http://www.undertheradarmag.com/interviews/steven_wilson_on_the_future_bitesIn recent years it seems fair to say that your interest in electric guitar has waxed and waned—much like the attitude toward guitar in Western culture. Last year, Rolling Stone magazine published an article with the headline “Is the Guitar Solo Finished?” On this new album the guitar has a more textural approach. But there are guitar solos on “Eminent Sleaze” and “Follower.” Tell me about your non-traditional approach to those guitar breaks.
I am a bit bored of the guitar right now. But I think there’s a broader thing here, which is we live in the electronic world now. All the sound we hear on a daily basis around us is electronic. My kids, they don’t hear guitars unless they actually go and specifically listen to a guitar song. Everything around them from the sounds that their iPad makes, to the sound coming from the TV, to the doorbell chimes. What place does the guitar or the bass or the drums have in the world like that? Well, increasingly less and less. I like the idea that music continues to evolve and continues to upset old people like me because it’s gone in a direction that is not as familiar to us.
I think the golden era of rock and roll music, rock music, classic rock music that prevailed for about 50 years—from the 1950s through to the end of the 20th century—is going the same way that jazz music went. Because jazz music was the popular mainstream music of the first half of the 20th century. And classic rock and rock music was the popular mainstream music of the second half of the 20th century.
I believe the music of the first half of the 21st century ultimately is going to come down to the sound of urban music, electronic music, R&B music—or at least music that has a strong electronic element to it.
I’ve increasingly felt myself bored by guitar. I feel like I’ve kind of exhausted the possibilities, at least that I’m capable of exploring, on that instrument. And when a band like Greta Van Fleet is the best that the new wave of rock bands has to offer, you know it’s dead. And I say that with the caveat that I’m sure there is some really great guitar music out there. But my point is this: It’s not in the mainstream.
So, I think Rolling Stone is absolutely right, music moves on, it evolves. And that means that the musical vocabulary, the musical palette also dies and is reborn in different ways.
And I think the reality is that the guitar is going to become a bit like a saxophone or the trumpet before it. It’s going to be something that is still passionately pursued by some people. But it will be a niche kind of thing. And there’s always casualties along the way. And I might be one of those casualties, you know, but I have to accept that. 
Topic: Steven Wilson v. To. The. Bone. (Read 371628 times)
