DEVIN TOWNSEND Says New STRAPPING YOUNG LAD Album Will Have 'Different Aesthetic'

Zoltan Koncsok of Metal Express Radio recently conducted an interview with STRAPPING YOUNG LAD mainman Devin Townsend. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

Metal Express Radio: [STRAPPING YOUNG LAD's] "Alien" was your most brutal album to date in my opinion. Where did all that aggression come from?

Devin: "I think 'Alien' was a necessary album in my career for a number of reasons. Basically when I did 'Infinity' in 1997 I had thoughts in my head that left me with a lot of questions. I've gone to certain personal limits with 'Infinity' that at the end of it, I think, scared me. And I've made a lot of really kinda bad mistakes as a result of that. And I've spent the next few years, I guess, wondering what would have happened if I hadn't have made those mistakes. Up until 'Alien' I was just like I mean to know that I need to kinda go back there and figure it out. And with 'Alien' I decided to do that. I decided to go back to those type of songs and see if I could get any closure, if I could come to any answers for myself. And I got the answers what I wanted to get with 'Alien'. They were just harsh. It's like you're looking for the meaning of life for example, and you need to know what would happen if you found that out. When I found out by making 'Alien' it was like pushing yourself emotionally and mentally. The answers are just too much for a human. As a result of doing 'Alien' I was able to do 'Synchestra', because I needed to have that kind of humility that closed that chapter as a result of going that far."

Metal Express Radio: You said that you have reached your limits in aggression with "Alien". So, what's next for STRAPPING YOUNG LAD?

Devin: "Well, the intensity will still be the same, but I think that STRAPPING YOUNG LAD will probably have a different aesthetic. The next record won't be like 'Alien'. It won't be like any of the records. I think that as well as STRAPPING YOUNG LAD kind of having the name for themselves based on brutality and aggression, I think there's also something to be said to the fact that every STRAPPING record is different. They're all different. So, the next record will still be STRAPPING, but will be different."

Metal Express Radio: I'm sure that you write a lot when you're back at home. When there's no new album in sight and you come up with an idea for a song, do you put a tag on it that this is for my solo band and that is for STRAPPING?

Devin: "Sometime it occurs that way. Sometimes I'll be writing something and I say to myself, 'Okay, that's definitely DTB' or 'It's definitely STRAPPING.' But there's also been times where I write something for THE DEVIN TOWNSEND BAND, for example the song 'Shine' on 'Alien'. It was originally a song for THE DEVIN TOWNSEND BAND, but then as I was ready I thought, 'No, no, this is too heavy.' And also the song 'Pixillate' from THE DEVIN TOWNSEND BAND started originally as something I was gonna write for STRAPPING. And about the end of it I saw that lyrically it wouldn't work for STRAPPING, so I moved it."

Metal Express Radio: What makes your record a DEVIN TOWNSEND record or a DEVIN TOWNSEND BAND record?

Devin: "It's the same thing. I write, arrange and produce and do everything myself regardless. But the problem was with just a DEVIN TOWNSEND record before is that there's nobody to play it live. So, I started THE DEVIN TOWNSEND BAND as a way to make the same type of records, but also have a band to back it up."

Metal Express Radio: The new [THE DEVIN TOWNSEND BAND] album seems to be like a one song epic from start to finish...

Devin: "Absolutely. When I was going to high school in the high school band we would play these kind of hour-long concerts for our parents. All the parents would come to the gymnasium and the band would play an hour-long kind of orchestra piece. 'Synchestra' is supposed to be similar like a high school band orchestra piece. (Laughs) Not super complicated, not like super in depth orchestral music, but definitely orchestral elements. That's also what the title says."

Read the entire interview at www.metalexpressradio.com.