Chatting to me from Vancouver at the tail end of a frustrating 10 day fasting cleanse while finishing off his DVD release from last year’s series of London shows, an irritable Devin Townsend has just finished his first meal in over a week – a bowl of oatmeal that in his words resembled ‘a big bowl of snot’.
In his ever energetic way Townsend described to me a series of events during his developing years that helped form the artist we see today. With his groups Strapping Young Lad and The Devin Townsend Project he has brought a new blend of self-styled metal that has consistently pushed the envelope.
“As a person I’m completely disconnected from my emotional development,” he chimes, “and I always have been.” I listen intently through the distorted phone line almost in disbelief that he is opening himself up to me straight away. “I’m not an emotional person really. I rarely get mad, and when I do it’s disgusting. I’m not a crying type of person, I’m just pretty neutral. I’m definitely aware of those emotions but for some reason I’ve always been stunted with a fear of the vulnerability of someone who wears it on their sleeve.”
“I think that there’s two sides of me. I think there’s a side of me that is constantly analysing this other side of me that just wants to eat, fuck and sleep.” He stops to laugh. “It’s like this weird kind of combo of events. I mean I’m definitely cool with it, I think it’s funny right.”
Townsend found it difficult initially, being signed to sing with Steve Vai while still in his teens; a partnership which ended awkwardly. He then had to deal with record labels that disregarded his creative energy and saw his music as unsellable. I asked Townsend if he felt his disconnection with emotion helped him through these times to continue doing things his way; differently to the status quo.
“Yeah,” he responds straight off the cuff, “but even as you ask that question I wonder if that disconnection from emotion is something that has always been there, or if it’s only been there since I’ve been doing this professionally. I think a lot of times what I do musically is based in like trying to get to the bottom of things. I mean my goals are to be happy and calm and peaceful and all these things. I think because I’m just very obviously not, I’ve spent a lot of time going, ‘Well, okay what is it that’s fucking this shit up?’ you know.”
“Is it the analysis itself, is it fear, is it control? What is it? And so I think that the disconnect from emotion is probably a defence mechanism that has just been compounding itself. It probably started from Steve Vai where there were criticisms that I was very uncomfortable in taking. Also family members dying and having children, and all these things forced me to have to swallow a lot of traumatic reactions. I mean when you’re 15 years old your reaction to stress or fear or confrontation is just to open your front door and go screaming down the road in your underwear,” he pauses to chuckle and I can’t help but do the same. The imagery of a young Townsend bolting down a cold Vancouver street in his undies is just too much for my imagination.
Obviously in the mood to self analyse, he continues. “Those sort of things are just not an option anymore. I mean now I have to just swallow it and I wonder if that is by definition me being a stunted person or just getting older. The more my career is going in these awesome directions I’m so happy to being doing what I do. So I’ve started thinking well maybe I’m not that fucked up, maybe I’m just 40.” His laugh is infectious and his ability to see the humorous side of himself is quite humbling.
Townsend’s perspective on life is the same as it is on music. He doesn’t fear coming across as narcissistic at all, he just feels that freedom of individual expression is a powerful thing.
“You play the cards your dealt. I don’t know what else to say,” he continues. “If society asked you to dumb yourself down just so you don’t embarrass people who don’t want to hear what you have to say, then that’s definitely an option for you. For me, man, I’m just being me.”
“I think I learnt lessons from being so afraid of confrontation and violence that it led me to confronting everybody, and surrounding myself with violence because I thought that it might desensitise myself to it. The irony of that shit is that it just compounds it and all of a sudden your life sucks.”
“I think that someone who consciously chooses to stay in places that are unhealthy for them are playing the martyr. No situation is super comfortable, or perfect, or whatever but within the guidelines of that, you always know what shit is toxic for you. If all of a sudden you’re off the fence and saying, ‘Well, maybe I shouldn’t be going to these hookers every Wednesday night’ or whatever, you can rationalise it as long as you like but eventually an alarm is going to go off in your brain and you’ll realise, ‘Dude you’re being an idiot, stop that’”.
Townsend has rationalised becoming sensible as not a ‘spiritual alarm clock’ but more a realisation of common sense. He has been sober for a number of years now, after a long period using various substances as part of his creative process. He has taught himself how to write music sober and enjoy the process in a natural mind state. I asked where this decision to stay sober came from.
“When I smoke weed and take acid and get loaded I’m a fucking idiot. I say stupid shit and I get hung up on shit that isn’t important and things stay just below the surface.” It sounds like his decision was an easy one but he elaborates that the reality of staying sober for him is not easy, and in fact “fucking sucks.”
“Again you can rationalise your ways to think that you’re nearing such an artistic apex and without it I’m denying myself a tool for that. Sure that may make sense in some sort of again narcissistic way but the bottom line is, if you’re pissing your friends and family off and what’s more important to you in life is having good relationships with those people rather than being some sort of artiste, then the writing is on the wall.”
The Devin Townsend Project are currently on tour in Australia with the Soundwave Festival. They play their first Sidewave tonight with Meshuggah and Dredg (Tuesday 28th Feb @ The Factory in Sydney) with the second tomorrow night, Wednesday 29th Feb @ The Forum in Melbourne.
