Steve Hogarth - Career

Career

In London, Hogarth joined a band called Motion Pictures, having responded to an advertisement in the music press. They were subsequently renamed The Europeans. Initially joining just as a keyboard player, Hogarth also ended up sharing the vocal duties with Ferg Harper. Signed to A&M Records, The Europeans released two studio albums and one live album. On the first studio album, Hogarth sang just one track. By the second studio album, he sang five of the eight tracks.

In 1985, Hogarth and guitarist Colin Woore left the band to form How We Live, The duo were signed to Columbia Records. In 1987, following record company changes, How We Live's debut album Dry Land was poorly promoted, resulting in a flop. Hogarth imagined he would have to leave the music industry - for a time seriously considering becoming a milkman or postman (as he later related) - but a meeting with his publishers (and a certain amount of matchmaking by long time friend, Darryl Way, sometime of Curved Air) persuaded him to send a tape to Marillion, who were recruiting for a new lead vocalist following the departure of Fish in late 1988.

Marillion heard the tape and were interested enough to ask for a meeting with the singer. Later accounts of this first meeting record that Hogarth turned up at band member Pete Trewavas' house with his demo tapes contained in a red plastic fire bucket - the audition taking place in Trewavas' garage, due to the presence in the house of cats (see below). The band were immediately impressed by his vocal prowess. Hogarth himself, however, took a little longer to make up his mind, holding as he did at the time a potentially lucrative offer to tour the U.S. on keyboards with The The. As he later recalled, he had a choice 'between joining the most hip band in the world at that time, or the least...'. In the end he accepted the Marillion gig, won over by the fact that the band wanted an equal partner; who would input their own ideas.

Hogarth's first album with the band, released in September 1989, was Seasons End, their fifth studio album. Since then, Marillion have recorded another twelve albums with Hogarth on vocals, the most recent being entitled Sounds That Can't Be Made released in September of 2012.

Hogarth has also released one solo studio album under the name 'h' called Ice Cream Genius. This album had contributions from ex-Japan/ Porcupine Tree synthesiser/keyboard maestro Richard Barbieri, former XTC guitarist Dave Gregory, Blondie drummer Clem Burke, bassist Chucho Merchan and percussionist Luis Jardim.

Subsequently, Hogarth's side-project, The H-Band, has played live across the UK and Europe featuring a variety of musicians, including former The Stone Roses MKII guitarist Aziz Ibrahim, Massive Attack and The Bays drummer Andy Gangadeen, session musician Jingles on bass, Aziz's regular musical partner Dalbir Singh Rattan on tablas and Stephanie Sobey-Jones on cello. With Barbieri and Gregory, this line up recorded a double album entitled Live Spirit: Live Body in 2001 (released in 2002). Writing for a forthcoming second solo studio album occurred in December 2004.

Most recently, a solo tour entitled 'h Natural' saw Hogarth play around 20 dates in both the UK and Europe in Spring / Summer 2006, billed as an evening of music and conversation with Hogarth at the piano. Summer 2007 has seen a second clutch of these shows scheduled. These shows are being mixed and released for download, one at a time and for a limited period only, on Hogarth's new H-Tunes site.

On the 14th of May 2010 Hogarth performed at the Relentless Garage in London to celebrate his birthday. He also performed at Liverpool on the 15th and Sheffield on the 16th. To coincide with these shows a CD was released featuring some of the best tracks taken from his H Natural shows. This collection is called H Natural Selection and was available at the shows and from the Marillion website.

In 2012 Hogarth joined forces with Richard Barbieri again, releasing an album as a duo called Not the weapon but the hand.