Steven Wilson: Visions of Grandeur

Steven Wilson is relaxing on a couch deep down in the bowels of the Double Door, a wholly non-descript nightclub in the heart of Wicker Park, a neighborhood of Chicago immortalized in the film High Fidelity.

It’s less than an hour before his band, Porcupine Tree, is scheduled to take the stage, but at the moment Wilson is enthusiastically digging into a bag of Ruffles potato chips. Not the single serving size, but the family size, if you will.

In a peculiar way, it’s a bit of a perplexing image because, you see, Wilson has the physique of Jack Sprat, the guy who could eat no fat in that nursery rhyme you may have learned as a child. The picture of a skinny kid loading up on fat-filled potato chips presents a dichotomy of sorts, but then Wilson thrives on confounding expectations – a musician of boundless energy whose plethora of projects suggests that he may burn CDs even faster than he burns calories.

One can’t imagine Wilson sitting still for too long, so determined is he to march down every musical avenue that catches his peripatetic fancy, anxious to exorcise every demon along the way. He has found his outlets in musical projects as diverse as No-Man, Bass Communion and IEM – not to mention a myriad of miscellaneous productions, from a post-Marillion Fish to fragile Nordic songstress Anja Garbarek to majestic Swedish metal kings Opeth.

At present, however, his focus is squarely on Porcupine Tree. The band recently released its first major label-sponsored outing, In Absentia, on Lava Records, a mercurial label that has scored big over the past decade with acts like Kid Rock, Matchbox Twenty, and Sugar Ray.

Needless to say, Wilson is excited about what the deal means for his creation. “Hopefully, it means that we are finally on a level playing field. That is, in the sense that I’ve always felt Porcupine Tree is a band that had the potential to sell millions of records,” he said.

That may sound like an audacious statement flying in the face of all the nu-metal boy bands clogging up the Billboard charts. But Wilson is nothing but an articulate champion for his music. Porcupine Tree, of course, has been his vision since he first created an entirely fictional history of a legendary ‘70s group, complete with non-existent band members and imaginary discography.

“Although our records are quite ambitious and they’re quite experimental in their own way, I still think there’s potentially a very good mainstream audience for the music,” he said. “Of course, the problem in the past is we couldn’t get to that audience because the music we play doesn’t really fit into any genre. It’s difficult to market music that is essentially genre-less.

“At the same time, it’s been frustrating to see bands that we felt were potentially less commercially viable getting the big push – getting the big marketing dollars, the expensive videos, the promotion – in other words, all the financial clout you get from a major record label.”

“We’ve really had to work on word-of-mouth and the Internet aspect of developing our following, which we’ve done and will continue to do, but it takes a long time. With the support of Lava, it’s like a level-playing field now. If the record doesn’t do well this time, then perhaps it’s just not meant to be.”

Lest one concludes that Wilson might throw in the towel should In Absentia tanks, be assured that he is not pinning all hopes on this one record. Nor are the people at Lava. The band’s deal with the label is for a minimum of two albums.

“I think they realize we’re not the kind of band that’s going to necessarily be an overnight success – if at all,” he said. “They’re a great label and they’re absolutely committed to us.”

Wilson, it seems, is tired of working in relative anonymity – even if it means he may no longer stroll into the local Reckless Records store and comb through the vinyl bins unnoticed as he did before the band’s recent Chicago gig. And yet, as much as he hungers for mainstream success, Wilson is not interested in compromising his vision for the band.

“We wouldn’t have signed any record deal if we couldn’t retain complete creative and artistic control,” he said. “And that just doesn’t apply to the music. It’s the packaging, the choice of paper the cover’s printed on, all those things which are very important to the Porcupine Tree aesthetic.”

Wilson is particularly excited about what it means for Porcupine Tree from a visual standpoint. Having the financial weight of a major label behind the band means he can delve deeper into the music’s cinematic qualities.

“The visual side of the band is something that we’ve always wanted to explore – it’s always been a big part of my ideology for the band,” he said. “The problem, of course, is it’s very hard to do anything good with video without having a lot of money.”

The CD release of In Absentia includes the “Strip the Soul” video. It’s a twisted treatment of a dark track filled with devilishly demented images that are disturbing in a ways that one might associate with the band Tool. The video was directed by John Blackford, who designed the sleeve for the Signify album as well as the new record.

“It’s very, very dark – all shot in sepia tone – and a very disturbing piece,” Wilson said. “It’s not meant to be the single. It’s purely a breakout-type video, designed to get people interested in the Porcupine Tree name.”

A bigger push will be reserved for the release of the first single, “Blackest Eyes,” with a video to be directed by Mike Bennion, who helmed the band’s “Piano Lessons” video on a limited budget. “I think he’s a genius with a great vision,” Wilson said. “He’s made a lot of adverts and short films and I’ve done a lot of music for his work.”

Exploring the cinematic characteristics of Porcupine Tree presents a peculiar dilemma for the band, however. The music generally suggests surreal and dark images of the type not exactly designed for VH1.

But Wilson isn’t one to conform his artistic vision to commercial standards. He is enamored of films by the Brothers Quay, the identical twins who employ puppet animation and miniaturized sets to create breathtakingly unforgettable worlds and landscapes of long-repressed childhood nightmares.

The Quays, who have directed videos for His Name Is Alive, Michael Penn, 16 Horsepower, and Peter Gabriel, most recently collaborated with celebrated avant-garde composer Karlheinz Stockhausen. The title of their stunning 20-minute film? In Absentia.

Talking about the influence of film on his songwriting, Wilson also affirms his admiration for the artistry of David Fincher (Seven) and Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Delicatessen, City of Lost Children). But his real affection is reserved for David Lynch, who has been exploring the unconventional since Eraserhead.

“David Lynch has always been a big influence,” Wilson said. “My favorite film of his is The Elephant Man, followed probably by Blue Velvet – those films captured the perfect balance between the surreal and the narrative for me.”

To Wilson, the loony Lynch is a champion of the iconoclastic ideal, the craftsman who bravely pursues his own personal vision without bowing to the commercial forces that homogenize so much art. Like Frank Zappa (another Wilson hero), Lynch tests his audience’s allegiance by defying expectations.

“I don’t think you cater to an audience. I think you create an audience,” he said. “For me, the word ‘cater’ is an anathema. I think if you cater to an audience, you basically end up in a trap.”

Wilson admires the ability of people like Zappa and Lynch to attain success playing by their own rules, or lack thereof. “Frank Zappa created an audience from zero, from scratch,” Wilson said. “Who else could possibly expect to maintain an audience when one minute he’s making a classical record, a jazz record the next and then a doo-wop record?”

Defy audience’s expectations and they’re more likely to accept your adventurous, artistic excursions, Wilson suggests. “I think Porcupine Tree has created an audience that expects us to change, that expects us to confront their musical tastes and musical preferences with a few exceptions.”

Wilson is surprised whenever fans question the necessity of Porcupine Tree to explore new directions, whether it’s the addition of beautiful four-part vocal harmonies or bone-rattling metal guitar.

“I think there are people who discovered us around the early years and thought we were going to be a space-rock band. Maybe there were others who discovered us around the time of The Sky Moves Sideways who thought we were going to be a generic progressive rock band.

“I’m happy to have upset those people, because they’re not really the kind of people who are going to be long-term fans of the band anyway. The fans who are going to stick with us are the people who are interested in new ideas and are prepared to listen to a record and say, ‘I don’t really get this record, but it’s Porcupine Tree, so I’m going to listen to it another time.’

“I don’t know about you, but all the records I love the most are records I didn’t like the first time I heard them. I thought Captain Beefheart’s Trout Mask Replica was unbearable the first time I heard it and now it’s one of my favorite albums of all time.”

Wilson has always thrived on exploring all types of music. While he cites the usual suspects – The Beatles, The Doors, Pink Floyd, King Crimson – he is not too proud to admit that he listens to everything from the Carpenters to XTC, Frank Sinatra to Slayer. He’ll tell you that he loves the production on the first seven Moody Blues records, the introspective songwriting of Nick Drake, and the experimentalism of everybody from Nine Inch Nails to Tool to Radiohead.

The son of an electronic engineer, Wilson grew up experimenting with music, plunging himself into the world of overdubbing, thanks to a multi-track tape machine that his father made for him when he was 12 years old. But his love of music was born even earlier. He remembers one particular Christmas when he was eight or nine years old and his parents bought LPs for each other: Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon for his father and Donna Summer’s Love to Love You Baby for his mother.

Hearing those records in “heavy rotation,” Wilson experienced aural osmosis, soaking up the influence of Pink Floyd’s experimental, album-oriented rock and the groove/trance sound exemplified by Summer’s side-long disco.

His musical upbringing was enhanced by the fact that his formative years were spent in the creatively bereft 1980s, a blessing in disguise. Disillusioned by the plastic, formulaic sounds of the time, the London-born Wilson found inspiration by looking backward – unearthing not only the British progressive bands of the ‘70s, but seeking out German bands like Can and Tangerine Dream.

Of course, this led to a massive record collection, not to mention an album aesthetic to which he still subscribes – a philosophy that records should be considered complete artistic statements, that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Being musically adventurous, Wilson naturally found himself gravitating toward progressive music. Jethro Tull, Electric Light Orchestra, Caravan, PFM, even Gryphon – he’s listened to it all. But upon reflection, it was in the spirit of moving forward, not looking behind.

It’s no surprise that some Porcupine Tree fans were aghast when it was announced the band would open for Yes on selected dates during Yes’ fall 2002 tour of the U.S. But Wilson has never eschewed idea of progressive rock per se. What irks him is to have his band pigeon-holed in any genre.

In fact, he found it laughably ironic that some fans have criticized the band’s recent forays into heavier sounds. “Every time we change, some people say, ‘Oh, I’m disappointed. I don’t like the new direction. Why can’t you stay the same? We always get that – always, always, always. I can’t believe these people don’t get it.

“If they want a band to make the same record over and over again, they should listen to AC/DC or Ozric Tentacles – bands that don’t really change and keep making the same record over and over, bless them, for better or worse. That’s never been what this band is about.

“The Porcupine Tree ideology has always been about progressing in the true sense of the word. You can’t stand still – it gets boring. At the same time, I do sympathize with those people who are disappointed with a record. I can understand that. What I can’t accept is any criticism along the lines of ‘They shouldn’t have done this.’

In order for us to keep progressing, to keep the band moving and evolving, we’ve got to keep changing. It’s the people who complain that we’ve sold out by doing certain things that annoy me because they clearly never understood what the band was about in the first place.”

Over the last few years, Wilson has become increasingly enamored of the extreme metal scene, from Opeth to Slayer to Meshuggah. Naturally, some of those sounds have crept into the music of Porcupine Tree. In fact, advance buzz about In Absentia suggested the album would be the band’s heaviest sounding record to date.

“I don’t think it’s as heavy as people might have been led to believe,” Wilson said. “People jumped to the conclusion that it was going to be like Opeth, you know, real heavy. It’s not. It’s an assimilation of that kind of heaviness – those heavy, grinding riffs with a much more attacking guitar sound and more dynamic drums – into a Porcupine Tree texture.”

Actually, the record might have been heavier if Wilson was truly the benevolent dictator everyone assumes he must be as the group’s de facto leader. But he claims that he was overruled when his bandmates heard the demos.

“I think it’s a good thing to have a band democracy, in the sense that I think some of the things I wrote for the record in the really heavy vein might have gone over the edge into pastiche,” he said. “I think that would have been a mistake.”

While willing to admit the heaviest stuff might not have been right for Porcupine Tree, Wilson believes the material merits release sometime in the future. He talks about starting another band as an outlet for his more metal-oriented moments, or possibly doing a project with Mikael Akerfeldt of Opeth.

For the time being, Wilson is trying to stay focused on Porcupine Tree. It’s not easy for someone who thrives on exploring every nook and cranny of the creative process. “I get offered a lot of stuff, but obviously I’ve got to be committed to the band right now because we’re signed to a major label and they’re paying us a lot of money,” he said. “I really have to be available to do a lot of touring, promoting, and to start writing songs for the next record.

“I can’t see myself being able to get involved in another project the way I have in the past, with a two- or three-month commitment. I’m producing Opeth again, but I’m making an exception for them because I think they’re so good and they’re very good friends of mine.”

Working with Opeth on the band’s Blackwater Park release, it seems, left a particularly strong impression on Wilson. He talks about the experience as being part of his “learning curve,” another step in his musical evolution as an artist.

After recording Porcupine Tree’s Lightbulb Sun, he began writing material for In Absentia. He found himself unable to shake the whole metal obsession.

“Although I loved some of the tracks I’d written, they were very, very heavy and possibly sounded too much like the influences,” said Wilson, who concedes that he wrote In Absentia as a reaction to Lightbulb Sun.

“I wanted this record to be much more edgy, much darker, much more about volume and energy,” he said. “I pretty much made up my mind when I started writing the album that it was going to be more in your face – in some ways the opposite of the last record, which, with a couple of moments excluded, was pretty mellow and fairly laid back.”

And so the new album works through its aggressions on tracks such as “Blackest Eyes,” “Wedding Nails,” “The Creator Has a Mastertape,” and “Strip the Soul.” But Wilson knows the value of having light with dark, that strong album dynamics depend on producing a balance of material.

“The record has a trio of songs – “Lips of Ashes,” “Heart Attack in a Layby,” and “Collapse the Light into Earth” – that are possibly the most beautiful, stripped-down things we’ve ever done,” Wilson said. “I’m very, very pleased with them.”

“Collapse the Light into Earth,” in particular, may surprise people with its heavenly chorus and a stunningly lovely , lilting string arrangement by Dave Gregory of XTC fame.

“It’s actually a very diverse record, as all our records are,” Wilson said. “The extremes may have been pushed slightly further, but I think it all hangs together. Most everyone who’s heard it thinks it’s the strongest we’ve ever done.”

In Absentia features contributions from new drummer Gavin Harrison, who came aboard after the band parted ways with Chris Maitland, and John Wesley, who will contribute vocals and guitars as a touring member of the band. Bassist Colin Edwin and keyboardist Richard Barbieri remain key contributors to the band, from the standpoint of establishing musical direction as well as performance.

“We’re all very different, we come from very different backgrounds and all have very different musical tastes,” Wilson said. “So I figure if the band likes the material, it’s probably got a good chance that it’ll appeal to a lot of people out there.”

Porcupine Tree got a positive reception for its new material when the band played a 12-city, one-month tour this past summer in preparation for its fall 2002 trek through North America, a balance of headline gigs and dates opening for Yes.

“We hadn’t played live in about a year, so it was a good rehearsal for what’s going to come now that the album is actually out,” Wilson said. “It’s good for all of us to get back up to speed.”

Rehearsal benefits aside, the summer tour served another purpose. “It was about psyching the record label up,” Wilson said. He admits that he’s not sure where the new disc will take Porcupine Tree, but there are signs the band may be making serious inroads in America’s heartland.

Following their NEARfest appearance, Porcupine Tree was traveling through the Amish countryside of Pennsylvania – beautiful landscapes but the middle of nowhere nonetheless – when they stopped at a little mom-and-pop gas station. The band got out to stretch their legs when a guy pumping gas stopped them dead in their tracks.

Looking at the skinny band member with the long hair, he asked, “Are you Steven Wilson?”

If In Absentia reaches its intended audience, that’s a question the band hopes a lot more people will be asking in the months to come.

Originally published Spring 2003.