~INTERVIEWS~
DEVIN TOWNSEND SPEAKS ABOUT INFINITY
from BW&BK
Thanks to Adam Rawlings
for this article.
Canada's most prolific musical artist is one Devin Townsend.
Never mind that probably no one outside of metal has ever heard of him. He's offered us chaos through Strapping Young Lad, the melodic romp of Ocean Machine, worked (on IR8) with Metallica's only remaining metalhead, Jason Newsted, recorded and produced the greatest send-up of Green Day and death metal with Punky Bruster... and the fun is far from over. As of now, Devin's focus is on his much-hyped Infinity album, an epic that is a character sketch of the man behind all this musical energy. BW&BK lets him speak without interruption...
"It gives me goosebumps talking about Infinity. Ocean Machine was my attempt at making a big, dumb rock record. That's my version of the Black record by Metallica. I didn't wanna go overboard, I didn't wanna make it subliminal; I wanted the big, galloping rock songs. I'd never done that before. I did a live record after recording two Strapping albums; why? Because I loved Unleashed In The East as a kid. Fuck it; it's a wicked record. The first record I've ever done where I've just let myself say, "This is me, unconditionally. If you wanna know what I can do as a musician: Infinity."
"It's just me, but I've got Gene (Hoglan) from Strapping playing drums on it. I engineered it, I produced it, there's no one else doing it. When I did the vocals I had to press 'record' in the studio, run in, and sing. I couldn't let anyone else do this for me. Music to me is art; it's not a business, it's not a commodity. Y'know, the guys in Strapping were going, 'Dude, you looked really scary and evil when you had your long, gross hair and everything. How are you gonna work with Strapping?'. What does it matter? Why pose anymore? The whole idea with Infinity is truth. Just coming clean and saying that I'm not gonna lie to myself anymore, I'm not gonna lie to anybody anymore."
"I hesitate to get into it, but I gained a lot of spirituality, and not in the conventional sense. I had this experience, almost... not even almost. I had this epiphany, this religious moment while doing the Infinity record that was by far the most intense thing that's ever happened to me, and with that, I'm responsible to myself now for truth. That's the only thing I can do through music. That's why this record is so intense. Ocean Machine is equal to City as being of worth; those two records are brothers. I got heavy into this yin/yang theory, and they're opposites, which makes sense becasue of this bipolar disorder that I have. I wrote City when I was up and I wrote Ocean Machine when I was down, and that's how come they work together. Infinity is the whole thing; the combination of the two, the middle."
"I can't do the faces in the photos anymore. Why do I want long hair, 'cuz it's a pain in the fucking ass. I was looking at myself in the mirror and going 'Who am I trying to kid? What am I doing here? It worked when I was sixteen, but now...?' The whole truth thing started to kick in and it was like, 'Do I like it? No. Why do I have it? Because it's fun to throw around when I'm on stage.' I think somewhere along the line music has to change, and I think now is the time. I think it's a paradigm shift that's starting to happen. Globally, not just musically. People are saying that the lies are getting out of control, and it takes everyone at an individual level, myself included, to say 'I'm not gonna lie to myself anymore, I don't like how I feel, I don't like how I run from my problems...' and so on. So what are you gonna do? Are you gonna bitch about it or are you gonna change it? That's the situation I ended up going through with Strapping and Ocean Machine. I had to get those records out of my system. Once that was done, I had to do the Infinity record."
"Anybody who is a fan of my music... there are people who are fans of Strapping because it's brutal music; it's some of the heaviest shit I've heard. People who are into it for a reason other than it just being heavy, and they're liking me as a musician and want to understand where I'm going, should own City and Ocean Machine. Because when you read the lyrics and start to get into it, you'll completely understand the Infinity record."
"I never made the decision to be a musician. What happens is, the songs just come. All you have to do is be alive, and they just come. The deeper I get into being a musician, the deeper the dubious pleasure of learning to control the ability to create music gets. You can explain more through art than you can with words; words are just so primitive. That's why my lyrics tend to be rather vague, because the point gets across to people more succinctly if the visuals are sparse. The reason I do so much music, and it's all different, is because when a song comes into my head, it's literally tortured until I can put it to rest by getting it on tape. I can't think, I can't eat, I can't sleep, I can't have sex, I can't do anything until I pump that music out. When you're stuck with something like that, you have to get it out of your system. There's no question about it."
"I'm a musician because I am one. That's it, that's all."