Steve Lazenby (Lazland) Interview with Edison’s Children: Eric Blackwood, Pete Trewavas, and Rick Armstrong June 2026.
A Light in Ethereal Night is the brand-new album, and it's being released on the 4th of September.
To pre-order, all you have to do is go along to https://edisonschildren.com/store
INTERVIEWER’S PREFACE
I was so pleased to be able to interview Eric, Pete, and Rick. What you see below is an edited version of the full audio transcript which will be broadcast on Progzilla Radio closer to the release date of A Light in Ethereal Night.
It is a conversational interview. It is a record of three exceptionally talented musicians’ kind enough to share their inner thoughts, inner workings, and inner talent with me.
It is an interview I am very proud of, and I hope you enjoy it.
Pull up a chair. Get yourselves a drink, or two, some snacks, and hunker down for an Edison’s Children ride!
The Return
Lazland
The interview is conducted for three media outlets. A written transcript for lazland.org, an audio broadcast for Progzilla Radio, and, hopefully, a video recording for YouTube.
However, as you know, I'm a fan, and this is one hell of a pleasure, so thank you.
So, Pete. You produced a video 7 years ago coinciding with the release of The Disturbance Fields, and giving an explanation of how that came about, and how the collaboration initially with Eric started, and then how Rick came into the band, and that you've written all these songs.
But I've got to be honest with the three of you, I thought that was it. I didn't think we'd ever hear from you again. Not, you know, musically, as Edison's Children.
So, the obvious question is why? In 2026? What’s happened?
Pete Trewavas
Only seems like yesterday!
Well, I guess one of the things which is weird about us is that we write songs very much not in the order that they get released. So, some of these songs were going to be for an album, and that ended up being The Disturbance Fields, and we didn't, we, you know, because we sort of just write, but in very bad versions, and now we've got one that's slightly better. So, we thought we'd put it on a record, yeah?
Lazland
Recycling is the wrong word, but, is this revisiting music and songs that you'd written some time ago with a new twist? Or is a mixture of brand-new music and stuff that you were working on earlier?
Pete T
That's more the thing. It's songs that we were working on earlier and we left because we started working on The Disturbance Fields, which was much more about climate change and Mother Nature - what's going to happen to us.
So, some songs just weren't right for that or weren't ready to be put on an album. We were always going to use them. We just revisited them with Rick involved, and more stuff gets written, more ideas come out. Rick's been great at helping us with new things, a new lease of life, I suppose, into what we were doing before, which is very cool.
Lazland
Rick, I was listening to Chromosphere the past couple of days. I hadn’t listened to it for a wee while and really enjoyed it. The track that Eric played on, which was Spheres of Influence, I absolutely adored that. It strikes me that on the new LP, certainly in terms of the synth soundscapes, that way of playing, that way of creating, has found its way onto this new EC album.
Rick Armstrong
You’re exactly right. It was just a kind of a test idea when we got together in 2023 for a week or so in Florida, and started writing, and we were working on songs, and I said, I've got a couple ideas that I'd like to throw out to you, and I didn't know if they'd like them or not, you know, because it was kind of different than what we've done before, but I said, just see what you think about this, and, they liked almost every idea I put out, which was a pleasant surprise. Again, it's a different colour to the music than we've had before.
Pete T
Yes, it’s exciting, very exciting.
Lazland
So, Eric, Pete was talking about The Disturbance Fields. It strikes me that the Blackwood patch is a bit of a dangerous place to get to and certainly stay in!
Eric Blackwood
That's very true!
Where I live is on top of a mountain, let's say 400 meters? Surrounded by bears and wilderness and my nearest neighbour to the left is about 5 miles. You know, when it snows, and it snows hard here, the winters can be harsh, they can be freezing, and the snow can really pile up, and we do get stranded here for over a month at a time. So, it's intense, but we're used to it.
Lazland
And, Rick, you're towards the south of the USA?
Rick A
Midwest. I'm farther south than Eric is.
Lazland
And of course, Pete in Middle England.
Pete T
Middle England, exactly, yeah. Tolkien country, really, in the Shires. You?
Lazland
Carmarthenshire.
Pete T
Lovely part of the country - you've got a fantastic castle there, as well.
Lazland
So, Eric, your location and that harshness, that extreme environment has had a massive impact upon the music that's being brought out.
Eric B
Oh, absolutely, especially for The Disturbance Fields.
We used a lot of that because when Pete was here recording, we got stuck in such a blizzard, we had no choice but to get out and drive all the way down to Baltimore in the car, in a car that was not made for snow.
Pete T
Oh, we got stuck several times, didn't we?
Eric B
Yeah, we had to get help from other people, because I can't do anything. Um, Pete had to do most of the work to get us out.
Pete T
I was just being the blithering, you know, idiot of an Englishman saying, “I'm awfully sorry, we're rather stuck in the snow!”
Eric B
It took us 8 hours to get to Baltimore. It's usually a 3-hour ride!
We went through a lot. While Pete was singing Outer Space, we hit a 6.0 earthquake while he was screaming into the microphone, he didn't feel it, but I fell right over on my side!
Pete T
I was in the zone, you know?
Eric B
Even when we were in Tampa, I mean, every day there was lightning storms. We had to shut down every day for electrical storms, and we were watching tornadoes starting to form in the distance. Every time we record, weather comes after us!
A New Album Story
Lazland
And, no doubt, that adds to the otherworldliness and will inspire.
So, okay, the new LP, looking at everything, hearing the music, it's following on directly from the first LP, In the Last Waking Moments.
I was interested in the press release that said that The Awakening that huge epic track, was open-ended, and I actually took a wee bit of a different personal take in my review, interpreting it as the final moments prior to passing on to death and moving on to the other side, as it were, those last waking moments, which can be an eternity.
So, let's have the story of where it left and where we move on to with the brand-new LP.
Eric B
When Pete, Rick, and I write music, we have a specific theme in mind, and Rick was very influential this time around to make sure that the songs remain accessible, but also so the listener can always make it what they want it to be to themselves. We don't, even though we have a theme and a way of singing it, it is always meant to be open to interpretation. We want that. We want people discussing what…. What is he really trying to say? What is he really getting at? Is he dying? Is he going into madness? What is happening? It is meant to be taken that way, so if you took it that way, I'm thrilled. Pete is thrilled. Rick is thrilled. That is the point of what we do, even though we have themes and concepts, we want you to interpret it the way you feel it is, because whatever you come up with, there's a chance that that was part of it!
You know, not all of us have had an experience of dealing with something supernatural or extraterrestrial, but we've all had moments where we've gotten to a point where something has affected us deeply, whether it's health-wise, whether it's mentally, whether it's physically, whatever it is.
Lazland
Excellent! I say that because I do get things wrong quite often. All the time, in fact, but in the original review, I made a bit of a contrast between Brave, which was clear that Steve h had heard about this poor young woman on the bridge, and that incredible, incredible moment when she throws herself off. And then you had, of course, the bit of cheeriness at the end. Let's come down a bit. But an awful lot of what went before could be taken in not at face value, let's put it that way.
Pete T
Yeah, I would agree with that. Basically, there was a story that Steve had heard on the radio.
And then it was in the local papers as well, because what is true about the story is that there was a very traumatized young lady found wandering along the old bridge, and she couldn't or wouldn't speak to anyone. They took her to hospital, and eventually, she was fine. She didn't carry through what the story then takes up. That's basically where Brave starts.
The rest of it is a kind of fiction. It's like, well, what brought her to that? Let's think about that, and we were trying to bring in a lot of things that affect a lot of people, that just aren't talked about enough.
You can always allow things to be interpreted and thought about, even if not talked about, thought about more than people do.
Lazland
I agree with you and what was fascinating about In the Last Waking Moments, and from the tracks I've heard with the new one - the walls have had a fair bit of a blasting over the last few days. I absolutely love it. It's… well, it's Edison's Children, it's brilliant. So, we'll have a quick chat about the tracks that have been sent.
The opener, the 31. Am I correct in saying this refers to the comet, which an awful lot of people thought might be an alien spacecraft whizzing by and trying to have a look, and maybe picking up where it left on a previous visit in ancient times?
Pete T
I heard about that after we'd named it. I can't remember which news story it was in that I was reading it, but I just thought, that's amazing. It must have been when some of the files from the Pentagon were let out, I think, which was a little while ago. But that song, as I was alluding to earlier, that song's been around for a good few years.
It started out as a guitar riff, and then I embellished it, and I sent it to Eric & Rick trying to make it work and trying to make sure that there was a… we always had vocal ideas for it, but they just… they didn't help the song and they didn't make it… the song didn't help where the lyrics were going, you know, they just never seemed to work.
But, when we were working this time round, things suddenly became quite exciting when Rick was fully on board. A lot of things started to fall into place a bit more easily, I think.
Lazland
Yes, we were talking before about Rick’s solo music, certainly some of those synths, those soundscapes overlaid…
Pete T
I know. They're great, aren't they? Oh, I love them. I love them to death.
Lazland
They're absolutely fantastic.
Rick A
Thank you.
Lazland
There's so much going on in it. I love where I can put a CD on for about the thousandth time and still hear something new coming out of it.
Pete T
Yes, I've always loved that kind of thing.
Eric B
There are certain things that you're gonna hear that aren't in this yet but will be very soon. There are little things hidden everywhere, and that's always the case in our music. Everything, there's little bits if you listen hard enough.
If you listen on different headphones, if you listen just through your phone, if you listen on a big stereo system, and hopefully one day, soon, if you listen on Atmos.
Lazland
I think that the music that you produce is an extremely good example of the difference between prog (and it's easy to be snobbish as a prog fan) and the more sort of corporate pop music that you hear on mainstream stations, is that with your music, you've just simply got to stop, put everything, all the distractions, out, concentrate, whereas with the more corporate stuff, it can go on in the background quite easily, can't it? You know, the boy meets girl, girl meets boy, they have a nice time together, and off they go, and that's easy.
Pete T
Yes, intelligent music.
Lazland
What hit me this morning, listening to The 31 was young Mr. Rogers.
Eric B
Absolutely. He's really come onto his own.
Pete T
Yeah, he's a great drummer. Oh my god. He really is.
Lazland
Fair dos. You know, I'm a big fan of Mostly Autumn anyway.
Pete T
He's such a pro. He's good live as well. He's got a good vibe to it.
Lazland
At the start, there's a crashing sound coming out of those speakers from him. And the first thought that came to me was what a what a rhythm section. Not bad working with him, is it?
Pete T
It’s never easy to know who actually played bass, because we all… we all kind of take it in turns, play everything.
Eric B
But that is Pete on that one, absolutely.
Pete T
It is. It is me.
Because when I'm sort of really involved in writing stuff, I'm busy doing all the other stuff. And it suddenly dawned on me, just before I sent the files to be mixed, I just thought; there's no bass! I was looking through all the files, yeah, I've got all this guitar, that guitar, I've got, like, Rick’s keys, The Moog, and no bass. It was corrected!
Lazland
Well, it's a great song. It has that core Edison's Children sound, those riffs, the bass, Henry on the drums, but where Rick overlays that with those keyboards, that to me, it was more of a, for want of a better word, and I'm not getting into very dull arguments about sub-genres in prog, it was like a symphonic, like an orchestral overlay there.
Pete T
Absolutely. We weren't a big fan of lots of keyboards in the early days, because we… neither of us were really programmers or great keyboard players, so we used to kind of arrange string parts, but with Rick, coming in and getting more involved, each time we did something new. I love the Moog in The 31.
Eric B
Yeah, that Moog rocks.
Lazland
That's right. It is brilliant and it is a wonderful example, from the word go of the four of you working together, and it's a full, rich band sound. I absolutely love that, I really do.
You mentioned before, Pete, Interlaced. That's the second track that Sarah kindly sent over to me. It’s very atmospheric again, and Henry's got one hell of a drum pattern on that, it really is just incredible. And I think that all of you, at some stage or another on that track, are playing bass, guitars, and virtually everything else at the same time, from what I can make out.
But in terms of those voices on the track, going back to the theme of the LP, to these ears, they are extraordinarily threatening.
Eric B
They are here. They've come back from the Awakening.
At this point, you're sort of setting a stage where this man knows where he is. He knows… he's encountering the one that he saw in the Awakening. This is the same… he's got a history with this.
This is all POV of the alien himself. None of this is now coming from the guy from The Awakening. This is the POV of the alien itself, the extraterrestrial itself.
If you make a lot of sound, and you start making a big deal, the others are going to hear.
And I can't promise anything at that point. We have a history. I will make sure you survive this event. But I need you to get down, don't move, stay calm, don't blink an eye. Torpid, motionless, you're paralyzed.
While I harness the helix from your DNA and create a new recombinant genetic race.
So, he's here to take the human DNA, and try and recreate something else.
It is very threatening. And it is invasive, and the reason why he's here has a lot to do with The Disturbance Fields. He is here because they have sat back and watched our planet be ignored.
We've wrecked the convertible that we call Earth, the lovely new convertible that this is, and Daddy's come back to take the keys.
And that's what's happening, it's not that they're mad at us, they're not trying to necessarily get rid of us from the planet, but they need to make sure.
They're not here for us. We all assume in our hubris that they're here to communicate with us, to talk to us. They're here to make sure we don't destroy this wonderful Goldilocks planet that is so perfect.
So throughout, I know the universe is so expansive. But it matters. The Earth matters to everything, not just us. It matters everywhere. And what we do creates an effect that has a ripple across the oceans of the atmosphere, across the oceans of the universe.
And they can no longer just sit idly by and watch us continue to put plastics in the ocean to kill off wildlife. Why do we think we are above whales, dolphins, orcas, owls?
What makes us think that just because we have this sentient intelligence that we are above all else? We assume that, and it's our own hubris that's brought us here.
And they've had enough.
And it's not that they don't want us to thrive. They want us to thrive. They just don't want us to do it at the expense of every other living creature that's here, because we are creating the extinction of so many animals, I mean, thousands have gone extinct just in the last 20 years.
I think the fact is, too, we don't know the extent of the species that we're causing extinction to, how integral they are to our own biosphere, you know, we may be killing like, with bees - without bees, we're gone. We don't exist. We are causing extinction to things that we don't realize maybe they are integral to this planet existing, and once we get rid of those and they're gone, we're headed towards our own extinction.
And, and it's saying, you know, stop assuming that you, because you're human, that you think you are above all, you are not, you are no more important than the dolphin, than the shark, than plant, than the tree, than everything else around you.
Lazland
I absolutely agree with that. One of the advantages I have living here is it is beautifully rural. It's funny you're saying before about the bees, the lack of butterflies is the thing that we've noticed this year.
Eric B
Absolutely. I haven't seen any.
You used to be able to go outside, right outside my door, and you wouldn't need a flashlight because there were so many lightning bugs just three years ago. There's none.
It was all you could see. And we did see them on Wendy's birthday, because they're always around in the beginning of June, but this year, they… I mean, there was some, you see a few, but they're going. They're disappearing.
Lazland
Well, let's turn it on its head, then. You have the encounter.
He's going through this procedure.
If we move on, then to Threnody. Our man's back. And my understanding is, is that nothing is kept secret. So, the world's media, everybody is looking at what is, the world is following what is happening.
Is that a correct take on what's going on?
Eric B
Yes.
Lazland
I've always been fascinated by this. And there were two films, sorry, one book and one film that I had a quick sort of look at again when I was preparing for this. The book was Stranger in a Strange Land, which was Heinlein, in which poor Valentine Smith, in the end, gets well and truly shot and disposed of by… by the society that he came back to from Mars, and by a mob, of course. The other one was The Day the Earth Stood Still, where Klaatu gets shot and killed, and Gorn, the robot raises him up and he issues a fairly sharp ultimatum to us all. So, I mean, I think what I'm trying to say here is that the common thread is we're the ones that aren't particularly pleasant. We're the ones who are vicious and can be very, very self-centred, very evil. And I'm curious with the three of you how you think in terms of the LP, humanity's reaction to the visitors plays out in the music and the lyrical theme.
Rick A
My take on it, is that Threnody; it's part one and two. Part one is sort of the explanation, almost like a third-party narration. It's kind of summing up pretty much the whole rest of the album and consolidating it. And then it breaks into conflict in part two.
Lazland
And I'm assuming then, Rick, at that point, that's presumably the point to my ears, all three of you are going bonkers with guitars. That's the conflict, correct?
Rick A
Yes, I believe so.
Lazland
Yeah, and it is brilliant.
Rick A
Thank you.
I mean, we talked earlier about, you know, how long these songs have been around and that idea has been around for almost 10 years, I think. It was the foundation for the rest of the stuff that got added to it.
It conveys the battle.
Lazland
Oh, very much so, and very, very well. Because what Sarah sent me was parts one and two, but there's also an excerpt from part three. So, am I correct in assuming that there is a sequel to the sequel?
We'll have parts three to ten of Threnody in the next album?
Rick A
That would be the plan.
Eric B
Yes. A lot of it's already finished. Not finished, but in terms of the writing and where it's going to go and how it's going to play out is already there. It's just…
Pete T
We've sort of got a map, and we've got some music. Well, we've got quite a lot of music that wouldn't be hard to finish, but we've kept it open in case we add. We always add stuff.
Rick A
So, we've adopted the cliffhanger approach!
Pete T
Things are very fluid. It's a fluid thing.
Edison’s Children (and Marillion) at Work
Lazland
Well, there's an obvious question to ask you with that, then, the three of you, because I know, Pete, that the vast bulk of the Marillion stuff is done in a studio. I know there are digital files flying about, but you'll get together, go to Real World studios, and create together.
Pete T
Yeah. We spend most of our time face-to-face working on stuff. I mean, we actually jam.
And what we try and do is to just get into a state, into the mindset of not really having to think about what you're doing, just expressing what you're hearing.
Sometimes, you know, we'll work on stuff. There's a section of Easter, for example, a 5/4 section near the end. And if you analyse what's really going on, there's a quite intricate guitar riff. There's a set of chords that work but aren't really connected to what the guitar's doing.
And then I'm playing a bass line… I'm playing bass notes that work with the chords but aren't exactly what the chords are doing, so there are three things working against each other, and we do that quite a lot more than you think, and it's usually because when we're doing that kind of jamming, it's like, well, if something's wrong, we can hear what it's supposed to be and we'll fix it later. Don't stop and start analysing it, because you'll ruin the mood, you know, you'll ruin the vibe and the creativity. That is essentially as pure as a way of creating music as we can think of.
Eric B
When we're together, there's this thing that happens, and there's a magic that just happens. I could have the worst writer's block in the world. Pete could possibly, too. I don't know if he ever gets writer's block, to be honest..
Pete T
I do! Yeah, I do!
Eric B
When Pete and I are there in a room, we start creating to the point that Pete is like, can we finish the song we're working on? And I'm like, no, we can't, because there's just… you can't stop this creativity. Things… we get so prolific. It just comes out. It comes out of nowhere. And songs just appear that weren't there.
All of a sudden, we'll have written a whole section of track that you'll hear that our brains seem to sync up, and we turn into this magnificent thing. And I can't describe it. It's magic.
Pete T
And I'm like, I'm going to have to try and remember where everything is and sort it out later!
Rick A
It's definitely easier to wrestle things down when we're all together. Because we won't always agree on the ideas that come out of it. Either it's not right, or it's not in the right order, or it's whatever, you know. And to try to do that remotely over file sharing is difficult, because there’s the interactivity that's sort of give and take that you need to have.
To resolve these things is so much easier to do when you're all in the same place.
Pete T
Absolutely.
Eric B
Yeah, absolutely. Because otherwise it's like you're trying to talk to each other through this sort of very sterile environment. And when you're all together, it's like you're all of the same mindset. You're all kind of together, and you're getting it. And it like it. It comes across where I think when we're trying to do things away from each other; it's a different kind of thing. We're not all in the same mind frame, and we're not all together, and there's no way to make that connection that we get when we're a band.
When we're a band, we flow perfectly. It's just amazing. And it's just a matter of trying to find the time to get together because obviously it's difficult. But we do try and do as much as we can together whenever we can, and most of the really good writing comes from when we're together. The overdubs then come later, that we can do when we're home separately.
A love of what we do and how we do it
Lazland
It's unique. Nobody else sounds like Edison's children, which is wonderful.
There are all sorts of arguments about this, but I am not particularly keen on reviewing, praising, a piece of music that sounds exactly like, let’s say, Squonk, or Aqualung from The Tull, and what have you.
There are lots of great cover bands about, with great musicianship, but it's not original. And the one thing that Progzilla Radio does, and I try and do with the website as well, is we love to have the new, something that's original, something that hasn't been heard before. And I did think, with the final passage, and the excerpt from the third part of Threnody, it's the blues that comes out. It is blues infused, but there's also some classic rock going in there. There's some symphonic music going. There's absolutely bloody everything! It's the whole smorgasbord!
But, it's done in your way. Your love of music and where you come from.
Pete T
Well, that's it. We all love music.
Rick A
You put us all together, and that's what comes out. That sounds like whatever it sounds, but that isn't what we're thinking about while we're doing it.
Lazland
That sound that came out there was the three of you using your musical ability, but also your musical background, and just having a bit of a play, and that's just what came out of the thing. And it doesn't sound like anybody else.
That's the point, it's brilliant.
Pete T
Yes. We're trying to be purely creative. There's no point in writing music unless it it's going to be a bit unique and you're going to say you're what you know you have to be, which is yourselves.
That's what we're interested in. That's certainly what I'm interested in. Talking of bands that sound unique, I used to love - Super Furry Animals. They're Welsh. I just thought they had such interesting approaches to songs, and how they recorded stuff.
They weren't frightened of having a disco song alongside something that was just really odd.
Lazland
I absolutely agree. What about The Manics? Turns out they were the biggest Rush fans on God's Earth.
Pete T
It's funny, isn't it?
Lazland
Who'd have thought it? In summary, I've never liked pigeonholing music. I don't like pigeonholing subgenres and all this. It's music, and music that moves one is important. That's the important thing for me. If it moves me, that's what I want.
Eric B
Yes, and I think we've gone out of our way to try and tap the emotional side of someone. I mean, I know that there's times that we can maybe be a little bit more technically… making sure we're trying to do a 7-8 pattern here to make it more interesting, and trying to do it, but the question is we always come back to it and say to ourselves; Is this something that's going to impress you the first time, or is this something that you're going to want to come back and listen to every time?
And we always come back to that. Is this, like, we've put in segues and different things to make it interesting and to, and then Pete will go, you know what? I listened to it, and I'm not sure… I mean, it sounds cool, and it's, like, experimental, and it's different, but, do you want to listen to it? Are you going to want to come back and listen to it? And he's come back and ripped whole parts of songs out just because it doesn't have the emotional attachment. And I'm like, you know what, Pete? You're absolutely right, man. It just doesn't hit. It's not hitting.
It's not hitting the soul.
Lazland
Yes, one day a week, I like to have a complete break from the web site, or radio shows, and just listen to music for the sheer joy and pleasure of listening to it, without thinking of what I am going to write, or say, which I think is important.
Eric B
It's so important.
Rick A
I should do that.
Pete T
In Marillion, because we have our own studio, we all go home every night. But one of the things that Mike played us was a saxophone solo. I can't remember the guy's name now, but it's a very, very famous saxophone player who played with Duke Ellington, and it's from the 1930s.
And I'd forgotten about this, because my dad used to love Duke Ellington, and it does, you know, if you listen to it, and you listen to the phrasing, it's like, you can see where Jeff Beck got a lot of his phrasing from. It was unbelievable.
Lazland
Well, the first time I saw you live was at the Marquee, when Market Square Heroes had just come out, and Sounds was talking about a bunch of lads who liked Genesis, with some maniac in face paint, so I went to The Marquee to see you. Now, if anyone had told that callow youth that he would one day get a huge amount of appreciation from listening to Miles Davis, then I would have sent them packing!
Pete T
Yes, exactly! Well, it's just music. It's either good music or it's bad music, isn't it?
Lazland
Yes, precisely!
There was another thing that struck me about ways of working and making music and that is a stability and a friendship, and a comfort and an ease in each other's company. I don't just mean musically, I mean personally. I think that makes quite a big difference. Do you agree?
Eric B
Absolutely!
Getting this album out has not been easy. It's been rough, and I was getting a bit frenzied, and Pete knew it. So, he called me at 1:30 in the afternoon, and kept me on the phone, away from what he knew I needed to get done that day, and kept me on the phone just talking about trying to relax.
We get into a scuffle every now and then, it happens. It's gonna happen in every band, but we care very deeply about each other as people, and we always have and there's a foundation there that goes back so long and we're all good mates. We're all like, we enjoy each other's company.
Also, I think we get along much better when we're all together in the same place, because then we're all of the same mind, and it's not like there's a distance between us and it's kind of a cold, sterile back and forth. When we're together, we have… I mean, when we were writing this album, every night, we'd stop and do something just fun, away from it all. Pete and I spent a lot of time watching Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, and we'd eat ice cream, and then Rick got into getting us into…
Pete T
Weird Al Yankovic!
Rick A
Richard Jeni, and Weird Al videos. You guys hadn't seen any Weird Al videos, and we'd sit there and just crack up hysterically, and Rick put on What We Do in the Shadows, that crazy… I'm from Staten Island originally, so it's all about this vampire community that moves to Staten Island from New Zealand. It started as a movie in New Zealand, now it became a big TV show on FX, and Rick put it on every night, and we'd start cracking. I mean, just, you know, just something silly to lighten the mood and get out of it, and just have a great time, and that's when we all bond and we feel like, okay, we're here. We need to do more of that, I think.
Eric B
We realise, you know, we're all here because we love it so much. We love this so much, this project. It means everything to us.
Pete T
Nobody in their right mind would be doing music in this day and age unless they absolutely loved it.
Lazland
That’s a very good point, and I agree.
Commerciality and other artists material
Lazland
So, from our perspective, at either the website, or the radio station, we'll get sent a piece of music, written by a relatively young, unknown artist or band.
That song we play on a show, or I write about, if that gets 5 to 10 to 15 to 20 additional hits on Bandcamp, it can be a huge thing for them.
That's a pleasure to do, but in terms of that demarcation between music as a hobby, and trying simply to get the cost back, in other words, not make a massive loss.
But then, the next step up, making it into something that's commercially viable, that strikes me as being bloody difficult these days, I mean, really, really, really difficult.
Pete T
Most people that I know that are in bands have to be working with several different bands or several different projects that they can release a year in order to cover the costs and be able to just do it full-time, or they'll do commercials, or they'll do other things as well. Probably to do with the music industry, but, you know, corporate gigs, or be in a covers band, or something. Cover bands! If you're in a good cover band, you can earn a lot more than if you're in a proper band!
Lazland
Or perhaps do some mixing, mastering, that sort of thing.
Rick A
You could definitely adapt the line or the question - how do you make a small fortune in the music business? Answer - start with a large fortune!
Pete T
Yes, basically that's the state of play.
Lazland
Well, the three of you will know that there is in some circles, a nose up in the air, a snobbish attitude to purism, and only doing things a certain way. Prog fans are probably at the extreme end of the spectrum; I think it's probably fair to say.
And a cry will go up… Oh my god, they've released a pop song!
Rick A
It'll be the Steven Wilson syndrome, right?
Pete T
He's a very clever guy.
Eric B
Absolutely!
Pete T
Very switched on, very, very musical.
There's a lot of bands that have some form of commercial success. You know, Genesis have had quite a swathe of commercial success.
Lazland
And do you know what? I loved it.
Pete T
Yeah, me too, I did. And when you look back, without the snobbishness of, oh no, ever since Gabriel left. Listen back now. It's good stuff. It's all good stuff.
Trick of the Tail is a great album, for example. Wind and Wuthering is my wife Fiona’s favourite album.
Rick A
That was the last Hackett album.
Lazland
Duke is mine. I love it.
Funnily enough, on my Saturday afternoon Progzilla Radio show, there are three of us, Thomas Tsirmay, who writes as the Prog Rogue on Facebook. He absolutely loves your music, and he’s a great writer, a great musicologist, alongside John Simms, who also presents on Progzilla Radio as Sky Pilot - you've just done a jingle for him.
We're doing a take on the BBC Classic, (Pete), Desert Island Discs, but we're calling it Prog Island Disc for copyright reasons, bless them. So, we've got 35 LPs each that we can take away to a desert island in the middle of nowhere that's got electricity and a great sound system.
My last track on Saturday, I don't think it would mean that much to Eric, or Rick over in America, because I don't think they were that big in America, but Pete, you will have heard of The Beautiful South, and it was Old Red Eyes, and the reason why I played it, that was a song that my late best man and I used to get extraordinarily drunk and sing at the top of our voices walking up the road back home in Shropshire, and it's just a great pop music track that has quite a meaning behind it as well, you know.
Pete T
They came from the Housemartins, after Fatboy Slim left, was it?
Lazland
That's right, yep. Norman Cook, bless him.
Influences on EC
Lazland
That's it. So, you know, this is possible. You know, I mean, tonight, we've talked about the full range.
Rick, on your LP, I was hearing influences from Vangelis, I was hearing influences from Tangerine Dream, but I was also hearing quite a lot of commercial, a good tune, a melodic sense to it.
Rick A
Thank you. Yeah. Tangerine Dream definitely, would be the number one on the influence chart, but Vangelis, I definitely listen to a lot of his stuff. A Genius.
Pete T
Oh, that is genius.
And that Moog on The 31 reminds me of Manfred Mann.
Lazland
Funnily enough, I'm playing a track from them this Saturday, and you're right.
Pete T
Tunes, good tunes. I used to listen to a band called Greenslade. It's because of the keyboard solos; he has just died sadly.
it was like a really good melodic guitar solo. You could hum them. There is nothing better than a good tune. I think It Bites were quite a good example of commercial prog, actually.
Lazland
I quite agree with you.
Pete T
Particularly John Beck, I love John Beck's work.
Rick A
Yeah, Lifesigns would be another.
Lazland
Yeah, Lifesigns are great.
Rick A
Prog with a pop sensibility.
Eric B
And John Young's a great, great man. He's just a fabulous human.
Pete T
He lives just up the road from me.
A Special podcast
Lazland
As a follow-up, I am going to ask you to provide me with your all-time favourite five songs, for a special podcast of my radio show.
I'll play all 15 of them.
Rick A
How long of a show is that going to be!
Pete T
It’ll be the five longest tracks I can think of!
Lazland
My regular show is 2 hours long, but the podcast can be 20 hours long, so…
Pete T
That would be fun.
Eric B
I can give you five right now!
Pete T
One of mine is certainly going to be off In the Land of grey and Pink.
Lazland
I love that.
Eric B
You just talked about A Trick of the Tail, Entangled.
Entangled affected me so deeply I can't even begin to tell you. That song infected me.
That 12-string is so haunting and so stunning, the music, the textures and the keyboard solo, it just, it's, that to me is one of the greatest things I've ever heard.
Lazland
Of course, and as a statement of intent, and I will include, Seasons End in this, Pete, when h came in, because it's a similar sort of thing. When Gabriel left, that was it. Melody Maker wrote an obituary to the band. And I seem to recall Sounds doing something similar with you lot, Pete. You know, that was it. Fish had gone.
Pete T
Yeah, I think they did. So did EMI, funnily enough!
They signed fish and they wouldn't sign us.
Lazland
Season's End, I saw the tour at Civic Hall, because I was living in Shropshire at the time, so that was our nearest venue, loved it.
And Eric, that Trick of the Tale, as a… more than anything else, those two LPs, to me, were statements of intent from a group of musicians who said, you know what? We're not bloody finished. We're pretty good at what we do, and here you are, this is what it is.
Fishy Hogarth Tales
Eric B
And anybody who still thinks that Marillion is nothing without fish, have just never listened to Season's End and given it a chance. They probably dismissed it before they even heard it, and if they put it on and really listened to it, you can't listen to Easter and Berlin, and The Space. How can you listen to The Space and not be ripped from your heart into the emotion; it is just spectacular.
Lazland
With me, it was the King of Sunset Town with me, going back to what Rick was saying before about keyboard textures and creating a mood, that mood at the start of that, and then, all of a sudden, when the riffs just explode out the speakers, and he starts singing, I thought, you know what? You know what? It's gonna be all right, this. I think it's okay!
Pete T
That's what happened on the tour. Because we decided to start the tour with Sunset Town, so… we wrote that beginning, which was very, kind of, old Marillion, if you like, in a way familiar to something like Hotel Hobbies or whatever, you know, and then it… then there's a big guitar solo, and it goes into the song.
Rick A
I bought that album in Indianapolis. I had just moved back from from Hawaii.
I had no idea that Fish was gone. I was a huge Marillion fan already. I open up the CD, all excited, and I'm like who's this Steve Hogarth guy?
It's like a bolt of lightning. It's like, what happened? And so, I listened to it once and, you know, it's kind of like, I didn't know what to make of it. I'll listen to it again. And after about three or four times, I'm like, I think this is going to be okay, actually!
Eric B
Same here!
Rick A
And then I saw that tour and I did. Yeah, it was in Cincinnati.
The most impressive thing was H was just him. He didn't try to be Fish, he didn't try to do anything, he just, he just did his own thing.
It was very noteworthy that everything was going to be okay in Marillion Land!
Pete T
That's what we wanted. We had a lot of people audition that were kind of Fish-likes.
It's like, oh dear, and it got a bit cringey, and we thought, we're never going to find a singer, because all the good singers seem to be successful, or at least in bands that, you know, were just about to get a record deal, and they didn't want to leave that to be with us because but somebody from Steve's publishing company sent us a cassette with two or three songs on. One was Games in Germany from the Europeans, and the other was Easter.
And we thought, well, this is good!
And then he came down, he said; "I can't do a Fish." We said, "No, please don't!"
We decided to go away for a week, because we had music, he had lyrics. We also had a lyricist, John Helmer, because we thought, it’s gonna be a big ask to find a decent singer who was also a great lyricist, and we needed the two things on the album.
We said, you just be yourself, and we'll be ourselves, and let's see where it goes.
We didn't really feel any pressure either.
Rick A
Good plan!
Lazland
Which is wonderful. That comes across in the LP.
Pete T
The three of us just knew that we were going to have something.
Beginnings
Lazland
Rick, you're obviously a long-standing Marillion fan, so you were deeply familiar with Pete's music before this all happened. And I know, Eric, when the pair of you started collaborating, you were doing some work with Pete and the boys on the live side of it, is that right?
Eric B
Yes, yes, I was helping out. The way it kind of happened is, they were in America, and some of their transport had fallen through. I was working on a movie called The Bourne Ultimatum, and I was doing all the crash scenes, you know, when the car goes flying by and Matt Damon comes out with the gun, I'm laying on his feet with burning walnut shells, trying to get that steam and smoke to come up and around him. But I did that whole scene, and I had my special effects van outside.
The band had some transport issues, and then, dear God, Steve Hogarth is sitting in my car, in my van, and I brought them to the hotel, and just as I was gonna take all their gear out, Lucy came up to me and said, you wouldn't happen to be going to Boston, would you?
I sent a call in to my boss and said, um, you're gonna have to find a replacement on Bourne Ultimatum for me for a couple of weeks, ‘cause I'm gonna stay with the boys.
Pete T
That's right, it was about 2 weeks, weren't we?
Eric B
Yeah, and I stay with them for a decade and a half, I was their personal driver for everywhere in North America, in Canada, I went down to see them in Mexico at Prog Fest, I drove the bus for them at the Marillion weekends, during the Brave shows. So, I've been a part of it as an honorary crew member since then.
Lazland
Fantastic! And did you approach Pete with ideas for what became In the Last Waking Moments?
Eric B
What had happened was I was on stage at The Birchmere Theater, just south of Washington, DC in Alexandria.
They were having a problem with Steve Hogarth's mic and Steve Rothery's guitar had been cranky the entire time because they were having a problem with the RF signal in America.
I had gone off to Connecticut and found the only RF, because I was involved in the business so well. There was only one RF signal connector that existed in America. I found it, drove to it, went to the factory, picked it up, brought it back. They did the show in Boston on time. Nobody was wiser of the fact that I found the only one in existence in America and brought it to them.
Pete T
Yeah, because what happened is that they changed all the frequencies, and so only certain frequencies would work and be legal in America and Europe at the same time.
It was one of those things. Everyone was going to change over, but not everybody had at the same time. And our gear was clearly just European. And it's like, oh, this is going to be a problem.
Eric B
So, I had jumped on stage and I was playing. Colin Price, who's now with Iron Maiden, was the tech in charge of everything then. And Colin came up to me and said, listen, just… I know you're a musician; you've had singles and hits in America before. Go on stage, just play your whole set, everything, just go through it, singing to H's mic, here's Rothery's guitar. And I was like, oh my god!
Here it is, the chalice of God! I'm holding the Holy Grail!
I put it around my neck, and I'm just going through Stranger in a Far Land and Dusk, and I'm playing all these songs, and Pete, unbeknownst to me, was just hanging out. He had come from backstage, just sitting on the side of the thing, and listening to everything I was playing.
Pete T
I was waiting for you to drive me back to the hotel, I seem to remember.
Eric B
Then, during the Transatlantic, he got stuck. He missed his flight, and he called me up and said, can you come meet me? I'm stuck in Jersey. Let's go out and have some fun. So, we went… I picked him up, we went down to Sandy Hook and went out to eat, and we hung out on the beach, and I brought a guitar, and we all played together, and he… we were playing back and forth, and he was playing some stuff that he had written that he hadn't released, and he wasn't gonna use for Marillion. I was playing him some stuff I had written that I hadn’t done anything with yet.
Pete T
Good day. It's a nice day. It was sunny as well.
Eric B
Yeah, it was beautiful, it was a gorgeous day.
Lazland
I love this type of story because essentially, from my perspective, and I say it as a fan, four of the finest albums that I've got in this collection have basically come about by chance, have they not? You missed your flight. It wouldn't have happened without you missing that flight.
Pete T
Yes, things like that, yeah.
Eric B
Destiny!
Lazland
I love that sort of story. So, as far as Rick is concerned, I know, Eric, it was because of unfortunate ill health, and I hope everything's on top form with you now. You're looking wonderful, may I say?
Eric B
It's all smoke and mirrors.
Lazland
I know that Rick was initially approached to assist because of that. But I mean, obviously, Rick, you've just said before, you have been a fan of Marillion for a long, long time. So how did that connection come about? Who approached who?
Rick A
Yeah, I was a fan since the very… I bought Misplaced Childhood out of a record store without ever hearing any of it, just kind of looking at it and reading, like you used to do with albums, and you'd read things on it.
Normally, it takes me a while to like anything, but this one I loved on the very first play, and I sort of became a fan from there.
Jump ahead more than 10 years, to the Afraid of Sunlight tour, it came to Columbus.
And it was super-hot that night, as I recall.
And as they're just filing out in the parking lot, all these people are waiting around, and I'm like, what are they waiting for? You know, it's like, oh, well, the band might come out, they like to do that. I'm like, oh, okay.
So, so I hung around, and I ended up… I don't think I talked to Pete, I talked to Steve h.
I told him, this is the only time I've ever done this in my life.
I said, it really seemed like this album is about the price of fame.
And he said, yeah. And I said, well, I know something about that. And I told him who I was and who my dad was, and I never do that.
And he, he kind of flipped out. He's like, oh my God!
I did not expect, you know, because I've never done it, I never expected the reaction. He's like, you know, he's like, do you think I can get his autograph?
And, he writes down the address of the Racket Club and says, it'd be great if you could do this. Um, you know, the only problem with this was, is that at this time, my dad stopped giving autographs, stopped signing. So, I said, sure, but I'm like, how am I gonna do this?
What… what story am I gonna tell my dad that's gonna get him to sign this? And anyway, I came up with something, and he signed it, and I think they still have it. I know he still has it.
Pete T
Yeah, we do. I mean, that was a huge thing for us.
Rick A
So, it just kind of went from there, from that initial meeting, and then, you know, next they came through Cincinnati numerous times after that.
So, we sort of met up there, and I knew Pete at least 10 years, probably more than 10 years before Edison’s Children.
But we never talked about doing anything musically or whatever.
In the Flesh
Lazland
So, I know, Eric, you were playing in Portugal? I think it was, wasn't it? Not that long ago?
Eric B
It's strange, but it was in Luxembourg, but the link is they had an awful dictator in Portugal. Luxembourg opened their borders to the Portuguese and said, well, if you want, you come here, we'll figure out a way to get you work. We'll figure out a way to make it happen. But if you need to get out, get out. And a lot of Portuguese moved to Luxembourg and now one third of the population is of Portuguese origin.
Lazland
Oh, I didn't know that. That's fascinating. That's interesting.
Pete T
Wow. I didn't realize that. I'm impressed.
Lazland
That's fascinating. Because what I'm leading up to is the inevitable live music question, because my son & I will be coming to see Marillion in the Beacon this autumn. It'll be the first time I've been to the Beacon, and I think it's probably the first time you played there, Pete, and we’re looking forward to perhaps a new track, or two.
And I would go to the other end of the country to see the three of you and Henry, perhaps Lisa and Wendy on some vocals.
Is there a prospect of it, do you think?
Pete T
The Marillion tour is arranged well in advance, so we have a support band.
Lazland
But perhaps in the future at all?
Pete T
Yeah, I would like that to happen, but I'm going to be very busy this year with Marillion, and it's kind of difficult to try and arrange stuff around that.
Lazland
Well, in the very first interview that we did when In the Last Waking Moments was released, one of the quotes of the interview was Eric saying, my partner is the busiest man in music, and it's probably not far off the case now, is it? You know, you're busy.
Pete T
Mike Portnoy is probably the busiest man I know, but yeah, I do keep busy.
I'm trying to slow down, but it just doesn't happen.
Rick A
We’ll aim to do it if the opportunity ever came up, but we'll see.
Lazland
Yeah, it would be really wonderful. I would travel a long way, a long way to see that, seriously.
Wendy, a critical cog in the EC Wheel
Lazland
We mentioned Wendy before. So, for those reading this interview who might not be familiar with Edison's Children, I've made the point in reviews, I regard the visual side of this project to be absolutely critical to the whole concept - I'm going to use a ghastly corporate word, the whole experience of Edison's children. People will know what I mean when I say that. Her artwork is incredible.
I certainly know for a fact that her support of you all, and you especially Eric, has been critical, so I would like to say just how much we appreciate what she's done for the band, and I know that you would like to say the same.
Eric B
Absolutely.
Pete T
Yep.
Eric B
Wendy has been to every single moment of writing sessions. She's heard every song from the moment it got written.
She's watched it occur; she's watched it happen, so the visuals that she gets aren't just something from, like, oh, I'm listening to this song and I'm watching it, you know?
She's seen the inception of the very first note get written between Pete and I, and Rick. She's seen it all. She's been there for every second of this band's existence.
She's not only a brilliant artist, but she has a way of taking ordinary objects and turning them into extraordinary things. Most of the things you're looking at in the artwork are just simple everyday things, you would never know what they are. And then you realize what it is, and it's like, you know, like the Tempest; you see this city that's all lit up, but it's actually an amethyst that got broken open, and she's got a flashlight that she's shining through so it looks like little lights in a building. And she took photographs from every angle of that.
Something that comes out of her that I don't know. I watch her photograph things and I'm like, why are you taking pictures of that? She's like, you'll see. She knows.
And she bases it on every single song because she's heard it from before it became a fully-fledged song. She's heard it when it was still being born, when it was being created, when it was going through its, you know, metamorphic stage.
She was at the famous Rochester show for Marillion that got put out to everybody that was crowdfunded, she put money into that tour fund, and I don't know if you know about this, but in the United States, to bring them over here, that was a big thing.
She was at that show, not with me, I hadn't met her yet.
Reminiscing
Eric B
I got into Marillion when Rick did.
I was at the time reading All Quiet on the Western Front, and Misplaced Childhood was just an absolute perfect soundtrack. I was listening to it on my headphones, on my Walkman, listening to that, reading All Quiet on the Western Front, and it just became the soundtrack for the greatest book I ever read.
I saw Marillion's last show with Fish in New York, and then I saw Marillion's last show of the tour of Season's End over at New York, which was one of the wildest shows ever, the audience was so wild that a half hour after the show had ended, the audience refused to leave. They stood there and clapped and clapped, and they all came out and I think you guys did You've Gotta Hide Your Love Away, The Beatles, and you did all kinds, a crazy version of Easter that you hadn't rehearsed, I think you played The Bell and the Sea, and something else, I don't remember, but it was… it was one of the greatest experiences to see Steve Hogarth.
Pete T
Just having fun on stage.
Eric B
He was just hanging from the chandeliers, he was jumping on top of speaker stacks, and he was just… you know, I'd seen Fish, and I was so… impressed. And then when they switched to Steve Hogarth, it was like, who is this guy? And I went to see them, and it was like: My God, this is amazing!
Lazland
I’ve been to just about every tour, since Script. Pete, do you remember the Walls gig when you were recording Radiation?
I did bump into h. You weren't there. Also, Ian, I think at the Boar's Head, which was probably the maddest, baddest, saddest pub in the entire British Isles!
Pete T
That's not the one in Oswestry, is it? The live unplugged at The Walls?
Lazland
In Oswestry, yes. Yeah.
Pete T
The one where, at the side of the pub, there's a kind of, like everyone just goes mad, yeah.
Lazland
Yes, and you've got the great big courtyard at the back where various substances are imbued.
Pete T
That's it! I do remember vaguely hearing about that, at least!
Lazland
Yeah, well, that's where I was from before I moved to West Wales.
Pete T
We did a bit of recording there, actually. Phil Beaumont, who had the studio.
Lazland
You did. Phil gave me, very kindly, an advance preview of Radiation. I love that LP. I know it does have its detractors, but I think it's a wonderful LP and I've got very fond memories of that time.
Pete T
One of the things that happened with that album was background, because we were on independent record labels. So, for one reason or another, what we decided to do was break away from what we'd been doing. Do a sort of Radiohead and after OK Computer came out with Kid A, you know, just not play all the things that people expected us to play, and just, you know, experiment a little bit. And Radiation was one of them, and Radiation was probably not the best.
But it allowed us, after doing that and getting out of our comfort zone, it allowed us the freedom to then rethink what we were doing. And we did it again a bit with Anoraknophobia.
Lazland
I think you did.
Pete T
After that, it's like, well, we've done that, we can kind of be ourselves again now.
You know, let's carry on moving forward, but rather than being drastic about it, let's take along all the great things that are good about Marillion, the melodic-ness, the warmth of the music, and chord structures, and the nice guitar sounds, you don't need to throw those away, just use them in a better way.
So that's been our route.
Notes to Finish
Lazland
I’m running a series on the radio show, a prog version of Desert Island Discs, where three castaways, including myself, take our 35 most important albums with us for a life in exile.
I could have filled it with just Marillion and Edison's Children, quite frankly. I haven’t, but could easily have done.
What I would say is this, is that Edison's Children, I would include with Marillion as being part of the soundtrack of my life. It is absolutely true. I think the music that the three of you have created has been stunning. It's been extraordinarily important to me.
But everybody reading, or listening, A Light in Ethereal Night is released on the 4th of September. You can pre-order it now.
Do you have any closing remarks for people apart from me saying to the three of you, thank you so very much for your time and it's been a blast, seriously. This hasn't been an interview, this has been a wonderful chat, and I've loved it.
Rick A
Well, I will say, thank you for your kind words about the album, and hopefully, you know, your listeners who may not be familiar with us will at least, you know, check us out. See what they think.
Lazland
Yeah, I hope so.
Eric B
The point I was trying to make when I was talking about Marillion is that I knew Marillion pretty well for a long time. Wendy knew Marillion pretty well for a long time. We've been together now almost 30 years, because… we separately loved Marillion in our own way, and we got together because of them, so, to know that you put us in the same category as that means a lot to us personally, because Marillion is such a deep part of our existence. We wouldn't be here without them together, and we've been married for, you know, over 25 years now. And it's only because of Marillion that we're together. So, it's been a part of our lives, and for you to say that you love us in that same way is; You can't give me a higher honour, to be honest.
Pete T
I really appreciate you saying that because I regard what we do in Marillion as something particularly special and I try to bring that to Edison's Children. To have somebody understand that and appreciate what we do, because it takes time, it takes a lot of effort and thought to do stuff in the right way.
You know you talk about old-fashioned and it takes a wealth of knowledge as well, so that so you can create something that is uniquely a tapestry of all the great things that you want to include, and know how to and where to and when, you know, it's nice that it gets noticed, so, thank you very much.
Lazland
Well, it really, it most certainly does. Thank you so, so much, the three of you. It really has been the greatest of pleasures and a reminder to everybody.
The new LP is absolutely bloody brilliant. And while you are at it, buy the ones before as well.
Eric B
Thank you so much for being there since the very, very beginning. It means so much to us. You are the one that made In the last Waking Moments so special with, and we used all of your comments on our original video that we put out that got seen by 50,000 people.
We used all your original reviews, which were sensational. And you've always been there for us. So, thank you so much for you being there for us.
Pete T
Yeah. Appreciate that.