Justly regarded as a truly sundry, ambitious, and humorous yet philosophical artist, Canadian virtuoso Devin Townsend has spent over twenty years solidifying himself as the foremost eccentric genius of modern progressive metal. Of course, his reign arguably began with the release of 1997’s Ocean Machine: Biomech, a triumphant effort that, in many ways, alluded to the madcap majesty of its many follow-ups.
Recently, Townsend released Ocean Machine: Live at The Ancient Roman Theatre Plovdiv, an expansive concert featuring not only the titular album in its entirety but also an orchestrated assortment of gems from his whole solo discography. I recently spoke with Townsend about how the show came together, as well as the disbandment of The Devin Townsend Project, his upcoming releases (in particular, Empath and The Moth), his perspective on his career thus far, and much more.
Hey, Devin. How’s it going?
Good, man.
To start with, what made you choose the Ancient Roman Theater in Plovdiv, Bulgaria to have this show, and how difficult was it to put together?
It wasn’t necessarily a choice; it was the option. When it comes to being able to afford orchestras and choirs and all of that, Bulgaria was good because unfortunately, the country has issues economically. They presented themselves as an alternative for other orchestras as a more cost-efficient way of working. There were a couple of caveats with that, though; for example, the orchestra leader [Levon Manukyan] wanted to have control over the arrangements, which I was uncomfortable with at first.
He wound up doing a couple of mine and it ended up working well. It was fortuitous in that our management had been there with Anathema and Paradise Lost, and it just seemed like something that could work. By no means does that mean that it’s a place I wouldn’t have chosen; it was an ideal situation, but it was just one of those things, man. We could afford it, they presented themselves, and I was totally down.
The end result is fantastic.
I think that the biggest problem with it is that because the theatre is so old, the stairs are incredibly dangerous for the audience. It’s so treacherous there because it’s all marble and the stairs were uneven heights. The whole show, I was thinking, my god, someone is going to die here. In fact, somebody fell and hit his head and they had to take him to the hospital. They didn’t tell me prior to the show because it would’ve stressed me out. Luckily, the guy was okay and we managed to communicate with him and get him some merch. He was totally cool about it. It’s a great situation but fraught with technical difficulties.
Wow. I’m glad he wasn’t too hurt.
Yeah, dude. Me too.
You mentioned the orchestrations for the songs. Were there any in particular that were difficult to score? Which stuck out most in terms of benefiting from these new treatments?
Well, again, Levon was like, “Look, for the sake of time, my process, and what you can afford, I’m just going to write the arrangements for this stuff.” It wasn’t that I thought he couldn’t do it, but in my mind, these aren’t, like, four-chord songs that you just put things on and contribute to it. My compositions are so dense; there’s no real estate in there, so I felt that if he just did the stuff that’s already in the music, it’ll work, and if we just put things on top of that, man, it’ll be a gong show. There’s no room for it. For instance, I provided him the score for “Truth” and then he did his own adjustments.
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That’s a good way to handle it.
When we were in Plovdiv, I sat with him and there were several parts that were just too much, so I either pulled out some of my stuff or he pulled out some of his. Ultimately, it worked but it was a big challenge for both of us with the time that we had and the density of the music. I learned a lot, so the next time I do something like this—or even with the Empath project I’m working on now—I’ll be really cognizant of what the orchestra’s function is within the parameters of a rock band. It’s not like you’d think.
It’s not like dropping a keyboard patch on a symphonic part. It’s a truly structural process. It’s about massaging it. The tonality of an orchestra is so full spectrum; it goes from 40 Hz to 20 Hz. It’s the whole thing, so if you’ve got distorted guitars and cymbals and keyboards and choirs and all that stuff, it’s difficult to mix all of it. Yeah, I learned a lot from it, but at the time, it was a real compromise on both ends.
I bet. Luckily, it was all worth it.
Thanks, man. I mean, it’s always a challenge to mix. For the budget, I had to mix it myself and I think it turned out well, but there are always concessions that you have to make, right?
Totally. Obviously, you play Ocean Machine in its entirety at the end, but I wonder how the first set, with the miscellaneous songs, was organized?
Those songs were chosen by fans. We did a Facebook poll, I guess you could call it, and asked people to suggest songs that they wanted to see done with the orchestra. We then took stock of which songs got the most votes. I think “By Your Command” got 250 and “Truth” got 300, or something like that. Then we made a list and I sat with it and fortunately, a lot of the requests were for tracks that we were already doing. Amidst the hectic tour schedule, we didn’t have to learn everything from scratch. A lot of people wanted “Deadhead,” you know, and other ones that we already knew.
That’s great.
Yeah, and then for the older catalog, like “A Simple Lullaby” or “Om,” we had to learn it. That was good for me, as well, because it kept it fresh. It wasn’t like, “Hey, here’s the same setlist but now with orchestra!” It was things that I have an emotional connection with and was fortunate enough to redo—which, as anyone who follows me knows, man, I’d redo it all if I could.
Which of those was your favorite to play, and are there any songs that you simply don’t want to play ever again?
I don’t even remember what was on the setlist; I’ve been so busy with this new record. I don’t even know what we did [laughs]. I mean, it’s all six in one hand and a half dozen in the other. If I put it on a record, that means that I dig it on some level. There are always gonna be ones that I like more or less but I don’t think there’s anything I’ve written that I don’t want to play. I don’t play the Strapping Young Lad stuff but that’s more out of respect for that band than it is any apprehension or disdain for the music. I love that stuff, you know? It was every bit as important to me then as Empath is to me now.
I’m sure. It’s all a reflection of who you are at the time.
Exactly. It’s all cool. That’s diplomatic, isn’t it? [laughs]
Very much. So, the deluxe edition of Ocean Machine: Live at the Ancient Roman Theatre Plovdiv is pretty robust, to say the least. Can you tell me a bit about how it came together?
The thing that’s really important to me is that I have a great group of people who allow me to do what I do. By that, I mean the audience, the management, the label, the merch company. All of them believe in it and I don’t take that lightly at all. A lot of times, you’ll see a band have a reissue—like if they put it out on vinyl—but it’s just the same thing that you already own with a different colored cover or something. It’s like, in this particular market, the physical product typically doesn’t sell, so if you just try to flog things on people without putting any extra effort into it, they’ll eventually just stop supporting it. If people stop supporting what I do, I can’t do it. It’s as simple as that.
As much as I have disdain for money and that part of it, I’m still a person with a family, so I need it. I’m always insistent with the management and label that if we’re going to put something out, I want to be involved. I want to do the liner notes or go through the artwork. Let me do what I can to make this cool, like a documentary. Let’s give people a reason to own it. By the time I go through the promotion cycle of it—like I’m starting to do now—I’m able to say, “Yeah, I think this is something that’s worth it,” as opposed to trying to rationalize it in my own mind like Malibu Stacy with a new handbag.
Ah, good reference.
I’m stoked that came out; that was my deep Simpsons nod [laughs].
Looking back on Ocean Machine now, roughly twenty years later, how do you feel about it?
Well, let me say that I like everything I’ve done because it was accurate at that time, but that doesn’t mean that I still think it sounds good or that all of the songs are great. My reason for liking what I’ve done in the past is because it was true, so in that breath, I view Ocean Machine no different than what I’m doing now. At that time, with the tools I had and the age I was at and the inspirations that were present in my life (both positive and negative), that record come out as an accurate snapshot of that period in my life. Even Physicist, which sounds like shit and there are a lot of things about that one that I didn’t do as well as I wanted to—like the vocals—I’m still proud of it because that’s who I was back then.
That’s a great way to look at it.
Right? I was super depressed and dealing with a lot of really gray and miserable things that I’d brought onto myself. In that sense, Physicist is on point. With Ocean Machine, the process is the same as what I do now, but I was twenty-five then and now I’m forty-six.
A lot of people look back on their earliest work with contempt, so it’s refreshing and wise that you view it in that context.
It’s like how some people say that they wake up in the middle of the night and they’re still profoundly embarrassed about something they did in high school. We’ve all had those experiences and at the same time, a lot of my creative process over the past few years has only matured due to my decision to forgive myself to move on from that stuff. I remember during the Infinity period, I’d do a lot of mushrooms and then do a bunch of interviews. Like, dude, you know? You read that stuff and say to yourself, “Wow, this guy’s got a Christ complex with these fucking crazy and neurotic interviews.” I’ve said some incredibly stupid things and embarrassed myself and my family and my friends in ways that I couldn’t get over for years. I was an idiot.
You’ve definitely come a long way since then.
In fact, my mantra until a few years ago was literally: “I’m a fucking idiot.” At a certain point, I said to myself, “Look, you’ve got to get over it. You’ve got to forgive yourself for that shit. You can’t just have your internal dialog be about not being worthy of moving on or finding happiness or any sort of sense of mental peace.” I’m still humiliated by my actions, yet that eventually became a kind of self-comfort. I realized through talking to older people or friends or therapists that no one is going to get over that for me. I had to do it myself and that would require, in some cases, some hard decisions.
I can imagine.
You have to let things or situations go that you were comfortable with, be they SYL or DTP. It becomes easy to say, “I’m not going to allow myself to get to this next step because I’m comfortable in the internal dialog that I’ve grown into,” right? You’ve gotta get over it, and by doing that, it’s honestly resulted in really good things for me.
That’s awesome. You sound very cathartic and wise.
Well, I’ll take cathartic [laughs].
Speaking of DTP and the Eras boxset, was it bittersweet to put that together? Do you think that they’ll be a follow-up collection (that includes everything from Epicloud forward) since this one is subtitled Part 1?
I’d assume so. I didn’t know that this was considered the first part, so I guess the label is planning to release the rest and I should think of an angle for that that’s worth buying. It wasn’t bittersweet in the band sense because if you look at Ki, Addicted, Deconstructed, and Ghost, those weren’t the same guys that I toured with. They were involved to some extent, but it was mostly different people. It’s really not the same band from record to record, and one thing that’s important for me to keep in mind is that as much as you become a group with the touring and what we ended up doing with Epicloud and Sky Blue and Transcendence, it’s still the objective and vision of me.
Absolutely.
As much as those guys played a huge role in the development of it, and as much as we became close friends for me to rely on at a certain level, on many other levels, what it ultimately took to sustain that—the salaries and the effort that goes into building that brand—took me away from the fundamental ways I create music. My sphere of influence became the band only. Dude, we were on tour for eleven months last year, and by the end of it, families were suffering, and physical and mental health were suffering. Those are the same things that inspire me to write the music that people seem to like at the end of the day. The alternative to doing it in line with how it should be done is second-guessing all of it, which leads you to think, I think people would like this. For the sake of the brand, I should write something that’s like Transcendence again. Whatever it is.
That’s never a good way for a creator to work.
Totally. It’s bittersweet in that I hate hurting people I care about, but it’s not bittersweet in terms of it being the right decision for me and my music.
You have to be responsible with your art.
Yeah, I’m almost fifty and I’m a dad. If I’m not responsible, what the hell am I doing?
True. I doubt you remember, but we spoke a few years ago at the Theatre of Living Arts in Philadelphia—
Oh, wicked. Okay.
Yeah, and I said the same thing to you then that I’ll say now: you’re kind of like a modern-day Frank Zappa, and what you just said sort of exemplifies that. It’s still your vision and it may hurt to get rid of certain musicians for the betterment of the work, but you do what you have to do.
I don’t want to be condescending to the guys in DTP, but you can’t be afraid to give up—okay, so here’s an analogy. I’ve got kids, and at every stage in a child’s development, it’s crazy as a parent because you just get used to it. You’re so used to that routine and then it changes. At one point, it’s about boiling the bottles and that’s what I do; that’s my identity. All of a sudden, I don’t need to do that anymore, so what do I do? Well, now I’m the guy who does the funny Dad dance and he goes to bed at 8 o’clock and I know that I’ll have the rest of the night to myself to hang out with my wife or whatever. All of a sudden, though, he gets older and now he’s a teenager and he’s up to midnight and now there’s girls and social things. Who am I in the face of all of this?
Exactly. It happens so fast and you have to keep up with it.
If you’re unwilling to change, you’ll be the guy boiling bottles for the rest of your life while your kids and wife are looking at you and asking, “Why are you doing that?” It’s no different with a band. If you’re reluctant to change in light of how your artistic motivations change, you’re going to repeat yourself and become a parody of what it was that made your music important to people because you’re not prepared to make hard choices. For me, I’ll see people who think in a linear way—which is different from me, but not necessarily in a good or bad way—and they’ll see that I change my mind all of the time and relate that to me being scattered as opposed to me sticking to my main objective for music: to accurately represent each period of my personal and artistic growth.
Of course.
As a result of that, the personnel, aesthetics, sounds, and styles are going to change. If there’s anything that I’ve learned from the dissolving of DTP, it’s that in the future, I can’t make the same mistake that I’ve made on several occasions now, which is thinking that I’m going to put together a band and that band will be my identity. The same thing happened with SYL: the people that you care about take a hit as a result of you needing to change. Man, that sucks!
I can imagine, but you have to do what’s best for your vision.
For sure, but I still don’t want to be viewed like that. I don’t want to be the asshole who’s pulling the rug out from everyone else, but it keeps happening, so I know that in the future, I just have to give up on the fact that Devin in a band isn’t always in the cards.
At least you realize what needs to be done. You’re truly one of only a few current artists who, when someone says to me, “I want to start listening to Devin Townsend,” I don’t know where they should start because just about every album is significantly different and individualized.
I’d just ask how old they are and then suggest the album that I did at that same age. I don’t think that anything I write about is unique, you know? When I was twenty-five, I wanted to see the world burn, and I can’t imagine that I was any different from the majority of people at that age. There’s a good chance that if you’re in your mid-twenties, too, City will work great for you. What I’m doing now, with Empath, is very much a midlife album for me. If there’s anything that I’ve put pieces of together at this point in my life, it’s that it’s not just one thing. It’s not black and white, like Addicted was joyous and Ki was tentative and Deconstructed was chaotic and Ghost was placid. It’s all that shit because that’s life, man.
If those albums were so one-dimensional, they wouldn’t be nearly as interesting.
Right. When the label says, “We need to find an identity for this record. We’ve got all of these things that you’ve sent us, like raging death metal and super new age and orchestral and really proggy stuff. You need to choose one,” I can’t do it because the identity, if there is one, is all of that. My work with the record now is more about articulating that without it coming across as schizophrenic—using that term purely as an adjective—but more as a representation of how we all go through different things every day. You might wake up feeling okay, but then you get pissed off and then you see something funny and then you get some bad news, etc. All of those puzzle pieces need to be in Empath; it’s just a matter of finding ways to guide the experience so that when something heavy comes up, it makes sense as you’re listening to it. And I’m not in the frame of mind I was decades ago, where I wanted heavy after heavy after heavy. After something brutal, I’m exhausted and I want something chill.
You’re always great with dynamics like that.
Thanks. If I can pull that off well—whether or not it resonates with people who really like the brevity of Transcendence—you’d be hard-pressed to think it wasn’t honest.
Wow. That’s what an artist should be above all else. So, one last question. Are you still planning to do The Moth after Empath? I’ve heard it described as a $10,000,000 opera with penises and vaginas.
Yeah [laughs]. I used the genital thing to make light of it, but once that project is done—it’s like, Empath acts as a stopgap between the two, so there are certainly some orchestral elements on Empath that will hopefully guide people into The Moth (instead of it being super shocking). I love [Gustave] Doré's etchings of The Divine Comedy; if you haven’t seen it, you should. It’s beautiful, and they’re all naked, so when I call it a “penis and vagina symphony,” it’s less a farce and more about finding the truth of humans. What are we once we’re stripped from all the trappings of society and social networks and that kind of thing? Fundamentally, we’re just creatures, so what I’m trying to do is get to the core of it. At the same time, it’s a cockfight.
That sounds really profound. I can’t wait to hear both of those projects. Thanks again for speaking with me a bit, Devin. Good luck and congrats.
Thanks, Jordan!
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