Canadian rocker Devin Townsend has reflected on what led him to take a shit in Whitesnake guitarist Steve Vai’s guitar case back in the 90s.
Townsend recently sat down for a retrospective interview with Kerrang! that saw him delve into his comeuppance in the music industry and the disillusionment he felt towards the state of things in the 90s.
When asked about how he got the gig singing for Steve Vai, Townsend recalled: “At that point I was actually 19 years of age.”
“I’d sent a demo tape off to Relativity Records, and I got signed. On the same label was Steve Vai, who had just put out a solo record and was looking for a singer,” he explains.
“The A&R guy passed on my demo to Steve and he asked me to participate. I joined his fold and we recorded an album in 1991 or 1992, and we did two years of touring on that.”
Townsend continued, “We did things like play with Aerosmith and appear on The Tonight Show, so it really was in at the deep end. It was pretty over-the-top for someone who had never had that kind of experience.
“I had never played in arenas before, for one thing. I’ve always been very idealistic about music, and when I moved to LA, which I did at this time, I assumed that all musicians felt that way. I pictured an empathetic and nurturing industry.”
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It didn’t take long for Devin Townsend’s optimistic vision of the music industry to be poisoned.
“The music industry is, overall, a disingenuous place. It’s a hustle,” he mused. “So when I went down there I was deflowered pretty quickly. And I felt at that point that I wanted to take and make things explode.”
When the interview went on to point out that Steve Vai “seems like a very nice person,” Townsend shared an anecdote that saw him defecate in his guitar case.
“Yeah. But he was coming off the Whitesnake thing so he really was a rock star at this point. Thirty years on, our relationship has taken a good turn and we’re close. But I think at the time, I didn’t have many ways that I felt I was able to articulate my discontent, so I tended to act up.
“I took a shit in his guitar case, for one thing. Which I guess was confusing for him. I think that I felt that unequivocally that would express my discontent with how I was feeling about things.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Townsend delved into his personal vendetta against Bon Jovi. Delving into his love for new-age music, the rocker recalled the first time he heard Slade’s song ‘Run Runaway’, describing it as the moment “where everything changed.”
“I went out to buy the single and Bon Jovi had released the song Runaway, which is the one that I ended up purchasing. Strangely, I’ve ended up disliking Bon Jovi ever since, because I bought the wrong single!” he explained.
Check out ‘Still My Bleeding Heart’ by Steve Vai and Devin Townsend:
