Peter Gabriel Shleps

My mother taught me to always arrive early, but this was ridiculous.

Peter Gabriel in some dumb hotel, 1990. Photos by Chris X Carroll.

Hotel rooms appear to be terrible places to try to execute a photo shoot. Publicists and record company people loved them, as they were private and a lot cheaper to rent than a high-end photo studio. But the light was almost always terrible, they were often cramped and tiny, and I learned to flinch when I had to shoot in one. Sure, sometimes they were fabulous, like the Chateau Marmont, and one could use the room as a set. But more often, they were drab, tiny affairs, and most of my time was spent trying to cover up that fact and turn them into a makeshift photo studio. And I could shoot in ten minutes (occasionally—looking at you Will Smith—in ten seconds), as long as I had ample time to set up first. Like two hours.

Rolling Stone called to tell me the gig would indeed take place in a midtown hotel; can’t remember which at this point. When the day came, my assistant and I split the gear up into two cabs uptown and rendezvoused in front of the hotel, where the doormen (you’re right, sometimes shooting in hotels has its advantages!) loaded up a couple of those luggage carts for us and pointed towards the bank of elevators. The front desk had our room key and we pushed the heavily laden carts onto the lift. We arrived on the floor and located the room. As we were heaving the heavy cases off the carts, preparing to haul them into the room, I heard the elevator ding.

I had dropped a crate off in the suite and was heading back out to the hallway for more when I saw the nicely clad gentleman who’d just exited the elevator schlepping one of the heavier cases into the room. Guy looked a little familiar. Kind of like, Pete…wait a second… OH GET THE F*CK OUT OF TOWN RIGHT THIS MINUTE ARE YOU KIDDING ME WITH THIS BULLSH*T? Yes, Peter Gabriel was not only two hours early to our shoot, but he was absolutely not honoring my request to let us move all this crap by ourselves. He insisted on helping the two of us wrangle the rest of the giant cases into the room. Peter Gabriel is a guy who shows up to a Rolling Stone shoot with no entourage, no publicist, no handlers; seemed like maybe he took the subway. And then proceeded to load in the gear with the photographers without hesitation.

Peter Gabriel eyes the exit.

“Dude,” I confided, “I can totally get this over with in a nonce, but I need time to set up my lighting first.”

And then I took a calculated turn towards the cheeky. “And Jennifer here and I kind of have to do it ourselves,and I absolutely cannot have you standing here staring at us. Would you mind ever so much slipping down and procuring some coffees?” as I slipped a twenty out of my wallet.

“Keep the change,” I bluffed, as his astonishment turned to laughter and he headed out for supplies. High risk – many artists/subjects would have been offended and taken the opportunity to leave and never come back. Peter Gabriel’s a mensch, it would never occur to him to bolt (stealing my $20) though we did wonder aloud whether he would actually return.

We of little faith, return he did, with three coffees stacked precariously and a Times tucked under his arm. This was pre-Starbucks; in New York City you got crappy coffee in a six-ounce paper cup that said “We Are Happy to Serve You” in Hellenic type on the side. And you got it regular, which is with tons of milk and sugar, because that’s the way it was, nobody asked you how you wanted it, shut UP. The working rock star got back on set, gave us our coffees and happily sat down to read his Times, while we finished tweaking the setup.

We were in the habit of shooting Polaroid instant photographs to check the lighting before shooting on “real” film. This was routinely done with doubles sitting in so the subject didn’t have to endure the tyranny of lighting checks. We had Peter Gabriel there reading his paper, and it was easy to ask him to shift over to the chair on set. I think that shoot was the only time I did all the Polaroids of our actual subject. It shouldn’t have been as nerve wracking as when clients were there watching my every move. But of course, it was. Once we got everything dialed in and actually showed him a Polaroid, he was more than good to go. We grabbed the film backs, loaded ‘em up, and hit the shutter. Took less than a half hour, including several complete lighting changes.

Purple velour is an interesting fashion choice, to be sure. But I think he eats it.

Peter Gabriel proved himself a terrific, professional, mensch and about as nice and compliant a subject as one could want. Maybe it was all those years wearing crazy amounts of makeup and costumes for Genesis, his early art-rock band? I knew by his reaction to my joke about getting coffee we would vibe, and my premonition turned out to be true. Even when I made him put down his paper to gesture with his hands, he was all in, willing to do whatever we asked in order to make a great portrait. After all the cases and lighting and setup, the shoot itself took about twenty minutes. When our work was done, he was out of there with a jaunty smile and hearty handshake before I could ask him to help with the load out.