At the age of 66, Derek William Dick is still the same questioning, creative, bold-asbrass force of nature that he was at 22, when he moved from Edinburgh to Aylesbury and joined , and changed his name to . He picked up the nickname as a teen because of his habit of spending hours in the bath, smoking cigarettes and singing along to his favourite rock music, which back then veered between and . Before Fish joined, Marillion were a mainly instrumental group whose love of complicated progressive rock was as yet unmatched by their ability to play their instruments.
However, a 1980 demo did contain musical templates for and parts of , as they became once Fish had written some lyrics and provided the -like vocals. By the time their debut album was released in March 1983, Marillion had built up such a following that it leapt straight into the UK Top 10, bolstered by two hit singles: and . A year later to the very day, they did a similar thing with their second album, , and two more Top 30 singles.
It was their third album, , which went to No.1 in the UK in June 1985, that propelled Marillion to platinum status and Fish to a household name – loved by the tabloids for his unashamedly hedonistic lifestyle, but taunted like a bull by the typewriter matadors of the music press. The single went to No.
2 in the UK and top 10 in several other countries, and follow-up did almost as well, hitting No.5 in the UK. There was one final Fish-era album – their best yet, , in 1987, which reached.