Steven Wilson Quotes

My best business decision was to be independent as a musician and artist. My worst was compromising on certain aspects of a deal for the sake of other members of my group when I shouldn't have, because I was right in the end.

Most bands don't work out. A small unit democracy is very, very difficult.

Democracy can tie your hands in a rock 'n' roll band, you know? It can be a great thing, but if you've got a certain amount of vision and you write a lot of songs, it's sometimes better to have your own band and make your own decisions.

The wild thing is that when I'm in the band, I can control my destiny with four other guys. As a composer sitting in the audience, you can throw good vibes at everybody, but you can't control anybody's destiny, so it's really unsettling.

I enjoy directing more when I don't have to direct myself. I like when I can just be the director.

With Pearl Jam, everybody is so good at what they do, it's hard to get up the courage to say, Can I sing this part, or, I want to play guitar. I feel like I have more courage to do that.

George was getting alot of independence for himself in those days. He was writing more, and wanted things to go his way - where, when we first started things basically went John and Paul's way. You know, 'cuz they were the writers.

I don't dictate, you don't dictate to Stevie Wonder, not successfully.

The more alone I am, the more focused I can get. I've written things with people, some of which I liked and others I think are total travesties. Collaborating is trying to make a piece of music and get someone else to come up with the ideas. What's the fun of that?

Movies are a team sport now, and I want to play singles.

People forget that keeping a band together is hard; man, it's really hard. All the cliches apply about living in each other's pockets; of it being a relationship, a marriage, a family.

The chairman of a committee should be in harmony with the majority who constitute it.

If you really wish to be independent and make your own judgements about everything important, it is difficult to be a good team player —because a team has different criteria for making judgements about an issue.

When we come into the NSC, everybody has different opinions. At the end of the day, we present the president with all the facts. We let him make the decision. And we all, as a team, go out and support that decision.

I don't think you can reach the same highs working in a band as you can on your own.

You've got to be able to compromise in a band; otherwise, somebody's more important than the next guy, and that's never been the case in Priest.

I don't really like to work with a large team and assistants, because then I lose so much time explaining things, which I don't like.

In a nine-piece-band is one guy gonna call up eight guys and have a 45-minute discussion about every decision? No. So things are a lot more democratic in Stone Sour. Plus, we're closer and it's a lot easier to communicate. In Slipknot that's the big problem - communication.

On 'Sound of My Voice,' I was the first and last word, which is kind of a dictatorship. I like collectives, though.

In our band, every member has input, but me and Steve do the majority of the writing. We start the songs, the rest of the band help us finish it.

I'm in a band. I have the basic idea, but when you surround yourself with really good players, why would I tell anyone what to play, because they're that good. They don't tell me what to play. They might encourage me, so that's what I do. I encourage them.

If you let too many cooks in the kitchen it could cloud your vision of what you want to do.

Democracy in the studio is overrated. What you wind up getting is compromise on everybody's part, which means that nobody has their way, and that means nobody wins, including the fans.

In Mudcrutch we all wrote songs, and when it got to the focus on Tom and the Heartbreakers, I kept writing songs, but it wasn't anything that was up the Heartbreakers tree, I didn't think - and I don't think they did, either. So I kept writing songs for the hell of it, but I didn't want to make a record just for the sake of making a record.

I always step back and look at - you know, look at my background in playing team sports my whole life and taking that approach into Congress. It's not about me going, and you know, feeding my ego going to Congress.