DEVIN TOWNSEND Explains Why He Needs To Take A Couple Of Years Off From Touring To Work On His Next Project

In a new interview with Metal Blast, Canadian singer, songwriter and producer Devin Townsend elaborated on his recent comment that he will "come off the road for a couple of years" after his next round of touring in order to work on his long-talked-about "The Moth" project. Asked why he feels he needs to stop touring while he is putting together this wildly "over-the-top" symphony, Devin said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Because I've changed, as we all probably have, on a fundamental level over the past few years with the pandemic and everything. And in order for all these disparate pieces of experiences to coagulate into an identity that I can draw from accurately, I need silence and space. It's as simple as that. We can keep grinding at the wheel and putting out material without any sort of reflection, and I've been doing that for years because there hasn't been these dramatic shifts. There's been shifts, of course, throughout the past 10 years — kids getting older or whatever — but there hasn't been a fundamental shift in the ways that the pandemic has clearly brought about in society and personally. And I feel maybe it's a failing on the part of my ability to perceive my environment, or maybe it's just what it is. But if I don't have time and space to let that coagulate into an identity that I can very clearly articulate creatively, it's not gonna be right and it's just gonna be awkward."

He continued: "I've always wanted to make a symphony and I've always wanted to make an opera. And just the costs of doing it are so prohibitive that if I choose to do it, which I believe I have, which I know I have, I've gotta be damn sure that the perspective that I'm coming at it from is in line with my truth, my realizations. And all of these things just — it takes time. And I haven't had any time for many years by my own hand — just like record, tour, record, tour, record, tour, record, tour. You know what I mean? It's just like endless. And so when I finally did get a chance to stop, two things came to the front. One — I don't wanna stop making music. I love it. There's some people I know that [are] just like, 'Oh, I realized that I don't wanna make music anymore.' I saw GODSMACK say that — 'We don't wanna write music anymore.' And that's maybe what their realization was during it. But for me, it's not an option. It's not like I can turn it off. It's what I do. It's my thing."

When the interviewer suggested to Devin that he read George Orwell's 1946 essay titled "Why I Write" in which George described his early compulsion to be creative, Townsend said: "But in the same breath, you have to honor that, and part of honoring that is doing the legwork to understand your connection to it. And this is my opinion, of course. But it's, like, if you're — as I have in the past — blindly cruising through a creative process, where you're high all the time or you're drunk all the time or you're engaged with a lot of things that that allow you to sort of unconsciously participate in your creative muse, then I think that's a different process, and I don't think there's anything necessarily right or wrong about that; it's just it's different. But if you've got to the point where you're a lot more clear about who you are and what your objectives may or may not be, to honor that requires the time and space. And the compulsion that you spoke of with Orwell's essay is clearly within me. I've tried on several occasions to stop, and it's, like it's hubris, man. The assumption of me thinking, 'Oh, I can just stop,' is that it's a hobby rather than a personality. I just — I think music; that's how I interpret my environment. And in the past I spent a lot of emotional energy trying to rationalize that, whether or not it was trying to identify what the compulsion was or to try and maybe retroactively fix what I maybe viewed as a dysfunction within myself that manifested as a need to create something. Maybe it was because I needed it for validation. Maybe I needed it for this or that or the other thing, but I feel now that that's also a lot of hubris, just to try and get to the root of something that is intangible. And what I feel is now the most important thing is to not think about it, but also make the channel that allows it to actualize as clear as it can be, whether or not that's through balance on a psychological level or maintaining your personal, physical, mental health, whatever. At that point, when the music begins to come out, it's a direct reflection of a path that you've chosen that is one that you can back. And again, I feel that it's really childish of me to try and rationalize the process. It's like beyond me. It's beyond you. It's beyond all of us. It's beyond Orwell. It's beyond anybody. It's like the collective unconscious is the wellspring of artistic motivation, and to participate in it is a joy ultimately. So that's where I'm at."

Devin released his latest album, "Lightwork", last October. Assembled from a barrage of material written during the pandemic, the LP — and its companion album of B-sides and demos, "Nightwork" — represented Devin at this stage of his life, post pandemic, and his reflections on what he (and many of us) all gone through. For "Lightwork", Devin decided to see what would happen if he included a producer (an experiment he has been excited to attempt for some time) to help guide this selection of material. He chose longtime friend Garth "GGGarth" Richardson to help bring this idea to fruition.

Devin began his professional career straight out of high school when he was discovered by a record label and asked to provide lead vocals on Steve Vai's album "Sex & Religion". After touring and recording with Vai, Townsend became discouraged by what he found in the music industry and went on to produce several solo albums under the pseudonym STRAPPING YOUNG LAD. Since then, Devin has recorded many more successful albums and performed all over the world.