I had loads of thoughts and ideas but I could not get them down onto paper. The singer, whose real name is Derek Dick, lives in his home town of Haddington, East Lothian, with his third wife, German-born Simone, and his mum Isa who is suffering from dementia. She's happy here.
But thank god she's not in a home, especially during the pandemic. Last year he feared he was "dying" when he needed a blue-light dash to Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. He explained: "I had cellulitis — which is an infection of the skin — in from a cut on my shin which led to my first bout of sepsis.
It had come from the same wound. They later said if we'd left it 40 minutes longer I'd have been critical. That scared the hell out of me.
I was in tears as I truly thought I was dying. I suffered from depression afterwards. But as the black clouds slowly began to lift, his songwriting — which once saw him pen the lyrics to rock classics Kayleigh, Lavender and Incommunicado — began to flow again. He said: "I just hit a rich seam. All the stuff which had been happening to me came pouring out.
He said: "I had run out of stuff to write about. I've done wars. Who were they going to back? They felt Marillion needed a lot more help than I did. But they just put them out at the same time.
So, the drop I took was a bit hard. I mean, obviously the core of my following is probably people who discovered me during the Marillion times. In Germany and Holland, there has been a vast influx of people who were not aware of my previous stuff.
In , you proposed a series of Marillion reunion gigs, but the band declined, stating they felt your motivation was largely financial. Oh yeah, God is crucifying me. The fact of the matter was, last year they talked of putting out a best-of album. I knew most fans already had this material, and the fact that they were doing "Sympathy" and that other track, to me meant diddly-shit.
But there were a lot of fans out there that would have really been into it if we re-recorded "Institution Waltz. It has never been recorded. Where as for me, I have six songs on it which I want 50 per cent of the publishing of. Thanks very much. And I make no bones about it. But at the same time, the old Marillion still sells. And I just felt it would have helped that album. They came back to me after I suggested it, and they said they felt it would be a regressive step.
It was going to be an hour-and-a-half of my band, an hour-and-a-half of their band with Steve Hogarth, and an hour-and-a-half of the old band plus the other musicians about playing some of the stuff that we would never otherwise perform as solo or new Marillion entities.
And it was to be set over two festivals. One in Germany, and one in the UK. That was the idea. We were going to film it. So I would get a film and they would get a film of their new material in front of a big crowd. Great for MTV and a great release for the fans.
The fans we put the idea to thought it was a great idea as well. Big deal. And hey, I made some money off it, and they made some money off it — fair enough. I think they probably regret the decision now. So, your idea was to bury the hatchet and use the gig to serve as a launching pad for both entities? Yeah, I mean, the media have taken the opportunity of the split to ignore both factions. And by doing that concert, the media attention would be good for both of our careers.
It would have been nice to walk onstage. Are we mature individuals or not? What happens if we meet up at a festival? What if we do a festival in Germany in the next year or so? What are they going to say? All I did was leave a goddamn band. All I did was leave the band. And I think it helped them and it helped me. But there would have been no way with the egos that were in that band at that time. And there is a lot of water that has gone under the bridge.
Oceans have gone under since There is no way, ego-wise, that we could have done a Genesis-type model, where Phil Collins got away with a mega-successful solo career, and the rest of the band are doing their little bits, but not to the same level of success.
And certain individuals will offer a degree of importance more than other members. But as a band, it works as a band. Marillion could never have done that. But there is no regret. I saw that band in Edinburgh last year. All that soul that was a Marillion marker had gone. They decided to go one particular direction, and good luck to them. I decided to go in another one.
I think it was the best move that I could have possibly made. The first best move I made in the music business was joining the band, the second best was leaving it. I have the opportunity now to work with Tony Banks and Jeff Lynne. This is my third solo album. I own my own recording studio. I could never have bought this recording studio when I was in Marillion, because there would have been somebody turning around saying "I want to buy a Porsche or the wife wants to buy a new kitchen.
I got my own finances together, I got my own structure set up. But I mean, the freedom of choice, and the power you can have as a solo artist to enable you to carry on with your life and make decisions that directly affect your life without having to bother with another four guys I think is wonderful. I love it. Therefore, there are no regrets about leaving that band. One of the things again I like about being solo is that I make the decisions. So, there is a lot of crap that you just avoid.
At least 50 to 60 per cent of them will make it through to completion. I would hate to be wrapped up in the restraints of a band again.
A band is an unnatural way of life, an unnatural way of making music. There is no such thing as a true democratic band. Speaking of splits, Songs From The Mirror features two notable absences. The long goodbye-to-all-that has already begun.
And he has the next two years planned out. What all of this represents for Fish is the end of one chapter and the beginning of another. Whatever the future holds for him beyond , Fish has had a long and distinguished career in music.
With Marillion he made four of the greatest progressive rock albums of the 80s. Speaking to Prog from his home in Haddington, East Lothian — the small town in which he has lived ever since his exit from Marillion in , and a place not far from Dalkeith, where he was born — the big man discusses his life and work with remarkable candour.
He recalls how an introverted teenager named Derek William Dick first fell under the spell of prog. How fame, booze and drugs turned him into a rock-star arsehole. How he ended up almost a million pounds in debt. You can leave the battlefield. Progressive rock was my thing. And because I was the sensitive kid who spent most of his time in an attic room listening to records, I got into the words.
I was rubbish at music. When I was 11 I tried guitar. I thought you just picked it up and songs came out. When I realised it needed all this work, I was despondent, in tears.
I did after I saw Rod Stewart and the Faces on telly. Rod was obviously pissed and having a fantastic time. That was in I met up with Diz Minnitt, a bass player. We tried to set up a band up in the Scottish borders. The band was Silmarillion. We convinced them to take on a separate bassist and singer, and the rest just fell into place.
Oh no. It was an opportunity to reinvent myself. In a new place I could be whoever I wanted to be. I thought they were a lot like Camel. It was also very clear to me that Steve Rothery was a brilliant guitarist. And they had no lyricist.
I knew it from the first rehearsals. It was an incredible feeling, singing your own words with a bunch of guys who all had a similar taste in music. We were all brought up on those 70s progressive bands, but the Genesis influence was the most powerful — the one in the Venn diagram that brought us all together.
We talked music all the time, and there was a great energy between us. By , much had changed. Was this your attempt to out-prog Genesis? Not consciously. The music came from a song that Silmarillion had, The Tower. I hear somebody singing in very bad keys! That high falsetto voice, it was very forced. But I was young. When I think now of singing like that, six nights in a row… fuck that for a game of soldiers.
I hear the youth, the naivety and the aspiration in it all. Across that album and the next one, Fugazi , you can hear us trying to find our own style. But I think Misplaced Childhood was the marker for us, not just because it was a hit, but also because we found ourselves. The rise of Marillion in the early 80s was part of a bigger story — a prog revival in which bands such as Pallas, IQ and Twelfth Night also emerged.
We never saw it as a revival. We were just doing our own thing. They thought it would never rear its ugly head again. But there were a lot of people out there that wanted to hear that kind of music, and that was the music we wanted to make. This much was proved with Misplaced Childhood. As a concept album, it was a throwback to the glory days of 70s prog, and yet, in a new era, it was a huge hit.
The truth is, it was a make-or-break album. Fugazi did okay, but we were in danger of being dropped by EMI. We looked at Misplaced Childhood as the last stand. These were also, for you, deeply personal songs — Kayleigh named, in part, after your former girlfriend Kay.
The whole of that album was an autobiography, in a way.
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