DEVIN TOWNSEND

MOVE OVER, ZILTOID – THERE'S A NEW MASTER OF THE UNIVERSE IN TOWN

WHAT was the first song you ever LeArned to play?

devin townsend: “Simultaneously

I learned Folsom

Prison Blues by

Johnny Cash and

Motörhead by

Motörhead. To a certain extent they’re very similar, it’s just a different era. Johnny Cash was always thematically dark, and Motörhead was just visceral. When I started being known as prog music, I remember being confused by it because it never had that visceral aspect to it that Motörhead did. Both of those characters didn’t stand for fools.”

What guitarists influenced you most growing up?

“K.K. Downing from Judas Priest and Van Halen were huge influences, and when I was a teen, Steve Morse and James Hetfield. Of course, I loved Vai, Satriani, Malmsteen, Vinnie Moore and all the shrapnel guys, but I think the most ‘outside’ guy would be Narciso Yepes. He was a Spanish flamenco style guitar player. When I was a kid, I had a cassette tape and I tried to convince my friend it was me. He showed it to his dad, who was blown away by it, and then when I went over to his house, his dad asked me to play his acoustic guitar, and I clearly sucked!”

How was writing A strapping young lad riff different to writing something for, say, casualties of cool?

“Technically, it’s the same process, just a different aesthetic. As you go through stages of life, things are pertinent to you on an emotional level, and the music becomes the byproduct. So with SYL, it’s the things that happen when you’re 25. Trying to understand my connection to anger and aggression and fear. With Casualties, it was a different age, different sets of emotional input. When you have to deconstruct your process, it sounds more clever. But it’s just instinct.”