“INSANITY IS AN EASY PLACE TO HIDE”: DEVIN TOWNSEND TALKS SPECTACLE, METAL, AND 2012 IN A METALSUCKS EXCLUSIVE
Photos by Brian Schroeter
Sitting opposite Devin Townsend, I am able to witness firsthand his mid-day queasiness (credited to a crummy breakfast), the way conversation causes him to perk up in little plateaus, and his determination while outlining his plans for the coming years. He’s excitedly building something, I observe, with this string of late-year shows in small markets serving as launch ramp to a bigger viability. It’s incredible, but this metal guy — despite boasting an 18-album discography over 16 years, including four Devin Townsend Project records that make up the exquisite Contain Us boxset — is fixed on a greater achievement: more autonomy.
Which is wild if you think about it. Townsend — the sole artist on his own Hevy Devy Records, a eight-tool studio whiz, and a frequent genre-buster now at a peak in popularity — appears to be the most creatively and commercially unbound musician ever in any genre. In his own studio and enlisting his peers, Townsend can make any project fly, be it puppet opera (Ziltoid The Omniscient and its planned sequel) or a prog-metal-Quadrophrenia-on-peyote theatrical epic (this year’s masterful Deconstruction) or sweet Anneke van Giersbergen-voiced pop metal (2009‘s Addicted, the forthcoming Epicloud project).
So what more does he want? The clue lies in DTP’s one-album-per-night shows back in November, and a massive event this Fall called The Retinal Circus: He’s steadily setting foundations for a bigger live show with a bigger budget, in reference to which his term is “absurd” (a word he pronounces “ob-zurd,” though it’s unclear whether that’s a product of Canadianism or just the way “homage” is said by certain people “oh-mazhe” and by others “Ah-mej”). But why, in these uncertain times, is Townsend forsaking modest aims for risk? We might surmise that he’s not satisfied to perform only parts of sprawling epics like Deconstruction and Ziltoid, nor to sub in backing tracks for his orchestras and choirs. To us, he could be metal’s most ambitious madman or a joker set on his own destruction. He probably wants nothing more sinister than to have shitloads of fun.
For the moment it’s a bit vague. What becomes clear over the course of our talk is that he is an entertainer and a liberator, a spirit-guide on a tour through the heart of a metal guy’s frantic consciousness. To this end, he is fortifying his fanbase. Hours after our talk, Townsend will display this onstage, loudly describing his suit’s odor as that “of a thousand ballbags,” bolting stage-right and out around the crowd to rock in the face of a 50-ish spectator seated mid-venue, and segueing regularly into and out of instrumental passages with self-reducing quips (“I’m a fucking dink! Go!”). He’ll dole out mid-show bro-fists, press forehead-to-forehead with front-row fans, and call his song “Life” his “gayest ever.” After the show, as cymbals are still ringing, Townsend will hop right down off the stage to greet and pose with all concertgoers. He’s friendly and sincere to each. He’s got plans for them.
Blame it on the rigors of moving home cities yet again, or changing drummers as frequently as Spinal Tap, or trying to best their universally hailed first album Metridium Field: Giant Squid sound exhausted on The Ichthyologist. More depressed than angry. Not so overtly metal. Lethargic in their rhythms, loose in their playing. Maybe it’s all intentional, given the stark emotional terrain of the source material – based on band leader Aaron Gregory’s graphic novel of the same name, The Ichthyologist records the thoughts of a numbed narrator as he turns to the sea to escape the pain of personal tragedy and loss. Gregory’s lyrics dwell in dank, lightless places. If on Metridium Field Giant Squid were skimming the sea’s surface in search of their namesake seabeast, this one finds them sinking, pulled down into the fathomless depths.
