Biography

His favourite keyboardist is Rick Wakeman.

He left the band "Chemical Alice" to join Marillion in November 1981.

His girlfriend is Angie Moxham.

His favorite albums are "Led Zeppelin II" by Led Zeppelin, "Milk & Kisses" by Cocteau Twins, "Blue" by Joni Mitchell, "Beautiful Freak" by Eels, "Van Halen" by Van Halen, "Decade" by Neil Young, "The Bends" by Radiohead, "Strangers in the Night" by UFO, "Hunky Dory" by David Bowie and "A Wizard, a True Star" by Todd Rundgren.

Plays the Roland A-90 Stage Piano, Korg Karma Synthesizer, Roland JP-8080 Synthesizer Module, Evolution MK449C Controller Keyboard, Yamaha O1V Mixing Desk, Q-Logic MIDI Metro, Emagic AMT8 MIDI Interface, M-Audio Delta 1010 Audio Interface, Oberheim MC3000 Controller Keyboard, Roland JP-8000 Synthesizer, Roland VK-7 Organ, Akai S6000 Sampler, Custom-built PC running Brainspawn Forte VST live performance software and extensive VST instruments including: Spectrasonics Atmosphere, Arturia Minimoog, Steinberg Halion 3, Native Instruments B4, Native Instruments Electrik Piano and Native Instruments FM7.

[on being in a studio next to Motörhead in 1986] Have you ever tried to compose next door to a bunch of whizzed up, unwashed, leather clad loonies who sounded like they were laying the foundations for a great public building, not making music?

MTV is a disaster. If I grew up watching MTV I probably wouldn't like music.

[on the album Holidays in Eden] I got pissed off at the speed of the recording - we recorded and mixed it in 10 weeks - which might be a long time for Spice Girls but is certainly nowhere near long enough for us!

By the time we got to Hook End to record Holidays (Holidays in Eden) with Chris Neil I was a bit nervous. Any guy who had produced artists as bizarre as Céline Dion, Leo Sayer and Sheena Easton was, in my view, a questionable choice.

[on Radiohead's decision in 2007 to let fans choose how much to pay for their new album] People forget Radiohead were still number one in the album charts. They also say they weren't very successful because they only got an average of £2 per download. But they wouldn't have got £2 per sale from EMI, so in those terms it was actually a big success, and they still sold CDs.