Chats transcripts

RockOnline live Chat, August 25th, 1998

Welcome to Rock Onlines' LIVE IN CHAT, please join us at 6pm est today to welcome Steve Hogarth and Blue Oyster Cults' Eric Bloon at 8pm. Thanks to all the Fans who pre registered for this event and submitted some questions in advance. We'll answer some of those during the event and ask you to submit questions, comments, praises and anything else while LIVE IN CHAT. To make this event run smoothly, please submit your questions, then wait a minute, then hit the click to see new messages button. This is a web based chat system and every once in a while you need to hit the click to see new messages button. If you hit the refresh button on your browser, you'll post your question again. Thanks and have a great time!!

Steve just walked in the door and we'll get going....

Steve Hogarth:

Thanks for coming in, ask away....

Gene:

Steve, what is the idea behind the Ice Cream Genius...and the pigtails?

Steve Hogarth:

the title came from the producer Craig Leon, and he was in the habit of saying genius when we had a good take, and tortue when it was bad....The pigtails came from Merrilion which was for the brave album and spent much of that tour with my hair in tails and I wanted to create a visual persona that was distinct from myself, a bit of fun really....

Montfort:

how did the video shoot go for These Chains?

Steve Hogarth:

it went well. I spent most of the day standing or lying down in cold water so it was a long day for me..At 11pm last night i was still llying in a pool of water from 8 am....

Question:

Hi Steve!! greetings from Copenhagen, wondering if you are considering another solo project in the near future ?

Steve Hogarth:

I tend to contemplate all these things when I have a window of time to think...I don't even have time now to think really, but I would like to do another solo in the future, but my committments with Merrilion don't allow me to think about it at the moment...And the forum a solo album takes will depend very much on the time and where my head is at....

Suzanne:

H, if you could record a second solo effort, what is your dream team of musicians to work with? --

Steve Hogarth:

Would like to work with Richard once again, and particularly interested to add Abrahim, a pakistan guitarist , Stone Roses, and to some extinct I did it, I was hoping to work with Tina and Chris from Talking Heads but Chris expressed an interest but no time, so in the future that would be nice. But if are talking about a dream collaboration I would be interested in working with Bjork .. Maybe Dave Gamsom from critt y Politti, mmmmmm :) plus others

Tami:

What are some of your favorite cities to perform in? Why?

Steve Hogarth:

I suppose Rio springs to mind, the spririt of the Brazilian people are great, the city is a magical place, by the Sea, Mexico City is a great favorite of mine, again a great atmoshpere..I like Montreal very much, the people are warm and the town has been good to me...Paris, a bit near home from me....Leeds is probably my fav place....

I should add to the last question it tends to be different from tour to tour and there is always a good show in the Netherlands and the US terrific..

Jane:

Cage is one of my favorite songs off of Ice Cream Genius. Since there are so many sounds involved in that song, was it more difficult to create?

Steve Hogarth:

I created the majority of those sounds when I made the demo at home.The basic synthesizer sound is from Kurzweil, that was the basic sound and I added a couple slowed down drum loops and I did all this at home, January of 96 while I was writing, and most of these were tranferred to the master....Then I added to it the horn section, three horns, and so I thought it would be nice to add the horn players...And it has a laid back sound, and of coarse Richard came in and made alot of animal noises, grey elephants, and they are all made with analog synthesizers, he can make any sound you can dream up....Prophet 5 is a great synthesizer to work with....

Salazar:

greetings h. quite an honor to speak with you. is racket records going to produce any up and coming bands? do you listen to any material that is sent in?

Steve Hogarth:

We didn't set Racket Records up to with a view to signing talent ourselves..It's always possible we might help up and coming artists out if we find their work fascinating.But I don't think we would get involved otherwise..We are musicians, we aren't record company men...Also to be honest I have sooo little time that even listening to tapes can be tough..It can take me six months to listen to a cassette...

Lipgloss:

If you could be anyone else besides yourself, who would you be?

Steve Hogarth:

That is really a difficult one to answer, I'd like to be Michael Hutchinson but I wouldn't want to be him now...

maybe David Bowie, I find him very interesting musically and he has had a great career and I would have liked to have liveed his life..But I wouldn't have slept with the boys....

Kevlin:

Who is your favorite band from your childhood years?

Steve Hogarth:

without a doubt the BeaTLES, I discovered them at the age of seven, I remember it very well. My folks bought me Can't Buy Me Love and She Loves You singles and I remember getting a hold of Sgt. Pepper when it first came out...But the one to really blow me away was side two of Abbey Road d.. And I was just a kid and played it all day..I never heard anything like it...Blew me away...Plus others, notably the Kinks, Traffic, Simon and Garfunkel...

Lisa (Music News Network):

Just wondering how much of the "You Dinosaur Thing" video (which is brilliant, btw) was your ideas and how much was the directors?

Steve Hogarth:

Hi Lisa, I'd say all of it was my idea..I chose Niels Van Iperen directed it and I chose him because of his photographic talent, I chose the performances and ideas..

Question:

Will there be any Marillion show foreseen for Southamerica on a upcoming tour?

Steve Hogarth:

we currently have nothing planned and the success of the forthcoming album Radiation will have a barring on how extensively we will tour....But at the moment we are planning a short tour of Europe before returning to the studio to write a follow up. We apologize and we couldn't go last year when we toured South America...

Gene:

Do you ever think you will collaberate with the talents of Tangerine Dream?

Steve Hogarth:

it is unlikely but you never know

I tend to follow the music rather than artist and I don't believe in musical genre barriers, If i was approached with a great musical idea and i could add something, then I would gladly do it...I'd do it without pay as well..It's not a money issue....

Montfort:

H, Do you ever get stagefright?

Steve Hogarth:

I get stage fright at random, I sometimes play very big gigs without any preshow jitters and same with the small gigs, but then I'll play one and be a nervous wreck and I don't know why nor can I explain it..

Tosh:

do you have any TV appearnces booked for the new single

Steve Hogarth:

nothing at this time, we do have something here VH-1, and we are booked in a couple of weeks or soo..three weeks time....

Gene:

Steve, Have you ever considered working on a movie soundtrack..

Steve Hogarth:

I would be interested, I think that would be alot of fun....

Lipgloss:

What promotion plans do you have to attack the US market for Radiation?

Steve Hogarth:

well once again, we've been plaqued with release problems, it seems unlikely that the US release with the UK release( Sept. 21), so any campaign would happen early next year in the US.

Lipgloss:

H- do the soundtrack for the next James Bond movie!

Steve Hogarth:

Have a listen to Cathedral Wall off the new album cause that would be perfect for James Bond

Gene:

Hi Steve, can I ask why you changed the Ice cream Genius cover, from the original one.

Steve Hogarth:

I thought it would ne nice to have a different cover for the US release and prefer it to the UK cover and I'm pleased that we were ablt to add an extra track, it's one of my favorite tracks, It's a better balanced album with the extra track...It was a producers decision to leave it off and it wasn't finished yet when the album was released in the UK...

Montfort:

Is the band aware of the large contingent of Americans Flying over for the UK tour?

Steve Hogarth:

No this is news to me. I look forward to it. This is the first I'm hearing of it..Thank You....

RockOnline:

Steve will answer one more question, make it a good one....

Jane:

Why did you release the US version of Ice Cream Genius under Steve Hogarth rather than 'h'?

Steve Hogarth:

I've encountered a few problems at retail in Europe and it was hard to convince retailers to stock this album becasue no one had ever heard of h and we figured that those problems would be much worse in the US....It was really that simple, h is my nickname, my firends and fans call me h, soo..

In closing, Thanks for coming to Rock Online.....We'll be back online towards Christmas, we can do an online Christmas party....Thanks Again for coming!!!

Source: RockOnline.com
Date: August 25th, 1998
Time:6 pm EST / 12 am CET