Devin Townsend - Chimie 2000 (Part 1)
Written by Philippe Lageat for Hard Rock Magazine France

We were exclusive on this story more than a year ago. It is finally here. Physicist, the album. A record that its designer, Devin Townsend, crazy scientist, ingeniously and lovingly worked out in his musical laboratory and that he presents as an explosive mix of his different projects, Strapping Young Lad, Ocean Machine and Infinity. We recently met with the Canadian in Paris to lengthily discuss the project. So lengthy was the meeting that, in fact, we decided to divide it in two so you don't miss a single bit. As you all know, Devin is our favourite. See you next month for the rest of it.

Hard Rock (HR) : A year ago, when I met you in Vancouver, your new project, Physicist, was already well in progress. But it just came out today. Why was it that long to finally finish it?

DT : These past few months, I am finally able to control my emotions a lot more. In the past, I would often snap. Maybe it is age, but I think it is because I am on medication. I feel hundreds of times better today, to the point that I feel that I am back to reality. As if, through the past few years, I was living in an imaginary world. This new album represents a real transition for me, because it is a mix between INFINITY (the album that I wrote when I was at the peak of my instability) and Strapping Young Lad. The direction that I will now musically go is totally different. Physicist is doing well now because we have now good distributors in Japan, Australia and Europe. This record is like my entrance ticket, it is easier to digest than my previous work. An album like Infinity would have scared the public that is now discovering me... Physicist is not as extreme as what I have done with SYL, but stays heavy while being melodic. Let's just say that it combines all the ingredients of my previous projects and as so, it could help all the people who don't know my music to familiarize themselves and prepare them for my next albums. What I now hear in my head is so original.. It stays very beautiful but..

Let's just say that I am less afraid today to risk with certain things. SYL, whether we like it or not, was more or less a thrash band, an extreme one I admit, but still thrash. OM was heavy rock and INFINITY was a very stiff experimental album. TERRIA, my next project, cannot be described or classified. It is symphonic, pure music, splendid, majestic. For the first time, this album will be me, totally. Is Physicist only a necessary transition? Those who hear it will probably go "It's Devin Townsend, it's pretty cool". But they will be light years away from what I will present in the following years. That said, an album like Physicist has to tamed, has to be appreciated with time, after many listens. It is, unlike what it looks, a very complex album, even if it seems easy to listen to. The more you listen to it, more you are surrounded deeply and you realize that it is somehow complex, but more subtle than the way I usually do it. For INFINITY (I am sorry, I go from one to the other) I had so much information in my head that all I wanted was to take it all out as fast as possible, without taking the time to polish it. It was "LISTEEEENNNN!!!" and it jumped right in your face without warning, 45 minutes of insanity.

Nowadays, I want to use the heavy side of SYL for its dynamic qualities, dynamics that will be useful to accentuate certain parts. It is all new for me. I consider Physicist to be my last purely metal album. I've had enough, I am bored with it now. Nothing pleases me in the current metal scene. Certain fans are begging me to record another SYL album: but they have to realise that I was 25 when I wrote City and since then a lot of time has passed, I don't feel the same things that I did at that time... I am not saying that I will never record a new SYL. But for the moment, I am about to tour with a poster that will display SYL, OM, INFINITY and PHYSICIST in one package called 'Devin Townsend'. And if, by any chance, on this tour, I write a new SYL, we are going to record it. Otherwise, no problem with me. As I get older the less I feel close to SYL, which is my darker side. I don't get into those states of mind anymore. The same way, there is a good chance that there won't be another Ocean Machine. It is a page of the diary of my life period. Certain pages are more interesting than others. But I prefer not returning to things that have been done and continue on my road towards virgin territories.

HR : You are saying that you feel alleviated, at peace with yourself. Aren't you afraid of having a relapse, of becoming, once again, someone that you don't want to be, if you ever decide to pursue the SYL path?

DT : Of course I do... What I hear in my head right now is far superior to what I have been doing in the past. I have never felt as secure as I do right now, sure of myself. Of course, like I said, some fans send emails to tell me :"Devin, stop taking medication and make another album like City!!!" and I reply: "What's the use? It has already been done... why repeat myself? Furthermore, I can't get angry like this anymore. Why would I want to release an album in which I attempt to be someone that I am not anymore? My fans would see the trickery right away and I would lose all credibility. I want to make records like films, so that each one of them has a different theme, you are thrown into another universe. But with the same seal of quality.

That way, depending on your state of mind, you listen to a particular record more than the other: SYL in your angry days, OM when everything is doing great, INFINITY for a bit of insanity, TERRIA for a trip in beauty itself, etc... So that each album is good but remains an entity unto itself - that's my conception of art, that is creation. Of course, I don't disavow the bands I grew up with, I love and respect them... JUDAS PRIEST, for example, have been doing JUDAS PRIEST for close to 30 years...

HR : Can you understand that, while not adhering to it?

DT : Yes, I understand. But it is totally impossible for me to function that way. I get bored very quickly.

HR : A year ago, you described PHYSICIST as a mix between the Spice Girls and SYL or SYL light. This is only my opinion, but there seems to be elements of OM and INFINITY...

DT : Totally. I had to do PHYSICIST before throwing myself into a project as new as TERRIA. It is just a matter of natural progression. I had the heavy, the melodic, the experimental... I decided to combine them all before going further. It is for that reason that the project is called Physicist: it is fusion, a fusion of formulas... once again, it is the end of an era.

HR : PHYSICIST is, according to you, an album easier to get into, more simple. Did you have as much pleasure to write it as the other, more complex, ones?

DT : No.. Because I had this motive in head: "Simplify, simplify.." So, usually, I think about my music as successive layers. INFINITY, for example, was composed of about 300 layers. Physicist, on the other hand, is totally stripped down. It is a consistent record, the sound is the same from beginning to end. And if I had less pleasure to record it, it is because, when I developed it, I was in one of the worse period of my life. I believe that emotional distress gives birth very good things. All my albums were created out of the damn soap operas that went through my life.

I really had a tough time... I was so depressed that I spent almost a year lying down on my couch. I really had to take all the courage that I had to finish recording PHYSICIST. That is why I was in so bad shape when we met that last time. I usually don't drink so much. And when you came to Vancouver, I was drinking litres of beers. At that point, I had stopped smoking pot because I thought it blocked my creativity. But when I stopped drinking, I immediately started smoking again and I instantly felt better: "Why did I start to drink like that? What was I thinking?" This record deeply changed many things in my life.

HR : What are those, if it is not too personal...

DT : Let's just say that today, I learn not to lie, something I was doing all the time before... It was so easy... but I got caught and my world fell apart. It was felt in my music. This is why TERRIA is going to be like it is going to be. Because I am not Machine Head... I am not an angry Detroit teenager that wants to turn the world upside down. I am a white boy, Canadian, from a middle class family. I was a good student at best. I like this type of music, and that one too, and will now commit to it. I have never done that before because I was afraid of what the public would say. I was so frustrated of working with Steve Vai and the WILDHEARTS, frustrated of not having been able to let go of all this music that I had in myself, music of fury, I did SYL.

I had no knowledge of metal - Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, yes. I had no knowledge of all really extreme metal: Slayer and Black Metal were unknowns for me. In fact, I discovered the first Fear Factory album, which I thought was really cool, from there I decided to do what they were doing in my own style. As sincere as SYL is, in hindsight its conception is showing a clear will that I had at the time. OM, INFINITY and PHYSICIST are a lot more pure. It is probably for this that SYL remains, to this date, my most popular project: It lies in a box, the public can categorize it. Where do you put INFINITY, on which shelf do you put it?

HR : You know that it is sometimes hard to follow you

DT : Yes, absolutely. I have difficulty knowing where I go myself. The only thing that I can do to simplify things is to release all my records under my own name. So that there is less confusion. So that the public understands all these projects, as different as they are, are nothing else than Devin Townsend. At the beginning, I wanted to avoid at all cost to use my name because I was known as the singer for Steve Vai and it wasn't the best publicity to have. I am proud of what I have accomplished with Steve but I definitely got burned because of it.

HR : With Steve you got forced into the business, the L.A. attitude. Were you playing a role that wasn't really you?

DT: No, I stayed true to myself, definitely. But I was playing somebody else's music and I was judged in respect to that music: I was the singer of the band, I was on the cover of the album (SEX & RELIGION)... I was becoming a product of somebody else's imagination, and it was mixing with my own personality. This combination was appalling. That's why people that met me then were thinking I was insane. Of course, I had no idea what to do with myself. I was 19 and I was performing in arenas and I was playing music that I wasn't into 100%. When I was talking about lies previously, I wasn't talking about my personality. I always knew who I was. No, I meant that I was lying to myself, that I did not want to see the reality by fear to face it, by laziness too. So I was saying to myself that everything was OK. And it affected my music. I am correcting this bad habit today, but I still have a ways to go to be totally liberated. I am not Superman but at least I am trying. And my records are saying a lot more.

HR : Let's go back to PHYSICIST... you are saying that you don't want to repeat yourself, contrary to many other bands that have the same formulas for years. But with PHYSICIST, for the first time, you give the impression of repeating yourself....

DT : That is absolutely right. And I am not too proud of it. But, I know that it works. I know the limitations of the record, but it satisfies me completely. Like I said, PHYSICIST is the conclusion of my heavy period, simply because I have no more ideas in the metal department. Paradoxically Physicist is my favourite album. I think it is an album that you have to listen to many times to discover its actual substance. Yes, I am repeating myself, but for the first time I will benefit from decent distribution and I don't want to miss the chance that has presented itself to me in giving them....

HR : ... a record as egoistical as INFINITY could be?

DT : Exactly. It is the first record that I release that is not totally egoistical. It is more commercial, easier to digest. Ironically, the easier record to get into has been the most difficult one to produce. Its concept is the following: I am trying to explore the duality of SYL / INFINITY (black artwork for city, white for INFINITY), and I end up with the conclusion that everything down here is a matter of choice. That is why PHYSICIST has a grey cover artwork, grey is a mix between the black and the white.

What do other people have to say about Devin?

Steve Vai:
Ocean Machine is one of my five favourite albums of the last decade. And, when you listen to City, this is the ultimate album of heavy metal aggression. In terms of violence, nobody can compete with this album, as much as it is very melodic. Devin is a tortured guy, he's a genius.

Jason Newsted (Metallica):
Devin is a wonderful guy, a pure genius. He thinks "music" 23 hours a day. I have all his albums, he sings so good. He's the best guitarist I've worked with. Kirk Hammett is a god, but Devin plays at another level of accomplishment. He really loves the music. He's possessed.

Rhys Fulber:
I hope I can play once with Devin. This guy is very talented. I recently went to a concert of SYL and it killed me!!! Devin doesn't cheat, he always gives everything he's got. Once I saw him so pushing his voice in studio that he passed out.

Burton C. Bell (Fear Factory):
I love Devin. He makes me jealous. He's a genius, what else can I say?

Rob Halford:
I met him once in a studio. I was recording in the room next door when I heard a band making a cover of Judas Priest in an incredible way. Someone told me that it was Devin Townsend. This guy is really very talented.

Ginger:
No artist impresses me as much as Devin. When he made me listen to some titles of INFINITY, I couldn't utter a word. Devin is the last representation of an disappearing species: one of the people who live for the music & feel it much more intensely than the common hit maker...