The curious case of Steven Wilson

A peek into the intricate mind and world of Steven Wilson, the king of progressive rock and the man behind the erstwhile band Porcupine Tree.

They say that curiosity kills the cat, but British artist Steven Wilson has gone onto prove that false. Every step of his since he was a kid was fueled by curiosity, curiosity to learn, unlearn , experiment and explore, which is reflected in his music. Wilson’s music is a blend of various elements, styles and genres, and oftentimes serves as the perfect background score to your escape from the harsh reality. He builds a bubble with his stories, which is iridescent and magical. Ahead of his show in Bengaluru next month, the mad genius lets Prashanth Vidyasagar in on a mind as fascinating as the music it makes.

The important element for me in music is…

The most important thing to me is to somehow find a way to be non-generic. There is lot of music in the world and one could argue that there is too much and that there is no need for anymore music to be made, that a cynical perspective but there’s some truth in that. So what becomes important to me as someone who creates music and listens to music is somehow transcend the cliché of being generic. I have no interest in making generic heavy, hip hop or generic progressive rock, for me it’s about creating something fresh and perhaps something that is difficult to categorize. The fact that I haven’t heard to mixture of those elements before, I try to find that in my music too. Although most people categorize my music as progressive rock or whatever, it’s not a term I personally use as in my music there’s elements of pop, electronic, acoustic ballad, there are ambient sections, which is not necessarily trying to be a particular kind of music. As someone who has been listening to and making music for a very long time, those are things I look for and it’s not easy considering that there is so much music out there.

The story behind the many bands and acts

There are two reasons why I have been part of so many projects, firstly there was emphasis on different genres of music in the past, for example in the past when I wanted to make ambient music I would start a new project, if I wanted to make pop music I would start. These days I don’t necessarily feel much relevant anymore because I think these days I feel I should be able to incorporate almost any aspect of my musical personality into one project and that become my solo project. Another reason is the idea of collaborating with other musicians which is a great gift for a professional musician. A lot of musicians I have collaborated with aren’t British like me, they’re from Israel and Sweden etc., and it’s a joy to be able to work with musicians from different cultures and backgrounds and there is something fun about being able to collaborate with people from different musical backgrounds and find middle ground and hopefully create something that is hybrid. I have been fortunate to have worked with extraordinary musicians in the past and in my solo band, there’s a lot of companionship in that, different inspiration. One thing I have acknowledged is that I have to be in control, I am a control freak (laughs), I have to be the captain of the ship and in that respect collaboration is not easy for me.

Mainstream is banal and bland

I think it was music that inspired me when I was younger and that continues to. I wasn’t particularly interested in music that was easily classifiable; I was more interested in music that was on the very boundaries or the periphery if you like of music. I was very curious, I searched for the strangest most interesting, most bizarre music from very young and not only music, and it was the same with movies and books. I wasn’t interested in seeing Hollywood blockbusters, I was interested in seeing weird arthouse European cinema, I was finding books by Franz Kafka and Herman Hesse, with the help of the English teacher at my school who really inspired me and that still applies to this day. I am interested in what’s going on in the underground than what’s going on in the mainstream. There’s nothing for me to catch hold of for me in the mainstream it’s very banal and bland, mainstream music is something to make you feel good at a party and something to have on in the background and it doesn’t inspire it’s been that way since I was a kid. I have always been interested in the gray area although I like pop music and strong melodic stuff I’m also interested in making the music unpredictable and add more texture and surprising elements to it. 

What story made the storyteller in you go wow?

Wow (laughs). I think that the stories ( I’m using plural here because it’s hard for me to just think of one )that always inspire me or that has been most powerful for me have been stories about regret. You see the word regret a lot in my songs particularly the last album; I think songs about people who somehow failed to fulfill their potential in life are the saddest things of all. That’s why I am also fascinated with the idea of ghost stories because I think ghost stories are not about death at all they are about life, they are about people who are trying somehow to come to terms with the idea of death and mortality and having somehow not achieved what they were meant to achieve in lives and so they almost kind of allow themselves to die, you know. 

The story that inspired my last album Hand. Cannot. Erase. is the story about a young woman, who dies alone in her apartment in London and her body is not discovered for three years. That has such much attached to it, the idea of life not fulfilled. Stories like that really break of my heart the most and that very fear drives me as an artist and a musician. The fear of not using every day to its absolute greatest potential is one of my greatest fears. You can somehow allow your lives to slip by without achieving what you know you can achieve and it’s one of the reasons why I have such a strong work ethics. I am creating something every day or I am doing interviews, looking at the website or redesigning album covers or whatever it is. It’s one of the reasons I feel such a strong sense of urge or drive to be always working.  

The dirty side of technology 

Unfortunately technology has driven the state of human race into devolution; I see a lot a lot of things moving backwards. Technology makes our lives easier, gives us access to information and basically everything like music, cinema, pornography, news. The way I look at it is that very unfortunate human trait, if technology allows us to be passive we will be very passive, we aren’t motivated to leave our bedrooms, aren’t motivated to be curious or struggle for things and I believe a lot of being a human being is about searching for the thing that gives your life meaning. Tragically the internet but also cellphones, computer games etc., have made it far too easy to be very passive about the way we engage with life and with other human beings. This idea that you can somehow be connected to a human race through an internet portal is absolute nonsense. The woman who dies in London was completely invisible to the human race whilst living in the heart of one of biggest cities in the world and that is extraordinary modern phenomenon I think, impossible to think of that happening in a small village or town; it’s very hard to imagine that happening in any other time in history. Now we spend more time looking at our phone display than looking at the street where there are people. I’m afraid I have a fairy cynical opinion of this even though I use it like everyone else. I have my cell phone and my internet portal and I make a lot of use of that to promote my music and there is a lot of positive aspect of internet as far my music making and audience go, I can’t ignore that but in many ways I think that it is two steps forward and three steps backwards. I think technology is moving so fast that we don’t understand its long term effects on our species.

Always aim for the best, be it music, cinema or sex 

I think that when human race is presented with two options that is quality of experience and convenience of experience, they will always choose convenience. That’s why we have fast food; we have music & movies on our cellphones, photo collections in the digital world. The quality is much poorer, there is no way that listening to music on cellphone is as good as listening to it on a well set up system at home or a surround sound or vinyl or concert or whatever. But you know it’s convenient I can have hundreds of songs on my phone and listen to them when I’m on the tube, at the gym, running on the street etc. I believe life should be about finding the best quality of experience that you can the best music, the best cinema, the best sex; the best travelling whatever it is should be the best, unfortunately the thing that is encoded into the DNA of human beings that we love things to be convenient and we miss out on the experience. One positive thing that I have seen over the past years is the swing of the pendulum in the other direction; people are listening to music on vinyl and hi-resolution audio though all this a small market it’s a growing one, that encouraging.

My experience as a music journalist   

It’s really hard; I did do that a few years ago (Wrote for Rolling Stones and Classic rock). It is difficult you’re a music journalist you know what I’m talking about. This idea of trying to encapsulate one art form in words is really difficult because music is something that should transcend that kind of analysis and that kind of intellectual deconstruction, but you have to do it you’re a music journalist/writer, you are reviewing an album. So somehow you have to get over your enthusiasm and passion for the record or maybe you hate the record, in this case you have to get over that in my case I only reviewed albums that I loved. I kind of had new admiration for music writers who do that all day every day; it’s a fun job but definitely not an easy one. 

Embrace what makes you happy 

Spirituality has no connection to religion, it is basically finding the thing in life that makes you happy and embracing it whether that is music, family, sports, and it’s the thing that fills your soul and heart. For some people I know it’s believing in god, for others it could be drugs, having children but for me it’s always been music and art, it makes me feel like there is joy in the world and that I am connected to the rest of my species in way that is very profound. 

Why I play barefoot 

When I was a kid five or six years old I was always running around in bare feet I don’t know why, I never liked shoes maybe I had funny shaped feet or something. I carried on being barefoot wherever I could right through my childhood and teenage years until the day came when I had to walk on stage and perform, be it ten, thousand or ten thousand people. It wasn’t even a question; I wanted to feel as comfortable as I could, because playing music can be a bit scary when you walk up on stage and are in front of an audience, it’s a strange thing to be doing so I wanted to feel as relaxed and at home as I possibly could. So there’s no philosophical or intellectual reason behind that it only felt natural for me to continue to do, doing that.