Sonic Projection With DEVIN TOWNSEND

Interview by Kris Peters
Devin Townsend is one of the few musicians who globally needs no
introduction.
Whether it be for his work with Strapping Young Lad or the Devin
Townsend Project or anywhere in between, the man is an enigma. A
legend.
And a true gentleman of the metal scene.
Known for his boundless energy and creativity, Townsend touches
down in Australia this month for a run of four shows only, playing
a splattering of everything from his back catalogue and material
from his new album Lightwork.
It promises to be one of the tours of the year, with the man
himself sitting down with HEAVY recently to tell us all about what
to expect.
"The thing is, I've had the good fortune of playing with some
fantastic musicians throughout my career," he measured. "But the
group of people I've got working with me right now are the most
capable of playing everything, so it's allowed for me to put
together a set that I think is… a good cross-section of material.
Also, because I've been touring with them for this whole year - and
the sound person - I'm confident that it's the best I've been able
to present the material by a longshot. Having that is really great
for me, because, although it's been good in the past also there's
been certain things where I think 'man, I wish that was different'
or I wish that was articulated differently or maybe this player's
really good at this but no so good at that or vice versa - not to
be disparaging against anybody I've worked with, I've just got,
like you say, a huge amount of material that typically I use
different players for all of them. So what I've done with this
recent one is I've just found people that I am confident can do all
of it. And they had to learn how to do all of it too. The first
thing that I did with some of these players… they didn't know how
to play some of the stuff, and it took them touring to figure it
out. Now, I feel that the presentation of the material is… I'm
excited to be able to show it to people because I'm like, 'this
sounds fucken great'. That's how I feel."
In the full interview Devin talks about writing set lists, his
essential non-essential things to pack for tour, pleasing as many
fans as possible, what we can expect from the shows, the early days
of his career and what he was expecting out of music, what some of
his motivating factors were, how early experiences helped shape his
career, what drives him to keep experimenting, retaining his
passion for music, the creative process and if it becomes easier or
harder over time and more.