Wilson, Steve; Richard Barbieri, Colin Edwin and Chris Maitland (Porcupine Tree) (January 2000)

A Band Is The Sum Of Its Influences!

In the past, the third album of an artist was also called the "make or break" album. The artists in turn would refer to this album as being the "difficult third album." With Porcupine Tree, Stupid Dream is way beyond that third album and it still looks as if the band is totally unknown. Avid Porcupine Tree fans from day one think the new album is too tame, too mainstream, whilst the rest of the audience find their music still too difficult. That is if they find the album in the shops! Because leader Steve Wilson does 95% of all interviews, he suggests to choose two illustrous members of his band in order to do the interview for us. Colin Edwin (bass) and Chris Maitland (drums) sit their behinds in the comfy chairs of the Biebob club in Vosselaar, Belgium waiting for the first question.

"With Porcupine Tree, most of the songs are finished before we are drafted in. That's why, next to the band, we all have other musical activities to keep us going," admits Colin. "I'm part of a trio together with a flute player and someone who plays African percussion. In fact, that last guy is Geoff Leigh who once was a member of the now legendary Henry Cow (with Fred Frith and Chris Cutler). Personally I'm very much into North-African percussion, whilst Geoff got lessons from Morocan musicians years ago. He is now learning all these techniques to me. That's how I started playing the African bass with three strings. I have also played the upright bass for years. Of course that last instrument is heavily used in jazz, but it's that diversity which has filtered through in my playing giving that unique color to Porcupine Tree."

With drummer Chris Maitland it's different. "I am a professional musician who has several 'jobs' in order to make ends meet. I don't have any projects aside from Porcupine Tree, yet I am active in the world of theatre and I also teach."

What strikes me with Porcupine Tree is the fact they are still playing in the same line-up from the very beginning. Probably a one-off situation in this difficult music. "I think Steve is always searching for a certain 'sound' regardless of the musician who can create this sound," Chris smiles. "Luckily for us, that 'sound' was there right from the start, which means Steve has no urge to change the line-up."

"I remember very well that no one knew each other the very first time we got together," continues Colin. "Steve had been working with each of us on an individual basis, yet not with the three of us simultaneously. We have to give all credit to Steve for combining the individual power and talent which resulted in the by now unique Porcupine Tree sound." Apart from Porcupine Tree none of the members is part of another Steve Wilson project. "I had been a drummer with No-Man shortly after Steve had been using three ex-Japan members," says Chris, "yet now we simply reserve all our energy for Porcupine Tree."

"I have known Steve since we were very small," Colin confesses. "I used to visit him at home where we listened to records together. As far as I can remember, Steve always had a studio at home. Of course that's very convenient to have a friend like that which means you can record every single idea you come up with. We continued making music just for 'fun'. Never did I think this could become something 'serious'. Even when I became a member of Porcupine Tree I thought it would be for a couple of concerts and then the project would dry up. We have been going strong for about five years now and it looks like things are getting bigger all the time!"

It becomes obvious that we open the well famous 'book of influences'. "From the viewpoint of a bass player, someone like Bill Laswell has been very important to me. Also Percy Jones, especially the period where he made music with Brian Eno. Because I also play the 'double bass,' someone like Danny Thompson, of course, is a big influence, as well as Paul Chambers, Ron Carter and especially Charlie Mingus. A guy like Mingus simply is a genius. Things he did more than thirty years ago are still as fresh as if they were written yesterday!" Whilst jazz is top of the list in the Colin Edwin household, there was no pop music to be listened to in Chris Maitland's house. "I grew up listening to classical music and my first encounter as a drummer was with the music of Glenn Miller. Especially the British big band scene was my encounter with popular music, whilst I had to wait until the seventies before I really became a big fan of drummers like Phil Collins [ex-Genesis] and Roger Taylor [Queen]."

Meanwhile the owner of the venue has started to play some 'vintage' Porcupine Tree material through the house PA. An irritated Steve Wilson joins us in the backstage area, followed in his footsteps by Richard Barbieri. The ideal timing in order to give us the answer to the question why we had to wait such a long time for this new album. "The new album was already recorded in February '98 and would be released on the Arc21 label. At the very last minute the deal was cancelled which meant we had to look for a new label which finally became Snapper. Maybe it has been lucky for us because I remember we stopped our last tour at the exact time, so we took a year off from the band so we could concentrate on other things."

Is it interesting for a band like Porcupine Tree to also go and see other bands during festivals, to witness the technical skills of other artists? "I have seen so many bands in my life that I like to spend the rare free time I have by absorbing culture," says Barbieri. "Regarding my instruments, I remain interested to know what's happening, yet I'm no longer that fanatic. For the sounds I want to create I must say I have nearly found the ideal set-up. I mainly use a lot of 'old' analogue synths. In the industry people have noticed that it's too expensive to make analogue synths using the old process, whilst a lot of musicians were fed up in playing on some boring pieces of plastic. The musician wants to have the ability to twiddle knobs and regulators so that's why the industry has created virtual analogue synths which gives the musician the impression that he/she can arrange things him/herself. More and more people want to record in an analogue way, use analogue compression techniques. Personally I own a nice selection of 'vintage' keyboards, however there is one thing I would dearly like to have and that's a Moog C3 modular system. Unfortunately there's a price tag of £25,000 [$50,000] attached to it."

I can imagine that a 'brain' like Steve Wilson probably hears every idea as 'finished' inside his mind, so as to offer the band a demo, including all the various sounds, reducing the input of the other band members to next to nothing. "I used to work like this in the beginning but things have evolved so drastically that I can give the boys 'carte blanche' to do whatever they like because I know the end result will sound exactly the way I hear it myself. On the last demos, I restrict it all to guitar and voice. There virtually are no keyboards thus giving Richard a maximum of freedom. In the end it's a nice surprise for me as well to hear the result." Barbieri continues: "Steve gives me some notions about what he would like, like a bit of mellotron here or piano there, yet he doesn't interfere in chosing the colour of the sound. His main occupation is composing the songs. It is my task to try and find certain sounds, to reach certain atmospheres." Wilson takes over: "Because we have recorded the entire new album on hard disc it is much easier to edit. When we have created a unique sound somewhere on the album but no one seems to remember how we can reproduce that sound, we can isolate it and by means of the edit function, we can work with it. The advantage of technology is helping us enormously in that area of recording. It might happen that a certain sound doesn't fit a certain part of a song. By means of the Protools programme we can now edit that part of the song and move it to another section. It is a very futuristic way of making music, yet it fits the progressive attitude of Porcupine Tree perfectly." I make Steve aware of the fact that it might be this modern technique which enabled him to have the new album clock in at exactly (to the second precise) one hour! "Really? Exactly sixty minutes? That is such a coincidence because I didn't know. You're the first to point this out to me. Phew, exactly one hour. That's nice!"

[Actually, on some players the total time shows as 59:55, but what's five seconds? -ed.]

Whilst Porcupine Tree is becoming one of the trendsetters of the current progressive underground, journalists the world over keep on asking that same old boring question: "How do you write a song?"

"If there really would be a formula how to write a good song then the music industry would not be that interesting because every musician would write the same music. A song can really find its inspiration everywhere. 'Voyage 34' was born out of a tape which a friend of mine gave me. On that tape you could hear experiences from the sixties plus a lecture about LSD. Ideas for one project can later on be used for another project, there are no rules. There are ideas for No Man which were used for Bass Communion [another of Wilson's projects], sounds and samples for Bass Communion have been used for Porcupine Tree. There is a Porcupine Tree song titled 'Mute' which in fact is the song 'Days In The Trees' by No Man, the main difference being that No Man used vocals. The material which we find interesting yet impossible to use for any of our projects we then release as a limited edition, preferably on vinyl. That material is not representative of Porcupine Tree and it would be a pity if someone would buy that album as his first encounter with the band. The double album Metanoya mainly consists of spacerock improvisations and has only been pressed in 1000 copies, only to please the diehard fans, only to give those people who already have all of the Porcupine Tree material something extra. It's sort of a release between two Porcupine Tree albums, to make the wait between those albums a little bit shorter. The improvisations we do in our music is necessary because otherwise we would be bored stiff! During this tour, we do 34 shows and after a while you get bored. The way we played 'Radioactive Toy' yesterday was completely different, don't ask us why or how, yet it sounded completely different, fresh, which is exactly what we need night after night. Although there was a live recording of 'Radioactive Toy' on our Coma Divine album, it might well be we record it again on a later live album at a later stage."

The 'bigger' a band, the more difficult it gets to improvise. A band like Pink Floyd simply has to perform 'Money' in a way that gets as close to the original as possible. Even the saxophone solo should sound like on the studio album ... "When we first did 'Dislocated Day' in our live show, it sounded completely different than on the studio album The Sky Moves Sideways just because we needed an extra dimension to do it live. On Coma Divine that version sounds even more different, more live oriented. I understand what you want to say: the 'large' public goes to a concert in order to see a live jukebox playing them the songs as identical as on the albums. Sadly for them I will NEVER perform under that pressure. I am the artist and I will decide what to play and how it's going to be performed. People should be glad they can go and see a Porcupine Tree concert! It's exactly that attitude which made it possible for us to make an album like Stupid Dream, a record which has nothing to do with the other albums we already did. That is one of our main attractions: the unpredictable! A band like Ozric Tentacles has been playing the same song all of their lives. That won't happen to us."

When a band is promoting a new album it sort of is the task of any journalist to find the meaning behind the title. Do we have to see Stupid Dream as the naïve thought to one day become a megastar, yet find yourself back in reality two minutes later? Maybe the deal with Arc21, which in the end fell through? "At first I would say no, but now I think about it, I have to go along with your view. Ever since I was a small boy I always had this dream to one day become an important musician and pop icon. With Arc21 that possibility was getting very close and then the deal is cancelled. Believe me: Porcupine Tree never is lucky. Every time something positive should happen, something happens which makes it end in minor. I'm still waiting for that film producer to call me, asking me to use our music for his new movie, or a radio producer who promises me to play our music nonstop for six weeks. The only time we were 'lucky' was in Rome. Radio station Radio Rock really started to 'hype' us. The result was that we were able to record our live album there. Because so many people came to see us. This once again proves the fact that there are loads of people out there who like this kind of music as long as they get the chance to hear it. On the other hand Stupid Dream is synonymous for the vision that the life of a musician is not at all a bed of roses. How many times have I been sitting in a van that was much too small with one or more keyboards on my lap driving to yet another tiny, smelly club? How many soundchecks have we done so far? How many times have we slept in improvised circumstances? How many times have we had food that was not at all nutritious? Maybe it's all those circumstances of life on the road which makes your music that 'rich'?" Our philosopher Steve Wilson gets the help of Richard Barbieri with some wisdom from his days on the road with Japan. "In the beginning, things didn't work for Japan yet we continued believing in ourselves doing our own thing. You are right when you say that our image didn't fit the punk period, the 'trashy' image that was required. We were indeed very 'arty', a new version of Roxy Music and suddenly people started noticing Japan, the band got some ace critics, we were able to play major festivals. Nevertheless we didn't change anything about our image, in fact we had no form of 'image building' whatsoever. I think success comes as long as you believe in yourself, because that sincerity is noticed by your fans!"

Wilson continues with the coincidences of life. "Initially I started singing with Porcupine Tree because I didn't have a singer. With No Man I had a singer from day one but with Porcupine Tree I couldn't find the voice I was looking for. The demand for a first album came and I decided to do everything myself. Meanwhile it has become normal that I am the singer so my quest for the ideal singer has stopped long ago. Although we haven't reached our peak yet, I guess we have so far created our own and unique sound of which my voice is a part, so it would be unwise to change the concept."

That winners feeling is imminent after each concert even if the audience is still relatively small. Sometimes I think of the handful of lucky people who once saw Pink Floyd perform in a gym in Antwerp, Belgium. Around eighty people witnessed the psychedelic brilliance of an unknown Syd Barrett and company. Nobody had ever thought to ask these filthy, longhaired musicians for their autographs. If only they did then they could have a nice sum on their bank account now. In order to give my children a down payment for their first house I have decided to have my copy of Stupid Dream signed by all of the band. You never know !

[Over the past year, Steve Wilson also found some time to do some production duties on Marillion's latest release marillion.com and play some guitar on Fish's Raingods With Zippos. There is a new studio album out, , Lightbulb Sun and a vinyl version of Yellow Hedgerow Dreamscape is was expected in February 2000. -ed.]

Discography:
On The Sunday Of Life... (1991)
Voyage 34 (1992)
Up The Downstair (1993)
Voyage 34: Remixes (1993)
Staircase Infinities (EP) (1994)
Moonloop E.P. (EP) (1994)
Yellow Hedgerow Dreamscape (1994)
The Sky Moves Sideways (1995)
Signify (1996)
Insignificance (1997)
Coma Divine - Recorded Live In Rome (1997)
Metanoia (1998)
Stupid Dream (1999)
Stars Die - Rare And Unreleased (1999)
Coma Divine II (EP) (1999)
Voyage 34 - The Complete Trip (2000/2004)
'4 Chords That Made A Million' (2000)
Lightbulb Sun (2000)
'Shesmovedon' (2000)
Lightbulb Sun - Special Edition (2001)
Recordings (2001)
Transmission IV (EP) (2001)
Stars Die: The Delerium Years 1991 - 1997(2002)
In Absentia (2002)
In Absentia (European version) (2003)
Futile (EP) (2003)
XM (2003)
Warszawa (2004)
Deadwing (2005)
XMII (2005)
Rockpalast (dnld) (2006)
Fear Of A Blank Planet (2007)
Nil Recurring (EP) (2007)
We Lost The Skyline (2008)
Ilosaarirock (2009)
The Incident (2009)
Atlanta (2010)
Anesthetize (2010)
Octane Twisted (2012)

Arriving Somewhere... (DVD) (2006)
Anesthetize (DVD, BR) (2010)