Fish – Uber Rock Interview Exclusive
Written by Eamon O’Neill
Sunday, 05 October 2014 03:00
Fish is a busy man. Having released his latest album ‘A Feast Of Consequences’ earlier this year, he’s currently on the road to promoting it on an extensive European Tour. Here he exclusively reveals to Eamon O’Neill that plans are already afoot for a farewell album, tentatively titled ‘Weltschmerz’, as well as a farewell tour in 2016 where he’ll perform ‘Misplaced Childhood’ for the final time, as well as his plans for life after music. He also gives his side of the story regarding his informal appearance with Marillion in Aylesbury in 2007. “It was just five guys having fun”, he says.
How are you?
We’re in the middle of some building work, and it’s just been an endless amount of dust. It’s just what you don’t need before a tour. I was away in Germany for a week and I was just amazed at how my lungs cleared out.
You’ll be glad to get off on tour then.
Yeah, it’s sixty shows. It’s long. I would have preferred about fifty, but the thing is with the cancellation of the UK shows at the beginning of the year, the necessity was there to fulfil the dates. But we’re being a bit more sensible than we used to be. There’s a week’s rest bite from it where everybody flies back just to be with the wives and kids and things, and I can come back here and just pick up on bits and pieces, and then to just not sing for five days straight – it’s pretty useful.
It must be one of the longest tours you’ve undertaken for quite some time.
Well, 2011 was one hundred and seventy shows. That was from June 2010 to December 2011, so that was quite a big tour. That was acoustic, but my voice is a lot stronger than it was three of four years ago. The acoustic thing, it got me out, being able to do a bit of travelling and enjoy being on the road. Compared to the bus that we’ve got now, where you are sleeping three nights out of four, at least on the acoustic tour we got to sleep in hotels every night. The distances the next day were relatively short, and because of that we were able to hit a lot of places that we never played before. I think between enjoying the tour and getting my voice back into shape, it was a good confidence booster. It fired me up to make the ‘A Feast Of Consequences’ album.
The ‘A Feast Of Consequences’ album has been critically acclaimed. Were you pleased with the response it received?
Very pleased. With [2008 release] ‘13th Star’, it was a definitive uplift. When we put it out we got some really good accolades, but it just didn’t move. I don’t think we had the distribution keyed up properly; we didn’t have iTunes, we didn’t have a lot of means and methods of getting that album out, especially in Europe. And the thing with ‘13th Star’, it was kind of, well, I’ve got to beat this. In the mean time I had two vocal operations, and a marital disaster that was a very complicated relationship, and retracting myself from that was hard. I needed to distance myself from all that shit and darkness. I didn’t want to write about that, so that was why going out on the road with the Fisheads Club [acoustic tour] was really useful, because I got back into enjoying life in a way. And of course I met my current partner, and that’s tied Germany a whole lot closer to me.
You’ve always had pretty close ties with Germany. As I recall Marillion recorded ‘Misplaced Childhood’ there.
That’s right. I mean, I learned German at school and I’ve always had a certain affinity with that country. My first wife was from Berlin, my daughter’s half German and my current partner of four years is from Germany, and she operates our mail order service from down there. We’ve set up something where people can buy in Euros and they don’t have exchange charges, and the postage is cheaper. It’s all part and parcel, if you’ll pardon the pun, of being a mail order operation. You’re not existing at a big corporate level now, where you’ve got access to all these sort of national offices now that are all running about and doing all sorts of things for you. Those days have changed and you’ve got to adapt a completely different stance. So when ‘A Feast Of Consequences’ came out, knowing that it was the first album in six years, we kind of had to make sure that it entered the fray properly.
‘A Feast Of Consequences’ recently won the ‘Storm Thorgersen Grand Design Award’ at the Prog Awards for its impressive packaging.
I think having the deluxe packaging that Mark Wilkinson [long-term Fish cover artist who did the artwork for ‘A Feast Of Consequences’] set up was part and parcel of getting this album out to fans, who are in the main, of that age group that prefer tangible things in their hands. They like having the feel of an album, and being able to read [the liner notes] of an album.
It must have been quite satisfying to receive that award.
I loved handing that award across to Mark Wilkinson. I mean, I haven’t got it, I gave it to Mark. Mark deserved it. He’s been putting all that work in, since ‘Market Square Heroes’ and ‘Script For A Jester’s Tear’ and ‘Fugazi’, and all the way through. And he’s never had an award in his life. And with Storm Thorgersen being such a huge hero of his, it was apt that Mark should take that award. It would have been nice to pick up the ‘album of the year’ award, but you know, so be it. Hopefully the next one will be the one that picks that up.
You’ve obviously had a very long history with Mark. Upon looking back at the cover art for your first solo album ‘Vigil In A Wilderness Of Mirrors’, I was surprised to learn that both your former manager in Marillion John Arnison, and Marillion keyboardist Mark Kelly featured on it.
Yes, there was a running joke for that. Mark Kelly and I have talked about it. That incident with the ‘Vigil’ cover, it was a fucking bitter divorce, and I was very angry at the time with the way it had all gone down. The manager had out-played me at chess. I think that’s why I put the two figures at the bottom of the hill, and you know, I think that Mark was compensated at EMI for it, so he was quite happy.
During a recent conversation with Marillion guitarist Steve Rothery (which you can read HERE), I was surprised to learn that Marillion were offered the soundtrack for the ‘Highlander’ movie.
Yes that’s right, because I was offered one of the roles in the film, and part of the deal was that the band were going to get the soundtrack. But it was a difficult time, as Steve pointed out in his [recent Uber Rock] interview. I did quite a few auditions back then, and that was the time that maybe I should have gone into acting, but I was in a five piece band, and what do the others do? They didn’t have the same openings. I mean, yeah they could have done soundtracks, but I think they were kind of limited on what they could do outside of Marillion. Whereas I had a lot more scope. And the manager didn’t want it, because the manager was making so much money off us playing live, for him to go out and take commission after a film agent’s commission, compared to what he was earning on another tour you know? He wanted to keep us on the road, and at the time, the relationship between me and the manager in particular was not good. And he knew that I was wanting him out, and he was basically playing on the other side, being, how do I say it?; There was a lot of intrigue and a lot of manipulation going on back then between the manager and the rest of the band. That’s something that I’ll write about in my book when it comes out. I mean, you can’t cover what was going on in a couple of simple paragraphs in an interview. But the Highlander thing would have been interesting. And what Steve said about you know, another two albums [In the same interview with Uber Rock, Rothery suggested that had the band not split with Fish in 1988, they would have only lasted for another one or two albums] may be correct, but then again our problem was that the manager was putting us on the road, tour, road, tour, bang, bang, write the album, get the album out as fast as possible and get out on the road again! I mean, even when I left the band there was another Christmas tour that had been arranged and it was all kind of… let’s say when somebody’s on twenty percent of practically the gross of the gigs, it’s a lot of money. But nowadays, there’s no animosity between us all. Steve and I had a long talk at the Prog Awards the other night, and it was great to see him, and his wife, as I hadn’t seen her for ages. And Mark and I are in regular contact, so there’s no animosity. It’s just one of those things, it happened in the past and there’s no point in looking back. It was bad management, and it just exploded. Maybe if we had have taken that year off, then we would have had the chance to grow up and develop. But I’m a far more mature artist and a mature person now than I was way back in 1988.
You mentioned your book. Does that mean that your future plans include writing your autobiography?
Well I’ve never written an autobiography, and this is one of them things. The next album’s got the working title of ‘Weltschmerz’, and the plan is to start writing that when we get back off this tour. And I need to take ‘Misplaced Childhood’ out [on tour], and it’s going to be the last time that I’m going to play that album, because basically the ‘Weltschmerz’ album that I’m planning will be my last studio album, with a farewell tour in 2016. After that happens what I’d like to do is write books and screenplays. I mean, I’m fifty-six at the moment, and in two years’ time I’m going to be fifty-eight, and I’ve dropped the keys [that the songs are performed in] already, and it sounds great, but I don’t want to be singing ‘Misplaced Childhood’ when I’m sixty years old.
A farewell album, tour and a final run for ‘Misplaced Childhood’ – that all has a ring of finality about it.
Obviously you start getting to that period when it’s a lot more difficult. I’ve done a lot of time on the road, I’ve done a lot of time in the music business, and there’s been a lot of projects and a lot of things that I’ve not done, and I’m never going to find the time for them if I carry on doing album, tour. So like I say, in 2016, if I do the farewell tour on the back of that album, then I’ve got time to write a book. And if in two or three years’ time if the writing isn’t working, and I’ve got to pay the mortgage or whatever, if it means taking the Fisheads Club [acoustic] tour out then, great. But the full ‘electric’ one, I wouldn’t say it’s a burden, that’s too negative, but it’s a lot more difficult these days to put together tours with a full electric band and the full entourage and to make it pay. There’s a lot of exciting things out there I really want to do. It’s not just an autobiography, there’s a lyric book that goes in parallel with that, because all the stories that go behind the lyrics lie in the same bed as a lot of the autobiographical stuff. My lyrics have been very personal over the years, so they’re kind of entwined really. But I mean the screenplays, I’d just love to take some time off and not be sitting there going; “I’ve got to write another album, I’ve got to go on tour next week”, so that’s kind of where it is.
So the plan is for the ‘Weltschmerz’ album to come out in 2016.
Yes, and because it’s going to be my last album, I’ve already been talking to some people, some special guests, because of the scope of the album and what it’s about. With the ideas that I’ve got for it, it will work well doing something with special guests having different inputs into it. It’s something I’m looking forward to. I’m already talking to two, maybe three big German open air [festival promoters] for next summer, and if we go out and do the open airs in the summer, and carry on working on the album through the summer, we’ll record it at the end of the year for release in 2016. On top of that I’m repackaging all my back catalogue in the next six months, so I’m leaving behind the definitive versions of the ten albums that I made.
You seem to be taking stock.
Well I think what happened was, with what happened with the tour at the beginning of the year, I was really disappointed when it all fell through for reasons that were real way beyond anybody’s comprehension. You couldn’t have gotten odds at Ladbrokes on the guitarist turning up four days before the first gig with bloody chickenpox – a fifty-six year old! I wish I had put some money on it! But the thing was, having spent three, four months setting that tour up, doing all the interviews, setting the single up, and then being left deflated here in the darkness at home, I got a message from an old friend of mine who was in the infantry and he left, basically for family reasons. He wanted to look after his wife and his kids, and he said to me; you know, you can leave the battlefield. You’ve done it, you’ve ticked it off; everything that you’ve said that you set out to do, you’ve achieved it. I kind of laughed it off at first, and the next day I was sitting one my own again, after doing another eight hour shift in the office, and I went, you know, he’s right. What am I doing? My girlfriend’s across in Germany and we’ve been doing this for four years. She’s got a young family and it’s really difficult for her to bring the family across here. I’ve got quite a few friends around here, but I’ve probably got more friends across there. And I’ve just been wrapped up in getting up at nine o’clock in the morning, switching on the computer, sitting in my dressing gown and then working through and you’re not finishing sometimes to eight or nine at night doing all sorts of stuff. And I kind of go, well, what’s my life about? I’d like to get my life back. So this is what it’s about. And there’s going to be some people that are going to be upset by that, but I’ve got to do this for myself. You know there are books to write, and people who have enjoyed what I’ve done as a singer, I’m pretty sure are going to enjoy my writings. I’ve been prompted by many people on Facebook and other social media, and good friends and musicians, you know; “you’ve got to start writing”.
You’ve never been shy as a writer. Even the detail that you went into in the CD booklets for the Marillion remasters was above what is usual for those sorts of things.
Oh no, only bits of it are there. The big shebang’s not there! I never went into a lot of detail on those remasters. There’s a lot more went on behind the scenes, and in my own personal life as well. So I think when I put together a book, you know I’ve read a couple of autobiographies, and there’s been one or two that I’ve really enjoyed and some I found so fucking linier. It needs a bit of prose in there, it needs to jump about and wrap up the subject, but I need time to do that. I’ve heard people say, oh, well write on the road. I can’t do that, because I’m concentrating on the gig that night, and that’s where my energies are going.
I have noticed from some of your recent Facebook posts, and on updates on your website that you never write just a couple of lines. It’s always much more than that. One of your posts on the recent Scottish Referendum for example, was written so eloquently.
Thank you, and that’s what’s happened, I’ve got more into writing. On ‘A Feast Of Consequences’ when I was putting together ‘The High Wood’ [the album’s multi-part, World War I themed central piece], which was a real challenge, you have to treat the subject with respect. It’s so easy to wander into heavy metal cliché with some stuff, but you don’t want to be too flowery. So I was suddenly reading scores of books on World War I, autobiographies, first-hand accounts etc. And also reading stuff like Sassoon and Owen, I was suddenly reading poetry for the first time in years, just to get the feel of the period, and I became immersed to the point of obsession. And coming into 2013, there was a voice behind me going; why don’t you just make an entire album about this? Why don’t you just delay the album and put out another album? And I was like; no, I can’t, I’ve got to get this album out, now! I knew that I could go too far on it, and I think maybe that’s something I learned as a songwriter and as a person; there’s a point when you’ve got to leave it and let it be.
I wanted to ask you about the ‘Hobble On The Cobbles’, where you had an impromptu reunion of sorts with Marillion in Aylesbury for a performance of ‘Market Square Heroes’ in 2007.
I got approached to play it. It was basically the twenty-fifth anniversary or whatever it was of ‘Market Square Heroes’. I went along to see the guys [Marillion] at a gig in Glasgow, and I can’t remember who I asked first; I think I asked Mark, and I think I asked Steve. I only asked a couple of them, and then it was suddenly, “well, why don’t we all go up?” So I didn’t want to advertise it. I mean, nobody knew it was happening. If I had been a real cynical bastard, you know, I could have milked that forever, and I didn’t want that. All I wanted was just the five of us to have a little dream for just like five minutes in Aylesbury. And nobody expected it to go like it did. I mean, it just came completely out of the blue and went absolutely viral within a few hours of it happening. We didn’t even rehearse. It was just, let’s just do it for old time’s sake, and it got taken completely out of context. It was great just to stand on a stage and all smile at each other. It was just five guys having fun. I’m sure EMI were over the moon, because we probably sold a few more units, with people slavering and drooling at a possible reunion. But as Steve’s pointed out, he’s genuinely admitted that he can’t play the solos in that key when I sing them low. My guys can, and we’ll go out and play them next year, but I think that Steve does what Steve does. That’s the way it goes. I’m fifty-six years old. It’s a lot easier for guitarists and keyboard players and drummers to play exactly as it was thirty years ago, but for singers, it’s the same as centre forwards; you’re moving to the back posts sometimes.
Looking forward then, the ‘Movable Feast’ tour begins in a few days’ time.
Yes, we’re away to Holland to do some acoustic performances and national radio at the weekend, and then back to do Durham, Preston and Southampton, and then we’re off to Holland, and then we enter the fray. So I’m looking forward to it, but I always get nervous before I go out on a tour. Once I get two, three shows in, it starts to settle, so by the time we come back at the end of the year, it will be slick.
The Moveable Feast tour returns to the UK for the following dates this December;
Exeter, Phoenix
Saturday 6th December 2014
Tickets: £22.50 / Box Office: 01392 667 080
Book Online:www.thegigcartel.com + http://fishheadsclub.com
Bristol, Fleece
Sunday 7th December 2014
Tickets £22.50 / Box Office 0117 945 0996
Book Online: www.thegigcartel.com + http://fishheadsclub.com
Wolverhampton, The Robin
Monday 8th December 2014
Tickets: £22.50 / Box Office: 01902 401211
Book Online:www.thegigcartel.com + http://fishheadsclub.com
Cardiff, Globe
Tuesday 9th December 2014
Tickets: £22.50 / Box Office 0844 478 0898
Book Online: www.thegigcartel.com + http://fishheadsclub.com
Norwich, Waterfront
Thursday 11th December 2014
Tickets: £22.50 / Box Office 01603 508 050
Book Online:www.thegigcartel.com + http://fishheadsclub.com
London, Islington Assembly Hall
Friday 12th December 2014
Tickets £22.50 / Box Office 0844 478 0898
Book Online: www.thegigcartel.com + http://fishheadsclub.com
Northampton, Roadmender
Saturday 13th December 2014
Tickets: £22.50 / Box Office: 01604 231 688
Book Online:www.thegigcartel.com + http://fishheadsclub.com
Reading, Sub 89 (New Show)
Monday 15th December 2014
www.sub89.com
Brighton, Concorde
Tuesday 16th December2014
Tickets: £22.50 / Box Office: 01273 673311
Book Online:www.thegigcartel.com + http://fishheadsclub.com
www.concorde2.co.uk
Holmfirth, Picturedrome
Thursday 18th December 2014
Tickets: £22.50 / Box Office: 0844 478 0898
Book Online:www.thegigcartel.com + http://fishheadsclub.com
Liverpool, O2 Academy
Friday 19th December 2014
Tickets: £22.50 / Box Office: 0844 477 2000
Book Online: www.thegigcartel.com
Sheffield, City Hall
Saturday 20th December 2014
Tickets: £22.50 / Box Office: 0114 2789 789
Book Online: www.thegigcartel.com
Glasgow O2 ABC
Monday 21st December 2014
Tickets: £22.50 / Box Office: 0844 477 2000
Book Online: www.thegigcartel.com + http://fishheadsclub.com
Tickets already purchased are valid for the rescheduled shows.
Thanks again to Fish for taking the time to have this conversation with Uber Rock.
https://www.facebook.com/derek.dick
To pick up your copy of ‘A Feast Of Consequences’ – CLICK HERE
