Page 22 - Metal Hammer Issue 334 - UK (May 2020)
P. 22
THE STORY BEHIND
It was the unlikely breakthrough single for
one of metal’s most misunderstood artists.
Just don’t ask Devin about that horror video…
WORDS: STEPHEN HILL SYL: feeling the Love?
BACK IN THE early part of the new results in your life being personally and we arranged it so there were those
millennium, Devin Townsend was, crazy and fucked up. I didn’t think that two main riffs together. Then, for the
by his own admission, in a bad way. was going to happen, but I suddenly chorus, it was really important to me to
“To a certain degree my entire career became really sensitive as to how I was come up with something memorable,
has been based on me trying to unfuck being perceived. These things that whether it’s brutal or not. It’s not from
myself,” he half smiles when asked to I had proposed of myself as – callous a commercial slant; I just need
recall a difficult chapter of his life. and sadistic and unhinged – they were something to sink my teeth into.”
“During that period I was screwed up, just fear more than anything.” Devin did indeed manage to come
but totally by my own hand. This is no So, as Devin headed into the studio at up with something memorable. Well,
‘Oh woe is me’ thing; I had just become the end of 2004, feeling burnt out from maybe not ‘come up with’, in the
totally fascinated and immersed in my a decade spent embracing all manner strictest sense of the term, but hey,
creative process and I hadn’t had kids THE FACTS of negativity through Strapping Young a little plagiarism goes a long way.
yet. I think, in hindsight, I was actively RELEASED: Lad and self-medicating himself “I really needed to get this chorus
going out of my way to make myself March 2005 heavily with drugs and alcohol, he did right,” he laughs. “And so, the chorus on
crazy so that I could write crazy music.” ALBUM: so in the knowledge that the band Love? is a direct rip-off of a song from
Today, we all recognise Devin one of Alien would very soon be coming to an end. Yes’s 90125 album. There is a song on
as heavy metal’s true visionary voices, “I felt like I had taken that project as that record called City Of Love, which is
but in 2004 he was treated with a touch PERSONNEL: far as it could go,” he says. “There was basically the chorus to Love? – even the
of suspicion by the mainstream metal Devin Townsend very little left that I thought could say name is the same! A few months ago
(guitar, vocals),
world. Despite having put his name to Jed Simon in that manner. It was exhausting. The Machine Head did a song and a bit of it
records like Strapping Young Lad’s (guitar), Byron studio was crazy; I was just surrounded sounds kinda like Love? and all these
crushing City and his stirring and epic Stroud (bass), by lots of soft drugs and stupid people.” kids were giving them shit about it, like,
Gene Hoglan
solo album Ocean Machine – both now (drums) An album still needed to be made, ‘Oh you guys! Why did you steal from
rightly regarded as classics – he had yet though, and despite the mounting Strapping Young Lad?’ Well, just so you
to cross over to metal’s wider fanbase. HIGHEST CHART problems Devin found a way to write know, I ripped off somebody first! It only
POSITION:
Instead, he was almost exclusively being N/A a record featuring a song that would, seems fair that it goes the same way.”
painted as ‘crazy’, a ‘mad scientist’ or against all the odds, give him the With the album, entitled Alien, in the
an ‘eccentric’ by the rock press, who commercial breakthrough that bag, it was now time for a lead single to
leaned heavily on his openness introduced him to a whole new fanbase. be chosen from the album, and Love?
regarding his mental health issues. stood out a mile. Considering how
“Now I can look back on it much “I BROUGHT LOVE? in to jam one challenging much of SYL’s material up
clearer,” Devin sighs. “I realised that day,” Devin tells us. “We started until that point had been, the song PIC CREDIT: OMER. R. CORDELL
this romantic notion of putting yourself working on it and then Jed [Simon, SYL even represented something with
through these crazy things and abusing guitarist] came up with the ‘duggy- potential crossover appeal. Not that
yourself to make crazy music, just duggy-dah-duggy-duggy-dah’ riff, Devin sees it that way.
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