Devin Townsend – Uber Rock Interview Exclusive
Written by Rob Watkins & Jay Humphris
Sunday, 22 November 2015 03:00
Rob Watkins: Hi Devin, thanks for taking some of your precious time out to speak to us here at Uber Rock.
Devin Townsend: No it`s a pleasure and thank you for your time too.
So, to the untrained mind out there in the uberverse, tell us who Devin Townsend, the musician and the person, really is.
I’m a 43 year old, a white middle class Canadian male. I was born May 5th. I’m perpetually confused and I play music as a result of that confusion, and that seems to solidify into music of varying degrees of intensity and quality which I’ve been doing so for 25 years.
From an outsider’s perspective you appear to have always done things the way you want musically speaking, hence the different and quite wonderful musical directions you’ve followed on this journey of yours. Is this perspective correct?
That’s kinda of a hard question to answer as that goes hand in hand with my progress as a person, and that seems to be unpredictable at the best of times. (Laughing) Any trajectory that my career has taken is purely coincidental, you know I tend to react to things a lot so that’s why things are stylistically different and it’s not because I’m not necessarily trying to experiment with styles as much as I just follow it to where it leads, and the reaction of something heavy is to do something quiet, and the reaction to something quiet is to do something that rocks, and so on and so forth, and I just follow it where it leads and obliviously so for the most part.
You are a number of dates into this “An Evening With” acoustic UK tour, how have things been going thus far.
It’s the same thing as we describe in the process of making records, it’s different every night, I mean one thing I do enjoy is improvising, I don`t stake a claim to it in anyway other than I just enjoy it. It’s nice to not have to follow a routine and therefore each one of these things has been a different experience, and it’s churches, and I’m not really a religious person, but certainly the spiritual aspects of what I do is the foundation of it all, and there’s elements of irony and confusion and all that stuff, and all the gigs have been good. (Laughing) Well I think so, some have been really quiet and some have been really raucous, and you sort of react to it.
Looking at some of the photos on social media of the shows leading up to this one it’s looking oh so beautiful with the surroundings you’ve chosen.
Yeah, Jesus is hanging behind me. (Laughing)
And here tonight in Bristol is different again. What with it being all standing.
Yeah, but that`s good because the process of creativity definitely revolves around my awareness of not knowing anything, and every year, day, monthand hour goes by and being in these environments makes you confront your vices or long standing assumptions of what have you and I think plays into the creative process. In a way that’s actually healthy and also takes you out of your comfort zone, it’s out of my comfort zone for sure, (laughing) typically other than watching Antiques Roadshow or eating, for me it`s like ultimately all these things are very productive.
So what was the thought process behind this acoustic tour and the chosen tour venues?
That was a happy accident. I had a meeting with the management and I said “I’m happy to continue to do the things that fund us cause it’s not a big money making thing,” so in order for this to happen, and for me to continue to make my puppets and do my symphonies and all the crap I’m interested in, I have to generate income, so there`s a certain facet of what I do that comes naturally. Thank god that is more commercially viable, so I said “look it’s cool to keep writing that stuff but if it’s to the exclusion of everything else then I’m gonna get bored really quickly, so if you can just shake it up and give me other things to experiment with….” and this was one of those things, purely from the management side.
Obviously there are many Devin aficionados out there inspired by your good self but who initially inspired you growing up, musically or otherwise and is there anything new over recent times that has influenced you?
Can I ask how old you are?
I’m 48.
I’m 43, and I don`t know about you but the older I get my connection to music has certainly changed, and with my connection to music and new things I listen to, I don’t have favourites like I used to, but I do listen to music constantly. When I was younger as with any musician or person in general there`s too many things to list but whilst I was driving here today I remembered something that was of huge significance to me was the ‘Watermark’ album by Enya, and I can`t remember for whatever reason, but as a kid I just wanted to mix that with Metallica, maybe get some Def Leppard style production in there right, but for the sake of this conversation let`s just say Enya.
So what are your feelings about the music industry and music in general in 2015?
Well I guess I’m shocked that I get to do this…so hooray! (Laughing) I mean people ask me what I think about downloading or Spotify, I mean I’m on Spotify and feel free to download my stuff, I mean I don`t have aspirations to become rich and powerful, I just wanna make sure my family is okay, and I wanna be able to eat and have everything I need and I don’t wanna lose all that and start again, because that’s a pain in the arse, because that’s all that matters.
And for me growing up, I was a huge KISS fan, and over the years I went off them as they became businessmen and not just musicians.
Totally! But contrary to that fact being exclusively problematic, I’d suggest that I’m so not a businessman I had to find management and tour managers and people who truly were or else my creative desires would never have been actualized and I can’t do what I do unless I have business people around, and you know I have mugs out there with my name on, it’s like the Oprah Winfrey Show or something, (laughing) but at the end of the day, and getting back to your music industry question, there’s not really an option because I don’t sell records and we do shows here and there, and that’s okay, but we don`t make a ton of money and if we do make a bunch of money anywhere it goes to fund other places and other ventures where we don`t make money, so the end result of that is you have to suck it up and monetize yourself in some way and I struggle with that, but I get to do what I need to do and I try not to lie to people and insist that they buy stuff. You know you want it we got a whole range of stuff, you don`t want it that`s cool too.
As you are getting older do you find you are more of an on the road guy or are you more comfortable in the recording studio?
Studio, always, not just now, and I think that’s because I’m terrified of people and that puts me into social situations and I’d rather be left to the aforementioned Antiques Roadshow TV thing. Then I’d be fine you know. (Laughing) But I’ve got kids I’ve been married for 25 years, so it’s like yeah life has different plans. I think in a certain way the fact that I do interact with people and I do tour helps because I don’t think in actual fact I’d have anything to write about because it forces you to move out of your zone.
And with the songwriting aspect…how do you usually craft and create a Devin Townsend tune?
I think there’s a formula that I employ technically, but when it comes to songwriting I guess the easiest answer is that I don`t second guess things, I just act on impulse and I write constantly, and by constantly writing and not second guessing what I write I get to eliminate shitty ideas and you stumble across some good ones. Before I had kids I was so precious of the ideas and I was afraid to write anything shitty, or afraid to let go of things, but then as in life we have no option, and as a result I constantly write and for every 8 or 10 ideas there’s a really good one, so I focus on that one until it`s time to record. The technical process is all trial and error but I do it a certain way and it works.
Strapping Young Lad, is it R.I.P. for that band?
Oh yeah. I mean I love Strapping. Of course yeah it’s over but in the same breath I love it, the process I employed for Strapping is the same I employed for ‘Casualties’ or ‘Ziltoid’, it`s the same thing, it’s just then I was 25, you know, and now I’m 43. (Laughing)
Jay Humphris: So you’d never consider bringing it back?
Devin Townsend: I don’t know. Unless I turn 25 again. (Laughing). I suppose when you think about how some people write music it can be potentially confusing when I say “hey I’m not gonna bring this back”, it may come across as me being belligerent or hesitant to satisfy people. If I wrote like in a similar way to say Judas Priest who get together and you get an aesthetic that you’re trying to achieve and you’ve got an empire that evolves around that, but for me Strapping was a reaction to me being 25, and my reason for writing it was to not feel that way, and I worked it out and by doing it. Anybody who does music for a legitimate reason and they’re not living it then it’s a pantomime, and maybe at some point in my life I’ll decide I want to do pantomime but currently I’m so far from my goals as a human being that the idea of going back in time is so ludicrous and not only that so unhealthy.
I’ve been sober now for ten years, and I wasn`t when I was in Strapping, and that was based around a frame of mind that I’m no longer in, and some people say “you know what why don`t you go back on drugs?” and I say “well why don`t you go fuck yourself”, and I don`t mean that in an angry way, I think popular culture puts people in this frame of mind where they are like it`s important or viable to be a martyr for others. You know I’ll do it for the people but fuck that. You know it’s the same religious thing I have problems with, I remember years ago doing psychedelic drugs and realising, okay it’s great but then you can’t do it anymore you have to function without all that, and I think with Strapping all that time I was trying to get a grasp of what anger was. In the process of making all those records my emotions were rooted in fear, I didn`t understand anger, I thought if I was angrier than everybody else, maybe not consciously but subconsciously then I could reflect it which worked for a while, then all of a sudden it becomes your identity and when that happens your surrounded by the things you’re afraid of, and that’s just a constant effort to wake up and get your world together.
So when people say “we want you to do Strapping again”, I totally appreciate that and I love it but you have to politely explain your reasons, but I also have to assume those reasons are gonna fall on deaf ears in a lot of cases.
Rob Watkins: What was the experience like to tour and record with Steve Vai?
Devin Townsend; Taxing. (Laughing) I mean brilliantly taxing of course. Scary in fact. I mean I was a nineteen year old shit who took a dump in his guitar case, because at that time I couldn’t articulate my discontent, and now I’m finishing the autobiography and I’m reading back and I’m in contact with Steve a lot now and I’m singing a song on his new record and it`s like “Sorry”. (Cue much laughter all around)
We did the Tonight Show with Jay Leno and we were like backstage and the people were like really snobby, so me and my buddy went in the Green Room and locked all the windows up and I stuck the Green Room phone up my arse and we took a bunch of photos and then the next day they phoned the management cause they had it on a hidden camera and Steve was like looking at me and I’m like “I`m Sorry”. (Laughing) You know now if somebody said “Hey Dev stick this phone up your arse man” I’d be like “No I’m good man”. Plus a 43 year old arse is a lot different to a 19 year old arse. (Laughing)
I have to mention your time with The Wildhearts, and of course the ever so talented Ginger. What was that like?
Oh, he’s one of favourite people ever. You know Ginger and I have a complicated relationship because I think we’re similar in a lot of ways, but in a sense because of that our relationship has been mired in a sense by doing what I think the other person prefers and our interactions have always been really tiring. But I love the guy and so I did a song on ‘Mutations’ and my relationship with him has been good now for so many years. I lived in Wednesbury with like all of them in one room for whatever period of time that was back in 1993, and so it’s family in a certain way. However at the same time as you get older you realise what your perimeters are and for me my threshold for stimulus is so fucking low and getting lower as I get older. So loud things, parties, dramas, arguments all of these things, some people, maybe not thrive on them, but function well within those perimeters. And that wipes me out, so that was the thing with The Wildhearts, my reaction to stimulus was I fell asleep, so after The Wildhearts, I was like “oh shit I love this guy but I can`t do this anymore”, and that’s like Strapping and everything. You learn where your lines are but that doesn’t change the fact that I love them you know.
So let’s talk about the here and now and your last album releases. You must be so proud of these recent musical achievements…
I’m proud that I didn`t give up. (Laughing) I didn’t want to write. I’d been writing for so long, all I wanted to do was to make puppets, but by spending a shit load of money on the puppets I had to monetize it otherwise we were gonna run outta money, so I wrote all these angular ‘Ziltoid’ riffs which is what I do and it was like outta space music, and then the label was like “Yeah can you also give us something like ‘Addicted’, you know cause that sold and ‘Ziltoid’ is like weird arse puppet metal thing”. So I was like “well, if you let me do something more melodic will you let me do ‘Dark Matters’?” And they said “Yes”, so I went into it thinking it was gonna be easy I was gonna blast out another version of it. But it started and I was like “uh-oh” everything sounded like a shit version of what I’d just done and I wasn`t in the right frame of mind. I was miserable and tired, I was just exhausted and there was death around me and my cat got eaten, it was all like fucked up shit. Can’t I be happy, this sucks? So that gave me an angle to go for, and the process came of you against yourself, and so fortunately became Ziltoid against me and the two sides reflected that period of time. We won a Canadian award which is surprising but if somebody was to ask “what’s your proudest aspect of that for you?” I think it would be that I didn’t give up, because I wanted to from minute one. The couch is calling but we didn’t and it turned out well but I learnt that I won’t do it that way again.
Jay Humphris: So will Ziltoid be joining you tonight?
Devin Townsend: I think perhaps in spirit, because it pissed me off so much on ‘Dark Matters’ I banished him. (Laughing)
Rob Watkins: And so to the Devin Townsend Project, when can we expect ‘Transcendence’ to fall into our laps?
Devin Townsend: I don’t know if it`ll be called ‘Transcendence’, maybe something like that and we start recording in March so probably released September of next year.
And what is next for you musically speaking, so you have any musical ambitions you’ve yet to fulfil?
The ‘Transcendence’ record or whatever we call it is really looking good but along the lines of the more commercially oriented hard rock sort of thing that I like, plus I’m writing a symphony which is gonna cost me so much money, but it’s gonna be so awesome and the theme of it is gonna be so unmarketable, not to be provocative but that’s what seems to be on the cards You know 100 person symphony 100 person choir surround sound, a symphony about possibly male sexuality and a connection to spirituality and something to do with the moth or something, the whole idea is you’re so attracted to these things, fundamentally or biologically. That you’re willing to destroy yourself just to be a part of it right, it`s gonna be great, it’s gonna be challenging, it`s gonna be a hard sell. (Laughing) I also wanna play bass in a rocking sort of punkish type of band that would be awesome. I’m a good bass player too, I mean I produce so I know what it does, but people say “no you can`t play bass”, you know I hate, well I don’t hate it but it`s not as fun as playing bass. (Laughing)
You know when me and my mates go and see a band we sometimes judge them on how low the bassist wears their guitar. They always looks so cool with the bass down by their knees.
Yeah that`s it exactly. I can stand in the darkness and every now and again I can go up to the mic and say “Hey!” (Laughing) When I became a dad I realised the role of support is something I’m really good at. I like taking care of things, I like making people happy, I like making sure we got a foundation and so I understand the instrument right but above and beyond playing bass.
Just to finish off on a wacky note, you’re the headline act at a major music festival. Which five other alive, dead or dysfunctional artists would you have on your bill?
Weird Al Yankovic, Enya, Jon Hopkins or Deadmau5, just to shake it up a bit. Also Meshuggah and Toy Dolls.
What would be on that rider?
A huge pot of brown M&M’s. (Laughing)and just the Brown ones, that’s it nothing else no water nothing, just that……with the Van Halen logo on them. (Laughing even more)
That’s it Dev…Thank you so much for talking with us today.
Thanks for the interview guys.
https://www.facebook.com/dvntownsend/
Live photography courtesy of Christie Goodwin
