Steven Wilson Vs. Roine Stolt

So I kind of tried, in a way, to distance myself from what I perceived as the rather narrow definition of Progressive Rock and it wasn’t just me that had this perception, that was pretty much the perception for most people. Whether you talk about the British music press, the American press, the media, most people who were outside of that scene; that was their idea of Progressive Rock, it was Marillion, it was Fish standing up on stage in face make-up doing a homage to Supper’s Ready; that was most people’s idea of Progressive Rock.

And things started to change, and they changed about the time that Porcupine Tree started to break through into more mainstream audience with albums like Stupid Dream and Lightbulb Sun. Radiohead released OK Computer which I think changed a lot of people’s ideas about what Progressive Rock could be, Massive Attack released the Mezzanine album, The Mars Volta emerged early in the Millennium, bands like Tool started to take on more overtly complex, Progressive ideals, King Crimson toured with Tool.

I do really believe that OK Computer was the Trojan horse, that was the album that snuck under the radar, that journalists found themselves hurling all sorts of superlatives at before somebody said, “hold on this is Progressive Rock”. And it was too late by then, it was like “but we’ve already said this album is a masterpiece!” Yeah, you have and you’re right, and oh by the way this is what Pink Floyd were doing 20 or 30 years ago, if not literally then certainly from an ideological and and musical point of view. From a conceptual point of view this is exactly what Progressive Rock was about.

I think that was in ’97 and I think that since then, over the last 15 years, there’s been a gradual erosion of prejudice against Progressive Rock and if you witnessed the reaction for example to the latest reissues of albums like Dark Side of the Moon, In the Court of the Crimson King and some of the other Crimson catalogue, the reissue of Aqualung that I recently worked on which came out a few months ago, which got extraordinary reviews, not just in the Progressive Rock minded publications, but across-the-board. Across-the-board amazing reviews – one the greatest albums ever made. Same with the Crimson stuff, same with the Floyd reissues and I think now Progressive Rock has been rehabilitated and not just rehabilitated, but it has been reinvented by a whole generation of fans who now turn around to bands like Porcupine Tree and say hey those guys doing it first and I think that has meant that retrospectively now I can see that perhaps my protestation about not wanting to be associated with that was more to do with the perception than the reality.

I think I was probably aware of that at the time although I may not have admitted it to myself. Aligning yourself with Progressive rock at that time was a very, very dangerous game to play, but it isn’t any more. Maybe that sounds like some kind of careerist thing and perhaps it was, but it wasn’t a consciously careerist thing.

Let me get this straight, I still don’t think saying that your a Prog Rock act is maybe the greatest thing you can say if you want mainstream attention, but let’s just say that the prejudice against it has certainly diminished significantly, significantly. Bands like Elbow come out and saying they were listening to Genesis when they were kids and all of that stuff gradually goes away this stupid, stupid prejudice.

So I think at the time perhaps in a more careerist way I was aware that it would’ve been a mistake to… That’s a very convoluted answer to your question, but it’s not an easy question to answer!"