The Songwriting Process

Steven Wilson, founder of progressive rock band Porcupine Tree and musician/producer extraordinaire, comments on using different writing approaches for different projects and channeling depression:

Provide some insight into your creative process.

I don’t really have one to be honest with you. People ask me “Do you write songs on piano or guitar? Do you start with lyrics or music?” The answer is all of the above. I have no rules. There’s a great deal of diversity in my different projects. … there’s a completely different artistic process going on behind each. Bass Communion is all about the manipulation of recordings of acoustic instruments in the computer. Porcupine Tree is closer to a traditional songwriting approach of sitting down at a piano or guitar with some lyrical themes to work with.

So, there’s no great pattern, except for the fact that in order to write music, I have to be depressed. I was never really aware of this until the last couple of years. I usually create music when I’m in a negative state of mind. It’s quite a painful process. I love recording, touring and promoting the records, but the art of writing music is very much a cathartic and painful one for me. People ask me to reconcile my personality, which is not melancholic or dark, with the music that very much represents those things. My explanation is that the music is where that side of me goes. The music is an exorcism of those elements within.

Source: Innerviews