Marillion

Can I tell them about the main discovery of compiling the list?

Well, we've got things like Creatures from the Black Lagoon by Dave Edmonds, and we've got Grendel by Marillion, of course, and we've got Grendel's Mother by the Mountain Goats.

But Andrew made a major discovery.

What is it, Andrew?

Stephen Wilson is a founding member of Porcupine Tree.

I got him confused for a very quick moment with Steve Hogarth from Marillion, which is a band that influenced Porcupine Tree.

Very simple mistake, but I got it all sorted out now.

If you're unfamiliar with porcupine tree, it is a prog rock band or prog adjacent band, if you will, or neoprog.

Most of my job involved sitting at a microscope, which was difficult with spinal problems.

But even when I was not working in music and the extent I am now I've always had a great love for music both classical music which when I was younger I was more actively involved in rock music and also I was listening to a lot of Pink Floyd, Marillion, Iron Maiden.

And in terms of classical music, I was particularly interested in the minimalist composers, people like Steve Vai.

Living in London, I used to love going to the Festival Hall, the South Bank Centre, the English National Opera, getting immersed in a wide variety of musical inspirations.

And I sort of heard some of it.

I didn't really pay much attention to it because by the time I got into that, I was into the kind of some of the harder stuff, but then fast forward a number of years and a certain guitarist in my band one of the band I was in, who was Merillion's guitar tech, was also the guitar tech for Bill Nelson and helped run the Nilssonica things.

And that kind of rekindled my thing.

So that was nearly 20 years ago.

And I sort of heard some of it.

I didn't really pay much attention to it because by the time I got into that, I was into the kind of some of the harder stuff, but then fast forward a number of years and a certain guitarist in my band one of the band I was in, who was Merillion's guitar tech, was also the guitar tech for Bill Nelson and helped run the Nilssonica things.

And that kind of rekindled my thing.

So that was nearly 20 years ago.

I was wandering around upstairs editing the podcast and I was singing it and Adam said, why don't we play that? And I said, why don't we play that? So now we're going to play that.

This is Marillion and the Uninvited Guest.

After which I'll have Dan Atkinson on an unrelated topic.

He was very much invited.

There we go, Marillion.

Been too long since we played Marillion.

It's John Rinson on Six Music at 11 o'clock.

It's guest o'clock and this week's guest is Dan Atkinson.

Behold, Martin Jakubski,

still Marillion Shatner in disguise.

Clutching at straws, he takes the stand, the fate

of fish is in his hands.

I think it's one that H could pull off.

And it's actually, Clutching is my favourite of the first four albums.

Being the oldest one on the podcast, I was lucky enough to see Marillion do it at Wembley Arena.

And it was absolutely amazing.

The Edge said, I didn't laugh, I wept.

and Marillion have had five drummers in the space of a year of their first two albums, which guitarist Steve Rothery later admitted like Spinal Tap.

But tell me, Steve, why is this a film that changed your life?

Well, this is... a film that I saw, I think shortly after Billy Lyre, a bit later on, but it's another childhood inspirational film.