Things you always wanted to ask Fish

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Edited by the Union team - thanks for the first post, Andriyt!

Hiya, this is on behalf of my daughter Holly - she's doing her silver arts award at high school, and wants to ask professional musicians some questions on how they got involved in music and suchlike, if you could answer some or all of them it would be brilliant! I've got the job of emailing/posting them as I'm a responsible adult (allegedly - ha!)
She's actually going down the classical route at the moment (she's a bassoonist), but listens to all sorts & both our girls have been brought up properly listening to Marillion past & present

1. When did you first want to be a performing artist?

2. When did you first start to sing?

3. When did you become a professional musician?

4. How did you first get into the music business and why?

5. Can you play other instruments?

6. Is/are there any other instruments that you would like to play? If so, what are they?

7. What other jobs (still as a musician) have you done outside of being in a band / playing on recordings etc, (e.g. teaching)?

8. Have you got any formal music qualifications?

9. Have you got any tips for anyone wanting to have a career in music?

I want to refer back to something you wrote here in this forum about Childhood's End?. You said Marillion shortened it live also because you didn't like it so much or similar...
Is that because of the music or because of the lyrics? Not only do I find both perfect up to utter perfection (sorry to disagree with you on this) and the song has been one of the central songs all through my life but I also think that lyrically it must be a heartpiece of the whole Misplaced Childhood idea. I see it this way anyway. It is catharsis as pure as I have ever come across in art. I cannot thank you enough for this.
Maybe you get tired of this - but what you did and do means the world to people like me.

Hi! I can remember that you once mentioned 3 Boats Down From The Candy as one of the songs from the old times that you could imagine playing live again. Wouldn´t it fit great in the accoustic set of you 3 F´s??? Cheers from Bavaria, Joerg

Sarajevo '96 - Do you remember?

Lookin forward to Stirling on Friday

Martin

by mwelljester 13/08/11


hi fish
just wanted to ask you, when you started touring abroad, did you have a lot of language problems depending on which country you were in? the reason for me asking, that obviously during concerts abroad you go out of your way to say something to the audience in there givin language! so that started me thinking are you multi-lingual or just know a few words here and there or do you or did you with marillion have a linguist who travelled with you to act as a spokesperson in different countries?
rab, all the best big onkel!!! glasgow was brill!!! cu in auld reekie in dec!

I have seen you two times in the United States as an opening act when you were with Marillion. Once was in Wisconsin with Todd Rundgrens Utopia and the other was in Chicago with Rush. Were there any other major groups that you played with in the States,what kind of reception did you receive,and what was your reaction to American audiences? I remember at Chicago for the Rush tour seeing you sit at the top of the bleachers before the show checking the crowd out.
The internet has made it is easier for musicians to reach an audience but has this made it more difficult for them to create an identity among the multitudes of bands out there? Has the fact that people have changed the way they listen to music changed the way you approach creating your songs? People don't seem to have the attention span to listen to a song that is over a few minutes long anymore. What bands could you recommend that you have listened to recently that we may not be aware of? Hope to see you in the States again someday.

Has the work of F.Scott Fitzerald been an influence on you?

Greetings! I talked on Facebook about how I was deployed oversees quite a lot, and from time to time wound up at an RAF base or two-Waddington near Lincoln for one- but what I wanted to ask refers to the lyrics that surround "..Daddy took a rain check".

I was curious as to how you so well pegged the concept that absent fathers suffer in many ways that society overlooks. I know you are a father, and I wouldn't expect you to discuss deeply person issues of course, but I thought I would ask because that song had a profound impact on how I dealt with my daughter's father leaving us when I was deployed. Different situation but the end result was that rather than blast away at him with both barrels the next time I rotated home (to find all my possessions shipped to my parents' home to make room for his new woman's things) I decided to look at his side of the story. .......Maybe it DID suck to be left alone for months at a time. And I've no idea what he must have felt all these years in dealing with Sarah. What would he tell her if/when she asked about why he wasn't living with us?

I never spoke a bad word about my ex to our daughter. Never. I am a bit too cocky to say that a song changed my attitude, but it tweaked it for sure. Were you drawing from a personal experience or stories from mates?

-Wombie

Hi Fish, thanks for the gigs in 2011 in total we prob. travelled in excess of 1000miles to see you from The Caves to the shit hole in Hull , from St Mary's Haddington to the Duchess in York does that make us stalkers ? Or Friends : )

Why Onkel Fish?

What's the history behind the endearment, "Onkel" Fish? Now I know it's German for uncle, but a) why uncle (or Onkel) and b) why German?