Devin Townsend
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| Devin Townsend | |
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Devin Garrett Townsend |
| Born | May 5, 1972 New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada |
| Genre(s) | Progressive metal, ambient, Industrial metal, Extreme metal |
| Occupation(s) | Singer, guitarist, keyboardist, record producer |
| Years active | 1993–present |
| Label(s) | Hevydevy, InsideOut |
| Associated acts | The Devin Townsend Band Strapping Young Lad Steve Vai Punky Brüster IR8 Grey Skies Caustic Thought Noisescapes |
| Website | www.hevydevy.com |
| Notable instrument(s) | |
| ESP Explorer ESP Telecaster ESP 7-string Horizon Fender American Stratocaster |
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Devin Garrett Townsend (born May 5, 1972 in New Westminster, British Columbia) is an influential Canadian multi-instrumentalist musician. He is a vocalist and record producer, drawing on progressive metal with influences from free jazz, blues, industrial, ambient and classical music. He is the founding member of the extreme metal outfit Strapping Young Lad, and has released a multitude of his own albums under the likenesses of Ocean Machine, Devin Townsend and The Devin Townsend Band.
His five-album contract deal with Strapping Young Lad was fulfilled with the 2006 release of The New Black, leaving the band on indefinite hiatus. The Devin Townsend Band was also retired from touring later that year, although, Townsend has stated that he will pursue his role as a record producer for other bands and will continue to write and release self-produced albums from his home studio.[1][2]
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[edit] Biography
[edit] Early life
Growing up in the Vancouver music scene, Devin Townsend first began playing the banjo when he was 5 years old, crediting his father on showing him how to play.[3] At the age of 12, he received his first guitar, and had a local guitar teacher between the ages 13–16. His teacher claimed to have taught Townsend differently from other students, saying that instead of teaching him numerous scales, he showed Townsend that the guitar was more about self-expression and focused lessons on how to put the expression onto tape. Townsend would practice ten hours a day; from the time he got home from school until midnight. At the age of 17, he taught at his teacher's studio for a year, until he finished school and then proceeded to enroll himself into the University of Victoria. He only attended one semester, primarily because he "couldn't take it anymore", at which point he began to pursue his musical interests.[4]
[edit] Touring with Steve Vai and The Wildhearts: 1991–1994
His first known band was Grey Skies, in which he was a member of while he was in school. He later joined Caustic Thought at the age of 19, replacing Jed Simon on guitar and playing alongside bassist Byron Stroud, both of whom would later become founding members of Strapping Young Lad. The band went on one tour down the west coast,[3] until Townsend eventually quit the band and began writing material under Noisescapes in 1993. A demo tape was recorded, and copies of it were sent to various record labels. Relativity Records responded to Townsend with a record deal and introduced him to Steve Vai, who had been looking for someone to perform vocals on his upcoming album, Sex and Religion. Impressed with Townsend's vocal work, Vai offered him the role as the album's vocalist, as well as accompany Vai on the subsequent world tour in support of Sex and Religion.[3]
After the Sex and Religion tour had ended, Townsend landed a second touring gig, this time with the opening band of Vai's tour, The Wildhearts. He played live with the band throughout half of 1994 in Europe, and appeared as a guest musician on their Urge and Anarchic Airwaves albums. Ginger, the band's frontman, remained close friends with Townsend and would later co-write "Christeen" on the Infinity album, as well as "om" and "Sit in the Mountain" from the Christeen + 4 Demos EP.
While on tour with The Wildhearts, Townsend got in touch with Jason Newsted through the band's manager, Big Mick, formerly the sound man for Metallica.[3] Townsend and Newsted formed a short-lived thrash metal project known as IR8, featuring Newsted on vocals and bass, Townsend on guitar, and Tom Hunting of Exodus on drums. While the demo tape had attracted Townsend attention from Century Media Records, it wasn't until eight years later in 2002 that Newsted had officially released the material under the IR8 vs. Sexoturica compilation.
Newsted was originally a part of a project with Townsend known as Physicist, but the other members of Metallica had gotten wind of the plan and were not keen to the idea of Newsted working with music outside of Metallica. The project was later recorded and released in 2000 without Newsted's presence as the Physicist album.
[edit] The beginning of Strapping Young Lad and Ocean Machine: 1995–1997
Approached by Century Media with a five-album record deal, Townsend began recording material as Strapping Young Lad. The project originally began as a solo outing as he produced and performed nearly all the instruments on the 1995 debut studio album, Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing. Following the release of the record, Townsend and several other musician friends he knew in Vancouver recorded an album in 1996 entitled Cooked on Phonics for another one-off side project, Punky Brüster. Written and recorded in under a month, the album was produced as a parody of punk rock bands and documents the act of selling out for mainstream success.
Dating back to the Sex and Religion tour, Townsend had been writing solo material for a project called Ocean Machine. The Biomech album was recorded in 1995 and originally queued for release later that year in December on Hevydevy Records, a label created by Townsend solely for material he releases on his own. Due to unknown reasons, Biomech was put off for release until late 1996, but when the time came to finally release it, Townsend had become unsatisfied with the recordings and decided to rerecord the album from scratch. Finally released in Japan on July 21, 1997, the album sold 12,000 copies throughout its first week of sales.
Although Ocean Machine began as a separate project from Strapping Young Lad, no further albums were produced and released under the moniker. Biomech was later renamed and redistributed as Ocean Machine: Biomech under Devin Townsend's name by request of his label. Notably, the album is still released in Australia as Biomech due to having refused to change the CD covers.
[edit] 1998–2005
Strapping Young Lad released their first live recordings in 1998 on an EP titled No Sleep 'Til Bedtime. It was just before the EP was released when Devin announced he and SYL drummer Gene Hoglan would be entering the studio to work on a new project called Infinity. It was assumed at the time that Infinity would be a new "band" similar to Ocean Machine. The music Infinity would be coloured white, according to Townsend.
When Infinity was released, it was to the surprise of Devin's fans as the artist was credited as Devin Townsend and the album as Infinity. Previously it was assumed Infinity would be the band name. The second surprise was the nude photograph of Devin that was used as the cover art. The artwork for the disc was completely white with a naked Devin crouching (covering his more "explicit" body parts) and grinning like a madman. This image was unlike what was seen of Devin thus far. A video and single/EP was released for the stand-out track Christeen, but as with Life, Devin was dissatisfied with the outcome as he believes his music doesn't translate well to film.
It was also with the release of Infinity that Strapping Young Lad began touring as The Devin Townsend Band and merged songs from Biomech and Infinity into a separate set.
Devin and Jason Newsted from the IR8 project began talking publicly about a new project they were working on called [[[Physicist (album)|Physicist]] (or Fizzicist) which they claimed would be "heavier than Strapping Young Lad". The IR8 tape was leaked, and aired by a Californian radio station that James Hetfield of Metallica was currently listening to. Metallica were unhappy with Jason working outside of their band and made it difficult for him to continue with Physicist. This prompted Devin to record the album himself with his Strapping Young Lad bandmates, but as a Devin Townsend album.
Physicist's combination of Extreme metal with more mellow "pop" melody was a massive hit with fans and critics alike.
Townsend followed up Physicist with Terria, a warm and organic progressive album that had more atmospheric and soothing parts than crushing riffs. Terria was recorded with Gene Hoglan on drums, Craig McFarland on bass and Jamie Meyer on keyboards.
In Feb 2003, Strapping Young Lad released their self titled follow up to City. A month later (March 31) a brand new line up of The Devin Townsend Band released Accelerated Evolution and for the first time, the two bands toured separately for their separate albums, once again creating a clear line between DTB and SYL.
Accelerated Evolution was released to grandiose praise from critics, fans and musicians like Steve Vai. It is also the first album released by The Devin Townsend Band.
A live "in studio" DVD was included as a bonus with the Special Edition of the second Devin Townsend Band album Synchestra, released January 30, 2006 to overwhelmingly positive reviews.
[edit] Retirement from Strapping Young Lad and The Devin Townsend Band: 2006–2007
On May 10th 2007, Devin announced on his official message board that he is stepping away from both bands for a while and producing solo albums.
Journalism is a crazy thing. (and one of the main contributing factors to my current state of burn out) Heres the deal: When and if I feel like it, I'll let you know. I'm officially burnt out on travelling, touring, and self promotion. I want to produce and make records for an undetermined length of time. Please respect that. I love syl and dtb, and the members of those bands mean a great deal to me, but I have to do it for the love, when it becomes a burden, it's time to step away for a while. After Ziltoid, there will be no real interviews for as long as it takes for me to build up strength again. I'm sure at some point I'll get the itch to play, but in the meantime, please respect that I've burnt myself out and need to get away from it all. I'm no good to anyone as a tired shell going through the motions for money. Mostly the point is i just need to spend some fuckin' time with my family. Enjoy the music...enjoy the productions...there will be a ton of them. btw - Ziltoid is a self parody, and I don't intend on milking it into a commercial light ... mainstream acceptance makes me nauseous... Thanks, Devin
Following the hiatus after the birth of his son Reyner, Townsend announced in November 2006 that he returned to his home studio to write and record material for a new album. The project was tentatively (and jokingly) referred to as The Mighty Masturbator during its early recording stages, but was renamed to Ziltoid the Omniscient before its release. The album was recorded by Townsend alone in its entirety, utilizing Toontrack's "Drumkit from Hell" for the drum tracks, well known for its use on Meshuggah's Catch Thirtythree album.
In May 2007, Devin announced in a Ziltoid the Omniscient press conference that he no longer plans to tour or make albums with Strapping Young Lad and The Devin Townsend Band, due to "burn-out" associated with touring and promoting. He does however, intend to continue his career as a producer and with his own solo projects, such as his puppet shows associated with Ziltoid the Omniscient and new albums.
[edit] Other information
Over the years Devin has become known for creating a completely new studio and touring band for each solo release. This may be partially explained by the fact that while the solo releases are thematically similar each release usually has a very different sound when compared to the preceding album. Devin has stated that each album has a different sound because he writes from his experiences of the past year and what he is feeling at the time the material is written.
Devin changed his approach to his solo material in 2003 by no longer releasing albums under the name of Devin Townsend. Devin now releases music under the name of The Devin Townsend Band. Devin has stated that The Devin Townsend Band will be a more permanent band than the bands that had been assembled for his previous releases and that the band was created to parallel and oppose Strapping Young Lad, with his more mellow music being released by The Devin Townsend Band, and the more angry music released by Strapping Young Lad. More information on this project is listed separately.
Devin has also experimented with electronica, initially with the Project EKO EP, which was available as a bonus with the Special Edition of Accelerated Evolution, and more recently with the dark ambient record Devlab. His latest ambient electronic album was released in November 2006, and is called Hummer
Devin Townsend produces, either alone or with others, all of his own work. Devin has also worked with other artists in producing their music. Townsend's work is often experimental and progressive. By utilizing digital audio tools and multitrack recording processes, Townsend layers sounds, sometimes with several layers of the same instrument and he will frequently lay down a soundbed of atmospheric noise giving a dense wall of sound effect.
In 2007 he lent his voice to an animated character from the Adult Swim cartoon Metalocalypse, Bink Bonk Blammymatazz in the episode "Cleanzo".
Devin produced Zimmer's Hole's third studio album in 2008. Zimmer's Hole is, for all intents and purposes, SYL with a different vocalist as the band consists of Jed Simon, Byron Stroud and (as of 2008) Gene Hoglan. Chris Valagao is their vocalist and has sang backup on many of Devin's solo albums.
[edit] Personal life
Devin Townsend has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder which has led to self-imposed stay in a mental-health hospital.[5] Devin was discharged from the facility after a few short days. Devin has also incorporated the disorder theme into the Strapping Young Lad record Alien. Allegedly he stopped taking his medication during the composition and production of Alien. This piece of lore is often repeated amongst fans and mentioned in reviews and interviews.
Townsend is famous for a unique "Skullet" hairstyle, because he has been balding since he was a young man, while not cutting his hair for several years. This has resulted in a unique style in which he is bald on top and at the front, while sporting long dreadlocks to the back and sides of his head. However he has on a number of occasions been known to shave his head (Steve Vai era (1993), and post Strapping Young Lad (2008 - present) For these reasons, he is noted for having an "eccentric" appearance and personality. Devin's appearance is well known amongst the metal community. The original character design for Pickles the Drummer, an animated character from the Adult Swim cartoon Metalocalypse bore a striking resemblance to Townsend.
Devin's wife Tracy gave birth to their first child, Reyner Liam Johnstan Townsend, on October 4, 2006.
[edit] Supporting musicians
[edit] Devin Townsend
- Will Campagna – keyboards
- Marty Chapman – drums
- JR Harder – bass
- Gene Hoglan – drums
- Craig McFarland – fretless bass
- Jamie Meyer – keyboards
- Jed Simon – guitar
- Byron Stroud – bass
[edit] Strapping Young Lad
- Gene Hoglan – drums
- Jed Simon – guitar
- Byron Stroud – bass
- Adrian White – drums
[edit] Punky Brüster
- JR Harder – bass, backing vocals
- Jed Simon – backing vocals
- Byron Stroud – backing vocals
- Chris Valagao – vocals
- Surrey Wagner – drums
- Adrian White – drums
[edit] The Devin Townsend Band
- Ryan van Poederooyen – drums
- Brian Waddell – guitar
- Dave Young – keyboards
- Mike Young – bass
[edit] Discography
[edit] Studio albums: Devin Townsend and The Devin Townsend Band
| Title | Release date | Label |
|---|---|---|
| Ocean Machine: Biomech | July 21, 1997 | Hevydevy |
| Infinity | June 17, 1998 | Hevydevy |
| Physicist | June 26, 2000 | Hevydevy |
| Terria | November 6, 2001 | Hevydevy |
| Accelerated Evolution | March 31, 2003 | Hevydevy |
| Devlab | December 4, 2004 | Hevydevy |
| Synchestra | January 30, 2006 | Hevydevy |
| The Hummer | November 15, 2006 | Hevydevy |
| Ziltoid the Omniscient | May 27, 2007 | Hevydevy |
[edit] Studio albums: Strapping Young Lad
| Title | Release date | Label |
|---|---|---|
| Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing | April 4, 1995 | Century Media |
| City | February 11, 1997 | Century Media |
| Strapping Young Lad | February 11, 2003 | Century Media |
| Alien | March 22, 2005 | Century Media |
| The New Black | July 11, 2006 | Century Media |
[edit] References
- ^ Bowar, Chad. Strapping Young Lad Interview: A Conversation With Frontman Devin Townsend. About.com. Retrieved on 2007-12-04.
- ^ DEVIN TOWNSEND Discusses Decision To Put STRAPPING YOUNG LAD To Rest. Blabbermouth.net (2007-05-21). Retrieved on 2007-12-04.
- ^ a b c d Turner, Tracy. Devin Townsend biography. DevyWorld. Retrieved on 2007-11-15.
- ^ Terry of Accent Guitar Studio interview. DevyWorld. Retrieved on 2007-11-15.
- ^ Metal Hammer Interviews Devin. Far Beyond Metal. Retrieved on 2007-11-21.
[edit] External links
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