Quotes

It was watching the Beatles' Shea Stadium gig on the BBC when I was about seven that made me want to be a musician - it was as simple as that.

Recording with Steve Hackett was for me a great honour. I had been a huge fan for years. I remember being nervous, and probably didn't play very well. It all came about because Ian (Mosley) was friends with Steve from being in the Hackett band. Ian was asked to do the session and I was probably asked because I was his partner in crime. Steve probably remembers me as the nervous little guy.

With Transatlantic recording is a fast furious roller coaster ride of pure adrenalin. A constant fight against the clock to record the best music in the fastest time possible. With Marillion we give ourselves the time to listen back and change things and get really picky about parts, even change whole songs after they have been recorded if we decide they are wrong.

It's great to know that real fans can make more of a difference than big record company hype.

Bands like The Beatles, The Who, The Kinks, Led Zeppelin, The Nice, Pink Floyd, King Crimson and Van-der-Graf Generator showed us the rebellious side of music as well as having a clever, more interesting structure to compositions that we took on board.

I think you can say that as music lovers first and foremost, we listen to good music as opposed to bad or manufactured music. This list would also include bands like, XTC, Radiohead, The Doors, New Order and Coldplay.

Once you've got that progressive pigeonhole, a lot of other areas of music won't touch you with a bargepole.