Latest / HEAVY Music Interviews / Channeling our inner Nerdy, Adulting, Powerful selves thanks to The Dev!

Transcript

Channeling our inner Nerdy, Adulting, Powerful selves thanks to The Dev! · HEAVY Music Interviews

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Devin Townsend and you were listening to
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: another awesome podcast on Heavy magazine, Struggle.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: How are you?
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: Every day is a gift?
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly right. I just woke up breathing, so it's
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: a good day.
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, mate.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: It's great to see you again to.
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: Your brother in a couple of years, but it's it's
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: always a pleasure.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: Thank you, sir, Thank you, sir.
• 2:32
  Speaker 4: Look, you and I have look, aside from not having
• 2:37
  Speaker 4: each other's phone numbers, Dave, I would consider we have
• 2:40
  Speaker 4: a pretty good friendship relationship.
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: You know that.
• 2:43
  Speaker 4: I know you very very well, and I want to
• 2:48
  Speaker 4: I want to start. I was going through some of
• 2:51
  Speaker 4: the comments on the Power and Earth video last night
• 2:54
  Speaker 4: and something somebody said really resonated with me. And I've
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: got to paraphrase, but this is from me, and I
• 3:04
  Speaker 4: just want to say to you. That encapsulates my relationship
• 3:09
  Speaker 4: with your music and yourself is that I love that
• 3:12
  Speaker 4: I get to exist in a universe with you as
• 3:14
  Speaker 4: my soundtrack.
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: Dude. That's you know, it's funny.
• 3:19
  Speaker 5: It's like I'm first off, very grateful for that, thank you,
• 3:23
  Speaker 5: but I also actively avoid.
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: Reading anything about myself. You know. It's like it's.
• 3:32
  Speaker 5: I used to live with Boravoy, who is the who
• 3:36
  Speaker 5: is Blabbermouth, that's his web that's his website, And I
• 3:40
  Speaker 5: used to live with them in La So we're good friends.
• 3:42
  Speaker 5: And I look at Blabbermouth, you know, because it's part
• 3:45
  Speaker 5: of the scene that I'm in everything. But every time
• 3:47
  Speaker 5: I open it up and I see me, I'm like, nope, nope, nope,
• 3:51
  Speaker 5: straight path it right.
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 3:53
  Speaker 5: I I feel that the past couple of years, and
• 3:58
  Speaker 5: particularly the writing and recording A Power and Earth.
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: Have been just so.
• 4:05
  Speaker 5: There's been a lot of tests, and I'm happy to
• 4:10
  Speaker 5: be the soundtrack for people, because without other people in
• 4:14
  Speaker 5: my life, there be no soundtrack.
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: I realized by getting through this period that.
• 4:20
  Speaker 5: The only reason I was able to get through these
• 4:22
  Speaker 5: difficult moments were because I'm surrounded by such great people,
• 4:26
  Speaker 5: you know what I mean, like my family, my friends,
• 4:29
  Speaker 5: the coworkers, And I think that's how the interplay between
• 4:36
  Speaker 5: audience and musician.
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: Really has played out.
• 4:40
  Speaker 5: Man Like, we all kind of help each other and
• 4:43
  Speaker 5: we just we just have different roles. And my role
• 4:46
  Speaker 5: happens to be I'm fucked in the head and every
• 4:50
  Speaker 5: time a year comes around, I seem to vomit out
• 4:54
  Speaker 5: my reaction to it. So not only am I appreciative,
• 4:58
  Speaker 5: but I also it's also really important for me to
• 5:01
  Speaker 5: point out how much my ability to create a soundtrack
• 5:06
  Speaker 5: for people involves the people in my life.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: Right, what's the soundtrack to your life?
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: Like?
• 5:15
  Speaker 4: It?
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: Is it music?
• 5:16
  Speaker 4: I mean, my dad is a prolific jazz pianist, right,
• 5:21
  Speaker 4: and he doesn't really listen to music anymore, you know.
• 5:25
  Speaker 4: I remember I remember going to his house and having
• 5:29
  Speaker 4: lunch with him, and we were having that discussion and
• 5:33
  Speaker 4: he pointed out there was it was really silent, and
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: then he said, it's because of that, and he pointed
• 5:40
  Speaker 4: outside and there was a magpie warbling in the background,
• 5:44
  Speaker 4: and he said, that's my soundtrack these days.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: Tell us about yours.
• 5:49
  Speaker 5: Maybe I'll head in that direction, but I don't think
• 5:51
  Speaker 5: I'm quite there yet. I love sound so much, and
• 5:58
  Speaker 5: I love silence, of course, but sound for me is
• 6:04
  Speaker 5: really comforting, but words tend to not be anymore.
• 6:10
  Speaker 6: So.
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: The only time I listened to heavy music now is
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: when I'm mowing the lawn.
• 6:15
  Speaker 5: And so I mowed the lawn today before our interviews, and.
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: I listened to what was on the soundtrack today.
• 6:23
  Speaker 5: Judas Priest did a reissue of Rock and Rolla with
• 6:26
  Speaker 5: a new mix, and so I listened to that.
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: I listened to a couple other things, but other than that,
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: soundtrack to my day is.
• 6:38
  Speaker 5: I have a friend that described my listening habits because
• 6:40
  Speaker 5: I have music on all day, all day. But my
• 6:43
  Speaker 5: friend described my listening habits is it sounds like a
• 6:45
  Speaker 5: cat fell asleep on a keyboard somewhere.
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: So I just have these kind of like soft pads
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: playing in the background.
• 6:58
  Speaker 5: And the function of it, whether or not it's like
• 7:01
  Speaker 5: a dark tonality or an optimistic tonality, the function of
• 7:05
  Speaker 5: it is just like it's like a soundtrack to my day.
• 7:12
  Speaker 5: And my day includes so many things conversationally as well.
• 7:15
  Speaker 5: I talk to folks like yourself, or I've got people
• 7:19
  Speaker 5: that I work with, or there's obligations that I've got
• 7:22
  Speaker 5: to go to. And I have a playlist of basically
• 7:26
  Speaker 5: just really really quiet ambient music that is just so
• 7:33
  Speaker 5: sparse and so minimal that a lot of times when
• 7:37
  Speaker 5: people are around me, they don't recognize that music is playing.
• 7:42
  Speaker 5: And to me, that's my soundtrack and I love it
• 7:45
  Speaker 5: and I can't get enough of it. And morning tonight
• 7:48
  Speaker 5: I play it. I just I just love it. And
• 7:50
  Speaker 5: they're all artists. I have no idea about who they are,
• 7:54
  Speaker 5: what they look like. There's no lyrics, and it's either
• 7:58
  Speaker 5: that or music from the early nineteen hundreds, like nineteen
• 8:01
  Speaker 5: oh five nineteen ten, And in both cases, the reason
• 8:05
  Speaker 5: why they function has such a great soundtrack for me
• 8:08
  Speaker 5: is I don't judge them, you know what I mean?
• 8:09
  Speaker 5: There's no I don't I'm not thinking about the snare,
• 8:13
  Speaker 5: I'm not thinking about the lyrics, I'm not thinking about
• 8:15
  Speaker 5: the guitar tone. I'm not thinking about compression. It's like
• 8:19
  Speaker 5: I can participate with sound.
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: Without judging it, and that's really great for me because
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: I still love sound.
• 8:24
  Speaker 4: Okay, let's before we start talking about power nerd and stuff.
• 8:29
  Speaker 4: This always throws people. What would you like me to
• 8:32
  Speaker 4: play from your back catalog?
• 8:33
  Speaker 7: And why?
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: I think that.
• 8:38
  Speaker 5: It depends on how much time you've got, Because if
• 8:41
  Speaker 5: you've got twenty minutes, I would play Singularity off of
• 8:44
  Speaker 5: MPATH because it covers the gamut. If you've only got
• 8:48
  Speaker 5: a couple of minutes, I think any of it would do.
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: Really, what is something that I resonate with?
• 8:56
  Speaker 8: Now?
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: What's your favorite song to play?
• 8:58
  Speaker 9: Love?
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: What's the song on your set? At least they're like
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: count white to get to that.
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: Other than the last song.
• 9:06
  Speaker 5: No, I no, I mean just because of singing, is
• 9:10
  Speaker 5: why I say that. Because it's always hard to sing
• 9:12
  Speaker 5: this stuff. Brother, I don't even think about it. I
• 9:15
  Speaker 5: never think about it. I don't think about favorite songs.
• 9:18
  Speaker 5: I as soon as the record's finished as well, because
• 9:21
  Speaker 5: I put so much time and effort and care into
• 9:25
  Speaker 5: each record that once it's.
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: Done, i'd like never want to hear it again. Yeah, yeah,
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: you know.
• 9:30
  Speaker 5: But I think that there's some moments that I think, oh,
• 9:33
  Speaker 5: that would have been cool for that song to have
• 9:35
  Speaker 5: had a bit more attention, Like Shining from Alien I
• 9:41
  Speaker 5: thought was a really cool moment, or Possessions from Alien
• 9:44
  Speaker 5: was a really cool moment. But as well, I really
• 9:47
  Speaker 5: loved Pale Blue Dot from from Snuggles, and I really
• 9:52
  Speaker 5: thought that Singularity was a cool track. And there's a
• 9:57
  Speaker 5: bunch of stuff like Goodbye off of Power Nerd fuck
• 10:00
  Speaker 5: me up every time I hear it.
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: I mean it's like and then The.
• 10:04
  Speaker 5: Moth, which is his opera I've been writing for ten years.
• 10:07
  Speaker 5: I just sent off the first act to like twenty
• 10:10
  Speaker 5: people this morning.
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: For them to start learning their parts.
• 10:13
  Speaker 5: And I was just like, good lord man, like this
• 10:15
  Speaker 5: thing is like, this thing's so over the top. But
• 10:20
  Speaker 5: it's only because you're asking me that I'm throwing these
• 10:23
  Speaker 5: names out because I raally think about it and I
• 10:25
  Speaker 5: don't listen to it once it's done, right.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, all right, let's we've got times of time, Dad.
• 10:30
  Speaker 4: This is gonna be a special pocost for you, probably
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: about now long. So I will apply singularity and then
• 10:35
  Speaker 4: we'll come back to to pund it.
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: Great, thank you.
• 10:41
  Speaker 10: With alls.
• 11:00
  Speaker 11: Now.
• 11:00
  Speaker 10: I don't know where we go and I don't.
• 11:05
  Speaker 12: Know what do, but I sail the world for love,
• 11:11
  Speaker 12: and I sail theorld for you.
• 11:22
  Speaker 13: So.
• 11:32
  Speaker 10: To say, so.
• 11:39
  Speaker 14: When we come to.
• 11:45
  Speaker 10: It was al.
• 12:13
  Speaker 9: Say the same f U F said, not through the let.
• 13:11
  Speaker 15: Through the shine for.
• 13:16
  Speaker 10: A shine on me.
• 13:33
  Speaker 12: But nothing you've seen could remind you fro come Street attemption.
• 13:43
  Speaker 15: Through pains you cannot imagine for got.
• 13:49
  Speaker 9: Real fineb sun bow back sign ray N.
• 16:13
  Speaker 16: Take your heart.
• 16:16
  Speaker 10: Loo's fatis.
• 16:19
  Speaker 9: In this time of cry lies for Chelgic have patience
• 16:29
  Speaker 9: because I.
• 16:31
  Speaker 17: See that all love love that studys loscy.
• 16:55
  Speaker 9: There still baste.
• 19:05
  Speaker 13: I am.
• 19:58
  Speaker 18: Not by way a bad side got my dang wa
• 20:05
  Speaker 18: side got drown way wa sign goddam say side con
• 20:14
  Speaker 18: da wa side come trowl.
• 20:16
  Speaker 14: Bay wa side gonda.
• 20:21
  Speaker 8: Side got da side god rollway warm daya bin a.
• 20:44
  Speaker 14: Fa side, got.
• 20:50
  Speaker 8: All at a banda a very side blow say sorry, shot.
• 21:26
  Speaker 16: S s s.
• 21:36
  Speaker 7: S we just nott whats uh talking substances.
• 22:31
  Speaker 16: At once? Substand things.
• 23:00
  Speaker 9: I want to make a man has organization that much
• 23:02
  Speaker 9: and man.
• 23:05
  Speaker 16: Because union mind June is one of the thirteen.
• 23:10
  Speaker 9: When he joins another long and not a lot of
• 23:13
  Speaker 9: any times. That's fine your boys.
• 23:24
  Speaker 16: Yees are saying officials society. It's your diseases, defensive weapons, not.
• 24:16
  Speaker 19: L below ever dance dance luck in together made or
• 24:19
  Speaker 19: dancey luck day.
• 24:34
  Speaker 16: I never.
• 24:38
  Speaker 9: Me share me out my loss. I hid you do
• 25:40
  Speaker 9: not be lost.
• 25:42
  Speaker 14: I know you have a way.
• 25:50
  Speaker 20: About you.
• 25:51
  Speaker 14: It will be together lost. I find you not lost, hidarist.
• 26:00
  Speaker 14: They don't have to be old. I'm not a nice
• 26:04
  Speaker 14: be shut up with my big choice. Joicey I'm killing me,
• 26:10
  Speaker 14: I would say you from your say you said you
• 26:14
  Speaker 14: all age be aware, I'm.
• 26:19
  Speaker 21: Word sings.
• 27:20
  Speaker 17: Sem so change and name most fees the stream.
• 27:50
  Speaker 8: To the.
• 27:57
  Speaker 22: Shot, see the meadow to thephe.
• 28:24
  Speaker 9: Shine forever, shine on me, So the future is hard
• 28:35
  Speaker 9: to say, or shine thing hire and you shine for.
• 29:18
  Speaker 23: Shot outside, scho.
• 29:58
  Speaker 6: Shot, shining ball, ship.
• 30:42
  Speaker 9: Shot.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: Yes, Steven, you see you see my ziltoid in the
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: background there.
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: Indeed, Yes.
• 31:36
  Speaker 4: Now I want you to talk about the definition of
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: power her because I saw that little YouTube thing.
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: But what first?
• 31:44
  Speaker 4: When I say you sat down and consciously said that
• 31:48
  Speaker 4: I want to write this album in twelve days, right
• 31:52
  Speaker 4: without having any kind of restraints or anything. But even
• 31:56
  Speaker 4: even saying that coming from you would seem like constraint
• 32:00
  Speaker 4: in itself, like walking up going fuck, I've got a
• 32:02
  Speaker 4: lot an album.
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: I've got ten duys.
• 32:04
  Speaker 5: Left, truly, truly. The two things that spring to mind
• 32:08
  Speaker 5: is one, there was the riffs, choruses, and a lot
• 32:13
  Speaker 5: of the songs. I had skeletons of ideas before those
• 32:18
  Speaker 5: twelve days, so assembling it in that time I did
• 32:23
  Speaker 5: have some some prior material to draw from, so it
• 32:26
  Speaker 5: wasn't just like point blank. But that being said, my
• 32:30
  Speaker 5: tendency to overthink things is just historically been either problematic
• 32:36
  Speaker 5: or you know, in one way or another, or just
• 32:40
  Speaker 5: a rabbit hole that by the end you're sort of
• 32:42
  Speaker 5: trying to drag yourself out of So with Partnered, I
• 32:47
  Speaker 5: tried to put those parameters in place because the nature
• 32:50
  Speaker 5: of the music was meant to be almost like an
• 32:52
  Speaker 5: olive branch for people who have tolerated a lot of
• 32:55
  Speaker 5: what was unexpectedly coming out of me during the pandemic,
• 32:58
  Speaker 5: you know, a puzzle, light work, or always I didn't
• 33:01
  Speaker 5: expect any of that stuff, but my reaction to my
• 33:04
  Speaker 5: environment is always going to create music. So with Power Nerd,
• 33:09
  Speaker 5: I really wanted to say to people, prior to giving
• 33:11
  Speaker 5: the moth to people, say listen, thank you so much
• 33:15
  Speaker 5: for the support. Here's some riffs, here's some songs like
• 33:19
  Speaker 5: and in order to create the urgency that I wanted
• 33:21
  Speaker 5: to get for the record, to sort of imply that
• 33:24
  Speaker 5: sense of like, you know, more straightforward music, I felt
• 33:28
  Speaker 5: that parameters would be appropriate, and in the very beginning
• 33:34
  Speaker 5: they were. But as I've said over and over in
• 33:37
  Speaker 5: this interview cycle, my family and I went through a
• 33:41
  Speaker 5: lot of trauma during the period that I wrote this
• 33:46
  Speaker 5: and recorded it, and the type of.
• 33:49
  Speaker 24: Experience of grief that we had during it was something
• 33:54
  Speaker 24: that I realized upon finishing the record I had never
• 33:58
  Speaker 24: allowed myself to fully sink into.
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: It had always been like I would either rationalize.
• 34:04
  Speaker 5: The grief or I'd intellectualize the grief or whatever, so
• 34:07
  Speaker 5: that it's compartmentalizing you don't really have to dig into it,
• 34:10
  Speaker 5: I guess. But this time it was just too much, man,
• 34:13
  Speaker 5: and I just I ended up just this, all this
• 34:18
  Speaker 5: emotion that I guess I'd suppressed for all these years,
• 34:20
  Speaker 5: it just it had it just started coming out. And
• 34:24
  Speaker 5: as somebody who had never cried in the past or
• 34:28
  Speaker 5: even expressed anger in the past, to have all those
• 34:32
  Speaker 5: things start coming out, and in ways that I felt
• 34:34
  Speaker 5: I couldn't even control. It's like there's a crack in
• 34:37
  Speaker 5: the dam, and then all of a sudden, it's like
• 34:38
  Speaker 5: the the you know, the pressure builds up and you
• 34:42
  Speaker 5: just have to sort.
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: Of be witnessed to this, and I.
• 34:46
  Speaker 5: I realized how emotionally immature I am, and how all
• 34:52
  Speaker 5: these things were just I didn't know how to deal
• 34:55
  Speaker 5: with them right and and to have what in the
• 34:59
  Speaker 5: beginning with Power was a very simple mission statement of
• 35:01
  Speaker 5: it's like it's party record, it's simple record, it's a
• 35:04
  Speaker 5: rock record, it's you know. By the time I started
• 35:07
  Speaker 5: digging into the lyrics at that point, what we were
• 35:10
  Speaker 5: going through was such that I listened to the original
• 35:13
  Speaker 5: lyrics and realized that I can't I can't rationalize just
• 35:17
  Speaker 5: saying nothing.
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: It's like not the way that it needs to be.
• 35:22
  Speaker 5: So there became this fundamental contradiction with Power Nerd were
• 35:27
  Speaker 5: on one hand, it's a simple rock record, and on
• 35:30
  Speaker 5: the other hand, it was the soundtrack to a point
• 35:34
  Speaker 5: in my life that was so foreign to me and
• 35:37
  Speaker 5: so emotionally complex that.
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: It just ended up being about that. And as a
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: result of my.
• 35:51
  Speaker 5: Being inexperienced with dealing with grief, it ended up I
• 35:56
  Speaker 5: had no poetry for it. It didn't end up being
• 36:00
  Speaker 5: like something that I felt I was teaching a lesson
• 36:03
  Speaker 5: or I was, you know, trying.
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: To dispense some sort of message to people, and that's
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: why you do this, and that's why it was too.
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: I had no idea, dude, I was just trying to
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: hang on.
• 36:17
  Speaker 5: So by the end of it, when I chose to
• 36:19
  Speaker 5: put the Coffee Song at the end, so it didn't
• 36:21
  Speaker 5: end on a note of grief, but more ended on
• 36:25
  Speaker 5: the note of yes, it's brutal. Life is that, and
• 36:28
  Speaker 5: it's for all of us, but you get through it,
• 36:32
  Speaker 5: and you work through it, and you're surrounded by good
• 36:35
  Speaker 5: people and they help you through it, and you help
• 36:36
  Speaker 5: each other through it.
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: And in a sense, the.
• 36:40
  Speaker 5: Term power nerd ended up being more appropriate by the
• 36:43
  Speaker 5: end of it than I would have expected, because it's
• 36:45
  Speaker 5: almost like that's the definition of it, like how do
• 36:48
  Speaker 5: you get something through something that you don't feel qualified
• 36:51
  Speaker 5: to do and you feel like you're not going to
• 36:52
  Speaker 5: be able to do, but you do. There's an energy
• 36:56
  Speaker 5: to that that I think all these circumstances to surrounding
• 37:00
  Speaker 5: this record contributed.
• 37:01
  Speaker 15: To chasing the wind, open your line, changing your breath,
• 37:26
  Speaker 15: freezing your desk, your.
• 37:29
  Speaker 13: Mine, Jesus behind.
• 37:47
  Speaker 9: Up the.
• 37:49
  Speaker 6: Side, O yo tack oh nose days play.
• 38:11
  Speaker 8: Say oh, I say time to ride? What I said
• 38:15
  Speaker 8: on the sail?
• 38:16
  Speaker 6: All those hands man, damn it all time or nine
• 38:21
  Speaker 6: and my bad all lay waites say why wait.
• 38:46
  Speaker 9: Ye why you see the nine week in the rye.
• 38:53
  Speaker 13: Wa s.
• 39:03
  Speaker 25: Don't get don't get me, don't get those things when
• 39:17
  Speaker 25: you say what else?
• 39:19
  Speaker 6: Time to would not sit on the sails all nose
• 39:24
  Speaker 6: Yes me tell me time.
• 39:28
  Speaker 26: Podcast, don't tell no job a job I can.
• 39:44
  Speaker 9: Ye no jazz.
• 39:50
  Speaker 8: Yeah yeah, hag no job hagnod job.
• 39:57
  Speaker 9: Joy do try ag.
• 40:29
  Speaker 11: What kind of.
• 40:31
  Speaker 4: I just kind of need a moment actually because I
• 40:34
  Speaker 4: lost in in the last four months, I lost.
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: Two really really close family members. And you know, I
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: had a moment on the train after I hung out
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: with some some friends from work and.
• 40:51
  Speaker 4: And I was listening to the album last night, and
• 40:54
  Speaker 4: it's funny you talk about Sorry, It's funny that you
• 41:00
  Speaker 4: hooked about goodbar ocause I'd listened to the album.
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: Probably four or five times in the last couple of days.
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: And as I was listening to last night before I
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: went to.
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: Bed, I had another moment.
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: So the the podcast is.
• 41:14
  Speaker 4: Going to come out just prout of the album coming out,
• 41:16
  Speaker 4: but a U archive wave place songs from it.
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: Of course. I I just yeah, I mean, dude, I
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: I I think that was the whole thing is is.
• 41:31
  Speaker 5: I was just drawn into this tornado of emotions and
• 41:37
  Speaker 5: I was just like, I just I was so like
• 41:43
  Speaker 5: I couldn't stop fucking crying, man. And it was like,
• 41:49
  Speaker 5: and I've never you know, in the past, of course,
• 41:51
  Speaker 5: we've got music that's emotionally intense or or or it
• 41:55
  Speaker 5: involves our past in ways that are emotionally intense.
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: But never have I.
• 42:02
  Speaker 5: Really been confronted with the like the bluntness of how
• 42:08
  Speaker 5: how overwhelming loss can be right and how grief can
• 42:13
  Speaker 5: be And I remember when working on that song, towards
• 42:16
  Speaker 5: the last chorus, I remember I couldn't even get the
• 42:19
  Speaker 5: words out. Man, I just kept I couldn't get the
• 42:22
  Speaker 5: words out. It was just it would just level me
• 42:25
  Speaker 5: every time. So when I finally did, it was like,
• 42:28
  Speaker 5: I remember this being like Jesus, dude, like this is
• 42:31
  Speaker 5: this was supposed to be a rock record. There's supposed
• 42:34
  Speaker 5: to be a party record. This I didn't expect this.
• 42:38
  Speaker 5: And then at the end of it, you know, putting
• 42:40
  Speaker 5: the ambient piece, I was like, okay, so this is
• 42:42
  Speaker 5: where I can kind of try to process it. And
• 42:46
  Speaker 5: at the end of it, I think in the past
• 42:48
  Speaker 5: there's these senses with recordings that because you've managed to
• 42:54
  Speaker 5: get it out of your system on some.
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: Level, you fundamentally understand it. But this didn't have that conclusion.
• 43:02
  Speaker 5: There was not a sense at the end whereas I
• 43:03
  Speaker 5: can now I've quantified that and I understand it and
• 43:06
  Speaker 5: we can move on. I was just like, fuck, man,
• 43:09
  Speaker 5: that's just what happened. There's no description or explanation for it.
• 43:14
  Speaker 14: It's just like.
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: They're not here anymore, and you're like, how do you
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: It doesn't make any sense.
• 43:21
  Speaker 7: And so.
• 43:23
  Speaker 5: So at the end, I remember thinking, well, this is
• 43:26
  Speaker 5: an experience that we all share. This isn't like exclusive
• 43:29
  Speaker 5: to a musician or to me or anybody.
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: This is like something we all share.
• 43:33
  Speaker 5: So the other thing I recognized about it is how
• 43:36
  Speaker 5: I had people help me through it as well. And
• 43:38
  Speaker 5: one of the ways was somebody came up and just
• 43:41
  Speaker 5: offered to take me out for a coffee one day,
• 43:43
  Speaker 5: and I remember that just the act of that and
• 43:47
  Speaker 5: that coming into my life changed the.
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: Whole order of business. All of a sudden, I recognized.
• 43:54
  Speaker 5: I'm like, well, this is a process, you know, in
• 43:58
  Speaker 5: the anger and then the loss and the acceptance and
• 44:02
  Speaker 5: the surrender, and then and then the next day, and
• 44:05
  Speaker 5: so whereas in the beginning we were going to end
• 44:08
  Speaker 5: it with goodbye, I thought, well, that just leaves me
• 44:11
  Speaker 5: with this frame of mind that is just so fragile
• 44:14
  Speaker 5: at the end of it, and that's not what I feel.
• 44:19
  Speaker 5: The fragility is also juxtaposed by the awareness that we have.
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: Other people in our lives and we do get through it,
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: and there is the other side of it. And there
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: is no answers, and there is no anything.
• 44:32
  Speaker 5: But there's a beauty to that ignorance in a way
• 44:37
  Speaker 5: where you're just like, it's so beyond me that in fact,
• 44:42
  Speaker 5: the hubrits of ever thinking of it being anything else,
• 44:47
  Speaker 5: Like the arrogance of thinking that we go through these
• 44:50
  Speaker 5: experiences and all of a sudden we're like authorities on them,
• 44:54
  Speaker 5: is profoundly revolting to me in so many ways, because
• 45:01
  Speaker 5: it seems to be this human artistic tendency to wrap
• 45:04
  Speaker 5: up these experiences with some sort of summary, some sort
• 45:07
  Speaker 5: of moral, you know, some sort of and I learned
• 45:10
  Speaker 5: this at summer camp sort of thing. But I realized
• 45:14
  Speaker 5: by going through this, I was like, there was none
• 45:15
  Speaker 5: of that, There was no anything. But the resolution at
• 45:19
  Speaker 5: the other day came in the form of something really simple.
• 45:21
  Speaker 5: I was like, oh, yeah, I like coffee.
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: I do know that.
• 45:25
  Speaker 5: I don't know what the fuck happened, and I don't
• 45:28
  Speaker 5: know how to quantify it, but I do know that
• 45:30
  Speaker 5: in the morning, I like coffee, and holding.
• 45:33
  Speaker 3: On to that was as good as anything I think,
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: And I found that kind of a great way to
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: end it, because I end the record feeling exhausted by it.
• 45:42
  Speaker 5: But not blown apart anymore, you know, And I think
• 45:47
  Speaker 5: that helps, Like having some sort of sense of hope
• 45:49
  Speaker 5: at this point is important.
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: Right agreed?
• 45:53
  Speaker 27: Yeah, a man, I love you, So let's with yuh,
• 46:00
  Speaker 27: let's play good boy and then we'll it can only
• 46:03
  Speaker 27: go out from here.
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: Right right? Yeah, you got it? Yeah, but it does, man,
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: I think that's it.
• 46:10
  Speaker 5: It's just you gotta you gotta keep your eye on
• 46:12
  Speaker 5: the fact that it's like there's there's swings and rounds
• 46:17
  Speaker 5: about roundabouts to life in general, and the bad times
• 46:22
  Speaker 5: don't last forever, neither do the good times but the
• 46:25
  Speaker 5: dynamicism of the ups and downs is.
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: What creates the value, right, Like.
• 46:31
  Speaker 5: The the value of the good times is is only
• 46:35
  Speaker 5: in juxtaposition to how ship things can be some other times.
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: And so there's there's a beauty to it all. That's
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: just you know, beyond me at least, he's a good
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: boy from power the Death the death.
• 46:51
  Speaker 5: Ladies and gentlemen, this is zill Joy And you are
• 46:54
  Speaker 5: listening to Heavy magazine and I command you just sucking.
• 47:04
  Speaker 9: Wait for the time.
• 47:10
  Speaker 10: It's gonna help me with the mind.
• 47:17
  Speaker 9: So weaited it up to see it.
• 47:20
  Speaker 12: But I only wanted to say.
• 47:24
  Speaker 9: Goodbye me.
• 47:32
  Speaker 10: For the sign.
• 47:37
  Speaker 12: It's gonna help me to decide. So we waited it
• 47:45
  Speaker 12: up to meet you. We all wanted to sign goodbye.
• 47:50
  Speaker 9: Me side Sea, so.
• 49:21
  Speaker 11: Sme never a.
• 51:00
  Speaker 4: Where is that fun to record? Was it fun to film?
• 51:05
  Speaker 4: It seems like it's just a rollicking good time and
• 51:11
  Speaker 4: a fucking great way to start the album.
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: But but Ray energized somehow.
• 51:20
  Speaker 3: The opposite.
• 51:22
  Speaker 5: Oh, we only had two days to do that video,
• 51:25
  Speaker 5: and I was so fucking exhausted because over the past
• 51:28
  Speaker 5: couple of years we've moved.
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: House four times, man like just just and moving house
• 51:35
  Speaker 3: is relentless.
• 51:37
  Speaker 16: It's like.
• 51:40
  Speaker 5: And what it requires is, you know, I'm building things
• 51:42
  Speaker 5: and building furniture and renovating and but I'm a musician.
• 51:47
  Speaker 5: I don't I'm not a carpenter. So I do it
• 51:50
  Speaker 5: because it has to be done. And you know, that's
• 51:53
  Speaker 5: that's part of my trip too. It's like, if it
• 51:55
  Speaker 5: has to me down, I'll figure it out. But when
• 51:58
  Speaker 5: it came time to the video, we had a day.
• 52:01
  Speaker 5: They're like, what's the video?
• 52:02
  Speaker 3: But I'm like, power air.
• 52:04
  Speaker 5: It is this personification of this dude that's having to
• 52:08
  Speaker 5: move all the time, and he's a musician, and all
• 52:12
  Speaker 5: he's trying to do is help whether and he's trying
• 52:14
  Speaker 5: to help the family, or to help his friends or
• 52:17
  Speaker 5: help his loved ones. But every time he goes to
• 52:19
  Speaker 5: do something, he just makes things exponentially worse. So it's
• 52:25
  Speaker 5: funny with people like, oh, the power aired video is funny.
• 52:27
  Speaker 5: I'm like, dude, it's autobiographical. That's like, that's been the
• 52:30
  Speaker 5: last six months, right, And I was so tired of
• 52:33
  Speaker 5: the day that we were making it that the video
• 52:36
  Speaker 5: director was just.
• 52:37
  Speaker 3: Like, Okay, roll around on the ground. We'll put you
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: on a green screen, make you look like you're in
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: outer space.
• 52:42
  Speaker 5: And I remember just being on the back because they're like, well,
• 52:45
  Speaker 5: we need something to have, like a space suit, and
• 52:47
  Speaker 5: I'm like, all I got is my seapap mask.
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: And I remember being in crocs, long underwear on a
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: green screen and.
• 52:55
  Speaker 5: A seapop mask, just being like, yeah, this is a
• 52:58
  Speaker 5: pretty good representation of how I right now.
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: To be perfectly well, we came into that with a
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: like a you know, like a completely calm frame of
• 53:10
  Speaker 3: mind and chose to make a silly video. It's like, dude,
• 53:12
  Speaker 3: we got two days.
• 53:13
  Speaker 20: What are we going to do?
• 53:13
  Speaker 5: I was like Power Nerd, And then before I knew it,
• 53:17
  Speaker 5: I was I was, yeah, rolling around with a sea
• 53:20
  Speaker 5: pap mask on.
• 53:21
  Speaker 4: Man, uh, introduce it for Introduce it for us, and
• 53:24
  Speaker 4: we'll come back, ladies and gentleman.
• 53:27
  Speaker 3: My name is Devin Townsend and this is Power Nerd.
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: Yes, did you realize.
• 53:39
  Speaker 4: That you've almost written and released an album in Power
• 53:42
  Speaker 4: Nerd that defines.
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: And encapsulates your entire back catalog just through songs like
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: you know, when we when we talk about and.
• 53:50
  Speaker 4: First I said that like listening to Ruby Quaker that
• 53:53
  Speaker 4: is deconstruction in its entirety, in fucking in four minutes.
• 53:58
  Speaker 20: You know, you know, like.
• 54:03
  Speaker 4: Knuckle Dragon and Gratitude, like just just breaks of Sinkistra
• 54:09
  Speaker 4: and Terrier and all that kind of stuff.
• 54:11
  Speaker 13: Yeah.
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: I don't think of a dude ever. Man, I really don't.
• 54:15
  Speaker 5: And I think that's why sometimes it can be so
• 54:18
  Speaker 5: frustrating to the audience because I don't know.
• 54:21
  Speaker 3: I just don't know, and I I don't plan it.
• 54:24
  Speaker 5: The only way that I can muster the enthusiasm to
• 54:29
  Speaker 5: finish a record, because making records like the ones that
• 54:33
  Speaker 5: I make are a lot of work, and I do
• 54:36
  Speaker 5: the lion's share of the work on my own. So
• 54:40
  Speaker 5: so I don't go into musical ventures, uh, premeditating what
• 54:47
  Speaker 5: I'm going to do, because I just don't think I
• 54:48
  Speaker 5: can sustain the the interest in something if I'm not
• 54:51
  Speaker 5: compelled to do it. So when I start writing, my
• 54:55
  Speaker 5: fingers across that it's something that that people will creciate
• 55:00
  Speaker 5: or will fit into their world. And then in a
• 55:04
  Speaker 5: record like Power Nerd, it just seemed like the more
• 55:06
  Speaker 5: I started to populate that folder with riffs and ideas,
• 55:09
  Speaker 5: the more a musical aesthetics started to reveal itself, and
• 55:13
  Speaker 5: that aesthetic is was more straightforward, you know, It's more simple.
• 55:17
  Speaker 3: And then when I started compiling the songs and.
• 55:22
  Speaker 5: Looking through the things that I was doing, it made
• 55:23
  Speaker 5: me recognize how much of the record is, like you say,
• 55:28
  Speaker 5: more like a reflection of the past in a sense,
• 55:31
  Speaker 5: but a lot of that as well.
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: I mean, I mean a brother, I'm like, there's a
• 55:33
  Speaker 3: part of me that.
• 55:36
  Speaker 5: Wanted to revisit some of those things from the past,
• 55:42
  Speaker 5: just because it's been such a screwed up few years
• 55:44
  Speaker 5: that I've just veered off in all these these directions
• 55:48
  Speaker 5: that were unexpected. So no, I never intentionally made this
• 55:52
  Speaker 5: record to be a summary of the past, but it
• 55:54
  Speaker 5: ended up being that way, and that was one of
• 55:57
  Speaker 5: the fun parts.
• 55:57
  Speaker 3: Actually. I was able to say, oh, that's cool, we
• 56:00
  Speaker 3: can go down that avenue and I know how to
• 56:02
  Speaker 3: do that or what have you. And I think as
• 56:04
  Speaker 3: a preface for the Moth Opera, which is a you'll.
• 56:08
  Speaker 5: Hear yeah it's a gong show Man in preface to that,
• 56:13
  Speaker 5: I think that a record like this was was important
• 56:16
  Speaker 5: to me.
• 56:17
  Speaker 4: We've just got a message from Braun that we have
• 56:20
  Speaker 4: to wrap in a minute, but i'd really luck you
• 56:23
  Speaker 4: to introduce h Knapu Draga and the Knie single you
• 56:30
  Speaker 4: Gotta Relay.
• 56:31
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, so knuckle Dagger. I just came up with
• 56:35
  Speaker 3: the idea for the video for that.
• 56:36
  Speaker 5: I think that's gonna be great actually, so yeah A
• 56:40
  Speaker 5: and raises dev and uh. These are two songs off
• 56:44
  Speaker 5: of Power Nerd.
• 56:45
  Speaker 3: The first one's called Jainism and it is in reference
• 56:49
  Speaker 3: to an artist friend of mine that was really upset
• 56:54
  Speaker 3: about the fact that they put all their heart and
• 56:55
  Speaker 3: soul into their work and then they put it out
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: and it's ignored by the world.
• 57:00
  Speaker 5: And it references my life in the nineties. That was
• 57:03
  Speaker 5: a big part of like that sound was a big
• 57:06
  Speaker 5: part of what I was doing in the nineties. And
• 57:08
  Speaker 5: then the next song is called knuckle Drager. Knuckle Drager.
• 57:13
  Speaker 5: I went into this song thinking, I want to write
• 57:16
  Speaker 5: the stupidest song that I can possibly write, and knuckle Drager.
• 57:21
  Speaker 5: The reason it's a stupid song is because the concept
• 57:24
  Speaker 5: is about how you look at political discourse.
• 57:27
  Speaker 3: You look at the state of the world, you look
• 57:29
  Speaker 3: at some of the things people are doing to each other.
• 57:31
  Speaker 5: You look at the state of how profoundly stupid things
• 57:35
  Speaker 5: have become.
• 57:36
  Speaker 3: And the frustration that I feel is such that I
• 57:41
  Speaker 3: was just.
• 57:41
  Speaker 5: Like, Okay, I'm going to write a song about how
• 57:43
  Speaker 5: stupid this is. And knuckle Dragger is that song. So
• 57:47
  Speaker 5: this is a stupid song about stupid things.
• 58:02
  Speaker 16: Goes home.
• 58:04
  Speaker 9: We're turning the page just too small.
• 58:08
  Speaker 13: Too sleep towards her disaster.
• 58:13
  Speaker 12: Weeks and dings went to broke, and weeks are too married.
• 58:20
  Speaker 13: My realist the fasts many.
• 58:27
  Speaker 9: Ways may do.
• 58:46
  Speaker 8: That's all we are, and we are sad times afraid.
• 59:02
  Speaker 8: It's all unsane nowhere.
• 59:12
  Speaker 13: Chak co man it your own strong as your mind.
• 59:20
  Speaker 14: I t depression.
• 59:24
  Speaker 12: Stays with overshod o mind.
• 59:31
  Speaker 28: A graceful depression.
• 59:38
  Speaker 9: Yeahs wow, it a ransomebody.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 6: All ransome story said times.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 20: Some say.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 16: H so.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 6: See some bunks.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 8: No bays all.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 9: As so.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 8: God all we are ransome bad.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 9: So we are ransome side sad time.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 8: Oh we have been.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 6: Some say exact gods, Oh we are ransome bad. So
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 6: dot sometime sat down, give all a bad ex all gonda.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 9: I got got got.
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 6: Me another another man. I want another another dream man.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 9: I don't want to.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 8: Think about nothing.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 28: I want a money pays, so get.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 9: Away from my fell. Won't I want?
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 8: I won't A won't to be.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 9: I won't I want you, I.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 20: Won't give me.
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 9: Another de man.
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 6: I want another ano dream man. I don't want to
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 6: think of another.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 9: I wanted anyway I get away from my fell. Come on,
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 9: t don't I won't. I won't to so take it easy.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 11: But I get the tone.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 9: If you want to.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 16: It's me mean.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 9: W what some bots so I don't stand.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 8: Stand and my dad so getto a fire summer sign
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 8: sad said, que.
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 6: Son, give me another another bell man, I want another
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 6: another drink as I wanna think I'm my mother. I
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 6: want any way so I get away from myself. Give
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 6: me another or another bell man. I want another.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 8: Another drain man.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 6: I said, I want not take any other so I
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 6: wanna go anyway, so I get away from myself.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 13: M m.
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 9: M son say.
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 8: Time standing time, and I dance song and I sound sign.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 9: Dang quess s.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 8: Suning ground.
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 9: I don't be by got I gently too.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 16: If you want the time, it's eight ten.
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 10: Meets the way was supposed to be.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 9: Yeah, yeah, So if.
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 6: Another another beer man, I want another another dream man.
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 9: Don't want to.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 8: Think about nothing, wanting in any ways.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 6: I get away from my failf jimmy another another beer man.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 6: I want another another dream and don't want to think
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 6: about anyways.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 8: I get away from my fail.
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 9: From myself.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 2: But dev we've got to wrap up. It's always a pleasure.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 2: And it's already been half an hour. It's already been
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 2: half an hour.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 3: It kills me again, buddy, Yeah, any plan?
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 2: Are you coming to a strategy soon?
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 5: Yes, sir, I don't know the exact date, but I
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 5: always want to come to Australia and there was an
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 5: offer that.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 3: Came through the other day. So when that time period
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 3: is I'm not sure, but the answer is yes, beautiful.
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 2: I'm good luck with Cowada man. I love you tons.
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 3: You know that. And I look wait you say yea,
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 3: say you feel better?
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 18: Thank again?
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 16: Five do.
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 20: The thieves you stool will day to see it's some damn.
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 9: Shi got shun the way. It's a store.
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 29: Data days we'll see looks.
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 9: It's a lam.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 6: Said me my stuff, sat say.
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 9: Can't the.
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 20: So it's.
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 9: Exactly my stufac.
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 28: You sac
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 8: Na