Peter Hammill

Van der Graaf Generator and the solo records

Peter Joseph Andrew Hammill was born on November 5, 1948 in Ealing, London, moved to Derby at twelve, and studied at Manchester University; he was a Jesuit chorister as a boy. Van der Graaf Generator began in Manchester in 1967 with Chris Judge Smith. In 1968 Mercury offered a contract and only Hammill signed; the band broke up in 1969, its last gig on May 10 at the Nottingham Pop and Blues Festival, and the intended solo album was issued as The Aerosol Grey Machine in September 1969. The classic quartet of Hammill, Hugh Banton, Guy Evans and David Jackson made The Least We Can Do Is Wave to Each Other and H to He (1970) and Pawn Hearts (1971), which topped the Italian chart for twelve weeks. The band split in mid-1972, reformed in 1975 for Godbluff, Still Life and World Record, shortened its name to Van der Graaf in 1977 and split in 1978. They reunited in 2005 (Royal Festival Hall, May 6) and since 2006 have been a trio without Jackson; in February 2026 Hammill told Louder it is currently dormant, though a return is not impossible.

His solo albums run from Fool's Mate (1971) and Chameleon in the Shadow of the Night (1973) through The Silent Corner and the Empty Stage (1974), Nadir's Big Chance (1975), which anticipated punk, Over (1977) and A Black Box (1980), to Fireships (1992), Thin Air (2009), Consequences (2012) and In Translation (2021). He has run his own Fie! Records since 1992, records at his home studio Sofa Sound, and his catalog curatorship passed to Cherry Red in November 2023. His K group, with John Ellis, Nic Potter and Guy Evans, played from 1981 to 1984. He won the Tenco Prize for songwriting in 2004 and a Visionary award at the Progressive Music Awards in 2012. John Lydon said in 1977: Peter Hammill's great. A true original.

Fool's Mate

Fool's Mate was recorded between April 20 and 28, 1971 at Trident Studios in London, produced by John Anthony with Robin Cable engineering, and released in July 1971 on Charisma, 44:28. The songs were written between 1967 and 1971 and are lighter than the Van der Graaf material; Hammill asked Charisma's Tony Stratton-Smith, who also managed the band, for a solo album and recorded it between tour dates. His sleeve note called it not any kind of statement of my present musical position but basically a return to the roots. Robert Fripp played electric guitar on six tracks, and Guy Evans, Hugh Banton, Nic Potter, David Jackson, Rod Clements and others appear. AllMusic gave it three stars, and Paul Stump called it a revamped corpus of pre-Van der Graaf Generator and pre-university songs.