Steven Wilson during his Hand. Cannot. Erase tour interview.
The following conversation took place between Kevin Barrie of Music Life Magazine (musiclifemagazine.net) and Steven Wilson in the Centuries Bar and Lounge in the basement of Massey Hall, Toronto, the afternoon of Tuesday, March 1, 2016. Steven performed a concert that evening at Massey Hall.
KB: If we can start with the “obligatory“ Porcupine Tree question. In recent interviews you’ve explained the status of Porcupine Tree and how it’s not going to be a main project from now on, which is certainly understandable. Might there be a point where you dig into the archives – are there some things in there waiting to be released, either live or studio?
SW: Sure – yeah, I mean there’s hundreds of recordings of shows. One day I hope I’ll get time to go through [them] – particularly from the early years, when the music was more improvisational and the shows were quite different from night to night. And we were playing to very small audiences, you know – 50 to 100 people a night. There was some interesting music made in those times, and most of it was recorded. So one day, yeah, I hope I’ll get a chance to make some kind of document of that period.
KB: The new 4 ½ album/ep has been released. One of the things that interested many of us about this was the new “hybrid” recording technique you used, using live recordings of your band as a “base”, with later studio overdubs/editing. Can you tell us a bit about this and what your plans for the future with this technique might be?
SW: Right! Well, I mean, it wasn’t a planned thing, but it was just that the new console that my sound engineer has been using for live shows has this kind of facility to record every night [as a] multitrack recording. So at the end of every tour he hands me a hard drive and says ‘there’s your tour’. There’s every show recorded, pristine, multitrack recording.
And of course, it kind of goes without saying to say there’s something special about a live performance which is not true of a studio performance, and of course what that thing is is the audience. And when you play in front of an audience, you definitely do perform in a different way and there is a chemistry that doesn’t necessarily exist, or a vibe that doesn’t exist, in a studio recording.
So, I think this is something you’re gonna see more of in the future from me. In fact the recording of My Book of Regrets from the album [4 ½] is taken from a show in Montreal, you know, and it was one of the first times we’d played that song. And I think because of that, there was a sense of discovery, and the audience didn’t know the song so they were kind of reacting in a way that was very fresh to it and instinctive. And for whatever reason we nailed it that night, in a way that perhaps we hadn’t nailed it on any other night that tour. So that is the other advantage, of course, is you find you’ve got 25 performances and you can find that one that was magical.
And of course it’s also a lot cheaper for me to record that way, you know – I find I come back from a tour and I’ve kind of got an album there somewhere, you know, I just have to go through and find the right performances. I think it’s definitely something, moving forward, I would do a lot.
There’s no question there’s a different – there’s an electricity – even if, as I did, with both the songs that I basically took from live recordings, I went back and overdubbed a lot, and I – obviously – I redid the vocals. You used the word “hybrid”, and it is a hybrid because it’s based on a live performance but it has the, shall we say, slickness and the production esthetics of a studio recording. And I definitely think that’s something I like – I like that hybrid, I like that balance.
KB: How challenging is it to remove the audience from the recording, if they are in there?
SW: Well, you know, actually in some cases you don’t want to do that. In fact, on 4 ½ in My Book of Regrets, you can hear the audience. And I kind of like that. There’s a bit where it kind of stops [Steven imitates the band in this section] and there’s some pauses and if you listen carefully you can hear this “wooooah” [Steven imitates audience roar] in between. It’s kind of fun!
You know, but in more practical terms, usually if you take out the audience mics, and you‘ve just got the close mics from the amps and the drumkit, you’ve pretty much got rid of 95% of the sound of the room, which includes the audience, but of course there’s always leakage on all the mics, not just of the audience, but of all the other instruments, so there are practical things which could be potentially problematic with a live recording – you don’t have the separation that you have with a studio recording.
But I think that’s not so much a problem when you have such a great band and I’m very lucky to have these amazing musicians with me. So it’s not like I have to go in and do these incredible amounts of editing.
KB: – It’s not the Led Zeppelin Garden Tapes type of splicing from five different shows?
SW: Right – and because they’re so good I don’t have to go in and do that kind of degree of editing, so that leakage hasn’t so far been a problem.
KB: Talking about artistic direction, I’ve heard on the one hand the possibility that your next album may be a bit more “contemporary”, but also, when you think about your influences and your playlist, there’s a lot of music that is more extreme or “out there”. Do you ever feel like you’ve had to hold yourself back or think “People are not ready for this?” or “I don’t think people would respond to this in the right way?
SW: No, I’ve never done that….
KB: To be clear, I’m not thinking in financial terms…
SW: I’ve certainly never done it for that reason. But you know I’ve been very lucky in the sense that I’ve been very selfish about the way I’ve gone about making music and I’ve never tried to please anyone but myself.
I’m on record as saying I believe that, in a way, is the definition of…that’s what distinguishes an artist from an entertainer. An entertainer is someone who tries to please their audience, an artist is someone that only tries to please themselves, and I’m definitely in the latter camp. I’m unable to think in that way.
So to answer your question, every solo record I’ve made, I’ve made four now, has been distinctly different, and shall we say, has had a very distinctly different musical vocabulary. The first solo record I made [Insurgentes], which at the time I was still in Porcupine Tree, was much more about my influences from growing up and listening to post-punk music and noise music and electronic music.
The first record I made [Grace for Drowning] having left Porcupine Tree behind me was more about jazz and I used a lot from the vocabulary of jazz music. The third one I made [The Raven That Refused to Sing] was more about classic early 70s progressive rock sound, and the last one I made was a bit of everything – it was almost like a summation I made of everything that I had done.
And the next one I think is going to be a little bit more focused on the song rather than the extended composition. Now, some of my fans will not be happy to hear that and I know that, but that’s something I accept – that there are some people who would love me to just keep making old-school progressive rock. There are some that wish I’d go back to making progressive metal as Porcupine Tree’s last few records were distinguished by that. Some people would like me to go and write more songs like Lazarus and Postcard and things like that.
KB: Some people long for the days of Up the Down Stair [early Porcupine Tree from the 90s]….
SW: And some they long for the days of more kind of space-rocky stuff, yeah, absolutely. And I think that’s part and parcel and that’s something you accept as being part of evolving as an artist is that every time you make a record you will disappoint some people and you will attract new people. And that seems to be the way my career has gone. My audience continues to grow whilst at the same time I know there are some people that have left because they are no longer happy that I’m not doing this or I’m doing that [type of music] that I was doing.
I don’t know whether or not they seriously expect me to somehow, you know, freeze myself in time and just keep making the same record. I think some people do. But I think most people actually kind of also acknowledge the need for an artist to continue to evolve and develop.
KB: And if they are with an artist following that calls themselves “progressive”….
SW: Which, to be fair, I don’t, you know, I don’t call myself progressive. I think the whole problem with the word “progressive” is it is very misleading – it’s not a word I would use. For me progressive means to create new sounds, new forms, new hybrids of music, and I don’t think it’s possible to do that anymore. You know, as music lovers and music listeners in 2016 we’ve heard it – we’ve heard it all. So, ‘progressive’, anyways, is a kind of redundant term.
KB: If you don’t mind me saying, what I was getting at was that a lot of your audience/fans should be used to that – Pink Floyd moved on to different styles, Genesis did…
SW: Yes, OK, but I would qualify that by saying that the kind of evolution you are talking about is not exclusive to the so-called progressive rock genre. You could look at artists like Neil Young and Bob Dylan and say they have been just as progressive, in that sense (or electronic artists, or hip hop….). I think that need to evolve – let’s use the word evolve rather than progress – I think that need to evolve is something which is specific to a particular kind of creative person who might call themself an artist rather than an entertainer. I still have this thing in my head that an entertainer is someone that tries to give the audience what they want. And for many artists what the audience want is more of the same, more of the same, more of the same, more of the same. [sic]
KB: Going on tour and doing the old hits….
SW: Yeah, exactly. Or, we like that album you made in 1986, give us another one of those. And I think that idea is largely anathema to someone who does it out of some kind of personal vocation. And even as I’m saying this I know it sounds extraordinarily pretentious, but it doesn’t mean it’s not true. You know – I didn’t start making music to please other people – I did it because I fell in love with some kind of magical notion of being able to express myself through this extraordinary medium. And then, of course, the need to share it with as many people as possible is the next natural thing, but you share it having established that you’ve made it in a vacuum without thinking about “What do people want?” I don’t think you can think about that when you make art. But when you’ve finished it you can absolutely think, OK, how can I reach as many people as possible with this. And that’s when we get into the realms of promoting, touring, releasing singles, as long as it doesn’t compromise that initial creative process.
KB: On a slight tangent then, where does that fit in with reviews, and “review culture”. Some artists won’t read reviews or state that they don’t care about them, while others like Billy Joel will go on stage and tear up bad reviews…
SW: Well, there’s two things there. I think that anyone that tells you that they don’t take offense when they read a bad review – no matter who it’s written by, if it’s written by [Editor’s note: Steven names a reviewer here who could not be determined] or if it’s written by some kid living in a basement in Utah, 14 years old, it doesn’t matter. The point is if it’s a negative criticism of your work I’d say it’s almost impossible not to take it to heart. Almost impossible.
The people that you’re talking about that don’t take it to heart are people like me that just don’t read that stuff in the first place. Don’t read it! That’s the only way. I can go on Facebook and I can go on Amazon and I can find people who think I’m, you know, the worst thing to ever happen to music – in no time at all. If I wanted to, I could go and find someone on the internet now that thinks I’m an absolute c**t – the point is that every artist can do that. But that’s the beauty of art – there are people that will respond and resonate very well with it, and there are people that will find nothing in it. But there’s also people that will take exception to you for reasons that have nothing to do with the work. They have an agenda – whatever it is.
The bottom line is that there are plenty of people out there that will say my new record is the best album they’ve ever heard and there are plenty of out there that will say this is the worst shit they’ve ever heard. The best thing is just to establish in your own mind is that it’s all irrelevant, it’s all noise, everyone has an opinion and everyone expresses their opinion as if it’s a fact.
It’s human nature – very rarely do we say “in my opinion the new Coldplay is great” or “sucks”. We don’t tend to use language like that. What we say is “The new Coldplay album sucks!” We very rarely preface it with “In my humble opinion…” – it’s human nature – we all do it, I do it too! If you asked me about the new album by such and such – if I don’t like it, I’ll say “it sucks!” What I’m saying is, “it doesn’t appeal to me”, you know?
The more you kind of think about that, the more you kind of have to implicitly understand that any opinion is simply that and it’s irrelevant to you. So the simple answer to your question is I don’t – even if they’re good – I don’t read them. It’s nice to know that there are people out there saying nice things, but I don’t need to read them.
KB: I wanted to ask a question or two about being a front man. It seems like you’ve come out of your shell as a front man – making gestures, being more animated on stage. Do you feel you’ve changed as a front man, being a solo artist? Even though you are touring as a solo artist, in some ways you seem to be playing less of a role (e.g. guitar playing)…. What is your goal and how to do you see yourself evolving?
SW: I’m kind of achieving in a sense what I always wanted to achieve, which is to be the director at the center of a spectacle – an audio-visual spectacle. I never wanted to be a guitar player, I never wanted to be a singer, I never wanted to be a keyboard-player, but I ended up doing a little bit of everything, because when I started, I couldn’t find anyone else that wanted to make that kind of music with me.
So, Porcupine Tree in a sense, which probably, arguably, should from the very beginning have been something I might have put under my own name because the first three records were just me but I had no confidence, so I hid behind, [and] created this whole mythology about a band that never existed. That’s how little confidence I had in pushing myself to the front. I wanted to, in a sense, subsume myself into this entity, Porcupine Tree, which ultimately did become an entity, and I became a reluctant guitar hero.
I never felt completely comfortable with that role until I started my solo career and then I said, OK, if I’m gonna do this, I’m gonna have this world class bunch of musicians playing my music – I’ve gotta step up now and put the guitar down and actually adopt the role of a front man. And I found I enjoyed it! And I think part of it is because I’m so supremely confident now about the show.
And I know that might seem strange to you to think, why wasn’t I confident in the days of Porcupine Tree – I wasn’t. I didn’t – partly because I didn’t feel it was quite what I wanted. The thing about being in a band, of course, is even if you’re the main songwriter as I was, and you’re the captain of the ship, which I was, you’re still making compromises all the time. It was never quite how I wanted it.
So, stepping out into a solo situation means that OK “NOW! [claps] I can do everything exactly as I want – exactly this, exactly that! – Aaah!” OK, now I can stand up front and be completely 100 percent confident “this is a fucking great show!” And I feel that! And you can see that confidence in me. And it makes me feel more comfortable with the audience, and performing, and being on stage. So I think a lot of that confidence has just come from feeling confident that I’m at the center of something very special. Or, something exactly of my own design that is very special.
KB: Being a singer has now become one of your main roles. You’ve been self-deprecating as a singer, but how do you see yourself as a singer and do you feel you’ve developed?
SW: I’m not a great singer. But, I think that if you look back at the history of popular music, a lot of the greatest artists of all time – and by the way, I’m putting myself in that category – have not been great singers, whether you look at your Bob Dylans or your Neil Youngs – not great singers. In fact I would say that sometimes people that over- sing are less interesting in terms of their ability to express the frailties of the human condition – without wishing to get pretentious again – than people that have these exquisitely technically perfect voices.
We live in a world now where most modern pop music is, to me, incredibly bland, incredibly banal, because the voices particularly have no vulnerability – they’re all perfected through studio techniques…tuned. It sounds like Stephen Hawking singing most of the time, to me.
KB: I see it on children’s shows now….
SW: It’s the sound of 2016. And to me there’s nothing left – I love voices that in some senses slightly underachieve. There’s Tom Waits, the aforementioned Neil Young – these voices that tend to underachive touch me much more, in a way. So I guess I have that kind of voice – I’m not the greatest singer. But I have a guest female singer with me, Ninet, who’s a fantastic singer, and the combination of us, I think, is great, because she’s a natural and I’m not.
I’m still not trying to be a singer, but I think I’m trying to be an interpreter of what I hope is a fairly unique perspective and approach on making music.
And I’ve begun to understand this also about my guitar playing, because I’m playing more guitar now in the show than perhaps I have at any time, and I’m starting to go back to play a little bit more of the solos and stuff. Because, I’m beginning to understand in a way that although I’m not the greatest guitar player there is something of a personality about when I play guitar, which, the guys I’ve had in my band, you know, they can’t sound quite like me, and that’s also something special, I suppose. So I kind of understand that under-achieving is sometimes appealing.
KB: I’m going to name drop a bit here and mention that I recently interviewed Steve Hackett, whom you’ve worked with, and he mentioned that you love his Please Don’t Touch album, that it was kind your own Sgt. Pepper – can you comment on that?
SW: Love that record, yeah! Listen, I was never a Genesis fan, you know, and I’m still not a Genesis fan, so I came to that record when I was very young knowing nothing about his history in Genesis – a friend of mine had it. To try and answer your question, I think it’s an extraordinary sonic journey, the second side particularly. The singers he had – Randy Crawford, Richie Havens, I mean, these are not obvious choices for an artist of that tradition. Particularly the second side, the whole musical journey on that second side is extraordinary – the sounds, the textures, the different kind of musical styles, in a way that seemed incredibly un-self- conscious. Again, we live in a world now where I think most music is made with an incredible awareness of genre.
I’m not talking about the listeners or the journalists, I’m talking about even the artists themselves. They’re very aware – “We play progressive metal”, or “we play hip hop”, or we play whatever it is. I’ve always loved records like Please Don’t Touch where you listen to it and where you say “What…the fuck was he thinking” – in a good way! In a good way! It’s almost like he’s not trying to fit into any pigeonhole or genre or to appeal to any market in particular. And I’ve always admired those kind of records that just seemed to be excited about the possibilities of music, about the vocabulary that’s available to them.
I mean, picking a singer like Randy Crawford to play on a record by what is essentially by a so-called progressive rock musician is on one hand, a very brave thing to do, potentially very alienating to your fan base, but also an incredibly inspired thing to do, for me. It’s a brilliant song [Hoping Love Will Last], absolutely – it’s a brilliant song.
But it’s also quite a brave thing to do and I think those are the things that make records ultimately timeless classics. It’s the things that people will say at the time “That’s interesting…that’s a strange choice…but it works.” I guess I’ve always admired that record for its bravery and its sense of journey. You know, you really feel like you’ve travelled somewhere special by the end of that record. Very big fan.
KB: One more question, then. On a scale of, say, Neil Peart to Mike Portnoy, how would describe your relationship to your fans? Are you more interactive and direct, or more reclusive?
SW: I’m definitely in the Neil [Peart] camp. For personal reasons, but also because I believe that part of the – now I know there are people who disagree with me on this and feel that times have changed and you have to change with them – but I do believe that part of the magic of the relationship between the fan and the artist is there is a strong element of mystery that is missing when you interact too much with your fans.
I think one of the reasons Rush have such an extraordinary reputation, continuing to this day, and also bands like Pink Floyd who have no – absolutely no – interaction with their fans whatsoever, Radiohead similarly… those kinds of bands where the enigma and the mystery is maintained, I think that’s important.
What’s symptomatic of this whole phenomenon is – we’re going back a few years now, but – when Ozzy Osbourne had the reality TV show. Now Ozzy Osbourne, like for me, like for a lot of kids growing up, Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath was this incredibly enigmatic band, and there was a power to their music which came from this sense of mystery that had grown up around the band. Were they Satanists? Were they actually into all that Alister Crowley stuff? The photos of them on the inside of the sleeves had them looking like these incredible kind of Odinistic [sic]Vikings – you know, that walked out of the forest, there was a power there, and I related that power – the power of the image and the power of the mystery to the power of the music.
Suddenly I see Ozzy Osbourne on TV, acting like a buffoon, falling off his chair and unable to operate the remote control on his TV. Game over! I can never listen to Black Sabbath again the way I used to when I was a kid. I don’t have that sense of wonder, that sense of awe, that sense of mystery that I had when I didn’t know – and now I know too much, I know too much! Now I know he’s just a lovable buffoon from Birmingham. I’m sorry, that’s very nice – but it’s spoiled a lot of the magic that I felt.
Now you may think that “OK, but that was an illusion, that was all a construct anyway”. Yes! But that is fundamental to the magic…it’s the Wizard of Oz thing, isn’t it? That is part of the pact – when you become a fan of a band you almost enter into an unwritten pact that the mystery is an important – that illusion is part of what makes the music so awe- inspiring.
And I think we’ve lost a lot of that with the so-called social networking Facebook generation of artists that feel like they have to argue with all their fans and give their fans access to every little burp and bleep – that’s not my way. And my fans don’t know a lot about me, and I think that actually that’s good for them and their relationship to the work, I believe. I know, not everyone agrees with me on this,
KB: I don’t have to know who you’re dating to like your music…
SW: In fact, it’s better if you don’t know all this grubby stuff. Not that my personal life is grubby, you understand.
KB: Thank you very much for your time and for speaking with me!
SW: My pleasure.
Visit Steven Wilson online: (Website)
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