By 2017, Mike Rutherford could have just coasted on Genesis glory. He didn’t. Instead, he was out front with Mike + The Mechanics, delivering Let Me Fly, a record so unexpectedly buoyant it felt almost defiant. “I’m not sure we realized it at the time,” Rutherford told me, “but three songs—‘Are You Ready,’ ‘Let Me Fly,’ and ‘The Best Is Yet to Come’—are all very positive, very aspirational. It just came out very up.” For a man whose day job once involved writing “Misunderstanding” and The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, optimism was the surprise twist.
But Rutherford never goes full Hallmark. “A song like ‘Wonder’ might sound boy-girl in the chorus, but the words are quite tough. Relationships, especially long-term ones, go through tests. You don’t always want to tell a story that works out perfectly, because that’s not normal life. Normal life has ups and downs, and it’s about being able to tell that story just as eloquently.”
That balance—pop sheen on the outside, real-world grit underneath—was one Genesis always toyed with, and Rutherford carries it here. “What Came Over Me” grew out of nothing more than the phrase itself, becoming a snapshot of regret after one reckless night. “Save the World,” his personal favorite, turns the fight to save a relationship into something as monumental as global salvation. “We actually started it slower, like an old 80s ballad,” he said. “It didn’t grab us. Then we sped it up about eight BPM, made it a bit more R&B, and suddenly it worked.”
The lineup had six years of history by then, enough to earn each other’s trust. “We’ve had a lot of fun on the road, and by now we know our strengths,” Rutherford said. And unlike the old days, he doesn’t need to carry the whole weight. “Even if I haven’t written a particular song, I have an idea of what I want for the band. And I know exactly what I don’t like,” he laughed. It’s a long way from the prog wars of Genesis, where three songwriters routinely fought for dominance. The Mechanics work more like a democracy, or at least a coalition.
Still, legacy is hard to escape. For new vocalists Andrew Roachford and Tim Howar, stepping into songs once sung by Paul Young and Paul Carrack was daunting. Rutherford remembers the first time Roachford sang “The Living Years” in rehearsal: “He made it his own. He didn’t do the same as before, but it was so good. There are very few people who could take on that role and make it their own.”
And though the Mechanics are technically Rutherford’s side project, the ethos mirrors what kept Genesis alive through constant reinvention: never leaning too hard on what came before. “That’s what ‘The Best Is Yet to Come’ is about,” Rutherford said. “It’s not about living off the past. It’s about creating new stuff, and striving to grow.”
From prog-rock epics to three-minute story songs, it’s the same mission: keep moving forward. Genesis or Mechanics, Rutherford’s still writing like the next great chorus is just around the corner.
Listen to the interview above and then check out the lead single, "Don't Know What Came Over Me" below.
