Interview with Marillion about Happiness Is the Road promo, and much more about their career. Check it out at this location.

M.S: First of all, thanks for answering our questions. We want to congratulate you for your career and tell you that we really admire you...

M: Thank you x

M.S: First of all, and before talking about the album, I would like to know more about the marketing process. With your last albums (marillion.com, Anoraknophobia, Marbles and this last one: Happiness is the road) you´ve been releasing bonus Cd, deluxe editions, raffling some stuff, writing the names of the pre-buyers in the “thank you” section, etc. Why did you decide to start with this methods of promotion?, is it a good way to survive in these times when record sales are dropping?.

M: After the US tour fund in 1997 (where our US fans contributed $60,000 to cover the shortfall of the Strange Engine US tour) we realized that our fans have a deep level of faith and trust in us. We also realized that the internet was the future. I think the internet (especially email, but also Facebook etc.) is a medium through which musicians and artists can make a living without the need for record companies. Knowing who your fans ARE is the most important knowledge any artist can have and I would suggest that all artists take steps to find this out at every level of their career.

M.S: Please tell me more about your collaboration with Music Glue and how both fans and newcomers can use P2P software to download and share your music. How did this idea come up?

M: We have been bootlegged forever. In the old days it was people making dodgy cassettes, and since the internet, there are our songs all over the p2p networks. This is a reality and there's nothing we can do to stop it and, speaking for myself, I don't think it's necessarily an entirely bad thing. Marillion decided to work with the reality of the situation instead of living in the past and wishing p2p would somehow go away. Music Glue enables us to run a video "glued" to the download file where we personally ask the downloader to send us a response and to get involved and become part of the family.

M.S: Giving the fact that Marillion signed for a major (EMI) and now you have the control of your work. What´s the main difference, artistically talking between working for yourselves and working for a record label?

M: Artistically there's not too much difference because EMI never really bossed us around much. The biggest difference of all is that we're in control of everything, including the money, so we have to be realistic about what we can and can't afford. In turn, because we are in control of the income streams, we sleep better at night knowing where we stand. When you're signed to a label you feel constantly insecure - not knowing if you'll be on the label next year or whether it will be all over for you. I think the labels do that to you partly to control you and keep you on your toes. The music business tends to lie a little to artists to keep them happy and so you never know what's REALLY going on. The best thing about managing yourself and having your own label is that you DO know what's happening and NOT happening. I sleep better these days..

M.S: Let´s focus on Happiness´ music… all fans agree in that nobody can expect what is going to happen in a new Marillion album because your music is really unexpected from Season´s End on. You´ve been toying around with electronic sounds, progressive music and it´s really estrange how a veteran band is always trying to improve instead of playing the same style over and over again. What are we going to find in “Happiness is the road”?, what is Marillion going to offer the music lovers in 2008?

M: Well, we write by jamming and so we never know what exactly will come out of the process musically. We're not interested in being a band that tours around playing the same music for decades to pay the rent. Our focus has always been on the creative process and over the years we've so far managed to pay the rent without turning ourselves into a human jukebox. We keep trying to redefine what we are and trying to move the music into new (at least, new to us!) places.
 
M.S: Is there a conceptual link across all the songs of the album?... when you released “Radiation” you said it was about crossing the thirties and how the man grows up… how did the lyrics change along your career and what are the subjects of “Happiness”?

M: Cd1 is my take on the meaning of life. I'm not a young man and I've learned a lot over the last 30 years on the road. My first marriage hit the skids at the end of 2005. "Somewhere Else" was a product of all that pain. During that tour, everything I was carrying came to a kind of crisis point and I was in and out of doctors surgeries between the shows. I was referred to a doctor during the Dutch leg of the tour. It's a long story. I had to have a small operation and after that he held his hands over my stomach and performed a kind of energy healing during which I noticed he was crying. Afterwards he explained that they were not his tears, but mine. He said he could feel I was carrying a great deal of pain and regret. I was having problems coming to terms with living apart from my children - he was quite right. He wrote me a prescription. Not drugs, but a book - "The Power Of Now" by Eckart Tolle. He said "Read this - it will make you better." Much of what is in this book are things that I already instinctively knew but it crystallized a lot of truths for me and I do feel I couldn't have written all the lyrics without it. The title song, of course, explains all this.

M.S: In the same way, the album has been released as a double Cd, is there any difference between both albums?. It seems there are some slightly differences.

M: CD2 is a collection of unrelated songs. It's a totally different album really to CD1. I'm talking about space aliens, space asylums, there's a few love songs too, the USA, and perhaps even a reference to Britney Spears on “Real Tears For Sale"

M.S: Many people think that your creativity peaks in this stage with Steve Hogarth are “Brave” and “Marbles”, creating a blend of progressive music with dramatism, art pop and electronic influences. I suppose you know that many of your  fans are always looking for 20 minutes long epics plenty of guitar and keyboard solos… are these fans going to find this in Happiness?

M: I haven't timed the songs myself. That doesn't really interest me. I haven't counted the solos either. But I think there's probably something for everyone across the 2 CD's. It seems to be going down amazingly well with the faithful. We're inundated with emails at the moment. People are saying it's our best work.

M.S: Tell me something about the songs of the album you´re more proud of.

M: I'm proud of them all really. It's hard to pick a song out- they're all strong in different ways. Lyrically, I guess "This Train Is My Life", "Real Tears For Sale", "Wrapped Up In TIme", "Happiness Is The Road" are a bit special. Musically, "The Man From The Planet Marzipan" is a great arrangement.. but then so many others are outstanding in  this respect. "Throw Me Out" sounds wonderful.

M.S: Did John Helmer collaborate in the lyrics?

M: No. I have written all the lyrics for a few years now. John last collaborated on the "marillion.com" album. I have written all the lyrics since "Radiation" apart from a collaboration with Nick Eede (Cutting Crew) on "Map Of The World" on the Anoraknophobia album.

M.S: If you have to compare Happiness to another Marillion album, which would it be?

M: I can't.

M.S: Musically speaking, how was the composing process of the album?, do you enter in studio with predetermined ideas or do you prefer jamming and experimenting sounds in order to create a song?

M: We write in the studio, jamming straight to multitrack, then we listen back after a few weeks and throw most of it away and just work on the accidental moments which excite us. It's ALL improvised, but then it's arranged and honed down very slowly and painstakingly.

M.S: I suppose you´re updated about what fans say about your music (forums, internet, etc), aren´t you?, what do you think about your fans and the ideas they have about your music and evolution?

M: It's like having a creative "supporters club". The hardcore fans literally provide us with enough advance funds to give us the time and studio-time to create our work. We have a database of around 70,000 people now with whom we can email and have conversations about anything. Feedback comes in constantly. Also the fans organize themselves into street teams and do guerrilla marketing for us. During a recent German acoustic gig, we even had a couple of guys flew in from the UK at their own expense and set up the equipment for us.

M.S:  With thirty years of career and looking back in time, how do you define Marillion in the history of rock music?.

M: Rock Music tends, on the whole, to stick to a handful of chords and contains not-very-sophisticated lyrics. This is true of even the great Rock bands (although Pink Floyd wrote great words during the Waters era). I think we are so far out on the edge of the boundaries of Rock Music that it's arguable that we're not a Rock band at all - our chords are sometimes out there in the realms of jazz or classical music and there has always been a strong lyrical importance in Marillion from the beginning when Fish wrote them, to now when it's down to me. I think my addition to the band has added Soul into the mix also and brought in the influences of black music - getting beyond Marillion's existing "blues guitar" and early "prog-rock" influences and encompassing Gospel, Motown and Dub into the experiment. Part of our mission is to constantly redefine what we are.

M.S: I suppose you´re tired with all the media that talk about Marillion linking it with the hit Kayleigh as you were a 80´s band with one hit. What´s your relation with the media and the feeling that people not very into Marillion have about the band?

M: You just have to accept that certain areas of the media are not ABOUT music. Their writers don't know much about music unless it's sitting in the charts, so Marillion means Kayleigh to them. There are a lot of people out there who don't know much about much! Everyone can't be an enthusiast and have a passion. The masses watch TV and it tells them what to eat, what to listen to, where to go, and what to buy. That's frustrating for us, and for me in particular but, fortunately, there are enough people out there with the sensitivity, the intelligence and the individuality to keep Marillion in business, and I wouldn't want it any other way.

M.S: What about the side projects of the band… are you going to keep on releasing albums under the name “H” and do you know if other members are going to play with Transatlantic, The Wishing Tree, etc?

M: We don't get much time to work outside of Marillion but, when we do, we naturally want to explore  other creative possibilities so I think solo and side projects will always happen from time to time. It's  been a long time since Ice Cream Genius and writing a new solo album is so time-consuming that I haven't got it together. But I have just released a live solo DVD called "Naked In The Chapel". Available currently at marillion.com. It's a piano and voice "request" show I made in a church in London last September. The film captures a fantastic atmosphere on the night. Beautifully shot and I mixed the audio myself. If you want to see me stripped bare, playing my favourite songs, check it out!

M.S: Tell us about your relation with Spain, especially Barcelona, and your fan club in Spain… it seems you work very close with all your fan clubs.

M: The Web Spain does a great job. Many of the people who run our fan clubs have become my friends. I have good friends in Barcelona and Madrid who have promoted Marillion and h shows here for me. I'm indebted to them for their passion and faith.

M.S: Regarding musical scene, what do you think about all bands not labeled as “progressive” but with a progressive attitude (Opeth, Muse, Porcupine Tree, Godspeed you black Emperor, Radiohead)?, do you feel Marillion has the same attitude?

M: We are experimentalists and we enjoy pushing the boundaries and redefining our own sound. You can label it what ever you want and you can bunch it together with whoever you want, but you have to listen to it and FEEL it to get it.

M.S: We've come to the end, thank you for spending your time with us... If you want to say something to your fans and our readers, this is your moment. Good luck,

M: God bless Spain! And thanks for your time.

Esperanza Galera