Mark Kelly
To most in the world of progressive rock, Mark Kelly needs no introduction. He is the Irish-born keyboard player for Marillion and has been since leaving the band, Chemical Alice, to join Marillion in 1981.
Mark has played on and helped to write all 20 of Marillion’s albums in the 40+ years since joining the band. He has also contributed to albums and/or live performances by John Wesley, Jump, Travis, Edison’s Children, DeeExpus, and Ayreon. He has been touted as “one of the finest keyboard players in all of rockdom” by Keyboard Player Magazine and been rated as one of the world’s top players by Music Radar, Prog Magazine, ProgArchives, Digital Dream Door, and more.
Mark is among those widely credited with inventing crowdfunding for the recording of Marillion's 2001 album, Anoraknophobia, following a fan-funded Marillion tour of the United States in 1997. He has pioneered many of the ideas copied by other musicians since.
Though the project had been ongoing since 2018, it took a global pandemic to get Mark’s long promised and awaited solo album, Mark Kelly’s Marathon, completed. He put his lockdown time to good use – recording the album separately between March and July 2020 and coming together with members of the band to record a live version of the album at Real World Studios in July 2020. In September, the song, Amelia, was released with the full self-titled album following in December 2020.
Letting no moss gather, he went into the studio to finish Marillion’s 20th studio album, An Hour Before It’s Dark, and found the time to write Marillion, Misadventures & Marathons: The Life and Times of Mad Jack. The “intensely honest and entertaining account of my life” was published in January 2022.
