Interview – Devin Townsend

On September 7th, I once again got the honor of interviewing Canadian Progressive Metal madman/genius, Devin Townsend. I met up with him in his dressing room in San Francisco’s Great American Ballroom. 

This interview features us discussing Townsend’s new album Epicloud, his first band, his next project, being on the road and more.

Read or listen ot the full interview after the jump…

Devin Townsend – I had a crazy night last night and I just can’t seem to shake it, you know? It usually takes me like a day. Yeah, it’s been a weird one man. 

Daniel Cordova – What is a crazy night these days as you are a sober gentleman? 

DT – Well, I woke up in the middle of the night not knowing where I was. 

DC – That sounds rough. 

DT – Oh, you know those feelings. If you fall asleep in a place that you’re unfamiliar with, takes a little while to recalibrate yourself. I think that’s what it was, you know? I’ve been working so much at home and I’m in the studio and the all of a sudden, I’m on tour. I woke up in the middle of the night going, “What the f*ck? Where am I? Who am I? What am I doing?” and it took me like ten minutes to kind of, you know, come to terms with it. You know, it happens sometimes and it takes a little while to bring yourself back to reality, right? 

DC – I would think after a day off it would be a little easier than, say, you have a show tomorrow night right? 

DT – Yeah, yeah. 

DC – Then you just wake up tomorrow afternoon in LA or something? 

DT – Well, it’s hard for me to be objective about what’s more difficult, right? It’s like, it is what it is. I’ve been doing it for so long, kind of just take it as it comes, but sometimes it takes me a little longer to get with the program than others. This tour, it seems to be good, it’s just, I’m on tour again. It usually takes me about a week to get my sea legs back, right? 

DC – I couldn’t remember if it was a tweet of yours or Ryan (van Poederooyen) but where it was something about “imminent failure” at the beginning. 

DT – Oh, it was me…

DC – How’s it been on the two days so far? 

DT – I think sonically, it was a bit of a failure at the beginning, but, you know, I think sound man and all that sort of sh*t. Trying to figure it out, it’s like if, It’s a fine line between what I’m doing right know between it becoming really cool and it just being like a disaster, right? So—But really the bottom line is, it’s just the beginning of a tour. 

DC – Oh ok, Something I wanted to ask you last time but, time constraints— 

DT – Sure, yeah. 

DC – What was your first band called and what did it sound like? 

DT – First band… 

DC – Or your first musical experiment. 

DT – Well, I guess I was in sixth grade and I hand a “band” that I put together. We were called Manta. 

DC – Nice. 

DT – Yeah. Incredibly cheesy. But it was just, you know, a bunch of kids in sixth grade listening to Motley Crue, right? Like, yeah. And I like that whole heavy metal satanic thing that was going on at the time. I found that to be enticing as a young kid, right? Which, in hindsight is very interesting, not because I necessarily believed in any of that sh*t, because I certainly don’t, but I find it interesting in hindsight how susceptible kids are if they are connected to a type of music, you know? So I think that my fascination with that sort of aesthetic led me places that, in hindsight, that were the best life choices for me. So I think now, that with what I do, I think I’m trying to make a conscious effort to make what I do healthy in a way. I don’t feel like I have a responsibility, necessarily for younger people or anything. There’s none of that sort of, you know, need to be the focus of any of that attention. But I think if you’re given a loud speaker, which I feel I have been, I feel you have a choice of what you want to say through it and just recently I decided that I want to say things that are maybe a little more empowering than I have in the past and I feel better for it, to be honest, right? 

DC – That, kind of Motley Crue, thing sort of leads me to Epicloud, I know it’s a huge jump from sixth grade to now but –

DT – Much bigger than I care to admit, to be honest.

Pick up Epicloud September 18th via HevyDevy Records

DC – But the newest album has a lot of influence called from Def Leppard and stuff, and it’s this huge, epic, positive, thing. Was Deconstruction, Ghost and all of that kind of like a purge and this is like a—

DT – This is a continuation of the purge. I remember when I did Deconstruction, I was hesitant to do heavy music again because of this internal fear I guess I had of engaging in something and not trusting myself enough to be able to control it, right? But I think Epicloud is an extension of that same fear except instead of it being a fear of heavy music, it was a fear of commercial music, or accessible music. There’s this unspoken sense within the heavy music community, as far as I’m aware, that to engage in any of those sounds is to essentially to sell out. But It kind of puts you in this odd situation that if you really do like that, you know, and I really do like commercial music, I REALLY like it. So, I think as a continuation of that whole purge, to make a record like Epicloud, which I don’t have any intension of repeating, was very healthy for me because, in the same way that I was able to say in Deconstruction, “well, f*ck it! I’m just going to make a heavy record.” After Deconstruction came out, it was received well by the people who I felt understand it what I do, but with confusion with maybe the typical heavy metal audience. It was liberating for me. It’s like, “ok this is great, I’m just going to make a commercial record and get that out of my system as well.” Now that I have, it’s pretty much sky’s the limit, you know. I’ve got this other record that I’m working on that I really, really feel close to. It’s this record called Casualties, right? I guess the closest vibe-wise that I could put it to would be like Ki, I guess, but with out any heavy. It’s this sort of country-ish, sort of haunted sounding background music and it’s a satellite to Epicloud in a way because it was written at a similar time for most of the material, but I do like the idea of that sound for me. Like, I like music that is barely above a whisper, right? Which, I guess, is the irony of making this whole Epicloud thing, which is as loud as I could go. 

DC – It’s defiantly a jump from Ghost considering there are literal whisper kinds of vocals on there.

DT – Oh sure, I mean the quietest thing I’ve done would be Casualties beyond Ghost, beyond any of it.

DC – More than like, Hummer? That was a very quiet record.

DT – Well, these are song and Hummer was—If you turn Hummer up that’s a loud record, man. It’s like something that’s pretty destructive in it’s own way, right? Casualties is—It all sort of sounds like, sort of, Johnny Cash style stuff, right? But every record definitely influences the one that comes after so after Ghost, I needed to make something shiny and commercial and accessible and it just seemed to be what I was drawn towards after making all this unaccessible sort of stuff. And then after Epicloud, I find that has kind of compelled me to do something that is the opposite of that, you know? Something that, as quiet as Epicloud was loud, right?

DC – I’m torn between asking you Z2 or “Zed 2” 

DT – Sure! 

DC – …or asking you about Retinal Circus because both of those seem like large projects to take on. Where is your mind, as far as—Right now is it just casualties and the Circus? 

DT – Well yeah, Casualties and the Circus. I’ve been writing for “Zed Squared” but I think that I’m interest in seeing where things are going to lead me as well. I’ve got this desire to play live shows and have it this certain thing and the road to that include what we’re doing right now and tonight and all that, today. And it’s very important for us to step up and keep it moving. What I think I want to do musically, in the future past Casualties is probably, for “Zed Squared” is probably more orchestral, a lot more—a lot faster. It’s a lot darker but I think the really quiet stuff is where my heart will always lie and other than that I really want to do this TV show with Ziltoid. 

DC – Yeah, I remember you touching on that at one point. 

DT – We’ve been working on the puppet and it’s awesome. But, you know, I’ve kind of going to allow myself a bit of breathing room after Casualties has finished, just to allow thing to find their own way, as apposed to dictating it as strongly as I have, right?

Keep your eyes peeled for two more articles in a triology of Townsend content in the coming week.

_Daniel Cordova
Tune in to Far Beyond Metal every Tuesday from 3-5 PM PST on KSSU.com