For the exclusive interview with eclipsed, Steven Wilson comes to the offices of his new management in London's Fulham district. Not only the management is new, Wilson is also under contract to a record company - the major label Caroline. More than two years have passed since the release of his last record "Hand. Cannot. Erase." A time when the world kept spinning and Wilson gained new insights. Insights that have also been reflected in "To The Bone". Polite and detailed as ever, he answers. His typical self-irony flashes up again and again, for example when the manager points out that the talk time is up: "No problem, we're already on the last question. But maybe I still need 20 minutes to answer them."
eclipsed: Two songs of the new album deal with the topic of terrorism. Two days ago in Manchester was the attack at the concert of Ariana Grande. What are you thinking?
Steven Wilson: The human species no longer functions. The less people need the myth of God, the more fundamentalist and hateful a minority becomes. And this minority thinks it's their mission to destroy everyone else's world. It's the same impulse that makes people defame others on the Internet. You see so much hatred in the social media. One of the working titles for my new album was "Ask Me Nicely" because so many people have lost all decency. Paranoia, hate, anger, fear, confusion everywhere. Civilization's going down the drain.
eclipsed: How did you know how to make the album sound?
Wilson: I started working on the new album at the end of 2015, so long before the "Hand. Cannot. Erase" tour was over. The two previous albums were deeply rooted in the music of the 70s. Now I wanted to devote myself more to my songwriting and my melodic side. This album should be much more a solo album. That's why I play almost all the guitars on the album again. I wanted to play as much as I could myself, guitar, bass, keyboards. When I saw The Raven and Hand. Cannot. Erase," I remixed the King Crimson, Jethro Tull and Yes albums. Now I remixed XTC, Tears For Fears and Simple Minds. I also heard a lot of Kate Bush, Talk Talk and Peter Gabriel. All these records are fantastic. These are elegant, smart pop albums. They have songs with great melodies, profound lyrics, a great production and are very ambitious. I thought to myself: Such records are hardly produced today. I'd like to make an album like that.
eclipsed: People who got to know you through "The Raven" will surely be surprised by the new album.
Wilson: Oh, yeah. But you can listen to two of my albums and no matter how different they are, they are recognizable as Steven Wilson albums. That's exactly how I like it. With musicians like Prince, David Bowie or Neil Young, all of whom I appreciate very much, you never knew what they would do next. But you could always be a fan of them. An artist does what he has to do.
