the AU review caught up with Devin Townsend, one of the most industrious and odd (in a good way) multi-genre musicians, especially on the progressive metal/rock scene, to talk about his latest album Epicloud, the return of vengeful coffee loving alien Ziltoid and how having warm pee in bag sloshing against your leg could be distracting.
How are you? Where are you?
I am good, I’m in Vancouver; we’re just finishing filming this Ziltoid show for the day. We’ve got one more day of it and then I’m just going to finish this record I’ve been working on, and then I’m going back to Sweden to do a bunch of shit. I’m good it’s great, I just wish it would rain; this whole sunny weather thing just does my head in.
Oh really?
Yeah it’s the sunniest summer that Vancouver has had ever, I’m just not into it you know, I don’t like the weather to be much more than a balmy seventy one and a half degrees. I mean I appreciate it, but I find my process, creatively, is tied into my comfort level. I’m just so… anything distracts me, like if I’m working and I have to pee it’s like the ultimate in, I’m just like ‘Oh my god why does this always happen, I’m focusing and now I have to pee’. So it’s like the same thing with weather; if I’m too warm, it limits my ability to do what I do right. But it doesn’t eliminate it, it just makes it a little more trying. I tend to have become very accustomed to the Vancouver climate so this unseasonable hot streak is just not for me.
You should get one of those bags that you attach to your leg that you can pee in, so you don’t have to go to the toilet.
I think that’s a solid call [laughs], that would be good.
Keeps your leg warm too!
Here’s another thing, I don’t like things to keep me either, so if I’m sitting there sloshing around while I’m trying to edit vocals with like a bag full of piss on my leg I’m gonna be really bummed out too right.
You could always make it part of the, ummm, musical soundtrack.
Make it up, make it up, it’s the ocean [laughs].
So you were just talking about Ziltoid which is pretty great actually, I was going to ask you if ‘Ziltoid the Omniscient’ was going to make a return and it sounds like you’re working on a Ziltoid influenced album?
Oh yeah, I think the reason why the whole Ziltoid character is always been of interest to me, and more so now that I’m able to pinpoint what it is about him that I find intriguing, is that Ziltoid is obviously me and therefore the character is a way for me to in a sense, to sort of objectively look at myself. Self-analysis is such a dangerous avenue to go down, because you can end up intellectualising your processes to the point where you’re actually not doing anything. You’re just spending a whole lot of time running in circles; I think it’s clever by understanding what your hang-ups are, but unless you’re sort of proactive about them it’s just intellectualising.
So with Ziltoid it’s a lot of fun for me, let alone engaging to be able to just watch him and be like, ‘Oh yeah that guy’s a jerk, he’s a selfish cat, he’s hung up on this, and his defence mechanisms are this…’. So on that as a fringe benefit, I’m able to sort of watch myself, but on a real definite level I’m able to sort of interact with it and say, ‘Well he would do this, because I know myself…’ or, ‘He wouldn’t do this, because I know myself’. The end result is just is a level of depth that although now we’re still limited in what we can do with him, like the puppet himself, and how the concepts can be articulated. But it’s something that just has no boundaries and those lack of parameters, I guess I love that, I just love that it’s just so engaging for me to not be limited to structures of any sort, I love that.
Surely you’re not as angry and selfish as Ziltoid, enough to squash a kitten?
No, you see he never would and I think that’s the thing he likes to talk big, but he’s got a conscience, which is the most engaging part of him. In fact, I have people that get involved with the project and they make assumptions on him based on what they assume he’s going to be like, ‘Oh now he’s going to destroy people’ or ‘He’s going to squash a kitten’ or whatever and I’m like, ‘No, he never would’. That’s the whole crux of the story. That’s why it’s not just he’s a villain he’s tormented, and I think that…is funny, I think it’s great.
I think as well, that as a character, he is evolving and the puppets are evolving and all these elements, the technical aspects are evolving. But really what it comes down to, is it gives me excuses to make types of music and to explore lyrical and conceptual themes that aren’t appropriate in any other sense. Like Ziltoid, he’s an alien, he’s from the fourth dimension and all this shit; it’s these thoughts of oh that’s off topic or thats under limits of taste, there’s no taste required as long as you’ve got the great colour scheme and the right aesthetic you can get away with anything.
So let’s have a chat about your new album Epicloud, you’re currently touring Europe, how are the audiences there and how did they receive Epicloud?
I’d like to think that they really liked it, I also think that I tend to be pretty forceful with my visions in whichever way, and so a lot of times I think people just give up. They’re just like, ‘Oh okay yeah, he’s doing that now, whatever’; it’s not as much that people have some sort of direct connection to it at first. It’s just I think there’s a certain level of enthusiasm that just my interest in this type of thing brings to it, that typically we’ll play these festivals, like we played this huge festival the other day and looking out at the audience and they’re just looking out at me like, ‘What the fuck are you guys doing?’
But halfway through they’re like, ‘Okay’ you know what I mean, by the end they look like they’re having a good time. But I think ultimately, it’s difficult to go into a live situation trying to, for me at least, to try and convince people that I’m something that I’m not. So we go into it just being what we are, fine, I mean I like this and that, puppets and having fun. I like big loud statements about big sort of basic emotions right, that’s kind of how I roll. So I think it’s off putting to some people at first, but after a while at least it’s not lying to ya, so I think people warm to it, either that or just profoundly hate it. But, either way, you’re eliciting a reaction and I guess that’s what we’re ultimately in this for right?
Well I know that might be the case at maybe some of the festivals but definitely Australian fans, I think they kind of get where you’re coming from and enjoy the whole performance and the quirkiness, and the fact that it’s unexpected. I know I definitely do.
Well that’s awesome thank you; I mean, I would too. I mean, I find that when I was a bit younger, I spent a lot of time trying to think that, or perhaps assuming that, by me being really po-faced with certain things like my interests, whatever they are; like I do have heavy interests in things of a spiritual nature, or things of a scientific nature, or things that if you speak about literally or directly it’s gonna come across as being self-righteous or preachy in some sense. But for me, it’s always been underlined by the fact that it’s all hypothesis, like none of it is me saying, ‘This is what I think it’s about’. I’m just like well maybe it’s this, here’s a record about a thought, here’s a record about something that I feel, in order for me to move on in the process of becoming a more functional adult or human being.
This is something I feel the need to explore and because my creative process is so tied to my emotional health, it’s like a hard wire. So it’s just inevitable that whatever I feel the need to explore based on life and age and kids and death and drugs or whatever it is, is going to be represented in it. So I think that perhaps with the Australian audiences, it’s not as much that I’m trying to sell you something, it’s just all works in progress. Everything is like well, ‘Look, this is where I’m at,’ and I don’t want to come across like I’m playing some sort of Michael Stipe [R.E.M frontman] role. I mean, shit, here’s a puppet; it’s not me, it’s Ziltoid, he’s an alien and he’s thinking about it, not me, right. I think it takes a hint of the edge off of it and allows me to explore those concepts, not ironically without it being altruistic or preachy or self-righteous. I’d like to think so at least.
Speaking about your emotional health and expressing yourself, with Epicloud was that more of a cathartic experience for you, or did you go into recording it with a certain objective?
Absolutely, I mean I think I’m blessed but it’s also a curse I guess, with vision. If I have a concept, I have a tendency to be able to see it finalised from the very beginning and then along with that comes these very strict ideas of what it can and can’t entail and Epicloud was based on a number of objectives. I’ve been doing interviews with people that assume, because it is rooted in this positive sort of frame of mind, that perhaps that’s where I find myself as a human being and it’s a direct representation of that. In contrast to what I said a few minutes ago, about how everything is a direct representation of my emotional health and it’s not irony, I think Epicloud was almost based in although it’s obviously neither it or I are not like punk rock, which is such a tribute to themselves. I think the attitude of just like, ‘Look if this is what you want from me and if what you feel is important to represent to this type of music, that I personally feel has the potential of being catharsis like you say’, then it’s important for me to fight to make a record like Epicloud, that is rooted in positivity with heavy metal aesthetic, it’s you know…a punk rock thing to do!
It’s like, ‘Okay well, heavy metal has these strict parameters well fuck it then, here’s one about love, if you don’t like it I don’t know what to tell ya because isn’t that what the root of doing what you’re going to do based on?’ It seems to be there’s sort of a strange irony in it, but in order for me to make Epicloud, it wasn’t easy to maintain that frame of mind because of course, I’m not in that frame of mind all the time. I’ll be away from things, there’ll be financial things or relationship things or personal things or you know just like, ‘This is shit and I’m really pissed off today – I feel like making something super miserable’. But to have the discipline making a record like Epicloud, was good for me to focus on.
So you’ve done ‘The Retinal Circus’ which was this one night only big extravaganza with circus performers and a choir. What was the catalyst for that, and do you believe you achieved what you set out to do with that?
Super weird, the catalyst for that was the management, they suggested The Retinal Circus as a way to take a twenty year career of very disparate types of emotions and records and use one forum with the overarching theme of a circus to represent to people; that it is a part of a continuous theme, as opposed to a multi-edit type of hydra. I think that it was a success, in a sense that we pulled it off and we had no possible hope of doing so. Through doing the The Retinal Circus, I think we were working on a lot of ways to a lot of goals obviously, but if I was to pick one in hindsight I think it’s that as a person, as an artist, as a creative entity, if you’re saddled with these identifications where people say, ‘Well that’s the crazy guy, or that’s the metal guy, or that’s the mellow guy’ or what have you, it’s very easy for people to pigeon hole you.
But if you take something like Retinal, that is incredibly awkward and light-hearted and at the same time has a sort of serious undertone and there’s nothing about it, that anybody’s gonna walk away from and say, ‘Wow, that’s a bunch of really cool people’, they’re gonna be like, ‘Well that was fuckin’ really crazy’. The thing with Retinal is, by doing it and very proudly, and in a very boisterous sense saying ,’Yeah it is awkward’, then in a sense you sort of take away the power of people that want to accuse you of those things. You know someone says,’Hey you guys are super awkward and it’s super nerdy or whatever’. It’s like ‘Yeah…here it is with flames what else you got, fuck you.’ I think that’s what the whole point of it is.
Are you looking forward to coming back to Australia in October?
Always, Australia’s beautiful it’s been very kind I love it, I can’t wait.
What’s next on the cards, you’ve got the Ziltoid project, you’ve got the tour…
I’m just prioritising it all now in terms of what’s closest to being able to be actualised, and it’s like this weird pez dispenser, so I’m just gonna keep munching on them as they come up. Right now it’s Ziltoid and Casualties and we’ll see what’s on the horizon, I’ll keep you posted.
Great, well looking forward to seeing you in October and thank you so much for your time.
No problem, thanks for your patience and thanks for the support too, honestly, I’ll talk to you soon okay?
Okay, take care, thanks!
You too, cheers.
Devin Townsend Project are touring Australia in October, more information below:
Thursday, 10th October
The Auditorium, Brisbane – AA
Tix: http://www.oztix.com.au
Friday, 11th October
The Metro, Sydney – Licensed/AA
Tix: http://www.ticketek.com.au
Sunday, 13th October
The Palace, Melbourne – 18+
Tix: http://www.oztix.com.au / http://www.ticketek.com.au
Tuesday, 15th October
Metropolis, Fremantle – 18+
Tix: http://www.oztix.com.au
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