East Lothian singer and former Marillion frontman Fish reveals his dreams of a future in films

“MY problem is this, there is no way we can do socially distanced gigs and I can not play to car windscreens in a car park,” declares Fish.

Fish - Derek Dick

We are chatting ahead of the release of his final studio album Weltschmerz, a reflective yet hopeful work that is out today. The plan was to hit the road on the back of the release, however, this year’s tour, already pushed back to 2021, looks set to suffer another knock back.

“I was talking to my sound engineer in Manchester about a month ago and he said, ‘I’m staring out my flat window at the street and I’m going nuts because I’m looking at the two pubs in the street. Both are crammed, no one is wearing masks, nobody is giving a damn and I want to scream, ‘Until you f***ers get it together, I can’t work’.”

It’s a frustrating time for everyone who relies on the live music scene for a living, the East Lothian singer is no different.

“This is we are right now, ruled by the R number,” he says. “I can’t go out on a six week tour and suddenly Krakow or Gdansk go into lockdown and there’s no insurance to cover that. A tour bus costs £1,400 a day plus there’s the wages for 10 guys, with no insurance I can’t cope with that. I had words with my German agent and said, ‘Look, we’ll make a decision in March’ because I should have been in rehearsals last week for an upcoming tour - it’s all be moved to September/October next year. And if there’s a whiff of Covid in April, I’m not even going to contemplate going out.”

It’s not just Covid that is providing challenges for the music industry. With the expected impact of Brexit also having to be factored in, it could be said that live music is facing the perfect storm in 2021.

“At the moment I have a Dutch guitarist and a German production manager, both of whom are now going to have to buy working visas for the UK - and then there’s going to be the reciprocal turn around when we all go to Europe. But we still don’t know what the state of affairs will be; do we have to get a working visa country by country or will it be a EU visa? We don’t know. We don’t know how the VAT is going to work, how reciprocal tax will work. We have no idea.”

Exasperated, he reflects, “The idea was that my second last tour was going out now, with the Farewell Tour going out in 2021/22... it’s like I’m taking a gap year in my retirement for f***’s sake.”

“We’ve been putting out remasters from my solo catalogue and I’ve still got Vigil in a Wilderness, my first solo album, and Internal Exile, the second one, as well as 13th Star to do, so that gives us some sort of studio work."

Another project that has kept the singer busy, and sane, during lockdown are his Fish on Friday broadcasts on Facebook.

“Every Friday, I play a couple of tracks and answer fans questions - I think they have saved me as much as they have a lot of people out there.

“I’ve found myself preparing for them in the same way I would for a gig. I got my stage clothes; I get my dungarees on. I pour a beer 10 minutes before it starts, get the questions prepared and then it’s two hours of free talking, nothing is scripted apart from the two songs. That performance I’m allowed to do for two hours has really saved me in the last four months. It’s been good for my mental health.”

When not working, Fish reveals he enjoys a simple life, much of it spent in his garden. “I just want to be in the garden and be with my family,” he says. “We’re in a little oasis here, relatively secluded, we have our little sanctuary.”

There he has time to reflect, and when asked about his personal highlights and low points as retirement approaches the 62-year-old is as candid as ever. “It’s really difficult because there are so many. Playing The Marquee with Marilllion in ‘82 was massive as were my first solo gigs, which kicked off in Scotland back in ‘89. And of course Weltschmerz, for me, is the peak of it. So there are a lot of highlights and there are certainly memories to be written and screenplays to get. There’s still plenty for me to do, I just don’t want to be on a tour bus doing it.”

After a moments thought, he continues, “The low points were definitely at the end of the 90s and Sunsets on Empire was a great album that went missing because I just didn’t have the money to promote it. Then I went into Rain Gods with Zippos and Fellini Days and I think those two albums suffered from the lack of budget I had at the time. That was a struggle to get through and, obviously, dealing with the divorce in 2001... at that point I was horrendously in debt, but I got though it.”

So what does the future hold? What comes after the music for Fish, whose real name is Derek Dick. He insists he still has many ambitions yet to fulfil.

“My prep is now for a farewell tour in 2022, but I’m not ‘retiring’ retiring, I just want to do something else. The music business has been really great to me and I’m really humbled by the fact that I’ve lasted so bloody long. However, it’s time to move into something else and I’ve always wanted to write because, the thing is, I’m a writer who can sing, I’m not a singer who can write. Songwriting vehicles have become too claustrophobic now, even the songs on Weltschmerz could have been expanded into completely different areas, and that’s what I want to do.”

He can’t say too much more about those future plans, but does reveal that as well as the writing, acting could play a role too.

“I’m researching a screenplay I’ve been talking about with a film director friend of mine. It’s a kernel of an idea at the moment, an acorn that could grow into something very big. I need that challenge in my life. Back in the day if I hadn’t gone into music, I would have gone into acting, those were the two pulls, it just happened that I fell into music.”

He laughs, “Of course, I might fall flat on my face, I have no idea, but that is what I want to do.”

Before that, Fish has his Farewell Tour to look forward too.

“My farewell tour bucket-list would be to do two nights in every town and city that is special to me rather than cramming everything I’ve done into one set list. I could stay in a city overnight, meet friends, go out for dinner, have a walk about. I’d like my wife to be with me so that it not a chore just absolute fun. I still love the two hours on stage, it’s just the other 22 that have become a drudge.”

Weltschmerz is now available from https://fishmusic.scot/

Watch Fish on Friday, every Friday on Facebook at 6pm, www.facebook.com/derek.dick

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