Dave Meegan partnered with Marillion on a slew of pivotal albums, serving to the band develop a way of working that they nonetheless use at the moment. However when he accomplished 1995 file Afraid Of Daylight he didn’t suppose the workforce had actually delivered. His perspective modified over time.
Dave Meegan produced Marillion albums Courageous, Afraid Of Daylight, Anoraknophobia and Marbles, plus mixing 1997’s This Unusual Engine – although his enter goes far past sitting behind the studio glass and asking for extra cowbell.
That mentioned, his first interplay with the band wasn’t one thing he thought may ever result in collaborative musical greatness. “They had been typical rock stars,” says Meegan with fun. “Oh God, sure: insufferable.”
In late 1983, Marillion had been in Sarm East Studios in London recording Fugazi. Meegan, in an embryonic stage of his profession, was that album’s tape op. “They had been dwelling the life,” he remembers. “They had been simply stuffed with drive and confidence; they sort of knew the world was theirs.
“There have been actually large artists coming into Sarm on a regular basis and it didn’t faze them a bit. It felt as if it was their place, particularly Fish. However you can inform they might again it up. I will need to have been impressed, as a result of I later really helpful Ian Mosley to play drums on Propaganda’s Dream Inside A Dream for Trevor Horn.”
Ten years on, and the band – now fronted by Steve Hogarth – and Meegan had been in an entire different world, about to create one thing sensible within the form of Courageous. However they had been slowed down by the method of writing, recording, rewriting and re-recording; misplaced within the particulars, misplaced in a residential château, misplaced in France.
Meegan’s intricate strategy to poring over every take mixed with a band caught in a stop-start rut, plus an antsy EMI A&R man who was desperate to see some fast and low cost outcomes, made for a protracted interval in some hideous limbo. “It’s an ideal file,” says Meegan, “however at the price of regular life sanity.
“I believe it was the identical for everyone; you get your self wrapped up in it, and also you exclude your self from actuality. You’re calling residence much less, form of fading off into the space. It should be a why monks go to a monastery – to take their faith to a different stage. It was an ideal experiment, and sure tracks would by no means have occurred with out that. Nevertheless it was definitely to not be repeated. Two albums like that will break a band up, I believe.”
As fastidious in life as he’s in his mixing and manufacturing, Meegan has checked his diaries relating to the Afraid Of Daylight periods earlier than we communicate; he’s examine that, sure, considered one of Marillion’s biggest and most enduring albums was wrapped up and recorded in a thrifty three months.
Meegan sayd the band, recent off the Courageous tour, had been in peak musical type – “they had been like jazz musicians” – and eager to get to work of their new Racket Membership studio house. It was additionally the continuation of a approach of doing issues the band had developed with Courageous: jamming and writing collectively then letting Meegan distill the recorded components right down to their essence, and translating that into songs.
“It’s right down to reminiscence,” says Meegan. “I’ve bought extra psychological RAM than they’ve. And since producing Marbles I’ve had a prognosis of autism. Now it is smart that each time a little bit of music was jammed, I’d go residence, log it, give it a reputation. I can keep in mind every bit of music I’ve ever heard since concerning the age of about two.
“So when Marillion performed one thing, I’d go, ‘Oh my God, that will be so good with this.’ After which I’d form of tough it up for them bodily so they might hear it. And that was the beginning of it.”
I like that Californian vibe on Afraid of Dawn – although it was recorded throughout a snowstorm
He additionally pushed to incorporate each tracks Afraid Of Dawn and Afraid Of Daylight on the album. “I felt like Solomon and the 2 youngsters – there was no approach I used to be going to chop one in half. Additionally, all people loves what we’re taking part in on each variations, so it wasn’t that onerous to persuade the band to incorporate each.
“It’s not an idea album, however there’s positively a singular thought going by it. So utilizing the identical lyric half throughout each musical concepts ties it collectively in some way; it makes you take a look at the album in a different way. I like that Californian vibe of Dawn – although it was recorded throughout a snowstorm.”
Nevertheless it wasn’t all plain crusing. “I used to at all times say that Out Of This World was haunted,” the producer says, referring to the music about Donald Campbell’s deadly water pace file try in 1967. “It was bizarre. Dropouts and disks failing on a regular basis; and even after we transferred all of it to two-inch tape, the channels on the desk would cease working.
“I used to be attempting to place the combination down one time and the guitar had simply gone, and the precise panel on the desk had simply died. I used to be actually cautious to guarantee that after we put down last variations, we truly did get a last model.”
I realised it’s a bloody good album – you already know, ‘How did we do this?!’
Meegan admits: “It wasn’t considered one of my favorite Marillion albums after we’d completed it. It was solely after I went again to it in 1999, when it was remastered, that I realised it’s a bloody good album – you already know, ‘How did we do this?!’ Which is sweet in a approach, as a result of after we’d finished Marbles, I used to be so pleased with that, it helped me resolve to cease working.
“I knew Marbles would let me exit on a inventive excessive. I’ve informed myself since then that it’s a superb job that I didn’t realise how good Daylight was on the time, as a result of I’d have stopped making information proper there after which.”
