INTERVIEW: Fish
- Tym Altman and Ron Singer
Fish, the former lead-singer of Marillion, left the band more than 10 years ago. His first North American tour as a solo artist recently took him through Vancouver, British Columbia, where Consumable was able to catch up with him.
Consumable: How does it feel to be back in North America after being away for so long?
Fish: It's very nice. We're having a lot of fun. I never came back for more than 10 years. We never had a record deal. We never had really the opportunity. I mean no promoter would seriously take us on, unless we had the radio umbrella - unless we had some record company working for us over here. It's a strange feeling coming back, and getting the reactions that we've been getting on the tour. Some of the gigs have been extremely moving. It's going to be interesting to see what happens tonight.
C: There are a lot of great fans over here... a lot of hardcore fans have been waiting a long time for you to come back, so I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.
F: I hope so.
C: How does the experience in North America compare to Europe?
F: Kind of similar. I'm not as intimidated by the US and Canada as I was. It doesn't seem as alien an environment as it was before. Having been in Chile, and Argentina, South Africa, and Singapore, this is like normal for us.
C: But we see on videos how crowds really get into it, and I don't see the same kind of reaction from North American crowds. No one clapping along.
F: No, no...they've been doing that! They've been doing that. It will be interesting tonight, when the crowd's kind of... sparse. But it's to be expected. The record company in Canada has not exactly been active. The album arrived only this week (Aug. 19), so it's a bad situation. But I'm not gonna be like "My god! There's only this many people, so we're gonna do a short show." We'll do a full show, and we'll do it to the best of our abilities. I mean every gig in North America is a showcase, you know? We'll already making plans to come back, including to Vancouver, no matter what happens tonight. I'd like to come back and build on whatever happens tonight.
C: I read about what happened in Quebec, at the Hull gig. How did that situation come about?
F: It was a gig sponsored by Budweiser. The production company, the guys who were in charge of it, were given money by Budweiser. There were no tickets. It was a free gig, so there was no real pressure on them to sell the gig. From my information, they didn't really sell it. The production as far as the way it was organized, it was dreadful. We were supposed to be the headline band. We soundchecked, and then they broke our gear down. They took all our mikes off and stuff. And at the end of the day, it went overtime, and they asked us to cut our set. And then we went on. They basically told us that everything was OK, and told us to go on. And then we went on, and the gear wasn't right. We ended up doing "Gentleman's Excuse Me" (from Fish's first solo album Vigil In A Wilderness Of Mirrors ), and "Lavender" (from Marillion's classic Misplaced Childhood ), you know, just to try and break it. But it was difficult. It was a French-speaking audience, and I don't speak Quebequois. It kind of left us in a bad light. We started the set, and about an hour and fifteen or twenty minutes in the set, they told us "That's it". And I was really annoyed. There was a lot of fans that waited a long time for me to come back, and they were just as disappointed as we were. I wanted to put on a full show, and we weren't allowed to do it.
C: Do you regret doing it at all?
F: No! Because everybody said "Oh, we're going to do 5000 people..blah blah blah"...and you know, you trust people. In the USA and Canada there is a certain mentality...you come out with figures that are a lot more elaborate than what they actually are. You just gotta deal with that. I think it would have been better if we would have done an indoor show in that area, in Hull or Ottawa than doing the open-air. But it's history. You know, you start blaming Budweiser... on stage I was pretty negative towards the whole corporate idea. But what it comes down to is a bunch of guys who were acting as... you know, they were making their money... they didn't really care about what the fans or the audience were going to get. They had their money, they've done the show, they didn't give a shit. We DID. And that was the problem. But I made my opinions very available on stage. But it wasn't an anti-Budweiser thing. I was just very, very annoyed. It was probably the most aggressive show that I've done... in years.
C: How have sales of Sunsets On Empire (Fish's new album) gone in the US?
F: They're good in US. It's the Canada situation that annoys me - for example in Vancouver, it only arrived this week. The press promo has been very limited. There should have been a lot more of it. Then again, the gigs speak for themselves. We're getting great reviews, and here we're already looking at coming back and doing a big festival, in Quebec, Ontario, and possibly one in this city next summer. And I would like to get into Winnipeg, Calgary, and Edmonton.
C: Do you think a live video or CD will come out from this North American tour?
F: Maybe. I think we're going to record the LA show. We're just going to see how it goes. I'm not going to put anything out just because it's been done. It's got to be a relative quality. Let's just see what happens.
C: It's hard. Like our Much Music (the Canadian equivalent of MTV, but cooler) doesn't play any Fish music.
F: Yeah I know. I think it's up to the fans to start phoning them up and requesting the "Brother 52" video, and things like that. The good thing is, it's on the CD. It's an enhanced CD.
C: You've always been really good interacting with the crowds. Have there been any hecklers at the shows?
F: Yeah, the heckling in North America has been pathetic. What happens is that one guy shouts out, and I take him out, and everybody else goes like, "No. Well I better not say anything because..." Well I've been raised on Scottish audiences, and - I'm kind of sharp.
C: What do they heckle you about? Do you ever get the Phish fans that come in by mistake and realize they're at the wrong show?
F: We've had some, but as far as I'm aware they're into it. Nobody's come up and said "I want my money back, because I wanted the band with the other spelling. " You know, I respect the Phish guys. They're like myself - not exactly commercial in the sense of the word, not image oriented. They're very concerned with the live vibe, do a lot of gigs. That's the way they've collected their fans. They take care of their fans; they've got very loyal fans. And there's a lot of similarities in the way they work and the way I work. We've got a lot of contact through people. They know what I'm doing, and I know what they're doing. We've got this sort of mutual silence. There's been no lawyers saying "You can not do this, because it's the same sort of name, and shit like that." In Europe they go out and people think it's me playing small venues, and over here they think it's them playing small venues. And there's a lot of Phish t-shirts at our gigs, and I think there's a lot of similarities, so be it. I've got no problems. I'd love to do a double-headlining tour. To support them would be interesting.
C: Have you had any other new singles released since "Brother 52" ?
F: Yeah. "Change of Heart" has come out in the UK, but it's done nothing. Here the difference between Canada and USA, and UK, is that in the UK they're obsessed about image packaging, profile, and the wrapping paper. Not the tapes, not the content. And over here, you've got a vibrant rock radio, and that's the difference. In Scotland we get A-listed on all the stations. In England we get nothing. But I'm thriving off the positive vibes that are around this tour. I'm having more fun on this tour that I can ever remember having on any North American tour. It's just fun. And it's 10 years on, and I've got a different attitude now. I'm a professional musician, and I love the gigs, and the vibes. I love the 2 hour, 2 hour & 15 minute we play. I'm just a lot more mature than I was back then.
The completion of this interview will appear in the next issue of Consumable. Fish's official website can be accessed at: http://www.livjm.ac.uk/fish
