimes It’s Very Simplistic, Childlike and Naive; and That Is What Gives It Some of Its Strength.
I Think That Anyone Who Doesn’t Have Some Sense of Idealism When They’re Young Is Really Missing Out a Bit of Their Humanity, Because You Have the Chance to Go into the World and Feel, Quite Rightly, That It Is Soon Going to Be Yours and You Can Change It. I Think That’s What My Generation Did with the Beatles at the Front of It.
Working with the Tours and Meeting All the People That Felt Their Lives Had Literally Been Saved by Amnesty Made It Seem Like Such a Simple, Elegant and Powerful Idea. I Think That It Is a Wonderful Organization That Really Deserves a Lot of Support.
From the Pain Comes the Suffering, from the Suffering Comes the Dream, from the Dream Comes the Vision, from the Vision Comes the People, from the People Comes the Power, from the Power Comes the Change, but If the World Could Have One Father, the Man We Would Want to Be Our Father Is Madiba, Mr Nelson Mandela.
Never Before Has an Artist Been Able to Reach Out and Build an Audience so Easily Without Needing Record Companies and Their Marketing Departments. Equally, You’ve Never Been Able to Explore All Kinds of New Music in the Instant Way the Internet Allows.
New Technology Has Always Excited Me.
I Co Founded OD2 with Charles Grimsdale as I Thought There Were Many Exciting Opportunities for Digitally Distributed Music. as a Musician, I Believe Strongly That All Artists Should Have Access to This Powerful New Means of Getting Music to People. I Was Convinced Digital Music Was Going to Be the Main Means of Distributing Music When We Set That Firm Up. I’ve Been Surprised How Long It Has Taken.
I Must Be Getting to That Awards Time of Life; It’s God’s Way of Telling You You’re Getting On.
He Appears in a Lot of Writing That I’ve Done Over the Years Because of the Groove with Which He Was Associated, Which Is the Bo Diddley Rhythm. He Was Really One of the First People to Make an African Element a Central Part of Pop Music and It Was Done with a Lot of Feel and a Lot of Style. I Was Sad to See Him on the Departed List.
The Music Business, the Way I View It, It’s Dead in Its Old Model and There Are Lots of Interesting Things Crawling Out of the Corpse.
The Only Drug I Was Interested in Was Acid, but I Was Too Frightened by My Dreams in Regular Hours to Contemplate That.
When I Started, You Couldn’t Get Signed Unless the Label Thought You Could Sell 100,000 Records. It Took Us Two Years Playing Gigs to Get Signed.
The Worst Brief for an Artist Is to Be Told They Can Do Anything. I Have Always Believed That Artists Are a Lot More Creative If You Tell Them What They Can’t Do.
My Kids Came with Me to See One of These Bands That Recreate Early Genesis Stuff. They Said to Me Afterwards, Dad, If You Can Make a Living Like That, There’s Hope for Us!
I Love Radiohead, from the Onset, Pretty Much. the Bends Was Done up the Road from Us in the West Country. and so I Had a Conversation with Thom Yorke Who Said He Was Interested in Doing the Wallflower Song, so I Was Really Excited to Hear That. Besides Writing Great Songs with Wonderful Sounds, They Are Always Unafraid to Push Themselves as Arrangers and Musicians and Writers and I Love That About Them.
A Lot of Songs Come with a Time Stamp. I Remember Where I Was When I First Heard Hey Joe or Love Me Do. They Become Like Sound Traps, Because Pop Introduced to Songwriting the Idea That Sound Was as Important as the Notes, the Harmony and the Rhythm.
It’s a Lot Easier Making Emotional Miserable Music Than It Is Making Emotional Happy Music Joy Is a Much Harder Fish to Catch.
Charlie Gillett Was Such a Benign Godfather to so Many Artists Who Have Fallen Under the Name of World Music. Bumping into Charlie Was Always One of My Regular Delights at Womad. There Are Many Artists Around the World Who Owe a Good Slice of Their Income to Charlie’s Enthusiasms. His Generous and Good Nature, Fired by His Passion, Was a Beacon of Light in the Music World and a Rare and Wonderful Example to All of Us Involved.
I’ve Always Loved Artwork and Album Art. I Think It’s Been a Huge Part of What People Identify and Feel About the Music and the Records. I Used to Love Gatefold Sleeves… When You Would Sit with a New Record and Open It up It Was Just a Precious Moment. Now We’ve Gone into This Digital World a Lot of That Has Been Lost.
I Admire Artists That Can Create Joy. I Think I’ve Done It a Couple of Times, but It’s Not Regularly on the Menu. Melancholy Comes a Lot Easier. but I Have a Lot of Respect for Good Pop Music That’s Done Well. Smart Writing and Good Grooves, Good Sounds.
I’ve Not Been Bored but Then I’ve Also Made Decisions to Have an Interesting Life Rather Than Trying to Maintain a Successful Career. and They Are Slightly Different Paths. I Have Interest in Technology and Benefit Projects That Go Along with the Music. Now I Know Mathematicians and Filmmakers, Pioneering Medical Researchers and All Sorts of People from All Sorts of Backgrounds. One of the Big Buzzes Has Always Been Brainstorming with a Bunch of People Smarter Than Myself and I Get to Do That Quite a Lot on Quite a Lot of Different Subjects.
I Was Extremely Lucky in 1967, When I Was 17 Years Old, to Go and See Otis Redding Perform at the Ram Jam Club in Brixton in London. When He Came On, It Was Like the Sun Coming Out. It Was Just This Amazing Voice, Totally in Command, Great Band, Great Grooves and Passion That Permeated Everything. I Think He’s a Supreme Interpreter, and What a Heart.
The First Record I Bought When I Saved up My Pocket Money Was ‘with the Beatles’. ‘Please, Please Me’ Was Coming Over the Radio. I Would Sit in the Back of My Parents’ Car When We Were on These Long Drives Down to the Coast. and What People Forget, I Think, Is That at the Time, It Was Really Rebellious, Rough, Mischievous and Full of Life, and Irresistible to Any Young Person. the Beatles Were a Huge Influence as I Was Growing Up, and Continued to Be as There Was All That Revolution Around Their Success.
Free Expression and Human Rights Have Been the Life Blood of so Much of the Work I’ve Done in the Last Few Decades and Amnesty’s Campaigning Has Been a Life Changing Part of That. Those of Us Who Have the Eyes and Ears of the Media Have a Responsibility to Amplify the Voices of the Voiceless. I’d Be Delighted If Everyone Who Comes to One of My Concerts Picks up Some Amnesty Literature and Checks Out Their Work.
Little-known facts about Peter Gabriel — origins, oddities, and behind-the-scenes details from a public life.
He never scored a UK number one single, but Sledgehammer topped the US singles chart in 1986, knocking Invisible Touch by his former band Genesis off the top spot.
His famous song Solsbury Hill talks about why he decided to leave Genesis while the band was growing at a fast rate.
The song Solsbury Hill is titled after a small hill on the edge of Bath, England, a site of an ancient dwelling now part of the UK National Trust.
Some sources state that he suffers from bipolar disorder.
In 1999, he reunited with former Genesis bandmates Phil Collins, Tony Banks, Mike Rutherford, and Steve Hackett for a re-recording of The Carpet Crawlers from the 1974 album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, which appears on the Genesis compilation Turn It On Again: The Hits.
His bandmate Phil Collins took over vocals when Gabriel left Genesis in 1975; Gabriel sang backup vocals on Collins’ single Take Me Home in 1985, alongside Sting. In 2016, Gabriel and Sting toured the USA and Canada together.
His video for Sledgehammer was voted the second greatest music video of all time by Channel 4’s The 100 Greatest Pop Videos in 2005, beaten only by Michael Jackson’s Thriller.
Because of his 1980 song Biko, written about South African civil rights leader Steve Biko, the apartheid government of South Africa banned all of Gabriel’s recordings; the ban was lifted after apartheid ended.
Genesis had one hit single during his time as lead singer: I Know What I Like In Your Wardrobe reached 21 in 1974, later covered by former Marillion singer Fish on his 1993 album Songs From The Mirror.
In March 2003, his final album with Genesis, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, came sixth in Classic Rock Magazine’s list of the 30 greatest concept albums of all time.
He lived with American actress Rosanna Arquette for several years after his first marriage ended.
He can play piano, keyboards, percussion, flute, recorder, and harmonica, though by his own admission not particularly well.
His song In Your Eyes is one of his most famous in the US, becoming a Top 30 hit and featured in the film Say Anything 1989; it was later covered by Darren Hayes of Savage Garden. In the UK, it was never released as a single and rarely played on radio, though it appeared on the album So.
His favorite singer is Otis Redding, whose music he loved since his teens and who inspired his biggest hit Sledgehammer.
Gabriel was discovered by singer, record executive, and media personality Jonathan King while still at school, leading to his role as frontman of Genesis, who recorded albums including Foxtrot, Selling England by the Pound, and The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway before he left in 1975.
On 29 November 2003, he performed at the 46664 AIDS concert.
He won the 2006 Q Lifetime Achievement Award, presented by Moby.
The title character of the BBC comedy series The Life of Rock with Brian Pern 2014 was mainly based on him.
In 2019, he supported a controversial petition by Roger Waters against Israel hosting the Eurovision Song Contest due to the conflict with Palestine, which prompted a rival petition supported by Stephen Fry, Rachel Riley, Simon Callow, Sharon Osbourne, Gene Simmons, Al Murray, and Tracy-Ann Oberman.
He is a member and promoter of Amnesty International.
On 1 November 2004, he received the Music Industry Trusts’ Award for his outstanding contribution to the British music industry.
On 3 October 2006, he won the first Pioneer Award at the BT Digital Music Awards.
He was ranked #53 on VH1’s 100 Greatest Artists of Rock & Roll.
His third and fourth albums were also released in German: Ein Deutsches album and Deutsches album.
His wife Meabh gave birth to their second son, Luc, on 5 July 2008, weighing 7 lbs 2 oz; they also have a son Isaac born in 2002.
Time Magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2008, placed in the Heroes & Pioneers category with a tribute written by Desmond Tutu.
His company Real World promotes world musicians and their music.
He has two daughters: Anna-Marie, born 26 July 1974, and Melanie, born 23 August 1976.
His song Biko was covered by Simple Minds on their 1989 album Street Fighting Years.
His song Don’t Give Up was covered in 2005 by Bono and Alicia Keys for the charity Keep a Child Alive; Willie Nelson and Sinead O’Connor recorded a version for Nelson’s 1993 album Across the Borderline; John Legend and Pink recorded a version for Herbie Hancock’s 2010 album The Imagine Project.
His song Solsbury Hill was covered by Erasure on their 2003 album Other People’s Songs.
He won the 1987 Brit Award for British Male Solo Artist and British Video for Sledgehammer after the success of So; he won the 1993 Brit Award for British Producer.
He was awarded the Frankfurt Music Prize in 2006.
His album So was included in College Music Journal’s Top 25 College Radio Albums of All Time and #1 in Top 20 Most-Played Albums of 1986, and ranked #14 in Rolling Stone’s 100 Best Albums of the 80s and #187 in Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.
His song Shock the Monkey was covered by Coal Chamber with Ozzy Osbourne on the 1999 album Chamber Music.
In 1982, he was one of the first artists to record an album entirely on digital tape, and in 2000 he co-founded the first digital music download platform, OD2.
Peter Weller listened to Gabriel’s song Red Rain on headphones inside his costume while filming a scene in RoboCop 1987.
Although he left Genesis in 1975, he reunited with the band twice: once in the early 1980s for a charity concert Steve Hackett absent except for encores and in 1999 to record a song for a greatest hits collection with Hackett present, marking the first time the original five performed together since 1975.
His song I Don’t Remember was covered by Marillion frontman Steve Hogarth and the H Band on the 2002 album Live Spirit: Live Body.
On 21 November 2003, he performed for the BBC’s annual Children in Need charity event.
His father was an electrical engineer and his mother was a musician.
He is mentioned in the lyrics of the song Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa by Vampire Weekend.
He remains friends with Kate Bush.
Quick answers to the questions readers ask most about Peter Gabriel.
Celebrities similar to Peter Gabriel — same craft, ranked by reach.
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