MetalSucks

Last week one of you accused us of being a “bunch of negative miserable fucks.” I can only assume that this person had never been to this site before, and was somehow unaware that it’s called “MetalSucks.”

Still, this was probably the best worst week ever, because:

• Devin Townsend took over our site for a day!
• We finally got around to making MetalSucks t-shirts and hoodies!
• Vince interviewed Between the Buried and Me’s Dan Briggs for the third time in as many years!
• There’s gonna be a new Pig Destroyer album in 2010!
• There’s a new Sigh song!
• Varg Vikernes came out of the closet!

So, see? LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL!!!

In conclusion:

Have a good weekend.

-AR

Ever heard that Behemoth have breaks built into their set so they can run off stage and do some corpse paint touch-ups? To be fair, I’m not sure if the person who told me that was being honest or just joshin’ me, but it makes sense – the band definitely runs off stage from time to time, leaving the crowd to listen to pre-taped orchestral apocalyptic goodness.

True or not, it doesn’t change the fact that Behemoth absolutely crushed in their too-brief set on this past summer’s Rockstar Mayhem Yadda Yadda tour, or the fact that we were looking forward to seeing them do a proper headlining set. So now they’ve finally announced a tour – with Septic fucking Flesh, no less – and it’s hitting NYC the same night as the BTBAM/Cynic/Devin Townsend/Scale the Summit Orgasm Tour. I don’t know what rocket scientists set that up, but now metal fans in our area will have a tough decision to make. We are going to the Orgasm Tour, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t wish there were multiple mes, like in that awful Michael Keaton movie.

ANYWAY, here are dates for the Behemoth tour. We envy those of you who can make it.

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In no particular order…

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These are some of my favorite producers and mixers for heavy music… It’s a challenging genre, and these guys are great in my opinion.

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Just a question, not meaning to be a presumptuous dick or anything, but seriously… as metal heads, who are we pissed at? I hear a lot about “God” or “Satan,” but I’m kind of of the mindset that both of those things are illusions and metaphors based on a prehistoric view on what the true nature of infinite reality is. So does that mean we’re mad at ourselves ultimately?

Maybe we’re all mad at our dads?

Money? Sex? Each other? “The man?” That man over there? Me? Her? Stupid people? Drugs? Our own stupidity? Aardvarks?

Maybe as entities we are predisposed to aggression and evolutionarily, we’re hung up on the need to actualize it.

Either way, right or wrong… rawwwr, no?

-DT

Ah, shit I know… but late at night, I love watching this type of stuff… Lame? Most definitely. But I never claim to be otherwise.

“Farting Preacher”

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Okay. I started SYL in 1993 after hearing Soul Of A New Machine. I saw Fear Factory open for Sepultura with Clutch, and I remember running around the venue telling everyone: “THAT is what I want to do, except with extra chaos…”

My creative process is directly tied to my emotional development. There are some folks that make music by picking up a guitar until they have a riff that is defined by the musical roads they choose to hone. They then sculpt it into that framework and voila, Metallica, Slayer, Priest etc. I think that’s awesome, and in some ways I’m envious of that. In many cases, if you mix that with tenacity and a certain amount of talent and luck, you can sustain a decent career.

That’s not how I create, again… as it is tied to life and circumstance, my music has generally been cathartic observations of what life presents, and each new record in many ways is a reaction to the one before. So in the most blunt of terms, I make music to better understand myself as I change.

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For all of you who want nothing to do with my music, have tried and don’t get it, or think I’m a total hack, continue on to the next blurb, as I’m going to spend the next few paragraphs stroking myself and thinking that I’m super.

Anyways, heres a bunch of videos… it’s hard to give a solid overview after twenty-something albums, but anyways…

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In addition to graciously offering to run our site for a whole day, Devin is going to be making himself available for a live webchat tonight!

At exactly midnight EST / 9pm PST (that’s 5am Wednesday in the UK and 4pm Wednesday in Sydney), a Meebo chat room will appear embedded in a new top post at MetalSucks. Devin will be chatting under the handle “DT” (imposters beware), and the chat will last for a full hour as long as you are all good samaritans and don’t turn it into a raging shitfest. Free to ask Devin anything at all. If you can’t be in front your computer tonight, don’t fret — Devin plans to do a similar chat via Twitter within the next few days in which he’ll answer more questions and clear up any issues that might arise out of the MetalSucks session.

Thanks and see you tonight!

Are there WAY more nerds in metal than we thought? Is maybe the prerequisite for being a moderately succesful metal band just being cool enough to hang out with the jocks in the smoke pit at school? How many shredding bands do you know of that play incredibly well, yet are ignored because of the intangible NERD factor?

Is it possible through touring, etc., for lots of NERDS to get the NERD trained out of them to the point where they condemn other NERDS for their lack of “hangability?”

Maybe the secret sauce of metal’s allure is that it allows people to deflect lots of rage and hostility from a world that DOESN’T GIVE A SHIT by being “dark and menacing.”

The darkest and most menacing people I know of are usually either hyper-religious, into Jay Z, or don’t listen to music at all.

Metal is CATHARSIS, and a TRUE ART FORM.

My name is Devin, and I am a full blown fucking nerd.

How about you?

-DT

Is long hair really cool anymore? Just a question… I mean, I’m not one to judge, because I went bald at 26 and just grew gross hair in protest… but now, if I don’t shave it, I look like fryar Tuck, so me aside…

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So Borivoj Krgin eh? [Krgin runs Blabbermouth.- Ed.] Here’s my story about the man…

He signed SYL. Without Bori, there would be no current anything for me in terms of my metal career. He rocked me hard. And Nevermore, Stuck Mojo etc…

He let me sleep on his couch for three or four months while I was writing City. He was (is) a good friend.

Blabbermouth is a site I go to almost everyday. I would bet any metal musician who tells you they’ve never been is full of shit. It’s incredibly hard to resist reading things about yourself that are either flattering, or make you look like a total douchebag.

The thing is:

He doesn’t make the stuff up. Any jackassery that I have been quoted as saying, I really did say. Blabbermouth changed the way we do interviews by making us accountable.

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I am working on my first, full blown musical… and yes (much to some folks’ chagrin), it’s a new Ziltoid record. It going to be called Z2, and I’m taking it to the moon.

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Devin Townsend has been crawling up the hill to public acceptance in a desperate and obvious manner since his dubious introduction to public conciousness on the awkward and critically ill recieved Sex And Religion by Steve Vai.

The level of insecurity laid bare by the incessant regurgitation of prior ideas and themes, increasingly more dilluted, has resulted in a four record “project” called the “dtp” (not to be confused with one of the many other rapidly cycling identities bestowed on the public with equal faux grandeur and self important themes.) The implication that we should all care now crests in the judgmental and self righteous Addicted, which seems to imply that his “newfound sobriety” is the answer to all the world’s ills, and that we should all follow suit, set to a antiquated, late 90’s “White Zombie-esque” dance metal vibe.

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Yo cats, I’m Devin Townsend. I’m a middle class, white Canadian male. I am bald with bad teeth and I am 37 years old. I used to front a band called Strapping Young Lad. I have put out around twenty albums between SYL and my solo records over the last eighteen or so years. I have a record label called HevyDevy Records that distributes my records to the the best of our ability. I produce and mix bands. I have done some great work and some shitty work. I don’t really care about downloading because the industry changed and I have never sold enough records for me to make more than a normal living. Please have a great day and thanks for any and all support.

I am in the middle of a four record project called “The Devin Townsend Project.” Ironically enough, and EGADS!, today I am taking over one of my favorite websites, MetalSucks.

I have a ton of things on my mind today, please enjoy… even if you hate my fucking guts, hopefully I can provide you with some cool stuff to chew on.

HOTCHA!

-Devin Townsend

We’ll keep this short and sweet.

Tomorrow, The Devin Townsend Project will release Addicted, the second part of a four album cycle.

To celebrate, Mr. Townsend is taking over MetalSucks for the day.

Seriously.

We’re not dicking around.

Devin Townsend is running MetalSucks tomorrow.

We know. We can’t fucking believe it, either.

We hope you’re as stoked as we are.

That is all.

Now if you’ll excuse us, we need to go splash some cold water on our faces.

-Axl & Vince

Between the Buried and Me bassist Dan Briggs currently holds the record for MetalSucks interviews at a healthy 3… which averages out to once a year in the history of this site. It’s no coincidence that we always end up talking to Dan over the rest of his equally talented band mates; the dude’s extremely passionate about his band and has a lot to say about the intricacies of their complex music.

Shortly after the release of their latest opus The Great Misdirect, I spoke with Dan by phone about the new record, how it compares to Colors, how it was written, BTBAM’s upcoming boner-factory tour with Cynic and Devin Townsend, and the band’s pending exit from Victory Records. Our chat, after the jump.

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We’re a mere week away from the release of Addicted, the awesome new album by The Devin Townsend Project, and I imagine that all those pre-orders are gonna start shipping any second now.

So here’s video of Devin signing 2,000 of those pre-orders, plus adding his own special little touches to the booklets. I’m sure that this was a) boring as fuck for Devin and b) put a real strain on his hand, so I think it’s pretty awesome to see how much work he put into making these physical copies something really special for his fans.

You can still pre-order Addicted here, although I think (I could be wrong) that the super-deluxe awesome editions with Devin’s personally hand-drawn O cards are all gone. But even still, this record kicks major ass, and you should buy a copy.

Also, don’t forget that Devin will be part of the Incredibly Unbelievably Orgasm Inducing Tour 2010 with Between the Buried and Me, Cynic, and Scale the Summit. You can get tour dates here.

Addicted comes out November 17 on InsideOut. And if you’re really, really well-behaved for the rest of the week, we’ll have a special surprise that day to coincide with the release.

-AR

In news that will only bum out people who have never heard Addicted, Ki, Ziltoid (the album, not the guy who leaves comments here telling us how bad we suck), or any number of other Devin Townsend projects that aren’t Strapping Young Lad, The Formerly Skulleted One has announced that he will not be playing any SYL material on his forthcoming tour with Between the Buried and Me, Cynic, and Scale The Summit.

And there isn’t much more to say than that. I love SYL as much as the next drunken ree-ree, but Townsend has plenty of other great albums from which to pull material, and I’m dying to hear stuff from the last few records that has never been performed live before. And since he’s not the headliner and I imagine his set time will therefore be a little shorter than some of us might like, it’s only natural that he’d want to concentrate on stuff he wasn’t out on the road playing for years and years prior to SYL’s demise.

Or, put more succinctly: even though some idiots will surely bitch and moan, this isn’t a big deal, and this tour is still gonna be awesome.

Addicted, which really is fantastic, comes out November 17 on InsideOut Music.

-AR