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 STRAPPING YOUNG LAD - Energetic Chaos
By Adrian ‘The Energizer’ Bromley
“Each album, whether it be an album by Strapping Young Lad, Devin Townsend band or anything I am a part of, it is all a reflection of what happened that year,” starts SYL mastermind/singer/guitarist Devin Townsend about the inspiration for their forthcoming album Alien (Century Media). “As an artist the only way you can be true to several different styles of music is by giving yourself completely to it while you are doing it. For example, when I was doing City that was where I was at and who I was. When I did Ocean Machine, that was who I was at that point in time. All of the albums I have done have been a direct reflection of the stimulus that went into the concoctions that you hear.”
“Without getting to into it really, because there is nothing super interesting about it, but it has been a rough year personally for me. So the release though, the catharsis, ends up sort of realizing itself though aggressive music. Again, the records from City [1997] to the self-titled album [2003] to Alien don’t really mean anything. They are just energy.”
A lot of people are calling this album City II. It seems as though SYL has come full-circle.
“I think it has come full-circle in regards to the sonics and the intensity, but City was more like ‘Fuck the universe!’ whereas this one is more like ‘Fuck me!’ I think although similar this is very 2005-era SYL and not just a rehash of 1997 SYL. We [guitarist Jed Simon, bassist Byron Stroud and drummer Gene Hoglan] made a real heavy album.”
About Alien Townsend says, “This record came together over a period of time, but not too much time was spent on bringing it all together. Ideas for songs came together a few months before we actually started writing for this album. Once Gene and I got the ideas down, we started to shape the album and then eventually went in to pound it out in the studio.”
Are you always prepared for the studio?
“For the most part, we go for it. We might go into a album with 9 of the 11 songs already done and finish off the other two in the studio.”
I’m guessing it safe to say you don’t have any fears of studio work with all the time you spend in there?
“I spend my life in the studio working, so yeah, any trepidation that sometimes people feel going into a studio is non-existent with me. When it comes to the studio, I wanna be sure we have everything ready to go and get in and get it over with. Not having any preparation ahead of time—whether it be my projects or others—kind of sets a disturbance in the whole process. That doesn’t happen often.”
The topic turns to the celebrity status that Townsend has attained over the years in the metal scene. While there are some people out there who don’t like Townsend's work or his humorous attitude toward things, there are a lot more people that admire the gifted musician, many concluding that whatever he touches turn to gold. Townsend downplays his ‘Midas touch.’
“You do you do what you do and that’s all you can do really,” he explains. “You are gonna have people who like you and people who hate you. At the end of the day that is not what this is about. The making of the music is why I am in it. Again, I don’t ask people to listen to me. I’m not standing on a pulpit shouting ‘I have great things to say!’ and ‘My way is the right way!’ or ‘My philosophies is something you should adopt!’ ‘Cause I’m not. I’m just saying, ‘Look, I’m a metalhead and if you want it here it is. If you don’t I am sure you can download it off the Internet.’ And if people like what they hear after they download it and it is something they want to listen to, then there is tons of music like that to listen to out there. In terms of the creation of it all, I am just doing my art. The dubious fact of it all is that I look the way I do. I have freaky hair, I’m bald—but I choose to do that. But all of these facts are chosen because I choose to entertain, y’know? There are a lot of people that don’t really like it and a lot of people that really do. My job is to give it 100%, or even 200%, and let the chips fall where they may.”
Do you like the good press and coverage that SYL gets?
“I hate it and I think there is too much coverage. We’re not that big of a band,” he states. “We are a small band doing our thing and people automatically assume – not everyone does – but they automatically assume that we care more about what we do then we actually do. We are just fans of metal like everyone else who goes out and buys records. Anytime a band in the metal genre that I like puts out a record I go and buy it—I’m a fan. SYL is my/our contribution to metal but by no means do we—or do I—proclaim that we anything other than what we are, which is just old fat bald guys playing metal.”
“At the end of the day people jump to conclusions because there are preconceptions out there. Oh, Devy is crazy, he is a manic-depressive or whatever. People assume that I am going through lots of shit when I don’t. We all suffer, we all suffer, me in no way more than anybody else, just in my own way.”
Townsend ends off, “Strapping Young Lad up to this point, and continues to be, has been a really good vent for me and everyone else in the band to put those energies. We get it out of our systems until we need to go another round.”
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