Top 105 Quotes & Sayings by Steven Wilson
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an English musician Steven Wilson.
Last updated on November 4, 2024.
You forget, living outside of a country, that the actions of the government are not the actions of the people.
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.
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 am a great believer that you should record more than you need and then use the absolute best.
I never wanted us to be an exercise in nostalgia, living in the shadow of other artists.
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.
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.
The whole notion of an alternative truth is a paradox. How can you have an alternative to truth?
The nature of music fandom and music fans is that, very often, they fall in love with a band or a particular artist, and they really would like... I'm talking generally; that's not everyone. But a vast majority of the fan base would prefer the band to keep making the same record and the same style of music over and over again.
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.
I never claimed to be a generic artist, period. I never wanted to be a generic artist.
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.
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.
I've seen a fair amount of concert DVDs - some of them are great, some of them are not. If there are problems with them, it's usually because of budget limitations and camerawork.
I like artists that tend to be more interested in reinventing themselves, in experimenting.
You will hear ambient in our music. You will hear trip-hop.
Pink Floyd, the most successful progressive rock band of all time, have stood the test of time because the emphasis was always on melody and atmosphere.
It's something I've recognized in the careers of those people who have been inspiring to me over the years - Neil Young, Kate Bush, David Bowie, Frank Zappa, and Prince. These are all people who constantly redefined themselves, and had to deal with the difficulty of trying to take their audience with them when they did that.
I myself lived in London for 20 years, and I never knew my next-door neighbors. I never knew what they did. I never knew their names. They didn't know what I did for a living, and they didn't know my name.
I wanted people to say that our music sounds like Porcupine Tree, not that it sounds like King Crimson.
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.
Israel is a wonderful country, especially Tel Aviv.
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.
Being English, we're polite and reserved, we don't express our opinions; we're very private people.
We live in a world dominated by fear and paranoia.
Ever since I was a kid, I've always been interested in the poetry of melancholy, if you like.
It's a cliche that music rises above it all, and it's a cliche for a reason - it's very often true.
The city can be the loneliest place of all.
There was a time when pop music and rock music were really reaching for the stars and were not ashamed to be experimental. You think of a song like 'Shout' by Tears for Fears. That's a massive global No. 1 hit, and yet the subject matter is very dark.
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.
I've always wanted to make some kind of music that was universally appreciated.
I get really frustrated - actually, it almost makes me angry - when I see, sometimes, magazines will publish a musician's playlist. They'll go and they'll ask, I don't know, somebody from Aerosmith or whoever, Coldplay, to list their five favourite albums. And it's always the same stuff!
The truth is I got rid of 100% of my vinyl in the '90s. All the vinyl I have is re-bought.
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.
One of the beauties about going solo was being able to start from scratch and say, 'What do I really want? What kind of band do I really want? What kind of live show do I really want to stage?' Without any of the baggage of being something with history.
Jazz drummers traditionally are not always prepared to just hold down the beat; it's like they're soloing the whole time.
If you want to be an entertainer and just keep your audience happy, that's one thing. But to be an artist, I think, means ultimately primarily pleasing yourself, and in that respect, you constantly have this sense of confronting the expectations of your audience.
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.
Human beings find change very difficult. They find change is something that can be quite an awkward thing to adjust to. It applies to music. It applies to life. It applies to everything.
People have asked me about doing an autobiography, but I don't think my life is that interesting.
I've played to audiences where people are sitting there with their arms crossed, just kind of watching. Although they might be having a great time, and they might be really enjoying the spectacle, if I'm not getting anything back, it does affect the way I perform and project.
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.
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 think there is something about the Internet which gives people almost an opportunity to role play and to create a facade, an image. I see that as quite a dangerous development because I think what we call social networking, Twitter, Facebook, etc., is actually quite antisocial.
Porcupine Tree is a band, and it's not up to me where the band goes - it's between the manager, our agent, and the band as a whole.
I've always been the sort of person who likes to look forward and live in the present.
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.
I think I've become a better storyteller over the years.
There's always something special playing in your home country in front of your home audience.
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.
When I did 'Hand Cannot Erase,' I didn't have a specific singer in mind.
My autobiography would be 'Loves music, loves art, works hard, writes music, tours the world, makes records.'
I loved disco music, and I still count Donna Summer as one of my favorites of all time.
When you're in a band, you're all in it together. You're always available. You're always available for the albums; you're always available for the tours. There's no question of that.
I think the rock audience still likes to have a physical product. The demand for owning a physical copy is still there.
We are living in dystopia, in a world that is dominated by technology and disconnect, alienation, loneliness, and dysfunction.
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.
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.
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.
Is it sad that Storm Corrosion needs to be explained to people before they can accept it? I don't think it's sad; I think it's inevitable. I think it's just human nature.
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