(Credits: Far Out / Alamy)
Wed 19 November 2025 7:00, UK
The decision to leave a band is no light thing. For a lot of acts, it’s a complete life-or-death moment for the group. Very few bands can survive if a crucial member decides they want out. So when Peter Gabriel, the original singer of Genesis, was thinking of quitting, it was a huge decision.
It wasn’t even just that Gabriel was the voice of the band, he was one of their founding members. Forming the band alongside his school friends Tony Banks, Mike Rutherford, Anthony Phillips and Chris Stewart, the band was his baby. It was his entire youth.
He was 17 when the band began, so when he was 25, and starting to get the itchy feet to run, that feeling was completely and utterly terrifying, calling for him to change life as he knew it altogether.
The truth is that there wasn’t one clear moment when Gabriel knew he had to go. Instead, it was a lengthy period of essentially denying that he was feeling that way.
“It’s a strange feeling that someone’s not as enthusiastic about the band as you are,” Mike Rutherford said later on when he reflected on Gabriel’s exit. In 1974, the cracks were beginning to become clear as the band were supposed to be committed to making an adventurous double concept album and rehearsing to tour it. But instead, their singer was taking offers to work on a film instead, as Gabriel was approached by William Friedkin, the director of The Exorcist.
Gabriel’s enthusiasm for a project outside of his own band was the first clear sign that maybe he was done. “This was very exciting for me and something I wanted to pursue,” he said, but he knew it was somewhat unfair. “At the time, it was seen as a kind of betrayal because there was a work ethic that you had to sacrifice your life in all sorts of ways, and especially the family, in order to show you were part of the band. A military logic, really,” he explained as Genesis had always been an all-or-nothing unit, and here he now was, offering only part commitment.
The rest of the band were realising something was changing. “We carry on working, forgive and forget. Or at least, we pretend to,” Phil Collins said, but still, no one said anything, all knowing any ending had to come from Gabriel himself.
Then the second huge splinter happened as Gabriel’s daughter was born. Naturally, that sort of thing changed your priorities as the singer realised, “I didn’t want to be one of those rock ’n’ roll husbands whose marriage is always on the rocks and who hardly ever sees the kids.”
Right as the band were prepping for a tour, it was even more evident that while the rest of them were excited, Gabriel was dragging his feet.
It led to a breaking point in the tension. At once, Gabriel was drawing back into his own life. Yet at the same time, public attention for the singer was growing fast, and far quicker than it was for any other member of the band. The rest of the group felt absolutely goddamn abandoned and overshadowed, while Gabriel himself felt the push and pull of three distinct directions: the band, his family, and his growing desire to pursue his own projects.
The breaking point came on the band’s tour in November of that year. In private, Gabriel spoke to the band’s manager, Tony Smith, telling him that he wanted to quit. “I persuaded Peter to keep it to himself. I said, ‘Let’s just finish the tour and you can think about what we’re going to do after that,’” Smith said, but naturally, a situation like that can be sensed.
It was awful for all involved. The band knew it was over, and Gabriel was choking on the words. “I had a big lump in my throat when we did the last gigs in France. A big chapter in my life was coming to an end, and I couldn’t tell anyone,” he said as the tour was drawing to a close, knowing in himself that these would be the last times he’d grace the stage with Genesis.
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