YES, THAT IS DEVIN TOWNSEND
Monday, October 5th, 2009 at 11:30am by Axl RosenbergOkay. So here’s a great example of the ways in which the mind works.
Last week Vince and I were talking about Devin Townsend, as we do from time to time. And later that night, I got a song from Vai’s Sex & Religion album stuck in my head. I used to listen to that album all the time when it came out in 1993, but I have no idea where the hell the cassette I once owned now resides, so I searched the net to see if it was posted somewhere.
Well, as it turns out, the song has a video. And I’m watching this video, and I realize, “Holy shit, that’s Devin Townsend doing vocals!” I have no conscious memory of every being aware that Townsend was the vocalist for that album, but I must’ve known; that’s why the song got stuck in my head in the first place, right? Psychology is weird like that.
By the way, even though they’re not in this video, Terry Bozzio played drums and T.M. Stevens played bass on Sex & Religion. TOO WEIRD!!!
What an amazing discovery. I feel so much cooler now. “Oh, yeah. I’ve been listening to Townsend since before anyone knew who he was.”
I have to go to my parents’ house and try and find my old Sex & Religion cassette.
Everyone knows this already. But um, congrats on your discovery.
Exactly.
yeah, c’mon everyone know devin started as a singer for vai. he even put a phone up his ass on a tv show.
Agreed…
Shameful, MS, shameful…
This was actually my first introduction to Devy. I’ve been somewhat of a fan (I like about 50% of his body of work) ever since.
What Rik said. I’m not even that big a fan of either Devin or Steve Vai and I knew this.
Devin’s much more accomplished than most people know.
Is it just me, or does Devin looks like a gay Rob Halford in the Deep Down Into The Pain video….?
oh, wait….
gay rob halford…? so rob halford?
Yeah, Brandon, he looks like a younger GOOFIER Rob Halford, if that’s even possible.
And I am a fan of his work, but not for that long (last couple of years).
That was a collaboration that I wish has made one more album. It was the least douchebagesque lost up his own ass thing Vai did outside of the guitar on the PIL album..
One of the first jobs I ever had in the entertainments biz was working as a PA on this video…Devin was totally cool, and hung out between takes (unlike Vai) talking with whoever happened to be around. He kept talking about how lucky he felt, cuz two weeks ago he was nobody and now he was earning $500 a week being the singer in Steve Vai’s band.
And: that shoot was hellish…it was out in the arid assed-out end of the Inland Empire, in a semi-abandoned industrial park. The director made Devin turn up at the crack of dawn because he wanted to shoot all the “conceptual” stuff first, when it was about 120 degrees. I’d spent the week before the shoot running around town buying up all the JP Witkin books I could find because that was the “theme” — ripping off JPW — but then he spent the whole day locked in his trailer smoking crack, so the AD ended up directing the conceptual stuff. Then when it came time to shoot the big firey “live” shots, we were all ready to roll and they were just about to light the fires when they realized the giant water tanker truck they’d ordered up was bone-dry. Yeah, you gotta check into those things before you sign the rental agreement guys. Long post short, I wound up driving an 18 wheel tanker truck thru the desert looking for a fire hydrant or a pond or something where I could steal 50,000 of water….
Obviously I found the water, the fires got lit, the video got made, Devin got disillusioned, Vai got soft, and so did I, cuz now I work in daytime tv and the only metal I’m around is on here…..
Great story!
Indeed – well told!
He also did the guitar studio work for Front Line Assembly’s Millennium album years ago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_%28Front_Line_Assembly_album%29
How strange, your comment hadn’t appeared when I mentioned Front Line Assembly and Dev… loved Millennium in my formulative years.
I did know this pretty early on, but my first exposure to Devy was on Noisy Mothers when he was interviewed by Krusher about SYL and Heavy As Really Heavy Thing in 1995 I think.
Dev’s early work also involved playing guitar on Front Line Assembly’s Millennium and Hard Wired. Awesome metallic EBM, but it sounds a bit dated now.
I loved that video “the audience is listening” as a kid. Made me want to learn to shred like ‘lil Steve. That, incidentally, never happened.
Yep. My obsession of Dev is a bit over the top. I knew this and also have his remix of PTH’s Sequoia Throne and his soliloquy on a Sir Millard Mulch album (”The Great Strength of Our Order”) and Dev’s contribution to a Removal album (”Layers of the Union”), and pretty every album Dev’s produced, granted some weren’t great, ranging from As The Palaces Burn to Dichotomy to Summon in Thunder. AND I have both of Dev’s Demo releases…
Oh dear I think I’ve said too much…
That Sir Millard Mulch album is ridiculous. Then again, I think I prefer his work as Dr. Zoltan Øbelisk, myself.
Passion and Warfare is the superior guitar wank SV album anyway…
Well, now I know why they don’t call him Devin Toothbrush…
I can vaguely remember watching them perform on the Tonight show and my mother saying ” I don’t like this”
Sex and Religion is the best Vai album. The songwriting is phenomenal and Dev’s vocal performance is outstanding.
By far that’s the best album he has ever made. Somewhere a few years a go I found a video bootleg of the sex and religion tour.
Whether or not I knew about this before (I did), this video is so fucking 90s it hurts. Hurts so sweetly.
Wait a minute now……Passion and Warfare is hands down the best Vai album.
Subjectivity is irrelevant. :)
Sex and Religion was a bit of a disappointment to me. Great production, smoking playing, and incredible musically, but in the end, it seemed forced, packaged, and trying too hard. The vocals seemed like a way after thought to the songs, which I didn’t think were that strong to begin with. But Devon absolutely blew me away live on that tour.
He was playing lots of guitar harmonies note-for-note with Vai and was all over the stage and in the crowd. He reminded me of a freakier, nerdier Phil Anselmo at the time. He dominated.
Here’s a quote from Steve Vai about Devin from his website:
Devin Townsend (singer on S&R) is one of the most amazing and uniquely talented tormented souls making music today. Very little of his true brilliance comes through on S&R. His solo music holds brutal treasures. Check out Strapping Young Lad or the ominous Ocean Machines. He is intense in the total meaning of the word. I believe he’s a genius in areas that have not been discovered yet. He’s quite grotesquely entertaining too (if your an instigator like me)….
Lame video, but I’ve always loved the Sex & Religion record. I agree with other that it is the best Steve Vai record — mainly because of Devin Townsend. If they could have actually done a collaborative record — it would have been amazing.