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In the second episode of new conversation podcast Riffing With Christina, legendary Canadian heavy musician (Devin Townsend Project, Casualties of Cool) talks about his creative process, how he decides who he collaborates with, how things have changed over the years, what is exciting and more. Check out six of Christina’s previous video interviews with Devin Townsend in the playlist below.
Devin on creativity:
“Everything I do, the best analogy for it for me is like an archaeological dig, where you’ll see something sticking out of the dirt, and you start to unearth it. And then as you unearth it you realise in some cases its just a bone sticking up and then other times its like a whole building that has to be articulated exactly how it begins to reveal itself. Within the parameters of people that you work with, and not being a tyrant, there’s basically one way that anything I do can turn out. And its not even the music, people can because that’s, people can interpret that, musicians can interpret that… its how it makes me feel. That there’s no interpretation of that. There’s a bunch of pathways to that, but often making it work so it hits me in the right set of feels takes a shit tonne of energy.”
Devin on collaboration:
“Music, as much of a complete integration into my being as it has become, is conversely not a big deal so when I work with people, its not because of their musicianship a lot of the time … all of them are really good musicians but at the same time I get asked to play with so many people and I don’t because I just don’t care. Specifically if they’re like assholes, like a famous asshole. I have no need at this point to have my name involved with someone just because of where they’re at if I don’t get along with them. At the same time you get people coming up to you at the NAMM show and they’re like ’how do I get to work with you?’ and I’m like it doesn’t work like that dude. I don’t work with people that would be good for my career because they’re asking. I work with people when I do work with them because I like them, and we don’t have any drama. And usually when we’re hanging out we’re not talking about music.”
Do you choose people because you can see them in the idea?
“Yeah, very much. And in fact it is like I’ll hear somebody and say that person would work really well if I was to do something like this. I’ve met so many people that I think to myself if I ever do a funk record. not that I would, but if I did, I know who I’d use for bass. If I ever wanted to do a death metal record, I know who I’d use for drums. I’ve got a pretty detailed assortment of musicians that I think I could draw upon. But again, those are more mental footnotes rather than I’m planning anything.”
Episode #1 of Riffing With Christina with Ben Weinman (Dillinger Escape Plan) is available on iTunes. Subscribe on iTunes here. Check out the article and the interview here.
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