A biography for Steven Wilsonhasn’t been written yet.
“Jazz drummers traditionally are not always prepared to just hold down the beat; it's like they're soloing the whole time.”
“If I want to do an orchestral record, if I want to do an acoustic record, if I want to do a death-metal record, if I want to do a jazz record - I can move in whichever direction I want, and no one is going to get upset about that. Except maybe my manager and my record company.”
“There are certain topics that I've come back to time and again throughout my career. On 'To the Bone,' there are certain subjects I have touched on before.”
“You will hear ambient in our music. You will hear trip-hop.”
“I think there's something very peculiar about living in the city and not part of the major metropolis; that actually makes it remarkably easy to disappear.”
“If you want to be an entertainer, then go be an entertainer and give people what they want. If you want to be an artist, then you have to be true to yourself, and you have to be prepared to confront expectations - and you have to be prepared to disappoint your fans, too.”
“Like anybody, I look around at the world that we live in, and I find it hard to be completely positive about everything that's going on.”
“I grew up at the very tail end of the vinyl era, and at the time, I remember, we couldn't wait for CD to come along because vinyl was so frustrating. You would buy the record, take it home, and it would have a scratch, and you would have to take it back again.”
“Pop shouldn't be a comfortable slipper. It should shock and surprise you and confront your expectations.”
“It's nice to be in the position where you're the guy with the vision, but you're able to work with people who can bring your vision to life - and then some.”
“I left school, and I went to work in a computer company. I was in my late teens.”
“I think having artwork, lyrics, credits and such like are things that people really value. It's hard work to come up with something like that, but I think it's worth it.”
“When I was younger, I worked for several years composing music for commercials, but I was very happy to give that up. I didn't really like it, it was a way of financing my bands.”
“Ultimately, I don't think you can be a character who's completely alien or divorced from your own personality. It's probably true of every writer - it's probably true of every filmmaker, every songwriter - that, ultimately, every character you create is a facet of yourself.”
“I think the rock audience still likes to have a physical product. The demand for owning a physical copy is still there.”
“I think I've become a better storyteller over the years.”
“I've put out records over the years, whether it's with Blackfield or No-Man or Bass Communion or Porcupine Tree, that are pop records, ambient records, metal records, singer-songwriter records.”
“We live in the physical world, the age of the Internet, and it's very easy to disappear from view and isolate ourselves from the rest of world and become invisible.”
“I think that's part of the battle of defining yourself as an artist. You're constantly fighting the pressure from outside to be pigeonholed and deliver more of what people already liked.”
“I grew up with vinyl records and remember the pleasure and the kind of buzz that I got from buying a beautiful vinyl record with the sleeve and the lyrics - all that kind of tactile experience that you could get from an old vinyl record.”