We would have loved to offer him the gig. Sadly, the original multitracks of In A Glass House were lost. It was the only album in our catalogue that no one could find the tapes for. We looked everywhere, but no dice. They could have burned up in the 2008 fire at Universal Studios that destroyed as many as 175,000 audio master tapes from the UMG vaults. They might have been disposed of by Worldwide Artists Management out of spite after we exposed them for screwing us, Black Sabbath, and others. Or, maybe they mysteriously disappeared after WWA had to leave their offices in a hurry for legal reasons.
Steven was disappointed, but he still wanted to work with us. He started with a wonderful remix of The Power And The Glory, which we released in 2014, and he followed up the next year with Octopus, which was also fantastic. By 2024, he had remixed half or more of our catalogue and lovingly recalibrated every delicate nuance and dramatic arrangement. We’ve been thrilled with everything Steven has done with our catalogue and consider him an honorary band member.
I thought Steven was going to be the only producer to work with Gentle Giant’s catalogue. That changed after 2023, when Paul McCartney announced that he had just finished creating a new Beatles song, ‘Now And Then,’ using a five-minute piano demo John Lennon recorded around 1977 on a tape recorder at home in the Dakota in New York. With the help of director Peter Jackson’s production company, WingNut Films, a team of audio experts and programmers used AI to turn the vocals from Lennon’s bedroom demo into a studio-quality vocal. I read about how Jackson’s team used AI to separate the stems—not tracks, but excised bits of audio—to build new recordings. I was intrigued, but at the time I couldn’t imagine using AI for Gentle Giant’s music.
Then my son Noah, who had hired sound mixers for various video projects when he worked at Sony, put me in touch with a talented Brazilian producer and engineer in Brooklyn named Eber Pinheiro. I was impressed to learn that Eber was a Grammy-nominated engineer who had worked with Chick Corea, Gilberto Gil, Stanley Clarke, Jewel, and others. He has also mixed many television and movie soundtracks. I felt proud that Noah worked with such a talented guy. It’s always amazing to see your children’s accomplishments. For, me, I think the feeling was sweetened by knowing that both my kids’ accomplishments were related to music. And it was even sweeter when Noah told me that Eber had asked him about Gentle Giant and the missing multitracks for In A Glass House.
‘This guy’s a big, big fan of yours,’ Noah told me. ‘He said he’d like to get together with you. How would you like to see if you two can do something new with In A Glass House, using AI to make up for the missing multis?’
I thought this was a stellar idea and could put closure on an album I had been wrestling with for decades. Not only was In A Glass House the first Gentle Giant record we did after Phil left the band—and long before the two of us were again on speaking terms—it was the one on which I laid my feelings bare about the way he abandoned the group and the betrayal I felt in the aftermath. When it was done, I had mixed feelings about the album. It was dark and pain-stricken, and for the longest time, I couldn’t listen to it without getting upset. It was a bad period for me and the band that I didn’t want to revisit. And then, as time healed over the scarred memories, I began to look at the album from a different perspective.
When we recorded it, I was still single, and I was furious that Phil would abandon his family—not just me and Ray, but the whole band—to devote his life to his wife and kids. In hindsight, I understand what a tough decision it was for him and why he prioritized his family. Of course he did. He had no choice. It was either lose the band or lose his family. It was a no-win situation—a Sophie’s choice, so to speak—and he did the best he could.
Decades later, when all that had thankfully sunk in and I had accepted Phil’s decision, I developed a new appreciation for In A Glass House. Listening to it no longer emphasized betrayal. It conjured the emotional resonance of a bleak period in my life without it feeling personal. The creativity that came out of the unhappiness was tangible. Viewing it in a new light, I could appreciate the music and not get bogged down by the message. So, I agreed to go to the Inputpost studio with Eber to test whether or not modern machinery could breathe new life into Gentle Giant.
As a band, we had always embraced advances in studio technology, so it made sense to give this AI thing a shot. We tested it on two songs, and I had no idea what to expect. Eber was able to separate virtually all the tracks on ‘Way Of Life’ and ‘The Runaway.’ Watching the process unfold and taking part in the editing was incredible. Using AI tools, he was able to take something that was done and gone and bring it back to life. When he worked with the drum tracks, Eber separated the kick drums, snares, toms, and cymbals and turned them into completely separate tracks he could strengthen with AI algorithms. He did the same thing with the guitars and all the other instruments.
Working with Eber, I was able to remix ‘Way Of Life,’ which made me feel incredible—young, vibrant, Giant-like. When the band first recorded it, we had used the best equipment that was available at the time. Now, Eber was using a whole new level of technology to rebuild this piece of history. It was a huge moment for me. Listening to the tracks and saying to the engineer, ‘Why don’t we try to subtly double track this guitar part?’ or ‘Can you bring this vocal part a little higher in the mix?’ brought me back to the days when I was making similar decisions as a songwriter, vocalist, and co-producer.
At one point, Eber played back a track I had provided input for, and my eyes welled with tears. So many emotions informed the salty rivulets that ran down my cheeks—elation, pride, grief, nostalgia. It was more powerful musically than anything I had experienced since we broke up the band, and it brought me back to the days when my sole objective was to be a musician. Eber saw me crying and asked if I was okay. I told him I was better than okay. Sitting there in my late seventies, feeling like I was seventeen again, made me feel completely fulfilled. Eber was pleased that his work moved me the way it did. He told me Gentle Giant’s music was still extremely popular in his native Brazil (which I knew already because it is home to three of the top ten cities for Gentle Giant streams on Spotify).
After the session, Eber’s business partner, Mario, walked in. He was also a Gentle Giant fan, and he explained to me how our music had helped his best friend in Brazil, Xorus, out of a deep, dark abyss. After undergoing a string of awful personal issues, Xorus was about to take his life. In a bizarre twist of fate, he decided he wanted to stay alive after listening to In A Glass House.
I was speechless. Mario asked if would join a video call with Xorus, and I readily agreed.
‘Say hello to Derek Shulman,’ Eber said after Mario’s iPhone lit up. Xorus was dumbfounded; he was as elated and ecstatic as Questlove had been that day at The Tonight Show. He smiled wide, and tears of joy sprung from his eyes. He told me his real name was Tiago, and that Mario wasn’t exaggerating when he told me Gentle Giant’s music saved his life. All the beauty was gone from his life, then he heard something beautiful, and it filled him with resolve.
There was so much emotion, delight, and respect between the three of us that I thought the WiFi would crash from the swarm of human energy. I know Tiago will never forget the call, but I think it affected me just as deeply. And that, coupled with the resurrection of these two Gentle Giant tracks, was almost too much to absorb in one day. To think it all stemmed from the memories and experiences three different people had from a single album over the span of decades. In a very real sense, I got to re-experience the creation of In A Glass House, while at the same time experiencing its re-creation. And, as we remixed ‘Way Of Life’ and ‘Runaway,’ the meaning of the entire album was further reinvented for me. It was so revelatory that I was even excited to tell the story to Phil.