Porcupine Tree frontman and prolific solo artist Steven Wilson has a habit of bouncing between genres. Which makes sense, considering his opinion on picking one guitar tone and making that your whole thing.
In an interview with That Pedal Show, Wilson said he really wishes players would switch up their tone and stop relying on one specific sound to do everything.
“I’m constantly disappointed by extraordinary guitar players that have got no concept of how to change their sound, change their tone,” he said, adding “They play with the same tone the whole time because it’s that tone that enables them to play a million notes… As a sound, it’s boring.”
“It’s a very broad statement, this. A lot of the modern generation of guitar players forget that 50% of being a guitar player is working with tone, with pedals and let’s not be purist about this – these days with plugins.”
Wilson touched on what makes a good solo, saying “To me a solo, 50% of a solo is actually not [the] solo, it’s the chords underneath it.”
“Because if you have an interesting chord progression – you can play one note, or two or three notes and the way that those notes … relate back to that chord progression particularly if it is quite an unusual, complex chord progression. That is where the beauty of the solo really lies.”
But really, what makes a good song is… well, writing a good song. You can check out our free 7 Day Riff-to-Song Challenge course right here and the (not free) Complete Rock and Metal Songwriting course here.
