If you have never heard of Devin Townsend, that's cool...but chances are, you have at the very least HEARD him. He has so many projects going at once, it's amazing he has time to sleep. Devin initially came into the spotlight as the singer in STEVE VAI's band when the band recorded
Sex & Religion, but since then (and a certain incident involving a phone up-his-ass at the Tonight show...which we get into later), he's gone on to contribute heavily to his original band STRAPPING YOUNG LAD, and THE DEVIN TOWNSEND BAND, which has a new disc out, titled Accelerated Evolution. I sent these questions off to Devin a while ago, but he was on tour at the time, so it took a while for them to come back.
FoundryMusicSteve: 1.You are constantly releasing your own music or producing music for other acts. When exactly do you sleep, and for how long?
DEVIN TOWNSEND: I sleep between about 1am and 7am unless I am on tour then I can sleep anyway between 3hrs and 15hrs a day
FMS: 2. Often when people multi-task, or focus on too many jobs at once, the attention given to those projects is compromised. Do you think you're spreading yourself too thin by working on so many different tasks at the same time?
DT: I find I progress by challenging myself, but being prepared to fail has given me the courage to do a lot of things, and my failure rate is relatively low at the moment, so I continue to test myself, when I fail, I fail big!
FMS: 3. You've stated that you're BiPolar. What's your preference: Lithium? Prozac? Depakote? Klonopin? Paxil?
DT: Stay away from paxil the stuff will be viewed as a hellish additictive narcotive distater in 5 yrs, but welbutrin works well for me, mixed with copious bad habits and black coffe
FMS: 4. I'd assume being bipolar drastically affects the creative process How does it affect you and your songwriting, and do you find your self more frequently manic, or more frequently depressed?
DT: I find myself both constantly, a really manic depressed person. I am constantly feeling extremes, but I have another side of me that compartmentalisies it all.
FMS: 5. Hypothetical situation: Steve Vai calls you up tomorrow and offers to fly you down to his studio to sing over ten new songs he's working on. You'll be there for a few weeks, work normal eight hour-long days, and you'll be paid six times the amount you'd normally make in two weeks of working non-stop. The only condition is that you may not offer ANY creative input of your own whatsoever. Do you take the gig or tell Vai to go scratch?
DT: No I wouldn’t do it, I need creative input.
FMS: 6. Are you French-Canadian? If so, have you ever wanted to surrender to an overly aggressive audience?
DT: Never surrender!!!!! No I’m not French-Canadian by the way
FMS: 7. How does it feel to work tirelessly developing your composition and production skills, grinding away on projects for your own independent label, and then watch as a teenage-pop act like Avril Lavigne move on to superstardom? (yes, the only connection I'm making there is that you're both Canadian) Does the unfairness of the music business ever piss you off?
DT: The only thing that pisses me off about the music industry it that it seems to be a forum for people who have issues, that can commiserate and avoid them, you can sustain yourself with a bit of luck and a lot of work.
FMS: 8. During an appearance on "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno" with Steve Vai's band, you and your roommate took some incriminating photographs in Leno's green room..mainly one of you naked with a telephone receiver up your ass....Describe the thought process involved in making a career-altering move like that.
DT: “Your just a fucking a bus boy, don’t tell me where to put the fucking canapés, fuck you and your stupid job, where’s the phone”
FMS: 9. Where's that vinyl suit you wore during Vai's "Sex & Religion" era?
DT: I left it in a closet in LA, I wish I had brought it, I didn’t want to carry it.
FMS: 10. Is writing/recording process different when writing a STRAPPING YOUNG LAD disc versus a DEVIN TOWNSEND BAND disc? If so, how?
DT: SYL is more democratic, and the DTB is just me. Makes it easier to define the identity of both, Strapping stuff is difficult for me to get my head around most of the time now.
FMS: 11. Given the state of the music business (record company consolidation, hard rock being ignored by radio and MTV, internet piracy), do you ever feel like giving up the fight and getting a 9 to 5 job?
DT: Almost every other day, but perseverance is what has made it pay of for me so far, so continue we shall, its been too long to give up now.
FMS: 12. Hypothetical situation: In one hand, you hold a one million dollar advance from a major label (plus ten points on the back end) to take your composition and production skills and develop an up and coming musical act. In the other hand, you have a fully loaded Uzi sub-machine gun. The catch is this: It's a boy band (N'Sync, Backstreet Boys, O-Town, The Moffats, etc, etc)... do you compromise your hard rock/metal roots and take the pot of gold, or do you gun down everybody in the room?
DT: I’d do it and it would be the heaviest boy band you’ve ever heard and you’d buy it, and you could never visit my multi-million dollar house you gun wielding psycho.
Not the MOST revealing interview we've ever done, but hey...It's cool that we didn't rattle him up too much on this one. I was almost sure we'd get him with the phone-up-the-ass thing. Oh well.
For more on Devin's numerous projects, check out HEVYDEVY.COM
