We decided to lock ourselves away in a house in Wales to write Fugazi and, to be honest, for the first few months I thought the game was up as we only really had one song written, Assassing, and that was written before going to Wales. With hindsight I can see a pattern was forming that would be repeated with every subsequent album. We always take a few months to get into “writing mode” and then the ideas come fast and furious.
 

After sacking Mick Pointer following the Script UK tour in April ‘83 we ran into Andy Ward at Nomis rehearsal studios in London while auditioning drummers. Andy was a drummer we were familiar with from his days playing with Camel and sort of gave him the job without a proper audition because of his reputation

Andy came to Wales (Mountain Studios) to write with us in June and then North America after appearing in a video with the band for the song Garden Party. 4 weeks into the tour we had to come home because Andy was not really coping very well with life on the road. He was depressed and drinking far too much - or so we thought at the time. These days we would probably think his alcohol intake was quite normal!

So we went back to England and started looking all over again. John Martyr was the next to try the Marillion drum stool for size. With John we went straight into the studio to record a new version of Market Square Heroes and it's B-side 3 Boats Down From the Candy for America.

We went back to America with John still in the band to open a week of shows for Canadiantrio Rush at NYC's Radio City Music Hall. We were already having doubts about John. His style of drumming was a bit too straight ahead for Marillion. While we were in NYC a 19 year old drummer from Boston called Jonathan Mover came to the hotel to persuade us to give him an audition back in England. He had heard we were looking for a drummer through Nick Tauber our producer.

We auditioned lots of drummers saving Jonathan until last. Jonathan turned out to know all our songs and could play them all with precision so we offered him the job. We went back to Wales (this time to Mommouth) for a second time to continue writing the album but within a few weeks Fish gave the rest of us an ultimatum “him or me” so off back to Boston Jonathan went!

Jonathan's departure gave Ian Mosley a chance to come down to Wales and help out with the writing. Ian had put himself forward to audition during the summer but we had already hired Jonathan by the time we heard about him. Luckily John Arnison kept his number and called him to see if he was interested in helping out as a “session drummer”. Ian brought technical ability tempered with experience.

Needless to say Ian soon became a full-time member of the band, the main reason we were keen to make him a member is so his wages would be brought in line with the rest of us. £360 per month, half of what he got paid as a session man!

Time was passing and EMI were getting impatient to hear the follow up to Script. Luckily Fish already had a lot of the lyrics written so while we were struggling to come up with musical ideas Fish was telling EMI how well we were doing and that “Punch & Judy” would make a great first single. The people at EMI had no idea that at that stage there was no music for Punch & Judy!

We eventually went into the Manor studios near Oxford with Nick Tauber (producer) and Simon Hanheart (engineer). Our first job was to finish writing Incubus and the title track Fugazi. It didn't take long, a couple of days at most. Why so quick? Nothing focuses the mind like knowing every day is costing you £1000!

I had a strange experience during the first week. We were laying down the backing track for one of the songs and I was playing the keys. The keyboards were stacked so high I couldn't see over the top and as I played a hand I assumed was Steve's reached through the gap between the two lowest Keyboards to pick up something. I stopped playing and looked around the side expecting to see Steve but he was standing about 15 feet away over the other side of the room! Everyone asked why I had stopped playing as I had ruined a perfectly good “take”. I explained that I had seen a “ghost” hand and the all took the piss of course and said I made it up to cover the fact I'd stopped playing.

About a week later I was sitting under some open plan stairs playing the Hammond organ and Nick reached through the stairs and made me almost have a heart attack on the spot!
 

It wasn't all fun and games with Nick; in fact we soon became aware that Nick was losing the plot. I think a few months off work would have been a good idea for him but he was on a roll and even wanted to work Christmas Day! There was a lot of class A naughtiness around although at the time I didn't realise how much..... We were starting to fall behind our schedule so Nick's solution was to work longer hours. A typical day would start at midday and finish between 3 and 6am. It was only years later that we realised the stupidity of working such long hours. These days we realise that after midnight things take twice as long, it's the law of diminishing returns. Back then we thought it was great fun to stay up all night and if we got tired there was always artificial “stimulants” to keep us going. Very rock ‘n roll...

Things were getting more and more hectic as time went on. We had a tour booked and we could see the album wasn't going to be mixed in time.

Simon Hanhart was responsible for holding the sessions together as Nick became more and more unreliable. Throughout the mixing we had to keep changing studios because the time we had allotted kept running out. We clocked up 10 different studios on that album. Incidentally the assistant engineer at Masion Rouge was Dave Meegan who later produced Brave and mixed Afraid of sunlight for us. I'm surprised he wanted to work with us again because he ended up in hospital for a few days after our session finished. The doctor diagnosed “extreme exhaustion”!

In an effort to finish the mixing before the tour started another producer was hired, Tony Platt. Tony was chosen by Hugh Stanley-Clarke because he knew him from his work with Iron Maiden.

We had our reservations about Tony but felt we had no choice. We then had a ridiculous situation of trying to be in two studios at once, Fish Ian and Pete were in Masion Rouge or was it Odyssey? and Steve and myself were in Abbey Road with Tony mixing Incubus.

I have kept this secret until now but during the mix I persuaded Tony to erase most of the backing vocals sung by Linda Pyke. I hated them and thought they did nothing for the song. Fortunately Tony agreed with me so off they went. Steve wanted nothing to do with this because he knew Fish would be furious. Of course when Fish heard the mix he hit the roof! Naturally he blamed Tony and I didn't think it was necessary to put him straight...

Fugazi ended up being the only track we didn't get to finish before the tour started. When we finally did hear it in a studio in Liverpool during the tour we were gutted. It sounded so different to how I had imagined it especially the cross fade into the military drums at the end. Awful. I've just listened to it and it's not so bad. Funny how things that seem so important can fade into insignificance with time.....

The remastering goes a long way towards making the album sound as it should have the first time around and lays to rest a few ghosts for me......I still wonder who's hand that was though?
 

 

Our second album was to be aptly named ‘Fugazi' (all fucked up, all screwed up), which was a word I'd found in a book called ‘Nam' - a collection of reminiscences from veterans of the Vietnam war, put together by Mark Baker. I'd always been intrigued by that particular war and had been obsessively reading about it during the ‘Script' tour which ended at Hammersmith Odeon, London. As a band we had no doubts that a replacement for Mick was long overdue.
 

Auditions and rehearsals at Nomis Studios first provided Andy Ward (ex Camel) who lasted until midway through our first American tour before succumbing to a near nervous breakdown and leaving us to cancel the remaining dates.

John Martyr had a short appointment with us in the USA but failed to gain the support of the band as a whole.

So it was back to Nomis and on a recommendation we auditioned Jonathan Mover prior to relocating to writing for the ‘difficult' second album at Rockfield Studios in South Wales. I didn't like him or his technical abilities which in my opinion were out of line with our quintessential British style. We were under a lot of pressure to make a decision and get into the writing sessions, so I backed off and hoped it would work out. It didn't. I became more and more irritated by Jonathan and reluctantly forced a ‘me or him' scenario on the others I admit I wasn't exactly opened armed to Jonathan and did indulge in psychological warfare (including cherry bombing his bedroom and bathroom at every available opportunity!), in order to test his mettle. I just knew he wasn't right for us and I also knew who was.
 

Ian Mosley had been drumming with Steve Hackett the ex Genesis guitarist. I'd seen him twice, most recently during a visit back home to Edinburgh after the ‘Script' tour. He arrived in a battered old Merc and as soon as we were introduced it was obvious we had our man.

The audition was practically unnecessary but added to our commitment that this was the Marillion drummer. His maturity and confidence, as well as his musical abilities, were to help cement the band and provide us with a dependable line up to face the hill of the second album.
 

There were some tracks left lingering from the ‘Script' sessions but none were anywhere near complete. Lyrically there were a lot of notes and a few near finished pieces, one of which was ‘Punch & Judy'. As always, the record company wanted to hear the single and while Jonathan Mover was with us we set to work on ‘Punch & Judy' with the sole intention of molding a single. When I'd penned the words I'd always heard a Bo Diddley type beat, but by the time Jonathan had his kit out and on it, it bastardised itself into a quirky over complicated rhythmic base that took it miles off a mainstream single.

The lyric was about my paranoia over commitment in a relationship and about my vision of a marital hell culminating in a scenario of blaming the partner for all of life's failures Traditionally dark by my standards it never really worked as the ideal single.
 

Peter Hammill had supported Marillion on the ‘Script' tour and we'd become good friend during that time. He'd given me a tape of Islamic music that would provide a major influence over two of the album tracks ‘Assassing' and ‘Incubus'.

‘Assassing' (why I put the ‘g' on the end remains a mystery to me!), was inspired by the culls that persisted throughout the early stages of the band, but focused in particular on Mick Pointer more than anyone. It was premiered at Glastonbury Festival (our one and only appearance - we were hip for an instant), after being written during a near barren period of incarceration at the remote Mountain Studios in Wales. All I remember from there is saturating my body in all manners of chemicals and alcohol, sitting around in magical stone circles and listening to a lot of Van Morrison albums. An expensive trip! Nuff said!.
 

Rockfield was our writing haven in between sporadic international forays. The recording schedule loomed and we'd decided to stick to Nick Tauber but pursue an out of London experience at the Manor Studios in Oxfordshire. We landed there on the verge of Winter.
 

Christmas came and went. The break was indulged with a tour, we'd run out of time at the Manor and still had a lot to do. Maison Rouge was the next studio on line for recording and mixing and the stress was building. It showed most on Nick Tauber who was beginning to have a number of questions raised over his ability to complete the project. EMI decided that we needed to bring in another producer to assist the mixing and to use Abbey Road Studios simultaneously to get the album finished. The recording of ‘Incubus' was completed at Pete Townshend's Studio, Eel Pie, but the mix was done at Abbey Road while we were also listening to mixes at Odyssey Studios off the Edgware Road. The band spent hours in taxis throughout the night commuting between studios listening to mixes of a project that was becoming out of hand. Fugazi.
 

The album cover was one of the few constituent parts that was together and on time. It was supposed to reflect the next step up from the bedsit seen on ‘Script'. This was the cliched rock musician on tour. The trashed hotel room, or despot in situ in a luxury flat. Abuse was highly prevalent as illustrated in our own personal lifestyle. If ‘Script' was about the individual , then ‘Fugazi' was about the relationship between two people. My personal ones were Fugazi. Cue lyrical subjects and the question I wanted asked within the cover artwork - who left who!? ‘Jigsaw' is probably the ‘wordiest' lyric I've ever written. All about the games we play in a relationship and the secrets we hold back until they're ready to be played. The chorus is still a favourite but the verses were just too complicated. ‘She Chameleon', a song that existed in some semblance of order in 1983 was resurrected for inclusion. Inspired by the ‘groupie' phenomenon that came to be in 1983 and tripping on acid backstage with Julian Cope after a ‘Teardrop Explodes' concert - it was about my attitudes to sex on the road. The question was ‘who was using who?'. The middle section was always too ‘twee' for my liking and I'd always wanted a more gothic approach. It never happened.
 

‘Emerald Lies' was about jealousy and in my never ending break up, get together, break up cycle with my long suffering girlfriend, the lyric was obvious. Touring was having a very negative effect on my personal life (from her point of view). ‘Fugazi', the title track was inspired by a journey on the Piccadilly line from Earls Court where I lived in a flat for a while with my girlfriend, to the Marquee Club where I lived during the night. Coming down from a trip and listening to my Walkman and viewing the other occupants if the carriage it summed up the album and my views on life at the time - Fugazi we were.
 

The vocals were mostly done at Eel Pie and Maison Rouge, but the mixes were all over London. Mark & Steve went crazy shuttling throughout the city and while I was doing the promo for the tour the band were being beaten down by alternative mixes. One night in particular at ‘Odyssey Studios summed it all up.
 

Ten hours or so into the mix the desk computer crashed dumping all the work so far. Nick burst into tears and slumped over the desk and we all looked at each other before trying to reassemble both Nik and the mix before getting into taxis to head to Abbey Road to hear a mix of ‘Incubus'
 

The tour called. ‘Punch & Judy' was released. It died after a week even with a bundle of TV appearances including the ‘Oxford Road Show' in Manchester, where Steve and Mark arrived bloodeyed from mixing in London only hours before live transmission. We never heard the finished album until we were on tour and hired an hour at Amazon Studios in Liverpool for a playback.

I always find it strange that some people still find this their favourite album. I only have blurred and savage memories of the traumas of delivery. The songs are great and ‘Incubus' is probably my all time favourite from my seven years with the band. But the period of creation to delivery and the surrounding fracas can only be described as Fugazi.
 

 

During a break in rehearsals at ‘Nomis', Marillion and me reconvened for a discussion about the next album sleeve.
 

After witnessing ‘Assassing' live I had assumed we were heading for cambodia, y'know ‘ The Horror, the horror.' But no, this time the jester was to be lying in a state, on a hotel bed, ‘Death of Marat' style - legs akimbo ! My Brief, as clear as the ‘Kurtz' diamond was to illustrate the Faustian ‘payback' after the trappings of success had kicked in.

Carefully choreographed by a zipper than ever Fish, sybolism-a-go-go. The room, bright and hi-tech chrome, smarter than the average bedsit of ‘Script'. A randy she-chameleon snapping at the wedding ring wielding magpie. One for sorrow, natch! The toy hinting at the misplaced boy that was to come.

'Temptation' and ‘Resurrection' the two Julie-pictures on the white-but-not-quite-wall. The ruined abbey; not an obvious view from a Holiday Inn window.

The old clown stares at blood draining from the glass or is it draining the lifeblood away from the Jester? The title scrawled in lipstick on the mirror reflects the back of a fully garbed Jester on his surrealistic pillow!

I can remember working all night to finish the painting and cabbing over to the studio to show the band. “ It's the clean acid trip.” declared Fish, I was too knackered to disagree.

As Groucho once said... ‘There is no Sanity Clause'.
 

This album was originally released on LP, 12" Picture Disc, and Cassette.

In 2005, a vinyl replica version of this album was released in Japan on CD, in a miniaturised version of the original LP packaging. The disc is the remastered version, and the track listing is per Disc 1 of the 2CD release, listed on this page.

This was the first album to include the then-new drummer Ian Mosley.