Steve Rothery of Marillion: The ClassicRockHistory.com Interview

Feature Photo courtesy of Chipster PR

If the idea of two prog powerhouses coming together for a whirlwind collaborative affair sounds intriguing, then Bioscope’s Gento is probably for you.

As for the nitty-gritty, Bioscope is composed of Tangerine Dream’s Thorsten Quaeschning and Marillion’s Steve Rothery. As for how the duo worked together while making Gento, Rothery tells ClassicRockHistory.com: “There was a lot of mutual respect.”

“I found what we did quite inspiring,” he adds. “And vice versa, you know, I think Thorston did, too. It was just a very pleasant and painless experience. There were no egos, just the joy of making music.”

Rothery specifically singles out tracks like the bustling “Kaleidoscope” and the sprawling “Vanishing Point” as examples of why Bioscope works. “Truth be told,” he says. “There really weren’t any challenges.”

“Really, the most difficult decision we had to make while making this record was where to go for dinner,” he laughs. “It was all very natural. It was very free, unrehearsed, and unplanned. What you heard on this record, really, is pretty much what happened in the room.”

Elsewhere, Rothery is working on another prog collaboration with fellow guitarist Steve Hackett. Beyond that, Marillion is milling away on their next studio album, with shows to follow. But for now, Rothery is focused—and excited about—Bioscope.

And that’s probably because it’s different. “When it’s instrumental,” he explains. “And you don’t have a singer to focus the attention, you’ve got to try to be inventive and come up with little melodies, and motifs to hook people. That was a challenge, but also very gratifying.”

How did you and Thorston meet?

I briefly met Thorston when we did the Cruise to the Edge, the music festival at sea back in 2014. Tangerine Dream plays it as well as Marillion, and loads of other bands, so we met there. And then, in 2018, we met up for coffee before the Marillion show in December of 2018, and discussed the possibility of maybe one day trying to write together.

What got your Bioscope project off the ground

Well, he’s been a Marillion fan for many years, and I’ve been aware of the music of Tangerine Dream since I was 15 or 16, and I had the Ricochet and Stratosphere albums. So yeah, it was an interesting concept, and I flew to Berlin for a couple of days in February of 2019, and we tried a few ideas.

Did things happen quickly after that?

So, nothing happened for about a year. And then, in March of 2020, he was in the UK for a couple of solo shows, and we had a day at the Marillion studio at the Racket Club, which went really, really well. And then, the pandemic hit, the world shut down for a year and a half, and we got into this pattern from December 2021 of me going over for five or six days when we had some free time and tried to develop ideas together, which happened every year until 2024. So, it was a long, slow process, and we were in the same room together, probably, for less than two months total.

As someone who is used to making records a certain way over a long period of time, what was that like?

Yeah, I mean… you can always develop ideas by yourself. But I think what’s great about Bioscope is it’s really the chemistry between the two of us in the room. At the time, when we worked in the studio, obviously, he got his whole kind of modular system and analog sequences, and all the keyboards you can imagine.

And you countered that on guitar?

I’d just kind of fly in with a guitar, a Quad Cortex, and sometimes, a few pedals. And then, we’d just slowly develop ideas, so it was kind of like a musical conversation, but it worked really well.

Given the electronica meets ethereal guitar nature of this record, did you approach changed much from what you traditionally do with Marillion?

This record was pretty much born out of improvisation. So, it was just a case of going in there and doing what comes naturally. Really, it was like a musical conversation between the two of us. Sometimes, we’d go in and rearrange sections or add parts, like with “Kaleidoscope,” a track originally called “Friday Pop.”

What’s the story there?

It was an idea of doing something up-tempo to go along with the longer, sort of cinematic pieces. And it was kind of almost like… not a joke, exactly, but we had no plans of it turning into what it did. But I think, you know… there was just a really strong musical chemistry between us, so it was quite a painless process.

Could you help but allow the sounds and approaches associated with Tangerine Dream and Marillion seep into Bioscope’s music?

I mean, obviously, it’s gonna draw comparisons. What Thorston does on Bioscope has some elements of Tangerine Dream, but maybe it changes a lot quicker. Like the track “Vanishing Point,” it might be 20 minutes long, but there’s about a dozen or more different changs of music and direction in it.

And that’s different from Tangerine Dream, or Marillion?

Tangerine Dream, for example, tends to get a single motif, or riff, that slowly evolves and changes over the course of length of time. But I did some live shows with Tangerine Dream as well, three of them in the UK. That gave me a bit of an understanding about that genre of music, what to play, what not to play, and how it’s really about leaving space within the music as much as anything else.

As a guitar player, what unexpected approaches were drawn out of you during this project?

I spent a small fortune on pedals. [Laughs] I was looking at different textures that I could use, and I just kept buying stuff, really! I wanted different tonal textures, I suppose, which I could use when doing something like this that does have a lot of atmospheric and evolving sequences. So, I wanted to have something that sounded a bit out of the ordinary.

Which track best represents what you and Thorston were able to accomplish?

The first track, “Vanishing Point,” which is 20 minutes long, has got some great changes. And then there’s the first single, “Kaleidoscope,” which is four and a half minutes long, but very up-tempo. So, I think those are the two sides of the coin, really, when it comes to this album.

You mentioned “Vanishing Point” earlier. What was it like working on that track?

There’s one section where we’re kind of working together, and Thorsten would take a guitar phase, loop it, and put it through a Moog tiler, which gave it this real kind of pulsating, dark sound. And there’s a few minutes of that on “Vanishing Point,” so yeah… I was very impressed. You know, I mean… he’s great.

Does Thorston look at music very differently from how you do?

He’s great not only with standard technology, but also with sound design. It was very interesting to see, you know, the granular synthesis and looping. It’s just a different way of, maybe, looking at music.

What were your main guitars while recording this record?

Most of the guitars are my Blade Stratocasters; I think there’s three different ones that I used on this record. And then there’s the John Schofield model, sort of like a [Gibson] ES-335, semi-acoustic type, that I used. So, it was just a whole kind of range, really. But those were the main ones.

With the Bioscope project done and dusted for now, how do you reflect on this experience?

I’m really happy with it. The response to it all over the world has been phenomenal. I’m just excited about the prospect of playing live. We have five shows shoehorned in early December of this year, so that’s going to be a lot of fun. It should be quite an experience.

You’re reportedly working on a record with Steve Hackett as well. That aside, does Marillion have new music on the horizon?

Yes, I am working on a record with Steve. But yeah, Marillion is back in the studio next week to continue the writing process for the next studio album. We’ll be working on that for, probably, the next four or five months until it’s finished. And then, we play the Cruise to the Edge again next March, and maybe some festivals in Europe next summer. So, yeah… I’m pretty busy with all my different projects. Really, I kind of just go from one to another—but it’s good! It’s what I love to do.