'All performers have an alter ego, that they send on stage'
H is the most important letter of the alphabet. It stands for Hard and Heavy, for mood and humour, for Hans and for Heuvel. And as of recently also for a solo project by Steve Hogarth's, Marillion's singer, who this time is assisted by new wave aces such as Dave Gregory (XTC), Richard Barbieri (Japan) and Clem Burke (Blondie).
The reason to make H the name of the band is actually a bit simpler. 'H has been my nickname since I started singing for Marillion, to avoid confusion with gitarist Steve Rothery', according to the sympathetic frontman who's hair is in two pigtails for this occasion. 'I didn't want to call this project Steve Hogarth, that was too personal. Everyone will think I made up everything and will immediately link it to Marillion. A band I've inhereted. I didn't have to work for the success, it was thrown into my lap.'
Is that a luxury or a burden ?
'The good thing is that people listen to you. But no matter how much contribute to the music, you never feel equally responsible for the succes. The funny thing is that Dave Gregory wasn't an original XTC member either. Dave joined after two albums when keyboardist Barry Andrews left. And he also still feels like the new guy...'
For an outsider it seems as if Hogarth wanted to finalise the new wave-period he so roughly was pulled away from when he joined Marillion, with producer Craig Leon and musicians from XTC, Japan and Blondie. 'Maybe it's true that I was disoriented when I suddenly joined Marillion, that rockband with a capital R. I'm not one of those stereotyped rock singers, a hairy guy with a Harley Davidson and two grams of cocaine in each nostril who's fooling around with groupies all night long. I was always a bit more experimental, poetic too. I never felt good about cliches, whether it was about music, lyrics or image. I loved artrock bands that followed in the wake of punk, such as Talking Heads. With the exception of Jeff Buckley I haven't heard anything after that, that I found as good. So I picked Craig Leon as producer, who has worked with the Ramones, Blondie, the Bangles and more recently The Fall. Craig is a musicologist. He has a phenomenal memory, he knows who recorded what and can even write out the music for you. Other than that, he also knows how you can make music have the atmosphere of a particular time. His only shortcoming is that his vocabulary is a bit limited. When he likes something, he calls it 'genius'. When he thinks something is bad, it's 'torture'. Those are the only two words he uses to communicate. If a take worked out really well, he'd yell: I scream Genius! That's where the album title came from.'
The main difference between Marillion and H are the keyboards that thanks to Richard Barbieri revert to Japan's 'Tin Drum' period. 'I've always had a lot of respect for Japan, especially for that 'Tin Drum' cd. Richard is the most brilliant programmer I've ever met, a phenomenal talent. He doesn't use samples, but analog synthesizers, which he adjusts throughout the song. His choice for sounds and notes and especially the moment when he plays - or not - is beautiful. Richard adds little spirits, sounds, phantoms....'
That fits perfectly with the opening track:
I've got an animal inside of me, it sleeps during the day...
'I'm talking about a second personality everyone has, that can pop up under certain circumstances. A friend of my wife one day was told by her husband that he had fucked all of her girlfriends. He even gave her a list with all their names. Obviously, that woman was completely stupefied and it ended in a divorce... I didn't understand what made that man do this. First of all that he had fucked all those girlfriends, but especially his desire to inform his wife about it in such a course way, inflicting so much extra pain by making such a list. As if that man had been leading a double life, where the animal inside him got the upper hand.'
But at the same time you also have that animal inside you.
How does that express itself with you?
'All performers have an alter ego, that they send on stage. Even if you're not born with it, you notice that a second 'me' emanates during tours. Because you can never be the same person on stage as in your private life. Because the person that gets on stage, leads a very unnatural life. Observed and perhaps adored by a few thousand people, who all want to hear what he has to say, want to see what he wears and what he does. That can't be the same person as the one at the breakfast table in the morning. There are a few performers for whom it was impossible to seperate those two different personalities. Bowie got into a lot of trouble when he started believing he himself was Ziggy Stardust. He had created all those personalities, to find out that his own psyche began to overlap more and more.'
The average American however seems to be in the showbizz contantly...
'But they pay their price for it. If you take a look at the amount of marriages they terminate, the amount of broken hearts and the amount of psychiatrists they go through as a result, you see the price they have to pay for it.'
You now did this solo project, does that take some steam off the kettle with Marillion ? Are you going to pull them less towards new wave now ?
'Since I've been in the band, I have indeed tried to make the musicians in Marillion step out of their own little world. There is room, because we don't have rules. How that works out is limited by everyone's individual taste and technique. You can't ask people to be different. With a solo album you can build everything from the ground up. You can dive into a lake you've never swom in before. Steve and Ian also participated in solo projects. And the way it looks, it worked out well for all of us. We all came back a bit more relaxed towards the direction of the band. The new cd isn't finished yet, but so far it sounds more acoustic than ever. One of the songs is the most progressive rocksong we've ever written, with huge Mellotron and Moog solos. Oddly enough I was the one who started it. I'm now at a stage where I think it's nice to do something retro-progressive.
Retro-progressive, do you hear what you're saying?'
Hey, most of the bands who call themselves progressive rockbands are exactly the opposite, right ? That's what we've been trying to avoid for the last six years. We've never let us be influenced by 70's prog bands that much. Much more by The Who. Quadrophenia had more influence on Marillion than Genesis. The Who always experimented with chord structures and concept albums. But they've always maintained a certain anger and an egde that I like a lot more than the drowsy mushroom sound of most progbands.'
Steve Hogarth's solo project got a nice aftermath. Because both the album pictures as the video were in the hands of our very own photographer Niels van Iperen.
How on Earth did Hogarth end up with Niels ?
Hogarth: 'Years ago we had an interview day here in The Netherlands. And in
the middle of all the madness there was this smiling guy who led me away
to a room upstairs and wanted me to blow up a white balloon. A stupid idea,
but he managed to convince me. Much later I got to see his pictures and
they were beautiful. Niels had set everything so that the balloon was a
light source that was shining on my face, very creative. When I wondered
who I would ask to make pictures for my album, I tried to contact him.
I wrote him a letter he got six months later, because he was in the US at
the time. That letter had been hunting him, so to speak. He wrote me back,
telling me he was still alive and still a photographer. And that's how
things happened. It was a chance to do everything a bit differently
instead of playing safe by making a video with the same people that make
all the other videos. It was a risk. For both me and the record company.
I took a big risk. But at least we got a chance to come up with something
very special...'Hans van den Heuvel, Oor, date unknown
-Translated from Dutch by Mark Bredius
