The best way of me not doing things is to demand it from me.
— Devin Townsend
As a vocalist, I can scream, and I've got a really good singing voice, but I can't do the really heavy vocals.
'Deconstruction' is a really heavy record, a real symphony in a lot of ways, but with heavy musicians from the metal world - friends of mine.
Not only was it Def Leppard I was into when I was 15, but 'Watermark' by Enya. I loved it.
Music is so important to me that that's got to be the only way I can do it. In the purest possible way.
I love people; don't get me wrong. Individually, I love that interaction between people, and I'm not an ogre or something; but huge crowds of people, huge groups of people who seemingly have endless access to you - as I get older, I'm not really into that.
To have the opportunity to be creative and clarify the nature of that creativity, there are definitely some long days, some 18-20 hour days with interviews or computer work, but I have a friend who is every bit as intelligent and creative as me who works at the mill.
I'm good at what I do but, to be honest, not a whole hell of a lot else!
I'm really into music, I'm really into art, and I want to keep that fire alive.
Producing is getting the performances, tracking it, making sure all the parts are there. Mixing is when you take the finished work, and you make sure all the levels are right. It's putting all the parts together.
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.
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.
As someone whose music is connected to his personal growth, I feel an obligation to follow this muse wherever it leads.
Human beings are gross.
The way that I write is I just write a ton of music in the background of my life, and then I just bring it into rehearsal. It's, like, 'Okay, guys. It goes like this. Let's smooth it out.'
I have a job - it's a great job, and I love doing it - but I can't not work. That's not psychological; that's practical.
People talk about the Ozzfest and what it can do for your career, and I guess I'm just oblivious to it.
Strapping Young Lad is a representation of me, just as much as 'Ki,' 'Ghost,' 'Ziltoid' or 'Infinity.' There's no difference; it was just a different period of time.
I have, like, three or four friends and am a very private person.
Because I think I am pretty left-brained - more than I gave myself credit for - I think I've managed to really dissect emotions. At least my own. And I've been able to understand what they do, how they do it, and when.
I've always loved the sound of female vocals.
I'm very creative - making music, making puppets, that's my thing - but mainstream success and the demands that brings? No, not really for me.
The reason Strapping came to an end is because I'm no longer in my mid-20s.
The identity of each band is what's important for me production-wise.
After Strapping, the amount of things in my life had changed were more than I'd ever had to process in any one time, and as a result of that, I found that my writing was veering off in four - sometimes even more - directions.
I've been a workaholic for many years, but at the same time, I do it because I love it.
'Epicloud' is the first record that I felt confident enough to include all those things on one record, so it goes between melodic hard rock to schizophrenic heavy metal to country to really ambient stuff, and it's all in one place.
Sometimes I'll be writing something, and I say to myself, 'Okay, that's definitely DTB,' or, 'It's definitely Strapping.'
I just go where it feels the most honest to go; then I deal with people thinking it's weird afterwards.
I don't deal with conflict well, so sometimes things will happen that will make me feel sort of powerless. But instead of being able to actually deal with the problem, I just suck it up - that's the way I was raised. Music, then, becomes my one avenue for letting things go, and when I get the chance, I let it rip. It's like therapy in that way.
The thing is, I'm equally disgusted by both men and women.
In Strapping, I had experimented with a creative catharsis under the assumption that art doesn't need to be accountable for itself, but I found out in very practical ways that you are accountable for everything you say. Everything you write, everything you do becomes not only your identity but your world resonates with it.
The reason why everything I do is so different is not because I'm trying to be provocative; it's simply a reflection of whatever was happening to me at the time I wrote that particular record.
I've been making music for so long, and the main hurdles I've run when dealing with any public exposure is that many of my projects are so different from each other.
As Devin, the person, I'm very different from my artistic self.
I guess I'm not really into female vocals that sound masculine, I guess. A lot of times, the heavy female vocalists always end up sounding like they're screaming or whatever.
I've always been into easy music. When I was 15, the record for me was 'Hysteria' by Def Leppard.
I know that I'm often perceived as this odd guy who's a bit out there, and I've probably, once in a while, reinforced that image, but I'm really not that person, and, in a way, I want even less so to be seen like that.
For me, the opportunity to express myself in this way is something I don't take for granted.
I think when music, specifically heavy music, the motivation for it is other than truly feeling it, that's when it becomes really difficult for me.
It's like... to make a good record - I don't care who you are - it takes a long time and a lot of passion and a lot of attention to detail, right?
I really like the art of music, the way that you can express yourself through music.
I'm doing this record called 'Epicloud.' Over the course of the full record, there's sort of new agey stuff, jazzy stuff, really heavy stuff. We basically cover the gamut.
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.
If there's anybody who's new to what I do, who maybe heard 'Liberation' or some of the songs off 'Epicloud' and thought, 'This is really cool, I could get into this,' you're going to hate 'Casualties.'
Strapping Young Lad is a vehicle for me to be wild and extroverted and ridiculous. It gives me the chance to say, 'Look at me. I'm a heavy metal guy. I'm Rob Halford or Bruce Dickinson or whoever.'
Because I have been so pigheaded and so selfish about so many things for so many years, I've spent a lot of time being, like, 'That person needs to change. This person needs to change.'
One thing that's really important for me to be creatively motivated is to find an angle. Some people refer to that as a concept, which it is, in a sense, but not overtly. It's just something I need to focus and hone in on, and the trajectory of what might be seen as a 'concept' gives me creative momentum.
The records I make, I'm there from the writing of the first note through the click tracks to the miking of the drums to the editing of everything to the production to the vocals to the artwork.
