This interview went to air in April, 1997 on 3RRR FM Melbourne (102.7 FM) with Strapping Young Lad's Devin Townsend interviewed by Tony.
Tony: On the line from home in Vancouver, we have possibly
one of the
most interesting young artists to emerge in the nineties,
a man by the name
of Devin Townsend, main man from Strapping Young Lad,
Devin how ya
doing?
Devin: Doing fine thanks. First time I've actually
been introduced as a man
in quite a long time, I'm feeling quite good about
that, thank you.
Tony: Well if you want I can change that around for you.
Devin: First time for everything, I'm happy to sort of roll it out for now.
Tony: So how you doing then kid?
Devin: I'm doing fine thank you very much.
Tony: Tell me what you've been up to of late buddy?
Devin: There's been quite a few things, we're right
in the middle of the
throes of rehearsing for this European tour with Strapping
Young Lad. We're
rehearsing in Vancouver. We just did a video for a
song on the new record
called "Detox" and we leave to do the "Full Of Hate"
festivals throughout
Europe, ending up in England in about two...two some
odd weeks, apart
from that I just finished a record called "Ocean Machines"
which is another
sort of side project thing and I'm getting ready to
another project called
"Hell", so its been rather frantic.
Tony: Well I'm sure we'll get into all your side projects
a little later on mate,
'cause you do definately have a few of them going
through a couple of your
bios and stuff like press releases and things, keep
yourself very busy. Tell
me, you said you have been rehearsing for your up
and coming shows now,
you've just recruited Gene Hoglan I believe, on drums
- the great man
himself.
Devin: Yeah, he's a stormer, I tell ya, if there's
ever any doubts on his
playing abilities, you've just got to see him play
live you know. A lot of times
when we did press during Europe a couple of weeks
back and some of the
people were like "You know, we know for a fact that
you were re-doing
these drums and, you know, that's a computer playing,
that's not Gene" and
all I can say is God you've got to see this guy playing
man, he's a beast.
Tony: Yeah he definately is isn't he?
Devin: Yeah definately, a big beast too.
Tony: Now, let's get onto the new album "City" which
was released thru
Century Media through Shock locally. Why don't you
tell me about this album
mate, I personally thought it was a little more melodic,
it had its fair share of
melody if you compare it to "Heavy As A Really Heavy
Thing", and the songs
seem to be a lot more structured, there's a lot more
going on which I
possibly couldn't comprehend or didn't think that
you could have any more
going on than your first album.
Devin: God, all I can say is that you could probably
dissect this record and
make six normal rock records out of the parts, you
know what I mean, it's
pretty dense. Monty from Roadrunner the A & R
guy up at Road runner ,
heard it we got the nominations for [BEEP BEEP BEEP]
that he's ever
heard. So that's a bit of a compliment. There is a
lot more structure to it,
there's a lot more melody to it, but it was a concious
decision for this one, it
was all written at one time as opposed to the first
one which is a bit more
schizophrenic in the way it was put together. That
was basically a collection
of demos that were remixed, parts were added onto
it, plus a couple of new
songs, but I didn't really get a chance to write a
record as a concise
statement, right, and with this one, I was living
in a particular environment
that was condusive to the lyrical content of a lot
of the songs and it just
came out. When I actually moved down to Los Angeles,
I moved down with
the intention of finishing up the Ocean Machine record,
but because of the
lack of money and a bunch of other circumstances it
came out of my
headspace as shit did towards this sort of a vibe
and the record sort of just
came out and I was like - where did that come from?
Tony: Now I guess "Heavy As A Really Heavy Thing" had
a kind of a vibe
about it of the great outdoors and that sort of stuff
with a lot of the tracks
and you, I guess that was you in the sleeve at one
with nature there...
Devin: ...right...
Tony: ...how about with the new album "City", is there
any sort of theme as
such as that?
Devin: Yeah there's some major themes. I mean, I live
in Canada and I think
a lot of people get Canada and America confused and
let me go on record
as say they are two entirely different beasts. There's
only 25 million of us in
Canada, we've got the largest land mass in the world,
so were sort of
isolated by ourselves up here. Unfortunately, we're
sort of dubiously blessed
with an American sounding accent so people sort of
get confused. But
where I live, we live in a rainforest and Vancouver
is surrounded by
mountains, and I grew up in that environment and I
figure no matter what
type of music you're writing as long as your writing
about something your
feel sincerely it's O.K. and with the new record,
if I can explain it, its the
same sort of a vibe, the whole Great Outdoors thing
that you mentioned, its
still there but this time it's sort of to do with
the city and how you just
become as anonymous in a city as you do if you're
just walking around in a
field somewhere, because your dealing with the same
thing, its just that one
of them is man made and one of them is made by forces
of nature, you
know...that's sounds fairly pretentious, that'll work.
Tony: I guess that explains all the inner sleeve photos
which look like
they've been taken in Japan, would that be right?
Devin: Yeah, I actually do quite a bit of work in Japan
and most of the time
I end up doing all this work because I've really got
a short attention span,
you know what I mean, and generally the best time
for me is when I'm just
sort of alone, being able to think or whatever, and
so I've done a lot of work
just cruising around all these countries by myself,
and even since I was a kid
there was something about these massive cities that
just struck a nerve, just
sort of that...the grit of it, you know what I mean.
It had been touched on
before, like a guy named Foetus, Jim Foetus, he released
an album called
"Gash" a couple of years back that a couple of songs
on it that were just
amazing, you know what I mean. There's a song on "City"
which is a cover
of a Cop Shoot Cop song, they had a record that came
out... "White Noise"
was a big influence as well , 'cause I just heard
that and all of a sudden just
heard that sound, almost like the sound of the city,
and with this record, the
theme is all just based around all that, all the topics
just loosely revolve
around that.
Tony: How about an interesting track, track one, "Velvet
Kevorkian", there's
a lot of bands very interested in what he's doing
at the moment, good ol', is
it Dr. Jack Kevorkian I believe?
Devin: Yeah, I know nothing about him, I know the name
which implies, you
know, this whole Dr. Death sort of a situation and
the idea of the city and
also "Velvet Kevorkian" its sort of like a really
sugar coated way of killing
yourself, you know what I mean, and I think, just
the sprawl that cities are
creating and what we're sort of creating for ourselves
is just that, you know.
Getting into lyrics is sort of a risky thing because
I really don't have too
much to say, you know, I don't wanna come across as
like [mimics old
person preaching] "And here this...", you know what
I mean, if I could be so
bold. That's basically what that whole scene is about,
but you're right I've
seen a lot of bands with this whole "Jack Kevorkian
- Dr. Death", if it's got
death in the name, then usually you're gonna find
a metal band somewhere
that writes a song about it.
Tony: Naah, there's nothing wrong with it is there....
Devin: [laughs] ...as long as its fanatic I'm O.K.
Tony: [mimics British accent]: It's all metal...Can
you tell me a little bit about
the album cover mate, I had a really, really good
look at it, I've studied it for
probably an hour, I'm trying to work out exactly what
it is, it looks like some
sort of injector system for maybe a diesel or something
like that...
Devin: Good eye.
Tony: It is an injector system for a diesel...
Devin: Yeah it is, the whole thing I was looking for
with that was... I actually
got the idea for that when I was flying into Los Angeles
one day, and it was
like midnight...ironic, flying in one day and it was
midnight...but when you're
looking out the window of the plane, and you look
at that sprawl, it's rather
similar to an engine from that sort of a look, and
also, when you think of how
a city works, you can draw some parallels. But again,
I guess with that
being said, you can weed metaphors into just about
anything.
Tony: I guess something opened and another thing closes doesn't it.
Devin: Totally and it all sort of relies on itself
to function, its sort of like a
self contained system... and you could look at that
as being a city, you can
look at an engine being a city, you can look at an
engine as being your mind,
you could look at a mind as being a city... everything
is sort of a microsm of
everything else. This is what I call the sign of somebody
whose spent way
to much time without the benefit of having people
to talk to 'cause you end
up drawing these ridiculous things out you know. You
get stuck vapourizing
and disappearing up your own arse, you go "Gosh...look
at how
introspective and heady I am".
Tony: I guess that's what the charcoal canister is for here isn't it?
Devin: [laughs] Thats it.
Tony: Now, an interesting thing I heard, I guess, a
couple of months back,
you were asked to take Rob Halford's spot in Judas
Priest, what happened
buddy, you just..er.. couldn't do it?
Devin: Gosh, this is my whole viewpoint on the whole
thing, and as much as
this is makes me sound like a dick I don't really
care too much about it. I
mean, they gave me a call and said "Hey, we know about
you blah blah blah
we want to fly you out so you can audition" right?
My biggest thing is, when I
was a kid, we're talk about ten or thirteen years
old or whatever, I mean,
Judas Priest was my favourite band at the time, and
you know, "Unleashed
From The East" I thought was amazing and blah blah
blah and KK Downing
had cool hair and the whole works...
Tony: ...I don't know about that...
Devin: ...When I got a chance to start doing it, it's
like I think any artist or
for the lack of a better word, artist, likes to hear
themselves playing songs
they really like when they were a kid and so I kept
on doing all these Priest
covers and blah blah blah... No-one would want to
see Devin Townsend
singing for Judas Priest, I mean its ridiculous. Whoever's
gets that gig is
going to look like a fool, you know what I mean, Ripper
Owens or whatever
the guy's name is, I mean I wish him luck and I'm
sure he's a good singer
but ...God, I don't know if Judas Priest are like,
prepared to take over the
youth of today with a new metal onslaught, their demographic
is going to be
based around people from 25 to 40 years old you know,
and their not gonna
give a shit about some kid coming in and singing,
you know, and I wouldn't
go into Judas Priest trying to be Rob Halford, I'd
go in there doing what I do
and it would look ridiculous, you know. I also figure,
it's like the whole...I'd
have way more respect for those guys as musicians
if they, ...as much as I
thought Fight sucked, you know,...
Tony: ...agreed...
Devin: ...at least he was doing something that was
not sort of trodding on
the same horse, you know, it sort of struck me as
at least he was trying to
be something different, you know... And the whole
idea of Motley Crue
coming back together and Kiss, although I went and
saw the concert and it
was pretty good...it sort of strikes me as sort of
being more of a cash grab
than a legitimate "they've got something to say"...
Tony: I actually just saw Kiss...I'd probably have
to say two or three weeks
ago...
Devin: ...and they were great right?
Tony: To be quite honest with you, I personally think
that it was something,
it happened, the magic was not there, I mean you know,
I missed out, I've
never really been a big Kiss fan myself, but I've
missed out on the magic,
and the I guess the sense of not knowing who's behind
the paint, and all that
sort of thing, behind those masks and all that. I
mean to me it was very
corny, very cheesy, very boring too.
Devin: I think it has a lot to do with... musically...I
mean..., the guitar player
in Strapping, the other guy, Jed, he's 33 years old
and he was there, you
know, at the inception of Kiss and so he gets all
bleary eyed when you start
talking about it. But for me you know, I'm 24 years
old, I mean the first Kiss
record I ever heard was "Animalize" you know, so I
think the reason I got off
on the show so much was just the fact that there's
all these people that are
just die-hard, you know, just going off, and I'm watching
'em going, God, the
energy of this show, not coming from the stage, 'cause
it looked like my
father on stage wearing makeup, you know what I mean,
but I mean, as far
as just the people, the audience just diggin' it so
much, I found that sort of
cool.
Tony: Yeah, definately. Can you tell me how the whole
Strapping Young
Lad thing came together?
Devin: Well, you know I actually had this conversation
with the bass player
today because we were talking about the aggression
of everything. I mean
everybody in the band you know, as not humble as this
may sound, we're all
fairly intelligent human beings right? And one always
wonders how come
they would feel so much aggression, you know...I've
got a stable family
background, I've got a good relationship with my parents,
and all this but ...
Strapping is just... you know, what can I say, I'm
a Taurus, I've got a bad
temper, you know and I'm also a very uncomfortable
person and i think
that's just where it came from and doing the Steve
Vai thing and everything
was really difficult as well. It was a great experience
but, you know, you've
got to realize I was 18 when I first started and I
was doing music like
Strapping, or akin to it, before I got the call from
Steve. When I went into
the situation with Steve Vai, all of a sudden I'm
thrown into this whole world I
was just NOT familiar with you know, like having a
committee of people to
decide on what kind of pants your gonna wear or you
know or whether or
not the kids of today are going to groove on the fact
that you've shaved your
eyebrows or any of that, you know what I mean. Granted,
there's reasons
why it's like that because they've got bills to pay
and empires to maintain
with that particular type of music but for me I was
just going, why don't we
just rock, why don't we just go out and do something
stupid, why do we
have to sing about you know, sex and chick songs and...why
are we doing
that? Why don't we try something different? Right?
And no offence to the
music because I do think the album is good that I
did with Steve, and I think
he's a really talented musician, but all during that
time I was just like I want
to do something that is just EXTREME, I want to do
something that just
makes me go yeah that feels great you know, whatever
the consequences.
And so when it came time, i was in a group in England
called The Wildhearts
and I got a phone call from Century Media Records,
ahh from Roadrunner
records actually who said, we want to sign you to
the Strapping YOung Lad
thing. And then, I guess the owner of Roadrunner heard
the demos and as
much as the A&R guy liked it the owner said it
was just noise, I'm not going
to sign it. And I was like O.K., great, you know.
And so when Century Media
phoned up and said here we're going to give you some
money, make us
some extreme albums, it just went from there. ...yeah
so that's how it went
through it was just a massive blur, it just happened,
you know.
Tony: The Wildhearts then, that would've been an interesting
time over
there in England.
Devin: Yeah it was, it was definately. Even though
it's a different type of
music from what I'm doing, or what I'm choosing to
do at this point I think
that the Wildhearts are amazing. I think they're brilliant,
you know. And even
though they're fairly pop, I think that just musically,
I think they've just got
some amazing stuff going on and it was a total pleasure
to be involved with
it.
Tony: Now, as you were saying, you've got two other
side... well, I guess
well at least that I know of, 2 other side projects
or three actually, IR8 with
Jason Newsted and Tom Hunting I believe from Exodus...and
Punky
Brewster and Ocean Machines. What can you tell us
about all three of
them?
Devin: Well, IR8 - Jason and I we've got a good relationship.
He wears
Strapping shirts in some photos and that's O.K. for
me. ... We also did
another project a year later with Dale from the Melvins
and Scott Reeder
from Kyuss... and that was called "Tree Of The Sun"
and it's really sort of
Sabbathy sounding stuff, you know what I mean. And
then we got together
a year later and did a project with the drummer from
the [can't understand
the name of this band] band and Jason's a great guy
man, and he's a
metalhead and he's above and beyond the fact that
he's a multi-millionaire in
this insanely big group. He's fairly stable, you know
what I mean, and he's
fun to jam with...I've got a bunch of little side
projects....Punky Brewsters is
just about a death metal band...it's actually a concept
record, stupid little
stories and everything, about a death metal band that
weren't making any
money so they shedded all their goth paint makeup
and turned into a Green
Day style band and win a grammy and all that sort
of thing.
Tony: Yeah well, that's happening in Europe at the moment isn't it?
Devin: Pretty well.
Tony: A lot of those bands in the late eighties and
early nineties that were
all death metal have...
Devin: They're all denying their heavy metal roots.
They're like "No...Iron
Maiden...no I never used to listen to them...I was
into D.O.A. from the
beginning man, I'm hardcore" and I'm just like "So
you got a linking chain
hanging from your pants, that chain is how I think
of you, that's right pal".
But as much as I think Korn is a cool band or whatever,
that whole
A.D.I.D.A.S. thing is just a joke to me.
Tony: I couldn't agree with you more there buddy. Especially
with the fur or
whatever that is on the shoulders on that singer.
Devin: I mean it's a fashion show, for fucks sake,
I'm like "What can you
do?". It lends steam to what I do because it gives
me fuel to write about,
you know. God, I buy one pair of pants a year, my
Grandparents give me
shoes at Christmas and my shirts are all like swagged
from bands or
whatever so, you know, I'm going bald and really couldn't
care less about it.
Tony: Well you might have to go the old "yeah yeah"
Advanced hair
transplant buddy.
Devin: That's gotta be what happened, they can take
a skin graft of my
arse, that'll cover me.
Tony: O.K. why not, how about Ocean Machines, I understand
that you're
going to release that on a very interesting label
that you've got set up called
Heavy Devy Records?
Devin: Yep, HDR, but if Heavy Devy seems to egocentric
you can call it
either Hot Diggity Records or Humungous Dink Records
or something...but
Ocean Machine is sort of like the brother to the Strapping
record, it's really,
really commercial, it's really, really melodic but
it's also very experimental,
it's great, it's just a different style, it's singing,
it's, you know, a lot of
ambience, but also there's another a project I was
gonna say as well called
Hell which I start as soon as I get back from the
Strapping record. The
Strapping record to me, as much as I love it, sounds
too confined to me
sometimes, like it's not aggressive enough, it's not
chaotic enough. I need to
get something out of my system that's just Hell. I
want to make Hell. I want
to make four bass guitars, a wall of noise, distorted
crap, orchestras, you
know what I mean, just Hell. I want to make the biggest
wall of sonic Hell
that I can possibly make and I'm going to start that
when I get back from the
Strapping tour. I mean Strapping is great, but it
is still riff-orientated, you
know what I mean.
Tony: Yeah, it's still got the metal...sound to it I guess.
Devin: Flying the metal flag mightily, you know.
Tony: Mate, I tell you what, you are, and you're doing it pretty well too.
Devin: Thank you.
Tony: Now you signed the Ocean Machine to Virgin in
Japan, Virgin
Records, would that be right?
Devin: Yeah, Virgin Publishing and Sony Records.
Tony: How big are you guys in Japan? I mean, everyone
goes in insane
over there over any band I suppose, but how big are
you guys over there?
How you finding it?
Devin: Jesus, as well, I mean it's like, Punky Brewster
was No. 3 on the
charts over there and Strapping, the first week the
first record was out in
Japan it sold like 10,000 copies in the first week.
But I guess also, it's also
riding on the fact that the Steve Vai record went
Gold over there and we did
a tour there and everything. Japan is amazing, it's
like going to a different
planet, ...you look from the point of view like, your
slugging it out in
Vancouver and you're doing these tours in the back
of a van and blah, blah,
blah, and then all of sudden you go to Japan and you're
staying in Five Star
Hotels, you know and all this shit and you're playing
to thousands of people.
Like literally thousands of people a night and you're
sitting here going, "Why
would you want to do anything else?"
Tony: Well, exactly. I guess you get back home to Vancouver
and it's back
to reality in a big way.
Devin: Yeah, I mean Japan is always like a treat, you
know what I mean,
because it's not real, you can't really base yourself,
because I mean also,
as much as the Japanese fans are really cool and everything,
you look in the
charts and you go "Strapping is charting high on these
polls or whatever",
but you're like right beside a Ratt reunion or something,
you know what I
mean? Or like a re-issue of a Whitesnake record and
you're going "Well I
don't know...".
Tony: God help you if you're in Japan and there's a
Ratt reunion in town at
that time...
Devin: ...we'd be on the bill I tell ya.
Tony: Yeah, but would you enjoy yourself, that's the
bottom line? Would you
want to be on the bill is the question?
Devin: Oh Jesus, we went and saw W.A.S.P., a W.A.S.P
reunion like a
couple of months ago.
Tony: Yeah, and how was that?
Devin: Holy Christ it was horrible!
Tony: Oh really?
Devin: It was like laughable, I couldn't believe it,
I was like going "Holy
God". He had like vocals on tape...not like background
vocals or anything
but lead vocals, right, I was going...I was thinking
to myself "God, Blackie,
you're like 50 pounds overweight. He used to be king
of the headspin too,
the whoosh...whoosh...whoosh...whoosh...[headspinning
noise]. Chris
Holmes was there and everything and he held on for
like two songs and then
lapsed into a coma on the side of the stage. Pretty
bad I have to say.
Tony: Who actually lapsed into a coma, Chris?
Devin: It looked like it, yeah Chris Holmes the guitar
player...and he was
like jumping around and everything, but I guess he
hasn't been on stage in a
while so, you know, 2 songs into it he was just toast.
Tony: Yeah, I could imagine with the amount of alcohol
he'd consume
before a show too.
This interview from THE HARD REPORT OFFICIAL WEBSITE