Interviews : “Making The Kind Of Music I Do Is A Nightmare” – An Interview With Devin Townsend (Devin Townsend Project)

                Devin Townsend – Devin Townsend Project

HevyDevy has made his mark in the world with his eccentricity, ingenuity and magical musicianship. He is not afraid to be different and create genre-defying releases – something the Canadian artist has been doing for 25 years. Ranging from his work with tof he extremeties Strappin Young Lad and the airy, ambient sounds of Casualties of Cool to the glorious brutality and elegance of The Devin Townsend Project among others, the man is known for his versatility. Metal Obsession has the pleasure of chatting with Devin to talk about his latest release with The Devin Townsend Project, ‘Transcendence‘, how chaos is an inspiration, how he approaches writing new music, what it is to be him and more.

Devin is extremely pleased with how the response has been to his latest release and confesses that things this time are a little less hectic than usual. “It has been really good actually. Things have been busy but if I can be so bold, I think I’ve found ways to ensure a bit more piece of mind this time around by enforcing some personal boundaries. In general it’s chaos as usual I think which forms a  grounding that keeps it going.” So is chaos his secret to success? “Well, I don’t know, I’ve never had anything different so chaos is all I know!” This is the 7th studio album with the Devin Townsend Project – a truly magnificent  piece of work. “I aimed to make a positive statement with this record. I wanted the strength that this album is rooted in to be shown and make it one that is powerful and beautiful. It takes a lot of spirit to keep going and to not give up and so this album is a celebration of that spirit – to keep going. ”  ‘

Eager to find out more about what goes on inside the brain of the mighty Devin Townsend, I confessed to him my thoughts about the album. Transcendence is beautifully dark  and  after a few listens you will realise that this represents a  consolidation of a large part of Devin’s music over the years – it’s as if this album is telling his story. “Well I mean, I’ve been doing this for 25 years, there’s a part of my trip that really involves needing to be fired up about it. When I was younger it was much easier  because when we’re kids its easy to write about love, fear, anger  and death – big blunt emotions that are relatively immature.  Our connection to it is so much more visceral so it’s easy to write about it. But as you get older, the well runs dry.” Thinking for a few seconds, he continued to say something that was extremely thought-provoking. ” The resounding fact here is, however that there is one sort of style that I’ve been doing lately that works – people like it, I like it, it’s becoming popular. You always have to try and find an angle when you create art and fortunately with this album, prior to its inception, I was asked to write a book – an autobiography actually where you need to be really honest with yourself and a bunch of things that you could be potentially uncomfortable with. Through it, I really had to get down to the root of it all, and by writing everything down I was able to see patterns emerge. One of those patterns was control and how my need to control everything is probably just rooted in a real primal fear. Our goals in life are to become something better – I want to be a happier, stronger and better version of what I am now, everything I am, I want to be better.”

Slightly dazed at this point in the conversation, I asked him to further elaborate to which he replied, “With this album, I decided to step outside my comfort zone and open up this process of evolving by showing and explaining this thought process to other members of the band. I had to do a lot of things that required my ego to take a hit but ultimately that’s where the growth lies. I can’t control anything. As humans we cant control anything, even if we try hard.  I think if we’re being honest with ourselves, everything is chaos and to not surrender to it is also going to lead to some sort of madness. I use this album as  a starting point for that kind of movement. It provided a real emotional response from me that I was not only able to sink into this record but also write one that is very fresh for my style.”

Given his one year break, Devin also shared what was different as compared to previous albums,  in the making of Transcendence and to what extent his sabbatical helped.  “It did in a way. I mean a lot of what it came down to though this time, was being careful that I didn’t repeat the same mistakes I kept making in the past. So, to do that I was very careful to try and give myself time to not move the studios around too much, delegate more and ultimately it was a much smoother process. But the reality of making the kind of records that I do is that it’s a nightmare, to make this shit, it’s not easy. No matter how smooth the process went, it’s just a smooth nightmare.”

Being someone who appreciates all kinds of art, I confessed to Devin that the artwork of Transcendence reminded me of what we call ‘Shakthi’ in Hinduism or the ‘feminine power’. This certainly sparked interest as Devin replied, “Well, the story behind the cover is different to what you just said, but I’d like to address it because it makes sense to me. As a male, you’re connection to female energy is something that evolves over time. It took having kids for me to understand that. Not only what sex is but what the differences in the gender ultimately represent. A lot of young males become fixated on their projection of what a female should be, when you talk about the goddess or the feminine power, I think that psychology plays into the male symptom, whether or not its an Oedipus thing where you’re going back to the mother, the womb or whatever – but basically looking for a woman, putting them on a pedestal, when an actual relationship between man and woman is rooted in equality.”

Two and a half decades doing what he does best and he is still going strong, breaking stereotypes and creating one masterpiece after another. His out-of-the-box creativity and ability to tackle multiple genres has often been associated, by many, to him having Multiple Personality Disorder or Schizophrenia. “Like you say, art is a form of expression. That’s what I do. I often say to the people who make comments like that, that a sure sign of a mental aberration is doing one thing over and over again. It makes no sense to me how somebody could put all their time into one thing and then at the end of it say, ‘Let’s do that again!’. I mean, when I make something heavy, the last thing I want to hear is something heavy!” To this I agreed whole-heartedly and brought up the refreshing nature of his collaboration with Che Aimee Dorval on Casulaties of Cool, asking whether we can expect new music in the future from the duo. “Che and I have developed a really cool thing. We spent a lot of time together cultivating a relationship that is healthy. We went to California a few weeks ago to the Dunlop studios to do a live taping of  some of the Casualties stuff – and I can say that there is a lot of fuel in that tank. Che is a really unique individual and until such time that  that gets enough attention to warrant to doing something.”

Although short, it was nothing short of inspiring to exchange a few words with Devin Townsend and understand how his mind works. Do check out Transcendence if you haven’t already, it’s a beaut!

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