Early 2016. Doug Melbourne - keyboard player with Genesis tribute band 'ReGenesis' - puts it out on social media that the band are looking for 'creative types' to help with their re-imagining of the classic Genesis album 'The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway', which they intend to tour later in the year.

​

For those not in the know, 'The Lamb' is an audacious, complex, often baffling, often sublime, double-album's worth of music. Released in 1974, it was the last Genesis album to feature Peter Gabriel, before his departure in early 1975.

​

The accompanying tour was equally audacious, featuring an elaborate slide show, complex pyrotechnics, and a number of costume changes for Peter Gabriel, as he moved from portraying one of the story's array of characters, to another.

​

One of the characters is a 'Slipperman' - grotesque and misshapen, with 'twisted limbs like rubber stumps' (those are Gabriel's words, not mine). He lives in a colony of Slippermen, and is encountered by the album's central character - Real - towards the end of the story.

​

Like I said, it's that kind of album.

​

Well, the band are looking for somebody to create a Slipperman mask and costume. I know people who do that sort of thing, so I replied, saying I might be able to help.

​

Only, the people I knew, who I thought could help, couldn't help.

And the more I thought about it, the more I thought 'Hey, why don't I just do it ?' I mean ... it's not really my thing, but I reckon I've got the skills. Plus, what's the worst that could happen, other than it being a total disaster?'