STEVEN WILSON - The Future Bites
Pictured: Steven Wilson
Photographer: Andrew Hobbs
The Future Bites… So Bite Back
Written by: Tom Wilson - Sense Music Media
People over thirty were promised a very different future to the one we got. Back to the Future tantalised us with flying cars and hoverboards. What do we have instead? “Hoverboards” have wheels, my Corolla is only airborne when I go too fast over speedbumps, and because of social media and a 24-hour news cycle, everyone is either enraged or uninformed. You know what? The Future Bites. Just ask Steven Wilson. The PORCUPINE TREE frontman and prog rock star found himself on the wrong side of the outrage mob after he was asked during a press interview about Eddie Van Halen, and he replied that he wasn’t a fan. Not that he hated him, just that he wasn’t a fan of his style of playing. It would appear that this was the wrong answer (according to the same people who insist that they’ve never heard of Steven Wilson, but felt like commenting nonetheless. Apparently every single genre of music on the planet was influenced by E.V.H., and it is sacrilege to say otherwise.)
Warm up your angry reacts, it’s time to talk social media with Steven …
The Interview
When you’re going into producing an album, what are some of the considerations that you have in mind? Have you always produced your own stuff?
I’ve always been involved. I’m the sort of person who would find it very difficult to give up my music completely to someone else, but [on] the last couple of albums, I’ve enjoyed having a co-producer involved. I’d say my main consideration with going into a new project is not wanting to repeat what I’ve done before. I wouldn’t necessarily say that the album is a reaction to what has gone before, but there is definitely a sense that it has to be a development from what’s gone before. In this case, I would say the main guiding principle for this album is that I want to make an album that is very much about the world we live in now, and it needs to be an album that has a very contemporary, very fresh musical palette. I say that, because I think my albums in the past have tended to be a little more nostalgic in the way they’ve sounded. This one, I wanted to be very clearly and very firmly rooted in modern times, because that’s what the album is about; it’s about the world we live in right now.
How do you think the world has changed in the last ten to fifteen years?
Pictured: Steven Wilson
Photographer: Andrew Hobbs
It is extraordinary how much things have changed. In the age of the internet, specifically the age of social media, how the human race has almost been altered … It’s incredible how the technology has changed the way we think, the way we engage with the world, the way we engage with other people, the way we engage with music, with cinema, with politics, with news … it’s changed everything, and it’s accelerated. [PORCUPINE TREE’s] Fear of a Blank Planet was already concerned with those kind of issues, and things have just accelerated and accelerated in the thirteen years since then. We’ve had four years of Trump, we’ve had Brexit over here in the U.K., and now we’ve had the pandemic. It’s incredible to me that almost everything is seen through the prism of social media, and everybody sees themselves reflected back in the mirror of social media, and that’s really what The Future Bites is about; it’s about how the way human beings interact with the world around us has changed in the era of dominant social media. Not only social media, but also the internet in general, and how computer algorithms now are pretty much running our lives, you know? Making suggestions about what we should buy, who we should listen to, who we should vote for … All of these things are extraordinary developments that have happened in relatively recent history … That continues to be something that I’m thrilled [about], but also very concerned about, as I think a lot of people are.
It kind of terrifies me that, in a 24-hour news cycle … there is something to be upset about (because that’s what sells) every hour, of every day, and everyone seems to have their turn at being hated by the nation. Whether it’s someone who has stuffed up and caused a COVID lockdown, or Steven Wilson has said something [controversial] … The outrage machine goes on. People aren’t looking to have a dialogue. People are looking to shut each other down, get that zinger, screenshot it and share it with all of their mates, and nothing changes.
Yeah, I think that’s true. Another by-product of social media and the internet is how belligerent people have become, and how things are very much black and white. There’s no room really for discussion and discourse anymore. Obviously, the so-called “cancel culture” comes out of that. But I think, more broadly speaking, there is a sense of incredible polarisation in people’s opinions, and the amount of belligerence … People are very quick to judge, to complain, to take offence, and to go on the offence. That is something I’ve been very much aware of, growing by the year. I mean, I think it has a draining effect. It’s not something I’m necessarily conscious of, but I think, generally speaking, people are feeling kind of drained by the relentless onslaught of negativity and belligerence, and the lack of dialogue and intelligent discourse. And you’re right – I think the media have a lot to answer for [with] this whole thing about “clickbait” … deliberately blowing things out of proportion in order to get a response or reaction, but that unfortunately is partly how the internet works. Being reasonable, being subtle, being intellectual, just doesn’t get anybody interested. Nobody gets engaged in that stuff. It’s the sensationalism that gets engagement, sadly.
This is not an actual suggestion, but can you imagine if someone just set off a little EMP in Silicon Valley, and just knocked out Facebook and Twitter? What do you think would happen if we went without social media for about a week?
Wow … Well, I think the answer is absolutely nothing. Nothing would happen. [Laughs] Nobody would be any the worse off for not having social media. Unfortunately social media is one of those things that we don’t need but we’ve become addicted to anyway. Part of the subject matter of The Future Bites is really this idea that we are now a species of narcissists, and the reason we’ve become a species of narcissists is because we’ve become so used to seeing ourselves and our opinions reflected back at us through social media that we’re now all understanding in a way what it means to be “famous” or “celebrity”. There was a time where the only people who would see their opinions and their ideas and their creation reflected back at them would be pop stars and people who make movies – that was it. Nowadays, everyone understands the notion of posting an opinion, or saying something on the internet, and having people that you’ve never met, and that you don’t know, engage and respond to that. What that’s done is create this new sense of self-obsession and narcissism, which obviously isn’t a good thing. There’s no way that’s something that we would want to encourage, certainly in the younger generation, and yet they are growing up in a world where they are used to the idea of posting images, ideas, thoughts, opinions to strangers … I would love to be able to put the genie back in the bottle or un-open Pandora’s Box – choose your own metaphor. I don’t think the world would be any worse off for that – I think we’d be better off! [Laughs] But clearly that’s a fantasy, that’s not going to happen unfortunately. I think the process of human evolution has already been altered because of social media and the internet.
I take it from that enormous wall of records behind you that you did alright during 2020? How did you keep sane?
Well, I do buy a lot of records, it has to be said, but I’ve also been buying records for the best part of forty years now, since I started buying records as a teenager. This is quite literally a life’s work. What did I do to keep sane? I used the time to find other ways of being creative. I started on a book project, which was fun. It was a book about my ideas about music, and the way that music engages with the world these days, and I also started a podcast with my friend – a music-based podcast, where we talk about records that we like, and more obscure records that maybe people don’t know. I started working on another record, as you’d expect me to, so I used the time to be creative, during a period of time where normally I would be putting all my efforts into preparing for a long tour … I don’t mourn the fact that I didn’t have to do that, and I was able to find more creative things to do, but it’s been going on for a year now, and I’m ready to do something that doesn’t entail me staying in the house, you know what I mean?
Can you see yourself returning to Australia when we open back up?
Absolutely, I would love to. It’s one of my favourite places to come. I think the first time PORCUPINE TREE came there was 2007. Ever since then it’s been near the top of the list of places to come back to … It’s always exhausting, because of the jetlag, and having to fly every morning to the next city, but it’s such a fun experience.
What do you see as PORCUPINE TREE’s legacy? How do you feel about it now when you look back on it?
Well, I’m very proud of it. I think PORCUPINE TREE … we struggled, when we were together. We never sold many records, we never sold many tickets, and I’ve done a lot better as a solo artist, commercially-speaking, than PORCUPINE TREE ever did, but … I think the legend has grown, and continues to grow, and I do hear now … [that] we have been quietly influential in our own way, particularly in the sense of that combination of songwriting, heavy riffs, sound design and ambient texture, and the way we kind of put it all together was kind of unique, which I think, ironically, was also what made it very difficult for us. We never really fit in with genre. We were too soft for heavy metal crowds, we were too modern-arty for the old-school progressive rock crowds, our compositions were too complicated for popular mainstream radio, etc. We didn’t really ever fit in anywhere, but I think ultimately that will prove, perhaps, to be our greatest strength, and our greatest legacy. The band doesn’t sound like anyone else – still, to this day – and we did kind of carve out a little unique place for ourselves in the history of rock music.
The Future Bites is out now on Nuclear Blast.
