And in a Facebook Q&A session he accepts there might he a downside to his learning. Asked whether he feels more accomplished as an artist, Phillips says: "Very good question. Definitely more accomplished and have more technique - but worry that some of the formal study may have robbed me of my albeit clumsy originality!"

He believes that he and his former bandmates all carried their teenage experiences at Surrey's Charterhouse School into their music. "We were all quite influenced by the English choral tradition. Tony Banks was influenced by his piano teacher but the rest of us were self-taught at that stage."