Peter Gabriel talks to Ali Velshi

Ali Velshi: I was watching you deliver a TED talk. You talked about an incident when you were a child and you enjoyed trees and bushes and foliage. But then you were taken there against your will.

Peter Gabriel: I was bullied by a group of kids. I don't know, I can't remember how old I was. I was probably 7, 8, something like this. And they took all my clothes off and mucked around. These were people that I thought were my friends. So it was shocking on a number of ways. And when I try and sit with people who have been tortured or worse, their loved ones blown up, you know, I don't have anything in my experience, really, to compare to that. But I've got just, you know, a little hint of something when the world isn't what you expected and it's not going for you. 

And it was a combination of the world not what you expected to be — and some shame and some sense that people won't maybe believe it.

I guess, and I think that was one of the things that astounded me with the human rights world when I first encountered it is that it was pretty easy for people to have horrible experiences, denied, buried and forgotten. Those in power got away with an enormous amount. And it seems that there was a fantastic opportunity with new technology coming, particularly cameras, of getting evidence that would make sure that some justice was achieved.

Your mission was to say, If we could use this new emerging technology, the idea that you could get cameras into people's heads, and this was in the '90s, and teach people how to safely document things that were happening, injustice that was being committed, that all of a sudden you take away that idea of denial, that it didn't happen.

Yeah. And it's very potent. We can see a ton of really powerful stuff in text. But when we see a video, it becomes emotionally undeniable. And even though we know now you can fake it in films, I think we're pretty good judges of authenticity.

So you went from this traumatic experience as a child, for many years, not that you were disinterested in human rights, but you describe it as something that was over there, outside, the way most people actually look at human rights. Terrible that it's happening to those people, but nothing to do with me.

That's right. Foreign. Over there. Out there. And then, you know, I got invited to a couple of things. I wrote this Biko song, and that sort of my political education happened slowly.

 It's about Steve Biko in South Africa.

Yeah, who was a great young leader of the black consciousness movement, not the ANC [African National Congress]. But he would have been a great future statesman. And I'm not sure they actually intended to kill him. But they tortured him so thoroughly that he died, and then they didn't treat him and left him in his horrible van ride.

And so, anyway, what was shocking about it was that it had got some coverage. Not huge, but it got enough to be noticed around the world when he was arrested. And most of us then assumed he's gonna be protected by the media coverage. So when he was actually killed, it was shocking.

I wrote the song, and it was a bit like a calling card. Then I got invited on this, that and the other and particularly the Amnesty tours, which in '86 and '88 — the '88 one went around the world. We suddenly started meeting people who were in the front line of these extraordinary experiences.

But you had now crossed the threshold into the world of human rights activism and social justice. And at that point, you were in. You couldn't walk away. In fact, you talk about Bono hustling you into this as well.

Yeah, well the first one was '86, and Bono was the master hustler for that, on behalf of Amnesty. And I sort of took over his role on the '88. But I think he'd been influenced by the Biko song too, and they were life changers, I think, for all the musicians that took part. On the '88 tour, we had [Bruce] Springsteen, Youssou N'Dour, Sting, Tracy Chapman. And I think for all of us, it was unlike any other experiences we'd had.

What's your sense of artists and musicians getting involved in causes like this? To feel good that you can change something? Or do you think it really influences change?

There's the popular conception is, we just do it to puff ourselves up and assuage our guilt. But I don't think it is like that. I don't think any of us would waste the time to do it if we didn't think it was going to make a difference. With the Amnesty tour, for instance, the membership was doubled worldwide. So music, yes, for sure, it doesn't change the world, but it does influence the way people think and feel about things.

So when you started with Witness, you started to distribute cameras to people. And the idea was to get it to whom? 

People who have been beaten up unjustly or imprisoned unjustly. People who've been evicted unfairly or without any reason, so it's just teaching. I mean, the naive version of that was just give the cameras to these people and, well, get the evidence. Never as simple as that. As you guys know, you've gotta film it in the right way. You've got to edit in such a way that it delivers the content in a meaningful and powerful and short enough, concise enough form that it actually makes a difference, touches people.

And then, as I was learning even yesterday, because there's been a seismic shift. Our dream was to get cameras to the world. We couldn't do that. The phone companies do that way better than we would ever dream of. So it's not getting the cameras out there. But how do [you] actually film it in such a way that it can be used as evidence? So are there any incriminating bits of evidence that you can include in the footage? 

But you've got to think about all these things in the way you construct and compose. And then we look at ways to amplify that to help get it to the right people, whether it's politicians or now YouTube have very generously allowed us with Storyful to set up a human rights channel on YouTube. And that is obviously accessible to billions. So suddenly there are means of getting this stuff out there.

But to me, it's all part of this revolution that when you're a kid, you think your parents can sort out everything. And I think, we, for a long time, have thought national governments can sort out their things. They're the grownups. They can do the economy and the diplomacy and all that stuff. But actually what we're seeing is things are coming whether it's [the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant] or Ebola or climate change that really can't be tackled by national governments. That have to be tackled on a global front.

So you need to empower individuals. And you can't rely on governments being the only vehicle for change. 

There are remarkable examples around the world of people making the decision that we can't depend on governments to do things but that we can use our positive energy to make change. We saw these rallies about climate change in recent weeks. It seems like there are people attending those marches and rallies who typically have not attended.

I think it's hugely significant. Like a lot of people, I think climate change had been something over there. You know, desirable to get involved with. I think the deniers, their day is over. We've got to take action. And we've got to do it fast.

You were having a conversation one day with Richard Branson. And it seems like you had these moments in your life where you decide that change is required and you're going to go really big with change. And this idea of the Elders came up. Tell us about the Elders for those who don't know.

It's a sort of naive dream, like you could get bunch of superheroes to come and sort out some of the problems. But the serious aspect of it was that wisdom is a neglected commodity in a way. People go through life, ton of experience, and we sort of push them off to the sea and into the unknown.

And there's something there that could be gained. And the dream I think was that if you could find elder statesmen, stateswomen that have extraordinary lives behind them but are no longer interested in their own personal aggrandizement, career or whatever else but just trying to get it right for the future.

And you can make connections with young people, that young and old could apply a pincer movement on those in power as a balancing force.

I think got excited with this idea that maybe if we could get a group together, they could really be of service. And we thought the person who had the most moral authority in the world at the time was [Nelson] Mandela. So we had to sell it to him or it wasn't going fly. And we had lunch at Richard's house. And [Mandela's] first reaction was, "Well, I don't think the world wants a bunch of old-timers interfering …and getting in the way."

And a little later, he reflected on it and thought, "There was a time when I was negotiating, after Rwanda with Hutus and Tutsis, and these young generals said, 'Actually, you know, we only want to talk with you because it's like talking with our father. And we feel your interest is just to get it right for everyone.'"

Everybody else has an agenda. And that is unfortunately the truth about a lot of national governments, and particularly when politicians have to pay lots of money to get elected, you have to make agreements or compromises. 

So [in] a lot of situations, they [the Elders] won't be able to help. But there will be some situations at a tipping point or at a crucial moment where they can come in and really make a difference person to person. For instance, there's an issue they took on — child, not brides.

I think hundreds of thousands of young girls around the world are turned into brides before they've become adults, as kids. And they managed to get this on the United Nations platform. It's changed laws in various countries. 

And my dream is that when applied to citizen power, which can connect across borders globally on certain campaigns. So if something bad happens, we can map it. We have tools to visualize it in extraordinary ways now that make it very clear what's going on.

When you were starting the Elders, Desmond Tutu had this to say about you. He said [in Time], "I did not know Peter Gabriel from a bar of soap when I met him … When I met him for the first time on his friend Sir Richard Branson's Necker Island in the Virgin Islands. What is his secret? He has a heart. In our part of the world, we give him our highest accolade and say he has ubuntu. It is that marvelous quality that speaks of compassion and generosity about sharing, about hospitality." That's what Bishop Desmond Tutu said about you. I think there are a lot of people who'd like Bishop Desmond Tutu to even know who they were. 

I have pretty good PR. No, he's amazing man. I mean, a lot of the Elders were — all of them in their own ways are — just extraordinary people to be around. 

But what is in your heart? Why are you doing all this? I mean, it's a bigger part of your life than your music these days, I think.

Well, it's about a third, with this sort of benefit work, music and tech. I love tech stuff. And I think, to me, I think it's my dad's genes of invention, you know, and social invention is maybe a part of the contemporary inventor's palette.

Let's talk a little bit about music. What you call a third. You're back on tour now. The "Back to Front" tour. You're traveling through Europe soon. I was interested in what you're calling the tour. 

It's my first backward-looking tour. I'd always stayed away. I hadn't done this sort of reformed Genesis tour. I hadn't gone back on my old stuff. And then I went to see Brian Wilson do "Pet Sounds." And I thought actually to see someone who wrote something that is special to you, [to] do it with some of the people that he created it with, that's a lovely thing.

And I think maybe I was wrong about that. And I'll put the band together that toured the "So" album. We do it in three parts. The first part is like the process. I have a sort of a slogan — the process, not the product. So we start with a song that hasn't been finished. So you sort of see it as it's trying to find its shape.

Or I'm struggling without words and feeling my way with sounds. And then the second and third and fourth numbers will be, like, with acoustic. 'Cause we might be in a rehearsal room trying to work stuff out. The next chunk is the electronic bit. And then if people survive all that, they get the "So" album.

Then they get the big hits. So you're not going to a Peter Gabriel best-of concert.

No … well, I mean, there's some of that in the "So" section. But yeah, it's not always easy. 

It is the 25th anniversary of the Real World record label. I want to get your sense of this relationship that you have been instrumental in developing between Western and non-Western artists and how that's gone and where we are 25 years later.

Well, I think I began as a failed drummer. You know, I love drums. And I love great groups. And I was hearing a lot more interesting groups coming from other countries than I was hearing from the radio. And then fantastic voices or fantastic players and atmospheres. And yet if people weren't singing in English or weren't from mainstream pop culture, they weren't getting seen or heard. So I found a group of people that were enthusiastic like me. And we started putting an event together which became the WOMAD festival, which we now had taken around the world. And then Real World Records grew out of that because we had all these wonderful musicians who sort of couldn't get arrested. Well, they could get arrested quite easily. But they couldn't get recorded very easily.

They couldn't get out of their own circle. Because if you weren't listening to music in English that sounded like the current trend, it wasn't getting anywhere.

We do that with food, right? So, you know, you like your Italian or your Indian food or your Lebanese food or whatever it is. And we're familiar, and maybe it takes us a couple of times, couple of visits before our palate is open enough that we actually give it a proper go. 

And you might love it.

And you might love it. And I always challenge anyone to come to one of our WOMAD festivals and not find one artist that you'll fall in love with. 

You've been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice. Once for Genesis and once as a solo artist. The New Yorker wrote of you — and I think this is interesting — "The distance he has traveled during his five-decade career is so great that it can be hard to reconcile the progressive rock front man of the '70s with the multicultural, multimedia impresario and human rights activist who came later." Do you have a trouble reconciling this?

Yeah, no, it's a wonderful thing. And I've had fantastic opportunities. And I've always been smarter to surround myself with people that are smarter than I am. Smart enough, sorry, I should say. And I always say to people, there are people that I know who are better and more able than I am in any one of the areas that I am involved in. But it has not deterred me, and it has not stopped me. And so it should never deter or stop you. And that's what I'd say to young people. 'Cause, you know, it's very ambitious or arrogant to assume that you can get away with all this stuff. But I think if your heart's in the right place and you fall in [with] what you love, things fall into place.

What would stop people is running out of money. And when you started WOMAD, you said you had to mortgage your house.

Well, I was in a situation where we had debts. Again, that was a highly ambitious … And we thought this is such a brilliant idea, everyone will come. And very few people did. So it was more money than I had. And Genesis very generously said, "OK, if you come back with us, we'll do a concert with you, and we'll give all the money to pay off the debts and keep WOMAD alive."

And they honored that. And WOMAD is still going, you know, 30 years on. So I'm extremely grateful for that. But it was a scary moment. 

I thought I misread that when I had heard what you were doing. You're creating music with apes.

Yes. I had a year when I was working with Sue Savage-Rumbaugh in Atlanta then. I work with these extraordinary bonobo apes. And I went down there, I should think, four times, sometimes with musicians. And we tried different things.

But in the end, we got a bonobo ape on the keyboard, two bonobo apes. And I would be playing in the next door room. They could see me, and they would just experiment with different notes, according to what I was playing.

But what you do is see is an extraordinary intelligence questioning each note, finding harmonies, finding octaves, repeating certain notes. And it was 100 percent evident for me, the intelligence of other beings. I think we have maintained an extremely arrogant attitude towards the other beings that we share the planet with.

You mean we as humans?

As humans, yeah. You know, let's see who it is that we share the planet with before we exterminate them all.

This interview has been edited and condensed.