Mike Rutherford only set up Mike + The Mechanics because he didn't want to be a solo star. The musician, who is in rock band Genesis with Phil Collins and Tony Banks, decided never to make another solo album after his second studio release, while the group were on hiatus.

In 1988 Mike Rutherford, bass player, guitarist and songwriter in Genesis since 1967, wrote a song with the Scottish musician BA Robertson called The Living Years.

Mike Rutherford admits he needed the help of his wife Angie to write his memoirs 'The Living Years' because there were so many parts of his life he couldn't recall.

As a teenager in the late 1960s, the last thing I wanted was to be like my father. He was a retired naval captain who'd fought in the second world war; I'd just recorded my first album with Genesis, had hair down to my elbows and lived in jeans and a military jacket from Kensington market that smelled like an entire battalion had worn it at some stage or another. It never occurred to me that he might see this as disrespectful.

The rock guitarist's autobiography, The Living Years, reveals the debt he owes to a loving, tolerant and supportive father. When Mike Rutherford’s father died in 1986, the lead guitarist of the rock band Genesis was feeling "invincible".

As Mike releases his autobiography The Living Years, the first from a member of Genesis (as well as celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the Mike & The Mechanics album of the same name), we talk to him about some of the amazing revelations about both the band and himself, unearthing a whole new, hitherto unseen side of the band.

Mike Rutherford, founding member of Genesis, pictured at his recording studio in Surrey surrounded by objects that hold particular significant to him.

It's a quarter of a century since Mike and the Mechanics had a worldwide smash with The Living Years. Written about his father, who died in 1987, after all these years, Mike Rutherford now feels closer to the man who brought him up than ever.

Mike Rutherford and Phil Collins talk about Genesis' R-Kive album.

They were one of the most popular rock groups of the eighties.

So it's fitting that Phil Collins headed a reunion of chart-toppers Genesis in central London on Thursday (Oct 2, 2014).