Top 50 Devin Townsend Quotes

I love people; don’t get me wrong. Individually, I love that interaction between people, and I’m not an ogre or something; but huge crowds of people, huge groups of people who seemingly have endless access to you – as I get older, I’m not really into that.

I don’t have a lot of time for people who don’t take care of their own problems. Everything that needs to be done takes effort.

One thing that’s really important for me to be creatively motivated is to find an angle. Some people refer to that as a concept, which it is, in a sense, but not overtly. It’s just something I need to focus and hone in on, and the trajectory of what might be seen as a ‘concept’ gives me creative momentum.

As a drummer, I’m rhythmically so disabled that it’s hilarious.

After Strapping, the amount of things in my life had changed were more than I’d ever had to process in any one time, and as a result of that, I found that my writing was veering off in four – sometimes even more – directions.

Because I think I am pretty left-brained – more than I gave myself credit for – I think I’ve managed to really dissect emotions. At least my own. And I’ve been able to understand what they do, how they do it, and when.

It’s really hard to foster self-love; it really is. I think a lot of people who claim that they do have a definite lack of self-loathing are either lying or just in a place that I don’t relate to.

To have the opportunity to be creative and clarify the nature of that creativity, there are definitely some long days, some 18-20 hour days with interviews or computer work, but I have a friend who is every bit as intelligent and creative as me who works at the mill.

I don’t think anything that I have done has been forced by commerce exclusively.

As a vocalist, I can scream, and I’ve got a really good singing voice, but I can’t do the really heavy vocals.

The records I make, I’m there from the writing of the first note through the click tracks to the miking of the drums to the editing of everything to the production to the vocals to the artwork.

When I was going to high school, in the high school band we would play these kind of hour-long concerts for our parents. All the parents would come to the gymnasium, and the band would play an hour-long kind of orchestra piece. ‘Synchestra’ is supposed to be similar, like a high school band orchestra piece.

The reason Strapping Young Lad was such a good band was we were honest about what we were doing.

I think when music, specifically heavy music, the motivation for it is other than truly feeling it, that’s when it becomes really difficult for me.

People are like, ‘Nothing you’ve done is as good as you did when you were younger.’ And I’m like, ‘You may be right.’

The album ‘Physicist,’ I erased all the work that I had done halfway through. I think that’s probably why that contributed to that album being sort of sub-par for me, just because by the time I had to go back and do it, I was just over it.

While I was recording ‘Ziltoid,’ the movie ‘Mars Attacks’ came on TV, I think, six times in one week. So I don’t know if there’s any direct references or anything, but the aesthetics of that movie was definitely around while I was creating the music, so I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t part of it.

Human beings are gross.

The best way of me not doing things is to demand it from me.

I think that the pivotal point of me in terms of the choral stuff is that I was involved in this provincial choir at 16 or 17. We went and played in churches and convention centres. The music we got to do was so inspiring for me.

I love Strapping Young Lad. I’m incredibly proud of that band; I’m incredibly proud of everything we did.

I just go where it feels the most honest to go; then I deal with people thinking it’s weird afterwards.

I think that when I got to a certain age, it was important to me to sort of analyze my relationship with myself and my past.

I’m just a perpetually confused and terrified person that is trying to be less so all the time, and music is the byproduct of that.

I spent a great deal of my career willingly ignoring the fact that people are participating in it, because it allows me to function without second-guessing it, without thinking, ‘Oh, I wonder what people are gonna think of this,’ or, ‘I wonder what people aren’t gonna think of this.’

I’ve always been into easy music. When I was 15, the record for me was ‘Hysteria’ by Def Leppard.

Because I have been so pigheaded and so selfish about so many things for so many years, I’ve spent a lot of time being, like, ‘That person needs to change. This person needs to change.’

I have a real hard time with inter-personal relationships. I find it really taxing. Especially, like, friendships and being in bands.

I think a lot of the fun of making records, for me, is making each one of them a situation. For example, with ‘Ghost,’ I found a group of people that had an energy together, and we kind of did it in a cabin somewhere.

I guess I’m not really into female vocals that sound masculine, I guess. A lot of times, the heavy female vocalists always end up sounding like they’re screaming or whatever.

The way that I write is I just write a ton of music in the background of my life, and then I just bring it into rehearsal. It’s, like, ‘Okay, guys. It goes like this. Let’s smooth it out.’

I like it when it rains; I like it when it snows. I like seasons. I like trees. I like mountains. I like rivers. And with that around me, I write.

Enya was a huge deal for me. That kind of woman vocals and how wide those productions were.

I’m very creative – making music, making puppets, that’s my thing – but mainstream success and the demands that brings? No, not really for me.

Luckily, my creative juices are pretty much on tap. If I’m compelled to do something, I can go for it and get it done.

With ‘Epicloud,’ I wanted something catchy as the flu but with a sentiment that is romantic, positive, and beautiful. Spiritual without religion and set to heavy music.

I’ve been making music for so long, and the main hurdles I’ve run when dealing with any public exposure is that many of my projects are so different from each other.

The risk a lot of times, in my mind – and I may be incorrect – the risk of challenging people directly with their beliefs is that society is such that there’s too many of us, so a direct challenge automatically engages people’s defenses.

My dad’s side of the family were calm folk from England, but the other side just loved to party. Somewhere between those two factions is me.

I come from a blue collar background.

The identity of each band is what’s important for me production-wise.

I think live stuff is certainly stuff I enjoy doing. I do like performing for people and bringing it to people.

I know that I’m often perceived as this odd guy who’s a bit out there, and I’ve probably, once in a while, reinforced that image, but I’m really not that person, and, in a way, I want even less so to be seen like that.

I think that, as well as Strapping Young Lad kind of having the name for themselves based on brutality and aggression, I think there’s also something to be said to the fact that every Strapping record is different. They’re all different.

What made Strapping Young Lad important, at least to me, was I was being honest about whatever was important to me at that time. In many ways, that musical process is there to resolve those issues, if you will.

I really like the art of music, the way that you can express yourself through music.

Strapping Young Lad is a representation of me, just as much as ‘Ki,’ ‘Ghost,’ ‘Ziltoid’ or ‘Infinity.’ There’s no difference; it was just a different period of time.

People say, ‘Well, why don’t you talk about being vegetarian?’ And I’m like, ‘People will find out.’ The people who are interested in what I do and why I do it, being a vegetarian is a big part of that.

People talk about the Ozzfest and what it can do for your career, and I guess I’m just oblivious to it.

I’m good at what I do but, to be honest, not a whole hell of a lot else!