Project Featuring ÅKERFELDT, WILSON, PORTNOY Begins Work On Music

PORCUPINE TREE's Steven Wilson revealed to Chordstruck Magazine that he has begun work on material for his much-anticipated collaboration with Mikael Åkerfeldt from OPETH and Mike Portnoy from DREAM THEATER. "I started writing with Mikael last month, finally," he said. "It's still in the very early days.

"We wrote about 15 minutes of music last month in my studio near London and we're very excited about it.

"I think people are going to be very surprised by the direction.

"If they're expecting some kind of death-metal-progressive rock, they're going to be surprised [because] it's not like that."

He continued, "If you put the two of us together, the last thing we're going to do is something similar to what people already know from our most high-profile project.

"It's very arty, very ambitious; it's going to be epic.

"We're still writing.

"[It's going to be] very dark, very twisted, very experimental.

"It's still rock music, but we're trying to do something really, really special and really different with this."

In a September 2009 interview with Australia's PyroMusic.net, Mike Portnoy stated about the project, "The three of us each mentioned wanting to work with each other years ago, and since then it's kind of been this rumor that won't go away. I think all three of us regret ever mentioning it at this point, but I think the hype or anticipation around it has surpassed anything we possibly could realistically deliver. So I think now all three of us are kind of hesitant to do it, because there's been so much hype about it. (laughs)

"This is an example of where the Internet can somehow be a bad thing and I think... that's why I try to keep as tight of a lid on things as possible when we're making a record, because anything that is said or leaked or heard, it opens up this can of worms of discussion and once people start discussing and discussing and discussing and dissecting and anticipating, they build up such a level of hype and expectations in their head that it's impossible to ever satisfy it. So that's one of the bad things about the Internet.

"In answer to your question though, I think we'd love to work together, but at this point, we just don't know when."

(Thanks: Marko Kutberg)