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| Afraid of Sunlight : December 1998 |
| During the Brave tour, I remember us sitting in the Cirkus Café in Stockholm with manager, John Arnison, trying to decide whether to make one last album for EMI, or to knock it on the head and go "indie". Brit pop was the talk of the industry and over at Manchester Square, all eyes were focused on Food record's hot property, "Blur". Both EMI and Marillion were still reeling from the relative commercial disappointment of the "Brave" album. We thought it was a masterpiece. We just couldn't understand how the world hadn't noticed. We'd spent a lot of time and money on "Brave" and we knew that, if we stayed, we were going to be under pressure to make an album quickly and cheaply. No more sprawling country houses or Gothic castles for us! We bit our lip and stayed, knowing that this was probably going to be the last one. Everything was changing. Everything must. |
| We moved The Racket Club round the corner to a bigger building and decided to write AND record there. To speed things up, someone had the idea of getting Dave Meegan to come over and help during the writing. He did so by sitting in on the jam sessions, disciplining us to work longer hours and meticulously cataloguing the emerging ideas. To some extent Dave imposed his taste upon the direction of the music by selecting HIS favourite moments from the jams. Opinion in the band is still divided as to whether this was the right thing to do. Personally, I think it helped. For my own part, I needed all the help I could get. The "Brave" album and the tour that followed it had made mincemeat of my psyche and I was pretty much a lost soul. |
| Racked by self doubt and emotional turmoil, I was feeling my life coming unstitched before my eyes. Little wonder then that this album was to repeatedly examine show-business and the damage done. We did this through the eyes of the boxer, the footballer, the rock 'n' roller and the speed-king. All had famously self-destructed. You should be able to guess their names. We also threw in Brian Wilson and Phil Spector for good measure. As time went by down at the Racket Club the songs took on an American soul, both musically and lyrically. Nobody knows quite where this came from. John Helmer (my occasional co-lyricist) started it perhaps... And it just drifted off in the general direction of Arizona... |
| There never has been an initial "vision", or a master-plan..Like the others, "Afraid of Sunlight" was another product of flailing around in the darkness. |
| I think it's the best record we've made |
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| Afraid of Sunlight : December 1998 |
| Writing Afraid of Sunlight, for me, wasn't like any of the others. While we were away, on tour with Brave , the Racket Club moved around the corner to a much bigger building with the possibility of becoming a real recording studio rather than just a rehearsal room. As usual we were under pressure to get on and make an album quickly but this time it was much worse. Brave although critically acclaimed was a bit of a commercial flop. EMI were watching closely to make sure we didn't spend another 15 months on an album with no potential hit singles. |
| We started writing in the usual way, the five of us in a room, fumbling about, panning for gold. It was slow going as usual. I don't know how other bands write but there must be a better way. The process of jamming in the hope of creating a few good bits to stick together into a song can be very frustrating. We've always done it this way and it's always been slow. |
| Dave Meegan, our producer at the time spent a few weeks with the band prior to recording Brave in pre-production. This time is normally used to familiarise the producer with the songs and finalise the arrangements. We weren't ready to start recording and Dave's input helped to speed things up. In the hope that he could do the same thing again we asked him to sit in on the writing sessions for AOS. |
| Although I initially agreed, I soon realised that we were giving up some creative control to an outsider in return for quick results. When I say ‘quick' I mean quick for us, we weren't exactly knocking them out, despite what the back cover says. There was also the added attraction of not having to listen to hours and hours of Marillion's least inspired moments. You see, Dave is a great librarian. He would sit for days listening and cataloguing every fart and squeak we made. Six months later he would be able to put his hands on just the nugget we needed in order to complete the particular musical landscape we were working on. I think we were all very grateful to him for taking it on. |
| Part of the Marillion writing process is deciding what budding ideas we should work on to turn them into fully grown songs. Previously we would all have some input, even if it was only to express dislike for a particular idea. With Dave involved that process didn't really happen. We just worked on the bits Dave liked best. I'm not saying that Dave's taste is somehow flawed. In fact, I would trust his taste over some members of the band, mine included. I was just worried that whatever it is that makes Marillion music special, may in some way, be tied up in the decisions we make as a band. |
| When it came to the recording, Dave really shone. He made some radical decisions. Beyond You was mixed in mono to keep it true to the Phil Spector sound we were trying to emulate. For all the people who complained there is a STEREO demo of the song on disc 2 just for you. I still love the mono mix. It's so BIG! Listen out for the castanets, played by Pete. |
| If I had to choose a favourite, it would have to be Out of This World. For me the music and lyrics complement each other so well. Every little sound helps to evoke the emotions in the words right down to the sample of Donald Campbell's last moments as the Bluebird disintegrated on Coniston Water. We wondered whether it was in bad taste, but decided to leave it in. We had a lot of technical problems associated with that song. Tape machines breaking down, tracks disappearing, it was as if the song didn't want to be recorded! Being a superstitious guy, Dave was convinced it was haunted. |
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