A tale of death threats, accusations of being a Communist and the importance of Love, Roine Stolt talks about resisting formulas, looking beyond the boundaries of prog rock, and why he won’t compromise his creative vision with The Flower Kings.

Words: David West

“It's a very good place for me to be in life, creating music,” says Roine Stolt. There aren’t many musicians, whether in progressive rock or beyond, whose lives have been defined by music as completely as Stolt’s. He joined Swedish prog flagbearers Kaipa aged just 17 and five decades later, he remains one of progressive music’s most prolific composers and collaborators. Now Stolt taps into the zeitgeist with Love, the 17th studio album from The Flower Kings, the group he founded in 1994. For the bandleader, creating has been his life’s calling.

“I just enjoy being in the zone,” he says. “At a younger age I was also painting, and I was going to go to art school, but then I was picked up by a band when I was 17 and we were playing 150 shows a year. So that became my profession, and I forgot about art school. This is what I do.”

With a career spanning over 50 years, Stolt could be forgiven for resting on his laurels. The surviving artists who built progressive rock in the 1960s and 1970s are either retiring or seem determined to secure their legacy and finish as much work as possible while they still can.