A biography for Steven Wilsonhasn’t been written yet.
“I've always wanted to make some kind of music that was universally appreciated.”
“I'm not one of those guys who can just take a guitar into a room and come out with a song. I need all my instruments dotted around.”
“I think my fans are much more open-minded than some other bands' fan bases are.”
“Ultimately, I'd like to create a body of work where every album has its own personality and a reason to exist within the catalog, not just 'more of the same.'”
“The definition of an artist, for me, is someone who is quite selfish about their creativity.”
“People who like progressive music tend to sneer at the idea of a kind of punk aesthetic, and people who like alternative indie rock or punk rock tend to sneer at what they see as the pretentiousness and pomposity of progressive music.”
“I've never been one of those people who say, 'Oh, well, if you play this kind of music, you can only like these kinds of bands.'”
“I think anybody who likes Cardiacs, they tend to be quite evangelistic about them for obvious reasons. They're not a band you can be on the fence about.”
“My favourite chord? Bb6th with added 9th.”
“When I was growing up, I was always looking for the most willfully uncommercial music: Whether it was Captain Beefheart or Frank Zappa or King Crimson, that's what attracted me.”
“Certainly for some time, people used to think of my solo career as somehow a side project to Porcupine Tree. No. If anything, the opposite would now have to be the case.”
“I always wanted to create my own musical world. That takes time and must be earned, and it does mean sometimes confronting the expectations of the audience.”
“Some musicians feel they have to provide what their audiences expect. They lose the distinction between an artist and an entertainer. I am not an entertainer.”
“Owning vinyl is like having a beautiful painting hanging in your living room. It's something you can hold, pore over the lyrics, and immerse yourself in the art work.”
“I feel I'm living in parentheses”
“The one thing I do believe is, if you make the songs about the human aspects of things, you've got a much better chance of having the music transcend the times. If you make them very political and very topical, it's going to date very quickly.”
“We live in a world dominated by fear and paranoia.”
“When I was a very young kid, the first music that really turned me on was a new wave of British heavy metal - big, dumb rock music. There was a band called Diamond Head - they were basically the band that inspired Metallica. But I also liked bands like Saxon and Iron Maiden.”
“It's one thing to fail with something you utterly believe in, but to fail with something you don't believe in? You just feel so sordid.”
“My autobiography would be 'Loves music, loves art, works hard, writes music, tours the world, makes records.'”