1. Devin Garrett Townsend was born on May 5,1972 and is a Canadian singer, guitarist, songwriter, and record producer.
98 Facts About Devin Townsend
1. 2.
Devin Townsend founded extreme metal band Strapping Young Lad and was its primary songwriter, vocalist, and guitarist from 1994 to 2007.
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Devin Townsend has had an extensive solo career and has released a total of 29 albums across all of his projects as of 2024.
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Devin Townsend soon assembled a band of the same name, with whom he released the critically acclaimed album City in 1997.
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In 2007, he disbanded both Strapping Young Lad and the Devin Townsend Band, taking a break from touring to spend more time with his family.
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Devin Townsend continued to record and tour under the new moniker until January 2018.
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Across all his bands and solo projects, Devin Townsend has released 23 studio albums and four live albums.
8.
Devin Garrett Townsend was born in New Westminster on May 5,1972.
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Devin Townsend's parents are of Irish and British descent, with his father working in the restaurant industry.
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Devin Townsend picked up the banjo when he was five and began playing guitar when he was 12.
11.
Devin Townsend participated in several metal bands while he was in high school, and founded Grey Skies at the age of 19.
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In 1993, Devin Townsend began writing material under the name Noisescapes, a project he later described as "just as violent as Strapping Young Lad".
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Devin Townsend recorded a Noisescapes demo and sent copies to various record labels.
14.
Devin Townsend soon landed a second tour, this time with the opening band of Vai's tour, the Wildhearts.
15.
Devin Townsend played live with the band throughout half of 1994 in Europe, and appeared as a guest musician on their single Urge.
16.
Ginger, the band's frontman, remained close friends with Devin Townsend, later co-writing several songs on Infinity and the Christeen + 4 Demos EP.
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The group recorded a few songs together, although Devin Townsend says that they never intended to go further than that.
18.
Relativity Records dropped Noisescapes from their label shortly after Devin Townsend accepted Vai's offer, seeing no commercial appeal in Devin Townsend's music.
19.
Devin Townsend agreed to a five-album deal with the record label, and provided much of the guitar work on the 1994 album Millennium and the 1995 album Hard Wired by Vancouver industrial band Front Line Assembly.
20.
Devin Townsend began to record material under the pseudonym Strapping Young Lad.
21.
Devin Townsend avoided using his real name at this point in career, looking for a fresh start after his high-profile Vai gig.
22.
Devin Townsend founded his own independent record label, HevyDevy Records, to release the album.
23.
Devin Townsend assembled a permanent lineup of Strapping Young Lad to record City, including prolific metal drummer Gene Hoglan, along with Devin Townsend's former bandmates Jed Simon on guitar and Byron Stroud on bass.
24.
Later that year, Devin Townsend released his second solo album, Ocean Machine: Biomech with a guitarist Chris Valagao Mina.
25.
Devin Townsend returned to the studio, accompanied by Hoglan, to work on the album, on which Devin Townsend played most of the instruments.
26.
Later in his career, Devin Townsend has cited Infinity as his favorite solo record.
27.
Devin Townsend wanted to show that despite the highly varied nature of his projects, they are all simply aspects of his identity.
28.
Hoglan and the rest of the band were dissatisfied with the way the sound was mixed, and Devin Townsend considers it his worst album to date.
29.
Devin Townsend was inspired one morning while driving across Canada with his band, and looked to write an "introspective" album dedicated to his homeland.
30.
Devin Townsend produced and recorded Terria, a "highly illustrated stream-of-consciousness" album, with Gene Hoglan on drums, Craig McFarland on bass and Jamie Meyer on keyboards.
31.
Devin Townsend cited Ween's White Pepper as an inspiration for the album.
32.
Devin Townsend cited Front Line Assembly, Grotus, and Samael's Passage as influences.
33.
The Devin Townsend Band consisted of Brian "Beav" Waddell on guitar, Mike Young on bass, Ryan Van Poederooyen on drums, and Dave Young on keyboards.
34.
Devin Townsend performed guitar, vocals, and production, as he did in Strapping Young Lad.
35.
Devin Townsend worked on the band's first album, Accelerated Evolution, at the same time he was working on Strapping Young Lad, spending half the week on one and half on the other.
36.
Around this time, Devin Townsend contributed to the soundtrack of the video game Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel.
37.
Devin Townsend intended the album as the more "pleasant" counterpart to Alien.
38.
Devin Townsend showcased a wide variety of musical styles in Synchestra, blending his trademark "pop metal" with influences from folk, polka, and Middle Eastern music.
39.
From home, Devin Townsend completed his second solo ambient album, The Hummer, releasing it exclusively on his website in November 2006.
40.
In May 2007, Devin Townsend released Ziltoid the Omniscient, a tongue-in-cheek rock opera about the eponymous fictional alien.
41.
Devin Townsend explained that he was "burnt out on travelling, touring, and self promotion" and wished to do production work, write albums, and spend time with his family without the stress of interviews or touring.
42.
In 2008, Devin Townsend lent his voice to characters in several episodes of the Adult Swim cartoon Metalocalypse.
43.
Devin Townsend found it "disconcerting" that he had difficulty writing music without drugs, and that he had trouble identifying his purpose as a musician.
44.
Devin Townsend spent a year producing albums in absence of writing, but found it unrewarding and decided to "pick up the guitar and just write".
45.
Over two years, Devin Townsend wrote over 60 songs, and found that they fit into "four distinct styles".
46.
Devin Townsend channelled his new-found control and sobriety into Ki, a "tense, quiet" album, which contrasts with much of the music he had been known for.
47.
Devin Townsend returned to the stage in January 2010, touring North America with headliner Between the Buried and Me as well as Cynic and Scale the Summit.
48.
Devin Townsend headlined a North American tour with UK label mates TesseracT supporting, which began in October 2010, and toured in Europe with support from Aeon Zen and Anneke van Giersbergen.
49.
On October 27,2012, Devin Townsend performed a one-off show covering his musical career called The Retinal Circus at Roundhouse in London.
50.
Also in 2012, Devin Townsend played bass on the debut Bent Sea album Noistalgia.
51.
Devin Townsend described the album sounds like "haunted Johnny Cash songs" and "late night music", highlighting it will be different than anything he has done before.
52.
Devin Townsend referred the music of the album to be "closest to his heart" at this point of his life, and that it is an important and satisfying project he does not want to rush.
53.
Devin Townsend started a crowdfunding campaign through PledgeMusic to support the release of the album.
54.
From 2009, Devin Townsend worked on a long-running album project called Z, a sequel to the album Ziltoid the Omniscient.
55.
Devin Townsend discussed a "ZTV" or "Ziltoid TV" to precede the album.
56.
Devin Townsend later stated he found the project hard to schedule and work with amidst touring and writing, stating "it takes a lot of effort" to keep the content and its tongue-in-cheek humour entertaining.
57.
Devin Townsend described the hardship of the project by telling "if he was ever going to start drinking [again], the last months would have been it", but now "he's starting to get excited again".
58.
Later, "after the chaos of finishing it had subsided", Devin Townsend stated he is really satisfied with the result.
59.
Devin Townsend recently discussed at least a year-long hiatus, beginning after the Z show taking place at the Royal Albert Hall on April 13,2015.
60.
In 2014, Devin Townsend recorded a poppy-sounding song in Los Angeles with producer Brian Howes, but has decided against releasing.
61.
Devin Townsend mentioned that he is against the project being contrived due to the current hard rock undertones in popular music.
62.
Devin Townsend described it as a "lukewarm heavy metal Devin song".
63.
On December 11,2015, Devin Townsend announced via Twitter that he was recording vocals for a song by Steve Vai.
64.
In early 2016, Devin Townsend completed the seventh DTP album, entitled Transcendence at Armoury Studios in Vancouver.
65.
On March 17,2017, Devin Townsend Project played Ocean Machine live in its entirety at Hammersmith Apollo.
66.
On October 30,2017, Devin Townsend announced that he was working on four new albums.
67.
On January 15,2019, Devin Townsend announced his album, Empath, on which work had been completed, and slated for release on March 29,2019.
68.
Devin Townsend appeared on the YouTube show Tuesday Talks hosted by Mary Spender.
69.
On March 12,2020, Devin Townsend postponed the remainder of his Empath Vol.
70.
Four days later, on March 16,2020, Devin Townsend launched a crowdfunding campaign to cover the costs of the canceled tour.
71.
Devin Townsend collaborated with the likes of Kat Epple, Samus Paulicelli, Morgan Agren, Federico Paulovich, Che Aimee Dorval, Mattias Eklundh, Wes Hauch and Liam Wilson.
72.
Devin Townsend's next project was a double release including the albums The Puzzle and Snuggles.
73.
Ultimately, Devin Townsend cancelled his solo tour dates in favour of opening for American progressive metal band Dream Theater's European Tour in early 2022.
74.
On October 16,2023, via Inside Out Music's YouTube channel, Devin Townsend announced a new podcast series by publishing its first episode.
75.
Devin Townsend is currently working on a number of other projects, including ones called Axolotl, and a web series called Ruby Quaker.
76.
Devin Townsend is married to Tracy Turner, whom he began dating when he was 19.
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Devin Townsend gave birth to their first son in October 2006.
78.
Devin Townsend has been a vegetarian for ethical reasons since around the early 1990s, but does not consider himself an activist.
79.
Devin Townsend has revealed in interviews that he suffers from depression.
80.
Devin Townsend was diagnosed with bipolar disorder around 1998, a condition that was unknowingly exacerbated by his alcohol and drug use at the time; he has been sober and free of anti-psychotic medication since 2007.
81.
Devin Townsend designed his two main projects, the aggressive Strapping Young Lad and his more melodic solo material, as counterparts.
82.
Devin Townsend is synesthetic, experiencing musical notes as colors and shapes.
83.
Devin Townsend mainly uses Pro Tools to produce his music, alongside other software suites such as Steinberg Cubase, Ableton Live, Logic Pro and Waves Audio plugins.
84.
Devin Townsend has carried out the mixing and mastering for most of his solo work himself.
85.
Devin Townsend mainly uses Open C tuning for both six and seven string guitar.
86.
Devin Townsend now uses Open B tuning and Open B flat tuning on his six string guitars.
87.
Devin Townsend is known for his heavy use of reverb and delay effects.
88.
Devin Townsend has expressed that he has no taste for shred guitar, saying that "Musically it doesn't do anything for me" and that he only solos when he thinks that he can within the context of the song.
89.
Devin Townsend employs a variety of vocal techniques in his work, including screaming, growling or even falsetto.
90.
Devin Townsend is influenced by orchestral and classical composers such as John Williams, Trevor Jones and Igor Stravinsky.
91.
Devin Townsend played ESP six and seven-string guitars from 1994 to 2009 during his endorsement with ESP.
92.
Devin Townsend has been seen with the Stephen Carpenter SC-607 and SC-607B.
93.
Devin Townsend was occasionally seen playing what is believed to be a Fender American Deluxe Stratocaster HSS during Accelerated Evolution and Synchestra-era shows.
94.
At the time, this was the only guitar Devin Townsend was seen with that did not have EMG pickups, but was modified with a Seymour Duncan STK-S2n Hot Stack in the neck.
95.
In 2012, Devin Townsend announced that he was using other guitars besides his Peavey models, including two Sadowsky Telecaster models and a number of Framus semi-hollow body guitars.
96.
One of his favorites is the Roland GP-100, a unit that Devin Townsend still uses along with his Fractal units.
97.
At the 2016 NAMM Show, Devin Townsend introduced a signature set of Fishman pickups in the Fluence line and a signature Framus guitar that features an original body shapes, the Fishman pickups and the Evertune Bridge.
98.
In November 2017, Devin Townsend posted to social media and forums that his equipment list had been reduced, explaining how he had eliminated a number of pieces of equipment from his setup.