Porcupine Tree
Englands prog princes return with a concept album for and about the A.D.D. generation
Englands prog princes return with a concept album for and about the A.D.D. generation
Its Ironic that when attention spans are getting shorter, records are getting longer and longer, says Porcupine Tree mastermind Steven Wilson. Its almost like music is measured by the yard now. In reaction to this trend toward long-windedness (embodied most notably by bands like the Mars Volta and Tool), Porcupine Tree kept their latest, Fear of a Blank Planet (Atlantic), to a tidy 51 minutes despite the fact that more than half of the albums six tracks are over seven minutes long, and its sprawling centerpiece, Anesthetize, is nearly 18. Featuring guest shots from Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson and King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp, Fear captures the renowned English prog wizards (including pianist Richard Barbieri, bassist Colin Edwin, and drummer Gavin Harrison) at their most limber and conceptually relevant.
Revolver Was there any specific incident that informed the lyrical themes on Fear of a Blank Planet?
Steven Wilson There were many things that coalesced at the same time, but the main thing was reading the last Bret Easton Ellis Book [2006's] Lunar Park. The central thing is a father's relationship with his son, who is very much the role model for the character in Fear of a Blank Planet - this kind of terminally bored kid, anywhere between 10 and 15 years old, who spends all his daylight hours in his bedroom with the curtains closed, playing on his PlayStation, listening to his iPod, texting his friends on his cell phone, looking at hardcore pornography on the Internet, downloading music, films, news, violence... He's also on prescription drugs. Parents these days seem to deal with their kids' problems not by sitting down and talking to them but by sending them to the doctor and getting them prescription drugs - which is kind of tragic, really.
Is there a message you're trying to get across?
You know, I'm a great believer that rock musicians and pop stars should never try and give people a message. I'm definitely one of those people who believe that music and art should be a kind of mirror - it shouldn't be something that preaches at you. In that respect, I feel like I've got a lot more in common with, say, Thom Yorke, than I have with Bono, who wants to tell people how they should think, how they should vote, how they should lead their lives. I've always found that really patronizing.
The title is a reference to Public Enemy's Fear of a Black Planet. Were you a fan?
Yeah, I was. That first generation of hip-hop artists was very important to me and the people I was growing up with. There was a real sense back then that the big issue for most young people was race relations. The Rodney King incident was a little later, in the early Nineties, but I remember when I grew up there were a lot of Rock Against Racism shows, Public Enemy and De La Soul were coming out, there were movies like Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing - and that kind of stuff seemed to address the issues that young people were thinking about. Now they don't seem to be thinking about anything - except themselves.
Was it your intention to combine really long songs into a relatively short album, or did it just turn out that way?
It was and it wasn't. I don't set out to write long pieces of music, but at the same time, I don't stop them if they keep growing. With this album, I just wanted to make a really intense piece of music - which is also a reason why the record as a whole is comparatively short. I get really tired of CDs that are filled to the max with 80 minutes of music. As much as I love bands like the Mars Volta and Tool, I can't listen to their albums all the way through in one go. For me, the classic records - [the Beach Boys'] Pet sounds, [the Beatles'] Revolver, Nick Drake's Pink Moon, [Pink Floyd's] Dark Side of the Moon - they're all in that 40-minute pocket. And there's definitely a lesson to be learned there.
J. BENNETT
