Two large coffees, please,\u201d says Fish, politely. We\u2019re at Absolute Radio, where he\u2019ll do an on-air interview after we\u2019ve finished. There\u2019s a moment\u2019s hesitation on the part of the station staffer that he\u2019s asked. \u201cOh, and one for my friend here as well,\u201d he adds, noticing the uncertainty. \u201cI don\u2019t function until I\u2019ve got at least a gallon of coffee inside me.\u201d With just a fraction of that amount imbibed, Fish is his usual garrulous, anecdotal self, blessed with a memory which displays almost total recall. His blogs, and his sleevenotes for the reissues of his solo work, are as detailed as they are extraordinarily frank, shining a light into nooks and crannies of character flaws or bad financial decisions which most musicians go all-out to hide. He likes to demystify the star-maker machinery behind the popular song. Derek Dick\u2019s loyal fans love him for it. Which might surprise those who remember him best for his days as the singer and frontman for the wilfully florid Marillion, who he left on bad terms in 1988. They crossed over into the pop charts in \u201985 with Kayleigh and its romantic remembrances of loving on the floor in Belsize Park, but their four albums with him at the helm revived full-blown progressive rock at the most unlikely time. The band endured after the split, as did Fish, though not without his fair share of snakes and ladders. The (very) tall 61-year-old Scotsman is nominally here to promote a recent deluxe reissue of Clutching At Straws, his dark, melodramatic Marillion kiss-off, and his forthcoming new and final double-album, Weltschmerz, after which he\u2019s declared he\u2019ll retire and write. He plays a mixture of these two career poles the next night, at a London gig where his banter and interaction with the audience recall nothing so much as a jovially observational and sweary Billy Connolly stand-up set. The man who breathed life into the most escapist of genres is a staunch, stoic realist. And a keen gardener.<\/p>\n
How did you first get into music, growing up in Midlothian? My family weren\u2019t musical but my grandmother had a piano which I used to plonk around on, playing giants and fairies when I was a kid \u2013 you know, bashing the low keys then the high ones. My dad took me into a guitar shop and I squatted down by one of these beautiful guitars, thinking that you just strummed it and it played a Beatles song without having to move your fingers. I ended up with an orange plastic one for Christmas that I broke within a day. I wasn\u2019t that interested in playing; I was into writing. At school I was good at English. I read a lot of Burroughs, the Tarzan writer \u2013 Edgar Rice. William S [Burroughs] came later! I started to get really into music aged 12\/13: the first single I bought was Lola by The Kinks. By then, The Beatles and Stones were for older brothers and sisters. Glam was coming through at high school. But I couldn\u2019t identify with the Bowies and Slades, because I was a very tall guy who was never going to be into fashion. In any shop they\u2019d say: \u201c Sorry, we don\u2019t have that in your size, only something in black or brown.\u201d Even the jeans advertised in the back of Melody Maker would never work with my legs!<\/p>\n
So your legs led you towards prog?
\nWell, suddenly I saw progressive rock as being a great vehicle to put lyrics on. The first bands I ever went to see \u2013 in \u201975 \u2013 were Yes, then Genesis on The Lamb Lies Down tour three days later. But my own first gig wasn\u2019t till 1980, when I was 22.<\/p>\n
Was that a mini-universe of unicorns and wizards?
\nOh, no\u2026 I\u2019d never sung before, and I was doing All Right Now and Walk On By. Steely Dan covers, Ry Cooder. We supported Alexis Korner, who said he liked my voice and I should come to London. I never saw him again. By January \u201981, I joined Marillion \u2013 it was that fast. I\u2019d auditioned for a NWOBHM band who said my voice was too quiet. Then I\u2019d joined a psychedelic band who rehearsed in a piggery full of rats. That lasted two weeks. I was moving around \u2013 Cambridge, the Scottish borders \u2013 then saw Marillion\u2019s advert in Musicians Only.<\/p>\n
And the rest is history?
\nWell, they wanted a vocalist-bassist. My bassist friend and I called them from the village phone box with our last coins and asked if they\u2019d take two separate guys? We sent them demos, me singing in one channel over Yes and Genesis songs. They sent us theirs. They seemed to like Camel. I sent them lyrics: I\u2019d written [future Marillion tracks] Garden Party and The Web at that point. When we went down to Aylesbury to meet them, we\u2019d decided we were staying there no matter what. I\u2019d been a gardener, garage attendant, forestry worker; spent time in the woods. I thought: I can\u2019t do this.
\nI had to be a singer.<\/p>\n
The rise of Marillion came in an era when unfashionable prog was not the horse any betting man would have backed\u2026
\nThe media had dictated that it was dead. And after the excesses of Yes and others, it\u2019d become flatulent. A lot of that flak was deserved. Even I hated [Yes\u2019 1978 LP] Tormato. And, oh God \u2013 ELP\u2019s Love Beach: ha ha, always wanted to do a cover shot like that. Anyway, the progressive rock scene was kicked into the long grass. But when we came out, NWOBHM was petering out, and Sounds magazine were crying out for something else to champion. The people we were playing to, who\u2019d loved Genesis and Yes, were hankering for long songs and lots of words. And they saw this six-foot-five jock with a painted face: that worked. We built it, gathered a following. Eventually, we needed somewhere in London to be our cave, and I identified the Marquee. Buses full of our fans came. By \u201982, it had just accelerated.
\nWe played and played. In that year we did, I think, 13 sold-out Marquees, and supported Jethro Tull, John Martyn, Spirit, Lindisfarne. Tommy Vance got behind us on the radio. For people outside the band it must have seemed meteoric, like a Halley\u2019s Comet \u2013 where the fuck did they come from? Playing that kind of music? We were now a hot ticket. You couldn\u2019t ignore us.<\/p>\n
When you signed to EMI did you feel you were sticking it to the sceptics?
\nWell, they wanted a single but we knew we were an album band, so we did Market Square Heroes, with Grendel \u2013 a 20-minute piece, a big fan favourite \u2013 on the B-side. Look, we knew it sounded like [Genesis classic] Supper\u2019s Ready. We knew! Genesis\u2019 manager said if he\u2019d heard it sooner, he\u2019d have sued us. But it was tongue-in-cheek.
\nIt satisfied the fans and meant we could get rid of Grendel.<\/p>\n
Get rid of it? The song that most diehard Marillion fans have tattooed on their chests?
\nIt was going to have to come out somewhere, and we didn\u2019t want it on the album because it was just too Genesis. The fans now had it on a piece of vinyl, as they wanted. The [1983] debut album, Script For A Jester\u2019s Tear, was pretty much written and things like Forgotten Sons were set regulars. It was an exciting album to make but I look back on it now and it\u2019s a bit na\u00efve. It\u2019s a good ident for where the band was back then. But we had a crap drummer. I\u2019d already had to fire the bass player, who was a friend, so I had no choice but to respond to our demographic. I didn\u2019t enjoy being cold about it. It all got a bit …Spinal Tap when our next drummer had a nervous breakdown and the US tour fell apart.<\/p>\n
The second album, Fugazi (1984), felt as much rock as prog\u2026
\nI wanted it heavier. I was into The Who, Faces, Led Zep, whereas Steve [Rothery, guitarist] was into Camel. But we had our definitive rhythm section at that point, and that made us, having that core. I feed off the rhythm. So then the band was fantastic.<\/p>\n
Which gave you the solid platform over which to drape your stories in that Daltrey-meets-Gabriel voice?
\nThat was the start of finding my feet as a lyricist. With Script, I was very flowery. With Fugazi, the dynamic and the stories worked: Incubus, She Chameleon, Assassing. But I remember being in Liverpool hearing mixes and asking to change some things and being told: \u201cNo, that\u2019s it, it\u2019s gone.\u201d So that was a let-down. It was somehow both overworked and under-polished. Oh, there was too much cocaine around. It\u2019s not a good substance for use in the studio.<\/p>\n
Now came commercial success with [1985\u2019s] Misplaced Childhood and its unexpected hit singles, Kayleigh and Lavender. Did you enjoy the ascent or did it make you blue (dilly dilly)?
\nFirstly, we were on a sticky wicket then with EMI; they were questioning how much we\u2019d spent on Fugazi. So they sent us to Berlin with (producer) Chris Kimsey. A cheap studio. To get us out of the way somewhere.
\nWait \u2013 Hansa was cheap? The hallowed Bowie-blessed studio of rock lore?
\nYeah, yeah, Hansa was very run-down at that time. It was kind of wild the bands who got sent there \u2013 Killing Joke, us. It was cheaper than The Manor. We just thought: \u201cRight, let\u2019s make an album that we want to make, and damn the torpedoes.\u201d\u00a0Because we were in Berlin, it was difficult for the record company to check up on us. When they heard we were doing a concept album, there were panicky raised eyebrows. But when they heard Kayleigh \u2013 that changed everything. They knew they had a single. And that album catapulted us into another realm. It went into hyper-drive. Yet that was when we lost our gang mentality, and our manager lost his focus. It destroyed us.<\/p>\n
There must have been some elements of sudden pop success which were enjoyable?
\nOh, putting that album together was a marvellous experience. Joining all the pieces together, realising they worked, that it had a great flow and curve \u2013 recognising that was an incredible feeling. As a lyricist I\u2019d become more confident to express myself, to make it more first-person. I opened up. It was about me recovering from my relationship with Kay, my girlfriend then, which predetermined where the album went. The band were mostly fine with that, though they didn\u2019t want a song called Kayleigh \u2013 they said it was too close to her name. I said: \u201cThat\u2019s the way it is.\u201d<\/p>\n
Is it true you wrote all the lyrics on a massive acid trip?
\nNot all of them! An old girlfriend had sent me a tab of acid in an envelope. It was the summer of \u201984, and I was bored. I hadn\u2019t done acid for about two years, and I thought: \u201cOh, I\u2019ll just do half.\u201d Got on my bike, went to Steve Rothery\u2019s house. That\u2019s where it all started to go \u201cwrong\u201d. I\u2019d now taken the other half, thinking, as you do: oh, still bored, nothing\u2019s happening. And then, well, Steve had to drag me back to my house. There, that night in Aylesbury, I sat up writing a stream-of-consciousness, parts of which were used in the lyrics. The opening \u2013 \u201chuddled in the safety of a pseudo-silk kimono wearing bracelets of smoke, naked of understanding\u2026\u201d \u2013 was written in one flourish. I remember thinking: I\u2019ve found the concept now; I know what I\u2019m doing here.<\/p>\n
Clearly, those lyrics are too good to have been written on drugs\u2026
\nYes, they were not written on acid, that\u2019s a myth. But the dream \u2013 idea \u2013 concept was. It was about my childhood, too. And about whether I was Derek or Fish. The conflict between the two. Which was strange. It was Derek dealing with being Fish. There are elements where Derek is the central character and others where Fish is.<\/p>\n
Was Derek having problems inhabiting the Fish persona?
\nAt the time. I was trying to remember who I was, where I\u2019d come from. Because we were moving up the ranks, big in Germany and all, but you\u2019re trying to keep your feet on the ground, too. Kayleigh took us completely by surprise. We were used to our singles going in at 16 then dropping down. We thought if we could get in the Top 10, brilliant. But Kayleigh went 10, 5, 3, 2, 2, 2\u2026<\/p>\n
The teenage dream realised?
\nBut it separated us. We\u2019d been a gang, but suddenly all this focus was on me. Everybody wanted to interview Fish. The others were able to keep domestic things going, to stay out of the spotlight offstage. I was the guy doing all the interviews, the radio stations, talking it up. I was subjected to a lot of external influences. Some of which were dark. I was led into areas \u2013 quite happily, because that\u2019s the kind of person I was, and to some extent still am \u2013 which were\u2026 experimental. And I was single, whereas all the other guys had, by that point, got married. Which meant different attitudes towards life. Then all this gets caught up with money, and a Machiavellian manager. Tore us apart. On tour there were a lot of hi-jinks, which was fun, but it went on and on because the manager was making so much money for himself. How we managed to get [1987\u2019s] Clutching At Straws together at all is a miracle. That fourth Marillion album (the last with Fish) \u2013 a study of despair, drink and divorce \u2013 vies with Misplaced Childhood as the fans\u2019 choice of masterpiece. Laced with geopolitical barbs (\u201cUzis on a street corner!\u201d goes the refrain of White Russian), it\u2019s the dark side of its predecessor\u2019s pop sheen.
\nAll my observations and experiences were now from a tour bus or a hotel room. It became a very intense world, with tunnel vision. The band weren\u2019t too happy with my ideas \u2013 they didn\u2019t like the drug references as they were all \u201cclean-living\u201d guys. They didn\u2019t want a camera put on that part of the band. Whereas I was very Scottish and open about it. Then, after the album, we went on tour and, oh, I just hated it. I mean, in That Time Of The Night, I\u2019d written my resignation letter. I\u2019d think: how can they not have seen it coming? Can they not tell how I feel?<\/p>\n
How much of Clutching\u2019s lead character Torch is you?
\nThat\u2019s a big question. He was another alter ego. He wasn\u2019t fully-formed, in all honesty. I threw in some of my more negative attributes, and blamed it on Torch.<\/p>\n
Hadn\u2019t you got married around then?
\nBut I\u2019d married the wrong person. The wrong fucking person. If I\u2019m forced to put my hand up, I think I\u2019d married a trophy wife. I was 29, I felt like I had to get married, had to settle down. But \u2013 wrong, wrong, wrong. So, we were going through relationship strife on that \u201987 tour, which didn\u2019t help. And then the drugs, the alcohol\u2026 I was unhappy and lonely. I wasn\u2019t quite a cocaine-addled alcoholic, but I did have issues. So… I left the band.<\/p>\n
How hard was that?
\nIt was something I could easily walk away from. That environment was what was making me unhappy. It wasn\u2019t good for my soul, my spirit, or for a marriage that then I still wanted to save. So, I left. The primary reason was the management. We were playing all these gigs to 12-15,000 people and were struggling to pay our mortgages, while the manager was buying a massive house in Kent. One night, I\u2019d drunk a huge bottle of Jim Beam at my cousin\u2019s, and I was so stressed and my mind was in such turmoil that I wasn\u2019t even pissed. So, an alarm bell went off. It said: \u201cYou have to stop this. Now.\u201d I wrote
\na letter to them all basically saying it\u2019s the manager or me. They never phoned me. The manager did. He said, \u201cThe band accept your resignation.\u201d I thought: \u201cFuck \u2019em.\u201d<\/p>\n
You and the rest of the band didn\u2019t speak for years, did you?
\nThere was a lot of bitterness to work through. And then legal things \u2013 I said, \u201cYou can keep the name but give me 50 percent of the publishing for my writing, that\u2019s fair.\u201d Suddenly the dogs of war were unleashed. Dave Gilmour was going through a similar thing with Roger [Waters] at the time and warned me: \u201cIt\u2019s fucking awful.\u201d It was a nasty divorce. We\u2019re OK now, but it took years. When we did meet up, we went for a Thai meal in Oxford. And the first thing they said was that they were sorry but I was right about that manager. But we made up, got on fine. I\u2019ll write a book about it all one day. And I\u2019ve got a very, very good memory!<\/p>\n
So were you now yourself again, or still Fish?
\nI was still Fish. I had to move forward, to get away from some of the dark characters that\u2019d been coming around. I didn\u2019t want to end up as Torch, propping up the Marquee bar, talking about the good old times. I\u2019d met [keyboardist-arranger] Mickey Simmonds through playing squash with him and Mike Oldfield, and we got together to write. I had lyrics ready, and we put together [1990\u2019s solo debut album], Vigil In A Wilderness Of Mirrors. I pondered moving to Bristol, then Birmingham, then thought: \u201cFuck it, I\u2019m moving back to Scotland.\u201d My mum and dad found a farmhouse with out-buildings, which is where I live now. I knew I needed a rehearsal space and studio, because if Marillion had bought one in the 80s it would\u2019ve saved us hundreds of thousands.
\nSo I had my studio, and enough rooms so writers and players could stay if they came up.<\/p>\n
When Vigil… came out were Marillion put behind you?
\nOh, there was still an intense rivalry, then. In the interviews I did I was a complete fucking super-bitch! And so were they! We were still both signed to the same bloody label, too. I wish EMI had just dropped me. But they wanted, y\u2019know, Phil Collins and Genesis, which caused all sorts of added problems. They asked me to sit on Vigil for a few months while they put out [Marillion\u2019s first post-Fish album] Season\u2019s End [1989], on the promise they\u2019d give me the full all-singing, all-dancing bells-and-whistles treatment. I went, \u201cOK, but I can\u2019t just do nothing.\u201d So I went on tour wasting
\na shitload of money just to be seen doing something. Because there\u2019d been these rumours \u2013 \u201ccocaine addict, alcoholic\u201d \u2013 and I wanted people to see: \u201cI\u2019m still working here! Still got the songs and the chops!\u201d Of course, by the time Vigil… came out, yes, they\u2019d set up a big campaign, but EMI had fired a lot of people who\u2019d been important to it. Costs grew. Long story short, I left the label. I moved to Polydor, and kept the copyrights, which is why I own all the albums from that point on. But it was a really hard time through the 90s, a hard run. By the way, we hope to get the new remasters of Vigil… and the second solo album Internal Exile out around October [2019].<\/p>\n
Your reissue campaign for your solo catalogue has been both cleverly managed and candidly presented, as your epic sleevenotes \u2013 often almost novellas \u2013 detail every personal and financial obstacle. You\u2019ve had tough times.
\nYes, but Feast Of Consequences [2013] was a rejuvenation. Oh, I loved making that. And there was a parallel between it and Misplaced Childhood. So I made up my mind that Weltschmerz will be the final album. Because I\u2019m a writer now. The music business has changed so much. You can\u2019t make money off product like you used to: you\u2019ve got to go out live. I\u2019m 60 years old and a realist. I don\u2019t want to be on a Nightliner bus every night when I\u2019m 63. So with this, let\u2019s do what I did with Clutching… and make the best album I\u2019ve ever made, only as a solo artist. \u201cWeltschmerz\u201d is German for \u201ca world of pain\u201d or \u201cworld-weariness\u201d. I\u2019m writing about characters\u2026 it\u2019s like writing screenplays. I wanted to be an actor, I enjoyed the little I did, but I\u2019m too old now: my knees aren\u2019t fit for action. And my dad died in May 2016: I woke up in the gutter seven months later \u2013 I didn\u2019t know what the fuck had happened in that time. It affected me deeply. Then, in 2017, I had various surgical operations on my back and my shoulder and I wasn\u2019t in a frame of mind to write. But from January 2018 it came together. These are naturally long, epic songs. It\u2019s too much material for a single album, so let\u2019s make a real statement and go out with a double.
\nThere are further delays \u2013 my mother is ill and we\u2019re moving her in here, which necessitates building on the farm, for which you have to jump through bureaucratic hoops \u2013 so I\u2019m glad we decided to put out the EP, A Parlay With Angels, as an advert for what\u2019s coming. It\u2019s like a jigsaw of the sky \u2013 you get one, two, three pieces and the shape clarifies. Our confidence was buoyed by the response to it; our tails were up. Then this Spring I was hospitalised for four days with a bacterial infection which led to sepsis, but rumours of my demise were greatly exaggerated \u2013 I\u2019m fine. The Clutching tour felt good, my voice held out and we closed that chapter well. Now we\u2019ll finish Weltschmertz this year and release it in January [2020], and tour the UK and Europe in March-April. There\u2019s no pressure. I\u2019m enjoying my gardening. Fifteen different types of tomato!<\/p>\n
Is there any chance you\u2019ll enjoy your swansong so much that you\u2019ll postpone retirement?
\nI don\u2019t think so. It\u2019s time now. I don\u2019t belong to this new version of the music business. I\u2019ll leave it to younger people. It\u2019s a very different beast now.<\/p>\n
Clutching At Straws Deluxe Edition (4CD\/Blu-ray and 5LP) is out now on Parlophone. Fish\u2019s first two remastered solo albums are due out in the autumn. His final studio album Weltschmerz will be released next year and Fish will be on tour from March 2020.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Two large coffees, please,\u201d says Fish, politely. We\u2019re at Absolute Radio, where he\u2019ll do an on-air interview after we\u2019ve finished. There\u2019s a moment\u2019s hesitation on the part of the station staffer that he\u2019s asked. \u201cOh, and one for my friend here as well,\u201d he adds, noticing the uncertainty. \u201cI don\u2019t function until I\u2019ve got at \u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9950,"featured_media":196161,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"issue":[10101],"class_list":["post-196160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","issue-july-2019"],"apple_news_notices":[],"yoast_head":"\n