Underground star Wilson wants to be seen and heard

Prog rock king frustrated at lack of airtime his chart-topping album To The Bone receives on the mainstream TV and radio

Prog rock king and four-time Grammy nominee Steven Wilson has admitted he’s “frustrated” that his charttopping album is never played on the radio or on TV.

Wilson is the UK’S biggest underground artist, selling out venues around the world and last August celebrated his fifth solo album To the Bone going straight to No.1 in the UK. His 2015 album Hand. Cannot. Erase, reached No.13 in the charts.

Wilson, 50, has carved out a hugely successful 25-year music career albeit out of the mainstream charts.

Speaking to The Beat ahead of his gig in Dublin’s Olympia next week, Steven admitted that emulating the success of his 1970s prog heroes Genesis and Yes is a “double edged sword.”

“Almost every musician you speak to if you say to them ‘would you like to come to the attention of more people?’ most of them would say ‘of course”’

“I would love to be more visible in the mainstream because I want to share what I do with as many people as possible which is the natural inclination of anyone who creates whether it’s film, poetry, painting, books, etc you want your work reflected back at you from as many people as possible.”

He continued: “The ultimate thing with the greatest variance of that is a mainstream media profile. I’ve never had that. You’ll never hear me played on the radio, you won’t see me on the TV, you won’t see a lot about me in the newspapers. On one hand that has been very frustrating, there is almost like a barrier, rightly or wrongly I believe there’s still a lot of people out there that would, if they had the opportunity, really engage with what I do.

“Everyone has had the opportunity to decide if they like Coldplay or Ed Sheeran but not everyone has had the opportunity to listen to my music and say ‘it’s not for me’ or is ‘it is for me.”

Wilson said that the flip side of the coin is he doesn’t have the same kinds of pressures on him as big name artists.

“When I do a concert I can pretty much play whatever I want from my catalogue.

“I don’t have the baggage of having big hits or one song that has come to define me and I do appreciate that freedom.”

The pop-orientated To The Bone, inspired by Pink Floyd, Kate Bush and Peter Gabriel, is clearly Wilson’s stab at mainstream domination which topped the charts some 25 years after his first album On the Sunday of Life with his band Porcupine Tree was released.

“When I make a new album I have to be able to say to myself there is a reason why the album is going to be added to my discography. I’m always looking for something with every record that will make a different experience for me and the fans.”

He added: “This record is very different for me it’s much more of a song orientated record, melodies and the hooks are much more direction.

“It’s given my show perhaps a more accessible edge and it’s fun to integrate those songs with the more conceptual rock pieces that I’ve had in the past and it’s also been very open to visual interpretation so we’ve had fantastic new videos, animation and films in the show.

“It’s a very fantastic and emersive experience the new songs are a lot of fun to play.”

Hailed as the prog rock king, Wilson said he is ambivalent about the title but admitted it’s “flattering.”

“Honestly, I’ve spent most of my career trying to avoid being a generic artist because all of the artists I grew up admiring the most people like David Bowie, Prince, Frank Zappa or Kate Bush, these are the kind of artists who defined their own genre and they weren’t plonked in a box with a few other artists.

He added: “I kind of feel that I’ve earned the right in a way to be considered someone who has created their own genre. It’s flattering but I’m a little bit ambivalent about it, those kinds of things are ultimately restricting.

“People who think I only play progressive rock are going to be disappointed because that’s not the way I think about music or that’s not the way I go about making music.”

Highlights from his career include selling out two nights in the Royal Albert Hall and he is now playing three shows there this year.

“Those nights are special because it’s my hometown, home country, everyone comes, my mum gets really excited when I play the Royal Albert Hall. They’re nearly all sold out. That says to me ‘you know what you have achieved something quite significant.’ That means a lot to me.”

Despite his illustrious career Wilson has only played Ireland once before with his band Porcupine Tree in 2010.

“There are some country’s in the world that have proved slightly more resistant to my charms and traditionally Ireland has been one of them but I’m hoping to put that right.”

Steven Wilson play’s Dublin’s Olympia Theatre on March 19, tickets priced from €40 available at Ticketmaster.