Gene’s Martin Rossiter: Fame, Fallout and the Return
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After a 21-year hiatus, Gene returned last year to perform three sold-out comeback shows, including a triumphant night performing to 5300 fans at the Eventim Apollo in Hammersmith, where the band’s classic line-up of Martin Rossiter (vocals), Matt James (drums), Steve Mason (guitars) and Kevin Miles (bass) delivered one of the stand-out performances of their career. That performance was captured on the live album, ‘Apollo’, which upon its release in April this year reached Number 1 on the Official Record Store Chart, Number 2 on the Independent Albums Chart, and Number 8 on the Physical Albums Chart.
Gene return to London to play two shows at the Roundhouse in Camden on Friday 9th and Saturday 10th October, where they will perform a different set each night, before playing their first North American tour in 24 years in November. Tickets for all shows are on sale now, available from https://www.geneofficial.com/live/
Gene is the one of the most distinctive British bands to emerge during the 1990s.
Their first single, “For the Dead,” originally reached No. 86 in 1994—but when it was rereleased two years later, it climbed to No. 14, becoming the band’s highest-charting UK single. It formed part of an impressive run that included “Sleep Well Tonight,” “Olympian,” “Fighting Fit,” “We Could Be Kings” and “Where Are They Now?”
As Martin Rossiter, singer, lyricist and unmistakable voice, says of Gene’s extraordinary trajectory: “We took off like Concorde and landed like the Wright Brothers.”
In this revealing and frequently funny conversation, Martin talks about the formation of Gene, the speed of their success and the pressures that followed. He discusses the stories behind the songs, the comparisons with Morrissey, the hostility and mockery he encountered during the Britpop years, and why the band eventually came to an end.
He also speaks candidly about sexuality, depression, fatherhood, becoming a teacher and the very different life he built after Gene. Now, with the band back onstage, Martin reflects on what those songs—and the people who created them—mean to him today.
This is Martin Rossiter: honest, provocative, self-deprecating and still entirely himself.
