DEVIN TOWNSEND: 'My Reality Scheme Is That I'm A 40-Year-Old Dude With Bad Teeth And No Hair'

Rachel Jablonski of Stream Of Consciousness recently conducted an interview with acclaimed Canadian musician/producer Devin Townsend (STRAPPING YOUNG LAD, STEVE VAI, LAMB OF GOD, DARKEST HOUR, GWAR). A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Stream Of Consciousness: "Ki" is the first of four albums in a series by the DEVIN TOWNSEND PROJECT. Each album will consist of a different collection of session musicians. How did you choose musicians for these albums? Were they people you knew or did you approach them individually without a prior relationship?

Devin: Some of both, I guess. I tend to find in my musical world people end up appearing and I'm pretty good at being able to discern right away whether or not they are going to be appropriate based on their personality. I think that the world is full of really, really good musicians, but that's not necessarily my motivation for having people involved. It's more how they contribute to the scene as a person. I could definitely do any of these records just sitting by myself in front of a computer and I think what makes these records interesting, not only for me, but for a listener, is to kind of know about that depth of the personalities that are in it. Each theme on each one of these records requires a different sort of folk, right? Like, "Ki" was definitely the meeting of one world with another, and so the people that it involved were definitely from a different world, and how the record ended up evolving and the energy that the record ended up having, I think, was definitely contributed to by the personalities that were involved. Same with this next record. The next record is a very specific group of people and I think I'm in a position that I'm able to make records and so with that I just choose to make each one of them an event for me personally. And then, when the record is done, I can listen back to it and say, "OK, well, I'm really glad that we went through this, we went through this group of people and we had these experiences, and I changed as a result of these people and vice versa." And then when I listen back to the record it just offers me a depth to it that wouldn't be there if it was just me and a drum machine.

Stream Of Consciousness: What is the overall theme of "Ki" and what is the theme of the entire album series? Do they all relate thematically?

Devin: Yeah, loosely. I mean I definitely didn't set out to make a "Dark Side of the Moon"- or an "Operation: Mindcrime"-type of concept record. The thing with me is I'm not really a great businessman when it comes to music. I can't write a song for, I don't know, PINK, or something, or CHRISTINA AGUILERA. There's no way I could do that; it would just be an abomination. So I just write what I do and the way I write is that music just kind of presents itself according to what my frame of mind is over the time that I have the guitar in my hands. There may be some emotional event or psychological event in my life — it could be anything like moving into a new house — and during that time there's a series of riffs that I'm working on and then from that point on every time I play that riff it reminds me of that. So when I go to write a record, I just draw on the influences of the time and then in a way it kind of documents it and these four records are no different. In a lot of ways, these four records are just the last three years of my life. I quit smoking pot, I quit drinking, we had a kid, lots of life things, right? The music just ended up evolving based on that and so now in order for me to make room in my head for the next series of music, I just kind of need to get this stuff out. So the theme, I guess, is loosely based on that period of personal change, but at the same time there's no message or anything. That's what was going on while I was writing it and the way that I create music is invested in that process.
Stream Of Consciousness: [laugh] Have you finished work on the next albums? When can we expect each to be released?

Devin: Um, I haven't finished the work on the rest yet, no. They should be released hopefully by the end of the year. I'm right in the middle of the second record now. And, you know, I'm just going to keep pounding it until December and hopefully all the records will be out and we can put out a box set of it next year and then I can move on to phase nine or whatever.

Stream Of Consciousness: [laugh] The next record is a pop-like album, correct?

Devin: Yeah, that's what it started as, but it has just ended up being a totally crushing metal record with big choruses. [laugh] I mean, I wanted to write a pop record and I wrote a pop chorus and then all of the sudden I tried to write another and I was like, "I don't want to write this shit," you know what I mean? It's like no one's going to buy it anyway. I mean, my reality scheme as a musician is that I'm a 40-year-old dude with bad teeth and no hair, right? I'm not going to be a pop star any time soon, so I just have to be honest with what I do — what is it that I want to do? Do you really want to write shitty pop music and try to sell it to a bunch of people that you don't like? Or do you want to just do what comes naturally? And do I like choruses? Hell, yeah! I like choruses and I like pop melodies, so to speak, but the more I tried doing it, the more I realized that how I really wanted to frame all of those choruses was crushing.

Stream Of Consciousness: [laugh] It's been said that "Deconstruction" will be some of your heaviest music. What makes it so?

Devin: Because the whole idea of "Deconstruction" is deconstructing why we're attached to heavy music. I put out "Ki" and people want to listen to it, and it's, like, "This is a really good record." But there's a whole network of people that are, like, "No no no no no! We only want heavy music, we only want chaotic music, we only want devilish, horrible, destructive music," and I'm like, "Well, why? I'll do it for you, but just tell me why first." "Because we love it, because we love it." Why do you love it? Ya know? "Fuck the world, fuck the world, fuck everything, man — only heavy, only metal," and I'm like, "OK, I'll tell you what: I'll make you that record, but I'm going to sing about why we're liking this music." Honestly, at the root of it, I think humans are really terrified and I think a lot of people who really love heavy music love it because it's a way for them to protect themselves. If you put this thing forward and are like, "I'm going to scare people with my music," then no one's going to get to the root of the fact that maybe it's just you that are terrified and that's your way of protecting yourself, that's your defense mechanism. It's one thing to say, "Oh I'm mad at God," but maybe you're really just mad at your father, you know? And I think that all these themes... that's the thing that's really interesting to me about heavy music now. It's like, yes, I love heavy music, absolutely, but, man, to think that's the only thing that I'm able to offer and that's the only thing that certain people are willing to accept from me? You know, it's not like I'm pissed off about it, but it's kind of like, are you sure you really want to know why you really like this with the exclusion of everything else?

Read the entire interview from Stream Of Consciousness.

Holland's FaceCulture recently conducted an interview with Devin Townsend. Watch the first part of the chat below.