Steve Hogarth Biography
Steve Hogarth (born Ronald Stephen Hoggarth on 14 May 1959 in Kendal, Westmorland) also known as "h", is vocalist with the British Progressive Rock band Marillion. Hogarth was formerly a keyboard player and co-lead vocalist with The Europeans and vocalist with How We Live.
Career
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. In the end he accepted the Marillion gig, won over by the fact that Marillion wanted an equal partner who would input his 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 ten albums with Hogarth on vocals, the most recent (as of late 2008) being Happiness Is the Road.
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 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 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.
Hogarth is violently allergic to cats - first learning this when hospitalised as a child after visiting a Liverpudlian Auntie "...whose house was full of 'em!"