Steve 'h' Hogarth explains why he joined Marillion instead of The The
He was offered both gigs on the same day
Last updated 8th Apr 2022
Steve ‘h’ Hogarth has explained to Planet Rock why he joined Marillion in 1989 instead of The The.
Speaking to Liz Barnes on My Planet Rocks, Hogarth said that following the demise of his band How We Live in the late eighties, he initially wasn’t intending to join another band.
However, out of the blue, he was offered two positions on the same day – as the new frontman of Marillion following Fish’s departure, and as the keyboardist with The The. Hogarth had previously performed piano with The The on their seminal ‘Infected’ record.
Revealing the back story to him getting the Marillion gig, Hogarth said: “It was such a strange thing me becoming the singer in (Marillion) because I hadn't at any point in my life imagined that could happen.
“I didn't know Fish had left and then I was in my publishers’ (office) one day and my band had just split up and I said, ‘Can anybody think of anything for me to do?’ What I meant was working in the office, ordering the Tipex or making the tea or something because I liked the office - they had a really nice office in Parsons Green.
“I wasn't really intending to ask about getting into another band. I just wanted to know if I could do stuff around the building.
“The general manager said ‘oh, did you know Marillion are looking for a singer?’ And I thought, ‘oooh, that wouldn't be right for me at all.’ I was listening to The Blue Nile and I was listening to Simple Minds and I was listening to Scritti Politti.
“To my mind, what Marillion were doing was really not what I was about. I understood it and I knew it had come from all this early Genesis stuff, and I knew early Genesis inside out because I used to go and see them. I'd seen them on every single tour. So, I knew me onions about all of it, but it's not where I imagined it going.”
Despite his reticence, Hogarth said it was his friend, Curved Air’s Darryl Way, who persuaded him to consider joining Marillion.
“I was in in the pub with (Darryl Way) one night and I said, ‘you'll never guess what's happened to me today? I've had two phone calls. I've had Marillion’s management phoning me up wondering if they could meet me and I've had Matt Johnson from The The wanting to know if I could go out and play piano for The The on the Mind Bomb Tour with (The Smiths’) Johnny Marr on guitar and Dave Palmer on drums.'
“I'd got a phone call from the least hip band in the world (Marillion) and the most hip band in the world (The The) on the same day who both were interested in meeting me, which is really strange! Darryl said, ‘you should go and meet Marillion. They're really nice people. I wouldn't rule that out.’ So, he talked me into it.”
Hogarth continued: “I went and met up with the band and there was no denying that we had a chemistry straight off musically. I said to them, ‘what is it you're actually looking for here?’ And they said, ‘we've heard what you do and we like what you do and we just want you to do it. We'll do what we do and we'll see what happens.’ It was proposed to me as an experiment from the word go. They didn't know where it was going. I didn't know where it was going.
“What they could have said was ‘here's our last album. It sold this many thousand copies, a hundred thousand copies, and this is what we sound like, do you think you can do that?’ I (would have) just said no and that would have been the end of it.
“But they didn't say that, and they didn't want that. They just wanted to go somewhere else. They didn't know where it was, but they wanted me to do my thing. So when you're given a brief like that, it's very hard not to want to do it. If somebody's asking you to be yourself, that's about the best brief you could ever be given. So that's where it all started!”
Since joining Marillion 33 years ago, Steve ‘h’ Hogarth has performed on 16 Marillion albums. Their new record ‘An Hour Before It's Dark’ was released in March and it charted at Number 2 in the UK.
Listen to Steve Hogarth on My Planet Rocks:
Steve Hogarth’s full interview on My Planet Rocks airs this coming Sunday (10th April) at 7pm.
Marillion UK tour:
Don't forget, Marillion embark on a headline UK tour this coming autumn and tickets are on sale from Planet Rock Tickets now.
See them at the following shows:
SEPTEMBER 2022
Blackburn King Georges Hall – Sun 18th
Glasgow Royal Concert Hall – Mon 19th
York Barbican – Wed 21st
Southampton O2 Guildhall – Thu 22nd
Aylesbury Friars Waterside – Sat 24th
Stoke Victoria Hall – Sun 25th
Sheffield City Hall – Tue 27th
Brighton Dome – Wed 28th
London Eventim Apollo Hammersmith – Fri 30th
Buy Marillion tickets
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