Steven Wilson Quotes

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Steven Wilson

Profession : Musician

Birth : November 3, 1967

I left school, and I went to work in a computer company. I was in my late teens.

Steven Wilson

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

I think 'genius' is an overused word.

Steven Wilson

It's always lovely to discover that the people that you kind of look up to are actually very down-to-earth people.

Steven Wilson

I never made a distinction, really, between music and sound. Let me explain what I mean by that. I grew up near to a train station, and the sound of the trains became a very important part of my world. It was a very musical sound to me.

Steven Wilson

My musical tastes are very diverse. I just never felt like listening to certain kinds of bands. There's too much great stuff out there.

Steven Wilson

I've never been one of those people who say, 'Oh, well, if you play this kind of music, you can only like these kinds of bands.'

Steven Wilson

So many things influence me in one way or another. Some might be surprising, but that's OK.

Steven Wilson

In the mid- to late '70s, there was no one better than ABBA at writing and producing great pop.

Steven Wilson

I grew up listening to bands like the Cure, Joy Division, Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance - these are the bands that I actually grew up with, and I always had these things in my taste, too. And I always loved industrial music as well: I listened to Throbbing Gristle, SPK, Cabaret Voltaire. And shoegaze bands like Slowdive and My Bloody Valentine.

Steven Wilson

It's too easy now to find music, and it's therefore too easy to dismiss music, particularly music that doesn't hit you the first time you hear it.

Steven Wilson

Like anybody, I look around at the world that we live in, and I find it hard to be completely positive about everything that's going on.

Steven Wilson

Ultimately, I'd like to create a body of work where every album has its own personality and a reason to exist within the catalog, not just 'more of the same.'

Steven Wilson

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

I always wanted to create my own musical world. That takes time and must be earned, and it does mean sometimes confronting the expectations of the audience.

Steven Wilson

I think that's part of the battle of defining yourself as an artist. You're constantly fighting the pressure from outside to be pigeonholed and deliver more of what people already liked.

Steven Wilson

Every time the mainstream media talk about progressive rock, they wheel out a clip of Rick Wakeman in a cape. For me, it's one of the most ambitious forms of music. The problem is that when it doesn't work, you end up with Emerson, Lake and Palmer doing symphonies with 60-piece orchestras and revolving pianos, which I think is ridiculous as well.

Steven Wilson

Pop shouldn't be a comfortable slipper. It should shock and surprise you and confront your expectations.

Steven Wilson