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.

Steven Wilson

We lost the skyline

Steven Wilson

skylines black space

It was a bit of fun. But of course like anything that starts as a joke, people started to take it all seriously!

Steven Wilson

courses fun people

You've got a lot pulling at your time already - which may be the best reason to start cultivating your green thumb.

Steven Wilson

thumbs may time

Gardening can be a compelling cooperative activity. Your best harvest may be the pleasure you get from working with family and friends. There's never a shortage of things to do, no limit to the lessons that can be learned, especially for children, and there's always plenty of credit to go around, even for the mistakes.

Steven Wilson

mistake friendship children

Every Bass Communion track is based on a single sound source. Increasingly I find that I'm really interested in taking a particular sound and it's almost like solving a problem. If I have a sound, the problem is how can I create a piece of music from this one sound source?

Steven Wilson

track pieces sound

I've been making Bass Communion music longer than any kind of other music. I don't know if you picked up a copy of a vinyl release I put out a couple of years ago of something called Altamont.

Steven Wilson

bass couple years

We are living in dystopia, in a world that is dominated by technology and disconnect, alienation, loneliness, and dysfunction.

Steven Wilson

living technology loneliness world

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.

Steven Wilson

you work beautiful art

People who like progressive music tend to sneer at the idea of a kind of punk aesthetic, and people who like alternative indie rock or punk rock tend to sneer at what they see as the pretentiousness and pomposity of progressive music.

Steven Wilson

see aesthetic music people

People have asked me about doing an autobiography, but I don't think my life is that interesting.

Steven Wilson

my-life me life people

We live in a world dominated by fear and paranoia.

Steven Wilson

live paranoia fear world

If you live in the city, you only have to look out your window to see enough that would make you feel that you don't want to step outside your front door ever again.

Steven Wilson

step city look you

Being English, we're polite and reserved, we don't express our opinions; we're very private people.

Steven Wilson

english opinions being people

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.

Steven Wilson

think internet opportunity people

You cannot please everyone, and I think that what's important, ultimately, is to make sure you please yourself. If you start trying to please other people, you'll just go around in circles.

Steven Wilson

yourself think you people

One thing I have found over years is that if you change direction, the initial reaction tends to be very polarized, but as the music gradually filters through and fans start engaging with it on its own terms rather than comparing it to what went before, the appreciation and acceptance of it increases.

Steven Wilson

you music change appreciation

I wanted people to say that our music sounds like Porcupine Tree, not that it sounds like King Crimson.

Steven Wilson

king music tree people

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.

Steven Wilson

pink rock always time

The whole notion of an alternative truth is a paradox. How can you have an alternative to truth?

Steven Wilson

how you truth-is truth

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.

Steven Wilson

you music chance believe