| Steve Hogarth Interview |
Steve Hogarth is the lead vocalist and keyboardist for the progressive rock band Marillion. Last year H, as he's often called, released his first solo record called Ice Cream Genius. He chose an eclectic group of musicians to perform his songs including Dave Gregory (guitars), Richard Barbieri (synthesizers), Clem Burke (drums), Chucho Merchan (bass guitars and upright bass), and Luis Jardim (percussion). Steve talked to us on the phone from his home in England about his solo effort, collaborations, and Marillion.
Can you tell me a little about Ice Cream Genius?
It's an album that was probably a long time coming. Some of the songs have been gradually coming together over a period of years. There were experimental things I wanted to try, and things that were a bit quirky and personal. I finally found a gap in Marillion's schedule in December of 1996 and took about 6 months to make this record. The whole thing was really an experiment and a collaboration between myself and the last musicians on earth you'd expect me to work with. I put together a band that was comprised of heroes of mine, but perhaps not the heroes that one would expect. In many ways, the project was about the unexpected.
In general, do you write lyrics or music first?
The words tend to be there at the beginning. Better Dreams is a very lyric driven song which is essentially a poem which has taken me eight or nine years to put together. I first started writing Better Dreams when I went to Los Angeles while touring with the Europeans back in the mid-80's. My first impressions of LA, which is a town which I didn't think I'd like, were fantastic and proved all my prejudices wrong. The USA is one of those countries where you can form an opinion from afar only to go there and realize how wrong you are...Someone once said that everything good or bad that's ever been said about America is probably true. It's such a vast country...it's a true spectrum.
Do you have a favorite track on ICG?
Deep Water stands out as a precious thing. It's a very rich painting. I tend to think musically in pictures...for me, the music which is the most potent, is the music which paints the picture most accurately. I try to paint emotions like little pictures and I think that Deep Water does it. It's full of ghosts as well. It's painful and it's beautiful. I'm very proud of it.
Did recording at Jimmy Page's old studio have any effect on you?
It's definitely got a vibe. We were using a very old mixing desk and old microphones that had been used to record old Led Zeppelin albums. It was a spooky little room we were working in, and yet at the same time, very very comfortable. A bit like working in an old gentleman's club. Quite the opposite of the sterile technological conditions you're normally surrounded by when you're making a record. It was a very relaxed way of working.
How did you hook up with Marillion?
It was in the back-end of 1988. I was in a band called How We Live which was a band that had grown out of another band called Europeans. How We Live kind of gradually hit the wall, ran out of money, ceased to exist. I was thinking of getting out of the music business, and going away and buying a little house, and watching my kids grow up. I was also looking around for some short time work. My publishing company told me that Marillion was looking for a lyric writer and a singer because Fish had left. They kind of persuaded me to send a tape. So I reluctantly agreed...It really was the last thing on earth that I needed. When I finally met up with the band, we just got along like a house on fire from the moment we met. The rest is history.
I understand that Radiation is the title of the new Marillion release. Can you tell me something about that?
People are telling me that it's very different, which suits me fine. We try to make each record exist as a completely separate entity. And although we don't have any rules in Marillion about the music or the direction, these days things are very wide open, we do have a rule to try not to repeat ourselves. I think we're a bit more radical with the exploration of sound. It's a much more electric album that it's predecessor.
Will there be a tour in support of Radiation?
Well, we're touring here in Europe in November. America remains, as usual, an obstacle for us. In the past it's always cost us a lot of money to tour in the US. Our record label is usually disinclined to invest the $50,000 to cover our losses on a club tour. But everything is possible. Last year, it was our fans who raised $60,000 for us to tour in the States, which was the most incredible use of the internet, from my perspective, so far. [A fan from North Carolina opened a bank account and asked for donations, ultimately raising $60,000. The band toured the US and, as a thank you to the fans, produced a live recording on CD and shipped it to every person who donated.]
What are your thoughts about music today and how Marillion fits in?
I think Marillion fits right in to what's going on in music today, no problem. Where we do have an immense problem is fitting in to the media's perception of us. I think the media's perception of us is quite a long way removed from our music. And that is a serious problem. Nothing we do seems to turn it around. We hear deejays tell us "we can't play stuff like you on the radio." And you think, what on earth is going on, when the deejays aren't allowed to play what they like. Like there's this "kings new clothes" hype thing which is all to do with fashion and money. The radio station has to have an image which is clouded by what is -- on the one hand -- hip, and what is -- on the other hand -- a big money spinner. You know, the two ends of the spectrum. That's the big dilemma that Marillion has at the moment, but I'd even go as far as to say that's the big dilemma that the world has at the moment because once radio becomes that commercial, it's kind of a sad day for everybody. But I'm optimistic in the sense that given the time, there will always be a backlash to that kind of control, to that extent of control. There will always be systems that emerge from passionate people who go, "we've had enough of this, and we're going to set something for up for ourselves, and we're going to fight this." There's no better medium to do that through than the internet because the internet is free. No one has yet worked out how to wrap a string around it and strangle what it doesn't agree with.
We heard that you performed with Dream Theater at the Ronnie Scott's show?
They said they were doing a little gig, and the idea of it was that they wanted to perform songs that had influenced them in their early years. And to collaborate with artists that continue to influence them. I know that the drummer, Mike Portnoy, is a bit of a fan of Marillion and he invited us to perform his favorite song, which was Easter from our Seasons End album. So [Marillion guitarist] Steve Rothery and I performed Easter with Dream Theater. I also did [The Beatles] Happiness Is A Warm Gun, alternating verses with [Dream Theater lead singer] James LaBrie. Mike emailed me actually just this morning and said he's putting together a video for Dream Theater and wanted to include our performance from Ronnie Scott's and did I mind. I told him, of course I didn't mind!
Be sure to check out Steve Hogarth's solo effort, Ice Cream Genius, on Resurgence records. Also, two websites of interest are The Official H website and Marillion.
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