Porcupine Tree began almost as a joke in 1987, when Steven Wilson and his friend, Malcolm Stocks, decided to start a fictitious band. Inspiration came from one of Steven’s favourite groups, XTC, who in 1984 formed an imaginary psychedelic band called The Dukes of Stratosphear. The band was made up of members of XTC given fictitious names, like Sir John Johns and Lord Cornelius Plum. They played music inspired by the late 1960s and were initially marketed as a mysterious new act.
Following XTC’s example, Steven invented fictitious members for his own band, Porcupine Tree: Sir Tarquin Underspoon, Timothy Tadpole-Jones, Sebastian Tweetle-Blampton III, and a drummer called The Expanding Flan. Although the band consisted only of Steven Wilson recording in his bedroom at his parents’ house, he took it seriously enough that he decided to record several hours’ worth of material.
Steven released a series of recordings on cassette, under the Porcupine Tree name:Tarquin’s Seaweed Farm (Words from a Hessian Sack) (1989),The Nostalgia Factory (and other tips for amateur golfers) (1990) andThe Love, Death& Mussolini EP (1990). To preserve the joke, Steven also invented an extensive discography and a long history for the Porcupine Tree.
Simultaneously, Steven formed an art rock band, No-Man, with singer Tim Bowness and violinist Ben Coleman. The band signed to the indie record label now known as One Little Independent Records, whose roster included Björk. But despite early promise and high praise from the press, the group achieved only modest success. Wilson and Bowness continued as a duo, releasing several studio albums.
In early 1989, Steven started sending out copies ofTarquin’s Seaweed Farm to various people he thought might be interested. The cassette caught the attention of Richard Allen and Ivor Trueman, who produced an underground magazine calledFreakbeat. They were in the process of starting a new record label called Delerium. They agreed to put one of Steven’s songs on their first release: a compilation of music by psychedelic groups. Delerium also reissued the first two Porcupine Tree cassettes.
Steven was invited to sign to the Delerium label, and he compiled some of the material he’d already released, into a double album calledOn the Sunday of Life. Although it was under the band name, Porcupine Tree, it was still a solo project. The record was released in early 1992 in a limited edition of 1,000 copies, which sold out very quickly. The album was reissued, and by the end of the decade, had sold 20,000 copies.
In late 1992, Steven released the single ‘Voyage 34’, which was originally to be part of another double album. The eventual release –Up the Downstair (1993) – did not include ‘Voyage 34’ and was a single album rather than a double. Although Porcupine Tree was still a solo project, the record did include guest contributions from future band members Richard Barbieri and Colin Edwin. In December 1994, further songs from theUp the Downstair sessions were released, as theStaircase Infinities EP – a limited edition of 2,000 – later released on CD.
In 1993, Steven decided he wanted to play Porcupine Tree music live, and he got together a band consisting of himself on guitar and vocals, Barbieri on keyboards, Edwin on bass, and Chris Maitland on drums. They made their debut on 4 December 1993 at the Nag’s Head pub in High Wycombe, England, in fro
