On the Tabletop Genesis podcast, they interviewed Tony Banks, and he had this to say about John Mayhew (paraphrasing from memory): people listen to Trespass and they say what was wrong with Mayhew's drumming. And in fact he was a competent drummer, but what he could not do was improvise, to put his own stamp on the music. Banks and the others really had to tell him how a certain part should be played, and then he would play it. In other words he was more like a session musician than a member of the band.
Banks made similar comments about a couple of the singers he worked with later in his career, Jayney Climek and Alastair Gordon; they had great voices and vocal technique, but did not seem able to put anything of themselves into the songs, so Tony felt more as if he was programming an instrument than working with fellow musicians.
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