Steven Wilson
Discussing change, misconception and expectation on the artist’s latest album.
“I’m not trying to upset people.”
Steven Wilson is no stranger to controversy. Since the early days of Porcupine Tree, he’s refused to repeat himself and has followed the same mantra throughout his solo career. His latest release, The Future Bites, tackles consumerism, social media and the loss of individuality against an electronic beat. He tells Prog why he’ll never stop embracing change.
Steven Wilson is sat in the spacious lounge of his recently acquired north London home. One of his dogs, Bowie, jumps excitedly around his lap, as Wilson ponders a question concerning fan expectations. In the modern age of the immediacy of the internet, with everyone able to have their say in a public fashion, it’s something that now stares all artists directly in the face. Wilson perhaps more than most.
“I understand, in a way, that you walk through a door into a musician’s world and that’s what you fall in love with and that’s what you would always have, in some ways, the most affection for, the first time you discovered an artist,” he says. “And even then, you’re constantly waiting to recapture that buzz and that feeling you had when you first fell in love with the music. And I’m not a very good artist for catering to that.”
Change. Misconception. Expectation. These are the main themes that resonate throughout our conversation as we discuss his latest album, The Future Bites, his sixth solo release.
The change is obvious. Musically, Wilson has spread his wings further than ever before. Rooted in dark electronica, The Future Bites is probably his most intriguing album, yet it’s likely to be his most divisive. It’s undoubtedly progressive – the 10-minute DonnaSummer-disco-meets-TangerineDream throb of Personal Shopper, the dark moody strains of King Ghost and
12 Things I Forgot, the latter displaying the most typical Wilson tropes from previous albums – all make this album, as Dave Everley wrote in his review in Prog 116, “one of the boldest and best albums Wilson has ever made”. But it’s not the kind of ‘prog’ album some of his fanbase want him to make. And thus the now predictable internet shitstorm has kicked off.
“You’re constantly now in a situation where you’re confronted with your fans’ expectations, which I love,” Wilson muses. “Part of me kind of enjoys the controversy and divisiveness that I create, but part of me is disappointed that I can’t take everyone with me.
“I understand it’s part of the deal that if you change what you do, you’re going to upset people. I don’t like that but I accept it’s part of the contract. But some of the comments, I just wonder what planet these people live on.”
There’s been change on a personal level too. It’s all around us. This is the second time Prog has been invited to round to his home, during windows of opportunity when Covid restrictions have been relaxed. It’s very nice, very comfortable and very homely. It also very subtly betrays the trappings of Wilson’s musical success. He proudly showed off his new studio when he’d invited us over in the summer to hear his Dolby Atmos mix of The Future Bites. “It’s the first time I’ve had a dedicated studio,” he beamed proudly. “Previously it was wherever I put my computer and musical equipment.”
There’s also a music listening room that houses his impressive record collection, where these two music nerds could have easily spent the rest of the day, picking out releases and enthusing over them. At heart, Wilson is still the same obsessed music fan he’s always been. Having known him for almost 25 years, this writer would venture as far as to say Steven Wilson today is probably happier than he’s ever been.
Which leads us to the misconceptions and expectations. Some of the online bile directed at Wilson from certain quarters, as he says, makes you wonder what planet its authors are on. Although that’s nothing new. It’s largely been going on since the more direct Hand. Cannot.Erase., but increased with the progressive pop of To The Bone and has reached fever pitch with The Future Bites. Perceived slights range from his success and ubiquity to those who just can’t handle the fact that he won’t make The Raven That Refused To Sing over and over again. There were even one or two keyboard warriors who threw their toys out the pram when he got his hair cut a bit shorter!
“Don’t like it? Don’t buy it,” he counters. “I haven’t made a record that appeals to you. Okay, that’s my prerogative. The thing I find the most offensive, the only thing I find offensive actually at the end of the day, is the suggestion I’ve done something wrong by making the record I wanted to make. The point is, I’ve not done anything wrong, and there’s nothing wrong with you not liking it either. That’s fine. I’ve made a record that doesn’t appeal to you.”
Such sense is unlikely to placate the mob. It rarely does in today’s angry internet age.
But it shows an almost wilful ignorance of