Steven Wilson Vs. Roine Stolt

Message Topic Search Topic Options Post Reply Create New Topic Printable Version Translate Topic

   I found this thread via IGN of all places and found it interesting:
 Roine Stolt replies to Steven Wilson
08. Dec 2005 at 13:50 
Here's an excerpt from an interview with SW about
prog music, and a reply from one of the people he
talks about:

"Jeff Nau (Explicitly Intense magazine): As far as progressive rock goes and
had gone,what do you feel about what's happening now? Dream Theater
is still doing very well, and now there's a new kind of
prog rising up with bands like the Mars Volta and even Radiohead -
but also with older-sounding groups like the Flower Kings and
Transatlantic. What do you think needs to happen for it to
survive?

Steve Wilson (Porcupine Tree): Okay, I think that answer is very
simple: bands like the Mars Volta, Tool, and Radiohead - these bands
are the future of progressive music.

Bands like the Flower Kings and Transatlantic? The DEATH of
progressive music. These are the bands that reinforce every prejudice
people have about progressive rock: old-fashioned, pompous,
pretentious, hung-up on sci-fi concepts - that for me is rubbish. But
there's a new wave of bands that for me are being influenced just as
much by hip-hop as they are King Crimson or Godspeed You Black
Emperor and bands like us as well, I hope.

For me, Transatlantic and the Flower Kings - and I have heard these
bands, unfortunately - they're following the blueprint from 1972 so
closely; it's completely pointless and redundant. They're never going
to better the originals, anyway - why bother? Whatever's going around
should be part of their musical vocabulary.

I don't particularly dig generic music, whether it's hardcore metal
or hip-hop, even down to the prog bands you mentioned. They're
following a formula way too closely. For me,being progressive is
about taking the word at face value: it a band is going to try to be
progressive, they shouldn't be looking at the past - they should be
looking at everything that's going on around them now,
from hip-hop to trip-hop to death metal to trance. The
word 'progressive' is about the FUTURE." 

Roine Stolt fired backed with this linguistically dubious e-mail:

From: Roine Stolt
Subject: Steve Wilson on The Flower Kings
Date: December 8, 2005 7:34:19 AM EST

Rob ,and all...
It's correct ,it IS a personal preference and 
it IS OK to have an opinion .
It's just that it comes across as a bit aggressive 
and who knows ...silly,as neither Flowerkings or
Transatlantic have ever been dealing with 
"sci-fi lyrics" ,at least to my knowledge .
But I fear it is more than an opinion ,
it is a bit of an aggressive statement,
meant to hurt or diminish.

What he present is his opinion that we 
are the "death of progressive rock", it is 
not that nice a statement really.
I suppose he's trying to say that bands 
like us scare the younger audience or the 
hip crowd and press away ,that he now
appearently is eager to please,it is in his 
"marketing plan" . We all fight for recognition,
but a bit of positivism is sometimes better that 
hanging out what should/could be your friends.
In that sense Mike Portnoy is a lovely guy, he is 
always VERY supportive of groups ,know or 
unknown,I think I've never heard him say 
a bad word about anyone ,any band ,even 
folks he could have reason to dislike.

It's that Steven does not seem to care 
if he piss me off ,or Portnoy or Trewavas off ,
or whoever have helped him in the past ,
I think he believes it just add to his credibility
...or coolness??!!!
So he don't like Symphonic/prog , fine , but 
my question would be, is he now into the more
metal things because he loves it or because it 
simply have a bigger audience .'
My guess is that Steven's career means a lot 
to him and he do whatever it takes to make 
PT a bigger act ,he wanna be in with the cool 
in-crowd ,the dark tattooed guys.
In that sense I can see that any "flowery" 
old school hippie band like TFK looks like a 
bad future and something he wanna steer 
away from rapidly ,not to be connected.

Now,there are many prog bands out there 
(name XXXX) that create a stir within progcircles 
that I personally feel is exactly what Steven is 
referring TFK to be , they are scarecrows, 
they scare people away because they are not 
close to as inventive ,poetic,expressive or 
original as Yes,ELP, Floyd or Crimson or 
simply DULL. Many a hype is written in advertisments 
or articles in the prog-press or mailinglists all over 
about those bands but I still find them VERY poor 
and sometimes unlistenable. BUT I would never go 
as far as hang them out in an interview (at least 
I hope I haven't ) .

For me it's quite simple ,if a band like Transatlantic 
sell 65'000 copies of a CD (on an independent label) 
it simply means that the band IS popular,VERY 
popular and that MANY people do NOT consider 
them to be the DEATH of prog ,rather the "new life" 
or "afterlife" or whatever, but many people did rejoice. 
it WAS a phenomenon. If Steven Wilson feel the 
opposite ......we can't do much about that,but he's wrong.

Flowerkings is a band that started around the same 
time as PT and he knows very well of us and know 
we're both popular and considered along with Spocks,
PT to be the new wave of prog .
So after all there may be some truth to that 
he try to kill his competition .

I may be wrong but I seem to remember that 
Steven Wilson's name came up as a possible 
candidate to mix the second Transatlantic album ,but at 
the time someone of us had heard that he didn't 
like us at all , so it's not the first time he make 
similar statements , this is his firm belief,not 
something thoughtless he happen to say ...... .

Roine Stolt 

Post Reply	Page 12 3 19 >