WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
What Fish is up to next…
“I’m 60 next year – there are screenplays I want to write, books. And the music business has changed so much. It’s a whole different circus.”
In december 2017, fish hits the road to mark the 30th anniversary of clutching at straws. as with 2005’s return to childhood tour, which found him playing marillion’s misplaced childhood in full, the forthcoming tour will find him revisiting his swansong album with the band.
“it’s gonna be interesting re-examining that material,” he says. “you look at White russian now, and it’s so pertinent.”
While the temptation might be to play the album from start to finish, fish says he’s considering mixing things up. “i’ve been toying with the idea of putting relevant songs within it. some of them will work well together. and i’ve got to look at tux on, which was a fucking brilliant B-side from that era. it was basically just some drum programming that we jammed on – we’re going to have to completely rewrite it.”
the shows may also find fish road-testing material from his as-yet-unwritten solo album, Weltschmerz. despite originally planning to release the album this year, the singer decide to hold fire on it due to various personal issues.
“last year was a fucking write-off as far as being in a creative frame of mind went,” he says. “my father died last may, which really took it out of me, a lot more than i thought. it wiped me out for about three or four months. then i had the back operation and then the shoulder operation, which is gonna take months to recover from.
“i decided that i wasn’t going to rush to have Weltschmerz ready for september. i don’t have to do that now. i don’t have emi saying, ‘this has got to be released on this date.’ i don’t have a manager saying, ‘this is when the tour is.’ i decide what the fuck i’m going to do.”
instead, he says that he plans to write until the end of the year and drop new songs into the december shows. “We’re going to do what we did with the feast of consequences album, and basically take some of the material out and pay it. that way you get into finding the energies that are trapped inside the song and free them up, so when you go back to the studio it feels like you’re performing them live.”
fish says the new material may well reflect his “darker” state of mind. “as far as what’s been going on with world politics and everything else, i’ve picked up on that. there’s a certain relativity between feast of consequences and misplaced childhood – they’re not the same album, but there’s a certain feel you can identify in both. and i think it’s the same in Weltschmerz and clutching at straws – a subconscious link. and it’s 30 years since i left marillion as well. there’s a symmetry.”
the plan is to finish writing the new album after the tour finishes, with a view to recording it in the spring of 2018. and once again, fish promises that it will be his final solo studio album.
“i’m getting to the point where myself and the music business have come to the end of our relationship as it has been for the last 30 years,” he says. “i’m 60 next year – there’s screenplays i want to write, books. and the music business has changed so much. it’s a whole different circus.” DEV