“The band didn’t like what I was doing”: Why Steven Wilson’s spatial audio Guns ‘N Roses remix album was scrappedSince 2009, Steven Wilson has been transforming classic records into spatial audio experiences. From Chic, to Tears For Fears, to The Who, plenty of artists have asked the Porcupine Tree frontman to remix their tracks – but Guns ‘N Roses weren’t too impressed by Wilson’s work.
While Wilson’s remix of November Rain did see the light of day, with a spatial audio version of  dropping in 2022, there are nearly 40 remixes that remain unheard. Despite Wilson being enlisted to remix 1991’s Use Your Illusion I and II double release, the band pulled the plug. “Well, the challenge was that the band didn’t like what I was doing,” Wilson reveals on a new episode of the Scars And Guitars podcast.

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“I did it all, and then the band basically vetoed it all,” he adds. “So the only thing that ever came out was my remix of November Rain, with a real orchestra added. It’s a shame, ’cause there’s a lot of music on those records… I think I worked on about 40 songs, including outtakes, B-sides. And then the band turned around and decided they didn’t like it!”
Instead of telling him directly, the bad news was delivered through the record company. “They didn’t like Dolby Atmos, they didn’t like the idea of their music being in spatial audio,” Wilson explains. “So that project is kind of just sitting on my hard drive, unreleased and unheard. It’s such a shame.”

In a NME interview earlier this year, Wilson explored his fascination with immersive 3D audio and the potential future of the sound. “Atmos sound has nothing below you, and you could have speakers underneath,” he mused. “But the big innovation won’t necessarily be in expanding spatial – I think it’s how to bring it into a live context. Right now, it’s tricky, as you need a week to acoustically calibrate and tune it, and that’s not practical when you play a new city every night.”
“It’s interesting to see more venues having spatial audio already installed, like The Sphere in Las Vegas,” he added. “If more venues do that, it gives artists chance to tour a more immersive show. I hope that will be a big progress over the next few years.”

While Wilson was at least able to give a new lease of life to November Rain with the help of a 50-piece orchestra, he’s been making his own efforts to breathe new life into rock in his own solo work. 2025’s The Overview record saw Wilson delving back into the realms of prog-rock, attempting to reimagine the prog guitar solo on the track Objects Outlive Us.
“I said to Randy McStine: ‘We’re going to reinvent the notion of the extended classic rock solo’,” Wilson told NME in the same interview.

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