Lightbulb Sons
Some double acts were just meant to be. Wilson & Wakeman – Arena vocalist Damian Wilson and Black Sabbath keysman Adam Wakeman – have become one of prog’s most creative duos, with a chemistry that’s unrivalled. Their latest album, Can We Leave The Light On Longer?, finds the pair exploring topics from AI to absent friends via some of the most heartfelt and tear-jerking songs Prog ’s heard in a while. We caught up with them to find out more.
Words: Jo Kendall
Images: Jan de Wild
It’s 11am and mayhem on the other side of the Zoom call. Tuning in from the former’s home studio in Buckinghamshire, Adam Wakeman and Damian Wilson are in fits of giggles, fauxbickering, and have set up an elaborate show for this interview where Wakeman asks if he can move Wilson’s acoustic guitar as he’s concerned about its preservation, which he then picks up and tumbles onto, behind Wilson, with much comedy clanging. Wilson, meanwhile, has a radio cassette-player that he’s fiddling with and keeps pressing play on a tape titled The Best Of Rick Wakeman, a prop for upcoming live shows that’s designed to irk his bandmate.
Prog is having flashbacks. At Cropredy in 2019 the duo were postshow and tiddly, this interviewer playing a Mary Poppins role in bringing the performers down from nearlevitating around a Portakabin just like the I Love To Laugh scene.