Devin Townsend

So here we are with Captain Spectacular in the flesh. Hello, Mr Townsend, you to meet you here in Los Vegas, the home of many a rogue like myself. From Talk Is Jericho baby, Talk Is Jericho by Tom Kiesbay! Alright, welcome to Talk Is Jericho. It's the plot of Thunder and Rock & Roll. And remember, if you sign up for the automated Talk Is Jericho,

you can go to email notifications. And if you haven't yet, just go to podcast1.com- Jericho. Get on board, be in the know. When it comes to this show, we're going to tell you who's coming up. We're going to be talking about the topics, all the things we discuss, all the things we chat about. And we're going to send the episodes right to your email as well.

So sign up now at podcast1.com- Jericho. Get all the information. Be a part of the TIJ Army. Here we go. And so the rock. Today is back on TIJ. I'm going to talk about the rock. I'm talking about rock and roll, man. We got a great musician, a very quirky Canadian, and a huge, huge star worldwide who was discovered by Steve Vy. He sang and Steve Vy's first solo record.

He also might possibly have some controversial pictures on the internet from time to time that he also caused a little trouble at the tonight show with Jay Leno. Wait to hear that story involving nudity and a telephone. It's not pretty, but it's funny. And that's the perfect description for Mr. Devon Townsend. He ain't pretty, but he is hilarious. You'll also hear the story about how I ended up playing Captain Spectacular on Devon's Ziltoid 2 album. And how we want to Juno for the damn thing.

That's right. A Juno award, a tentas version of a Grammy. We wanted Juno together. Devon's also got some great stories about his time with his mentor Steve Vy. And how he ended up singing at that band, how he quit involves him basically throwing Steve Vy's guitar rig down the set of stairs. Lots of stuff coming up.

And Devon and his band are on the road and support that album in Europe right now. They got dates this weekend in France and Spain. Then they head off to Switzerland and Germany. And then the US leg, the second US leg of the Transcendence Tour starts May 6 in Philadelphia. He's going out with Opeth and Gojira. What a great bill.

You can get tickets for all of his dates at heavy devy.com. That's H-E-V-Y-D-E-V-Y. That's Devon's website. Heavy devy.com. Find out the shows, find out the tour dates, get some tickets, and settle on in to laugh your ass off at the very quirky, crazy musical genius. And a little bit of a little bit of a pervert as well. Devon Townsend coming up next.

The Forbes interview from Podcast One just launched with the King of Podcasting, Adam Corolla. On February 1st, we're dropping a new show. It's called Forbes Under 30 where we talked to young entrepreneurs hosted by me, Steve Goldblum. It's interesting because when you're a creator, that never leaves you. You always have this urge to want to create. It's just who you are. You like to grow from right to route. You know she was a driver the whole time.

That's Martellis Bennett, one of our first guests. Who knew this NFL star was also an artist? He's that and much more subscribed to Under 30 on iTunes now. And be sure to give us a rating and a review.

Talk is Jericho. All right. We are in Las Vegas. Two Canadians in Las Vegas. Hey, how's it going? How's it going, bud? How's it going, bud? I'm just good. I'm working the back here. I'm working on my car with Larry there. With Gordy. Yeah, he's good. Gord's working too. Yeah. Every guy in Canada's name is Gordy. Yeah. And we all, it's funny too because I don't know if it's the same with you, but it's like when I first started working in the States, my reaction to people that have that idea of what it means to be Canadian. It's just always been like, I get so frustrated.

I like I get so frustrated by it. Right. Right. You know, I mean, it's like somebody who's got a perfectly normal and articulate way about them will interrupt you halfway through your sentence to say you said a. Yes. And I'm thinking after the second time it's just it's not funny. Are you from Canada? They'll say because I heard your accent. Yeah. Okay. So if I go and talk to somebody from New Orleans, you can totally tell their page and they go,

so excuse me, are you from New Orleans? Because I can hear your accent say that cute thing again. You know, I mean, but it was funny. It was like the last time I was in L.A. Like I was working with some guys and I kept every time I'd say there's all you said about. Yeah, you said a and then finally it's just like dude like this fucking make me crazy, right. But it's my own deal. I've had to get over it, right. But you never notice how much of an accent we have as Canadians until you go abroad.

Because when I was growing up, I never thought Canadians had an accent. And then as soon as you go somewhere else like, oh, you're from Canada, how did you know that your accent is so obvious. And now you can tell. Can you though? Can you tell really? I think now like when you came in the room now that I know you can hear your accent. Oh, really? But yeah, I think if someone knows what a Canadian accent is, they'll be able to tell if we go like if we go to L.A. or something, yes.

If you go to Mississippi, they won't have a clue. Maybe it's just, you know, it's like that sort of so insular in your own head so much that I think to myself like I can't hear anything about the way that I speak. Yeah, fundamentally different. And you know, I got some other buddies are just like, oh, Canada seems like such a weird thing. I'm like, what's a tent of the population in North KFC has corn.

And you know, per capita, there's less Walmart. So it's a totally different culture. I can't see as corn. True. I used to love these to have corn fritters with honey. And they're only available in Canada. So I'd always get the big, you know, the five piece, whatever it was. Yeah. And then the corn nuggets and you dip them in the honey probably heart attack on a stick. But damn what they tasted. You see, and that's why the two cultures will never be able to come by. That's it, man.

But here's my favorite thing though about this. So in Canada, the Canadian version of a Grammy is a Juno. I have a Juno sitting on my mantle in my front room, which my wife then moved into our room, which I moved back into our front room, which we wanted Juno together. Let me phrase that you wanted Juno. No, and I was on it. Can we do a high five? Do you think people would hear? I like here. Let's do it. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Connection. That was a Juno high five. Yeah, man.

That was one of the coolest moments when I go to the mail and I open up the mailbox and there's a freaking Juno. And this thing is huge, man. That was great. We won that for Z2, your Ziltoid album. Yeah. Which was amazing. Can I take this opportunity now to thank you for being involved with this? Because someone asked me the other day and said, how did you get Chris Jericho to be involved with this?

And I'm thinking other than the fact that you're from Winnipeg, and we got some mutual friends, my answer to that is clearly, I have no idea. Really? It's like, because you went up, you ended up going in because we did the Royal Albert show and you ended up going to a buddy's place and you wore like a cape. No, dude. It's even worse than that. So let me go back a bit.

So what we're talking here for those you don't know is as Devon did a record called Z2, which is Ziltoid, which is a concept record, which is very, very popular to your fans. And we'll get into the whole thing, World Wide Your Fans, where I played Captain Spectacular, which was a voiceover. We met briefly at the Golden God Awards in England when I hosted it. And I've always known about you from A, from your music, and B, because you produced Stuckmojo's second record, Pig Walk.

Correct. So Rich Ward loves Devon Towns and always time with Devon Devon Devon Devon. Devon's, we almost had a mutual friend in the first place. Of course. And then a couple of months after I met you backstage, I get this email to ask me to play Captain Spectacular. Again, so here's the Ziltoid thing. For me, I got 30 records full of stuff, dubious quality in a lot of ways. And some of us not too bad, but the whole idea was Ziltoid is I got sober a bunch of years back and had a kid.

And all of a sudden, my love for Jim Henson and the dark crystal and all that stuff manifested as this rubber sock puppet alien that in hindsight is probably just a metaphor for sex. But at some point, all of a sudden I started thinking, well, what's Ziltoid going to be about? Like, and who's the characters? And in the first, on the first album, I had this idea of this Captain Spectacular. And then when it came time for the second one, it was like, well, we're going to ramp everything up.

Who could possibly be Captain Spectacular? And Chris, I have to tell you, there was never another alternative. And so when I contacted Rich, my first male to him was, look, this is going to be a long shot because I've only met Chris this one time. But it has to be this way because clearly there's nobody else that can be Captain Spectacular. So thank you very much for being involved, brother. So then you sent me some lines.

Yeah. Because by the way, I was like totally into it. And then once again, the answer is, why did you do it? I'm like, I'm not sure. Maybe because I probably have about six of your 30 records. Yeah, I wicket. I remember I'm in Japan about ocean machine. I have a couple of strapping on lads. I have sex and religion. So I thought, well, this could be cool. And so you sent me in some dialogue. And I remember I tracked it.

I'm a little on this on this zoom record reason right now. And I sent it back to you. Like, all this is bad. Can you please redo it? And I was like, oh, did I say that? Well, it wasn't. It wasn't. It was not so direct. Oh my God. I think is I didn't. I don't know exactly what I was wanting to do. Yeah. I said, why don't you try this one? And I have like this kind of this weird British accent. And I am Captain spectacular.

What do you want? Zill toy. So there you go. So then it worked. And you're like, I love it. It's great. And see you send it off. And you never think about it again. Right. So then fast forward, I guess a year later, Zill toy has become a huge hit. And you're playing the Royal Albert Hall, which for those who don't know is 5,000 capacity. One of the most prestigious venues you can play in all of Europe and all of England. And you've sold the

ring out with the Zill toy show. Sure. Yeah. Which was huge. Well, it was great. And it sold out really quickly. And here's the best part about it. If there's anything that underlines what it is that I'm trying to do. And one of the reasons why I enjoy our interactions thus far and specifically that one is I just really want everything to be an elaborate middle finger in some way.

It's like to be able to take a theme that fundamentally makes no sense and has very limited commercial potential and blow it up to the point where you've got a ton of great minds and interesting artistic temperaments. Like trying to find solutions for how do we make this big farting set of testicles like get across the stage between this part and the other. And I mean, I don't know man, I maybe it's just the petulant part of me that won't give it up. But I love the ability to be able to do that.

And I got to tell you the next thing we're working on is that it's like once you get away with it once it's a slippery slope. See, but that's the thing you have gotten this very rare thing where you can do whatever you want. And you've got a huge fan base that buys into it. And it's all great stuff, but like you said, listening today with listen to Z2 and like it's it's it's almost a comedy album. You're laughing in parts of some of the dialogue.

You're so heavy and yet so cheesy. And it's like you you just you're amusing yourself. What you have this giant fan base that is amused as well. You know what, thank you number one, but I you know you're saying you're here with your buddy that you've known for a long time. Same with me. Here's my thing that I find the most creatively satisfying with all this is I've got a bunch of really good friends.

And a lot of them are people that I've spent many years with, you know, I've been married for so long. I mean, I like commitment. I like long term things. You know, we're running a marathon and not a sprint. So as a result of that, how these creative things happen is everybody gets together drinks a bunch of coffee and it always starts with wouldn't it be funny if that's great. And that's it. And it's and also on a side note here in the do the captain's spectacular voice is so good.

I just say, well, listen to it. It's like, wow, that wasn't bad. It was so good. And but seeing it actually do it. I'm like, oh my god, that's him. You just did this. And then what you were looting to earlier was we were on a fuzzy tour last year. I think it was in April, maybe or something like this. And they're like, Devon wants you to do some green screen as captain's spectacular. And I was like, oh, wow, like, okay, when do you want to do it?

Some guy was emailing me. He's like, I'll come to Tampa. And it's like, well, I'm not going to pee here. And it's like, I'll be in Manchester, England. We have a show that day. Let's do it then. So I had to go to some studio on a show day, which as you know, is a singer sometimes feeling great sucks and go into this green screen room. It was in the back of a music store. We're budget green screen. Yeah.

So show up. There's a plastic bag with open up. And it's like the most generic Superman costume ever without S on it. It's like blue spandex with the red cape. And I got it. And he's like, okay, I have to put this on. I definitely want you to put on like, fuck you guys are lucky. I like Devon. It's so good though. I'm sure it was amazing. But at the time, it's like, I got to get off the bus at like 11. I usually see up till 3 p.m. You know how road life is.

I got to tell you when this interview is over, man, we're going to make out because it's like this whole thing is just and every time you did it, too, because I mean, I'm sure it's similar with you. It must be that you think I'm going to throw out there what the ultimate scenario is right. And if I get 5% of that we're still doing it. Yeah. And that's awesome. And so to meet people, specifically people like yourself people were plural now.

But people both of us, all of us in the room here. But I mean, you've got you've had an amazing career. And the fact that when we got the stuff back, I was thinking he's not going to put on the lead. And there's no way. Of course I am. But the hardest part was when you give me the lyrics sheet to read, you know, months earlier, I'm reading it off the paper.

Now I have to memorize the shit and say it or maybe I was lip syncing it or whatever it was. But I was like, oh my gosh, this is hard because there's a lot of dialogue. I was there for like 3.5 hours. Thank you, but no, dude, because I was thinking I heard actually read in the metal hammer some of the review of the Royal Albert Hall show. Yeah, yeah. And it was like five stars, the best thing ever, the new pink Floyd, the wall. It's the greatest thing.

So how exactly did the show work at the Royal Albert Hall? Well, I mean, we had a couple of opportunities prior to sort of work out our creative force. And like I was saying a minute ago, my whole trip is a bunch of people that have failed over and over and over. To the point where now we are not really afraid of that failure. And that allows us to sort of take things to a level that are maybe is maybe perceived as being, you know, way over the top.

Right. So we did a bunch of shows in the UK over the past prior years. We did the roundhouse and we did this thing with this huge, we made this massive vagina, this massive penis that have like having this collision. And then there's all these rope dancers and we had to hire this circus who were like thoroughly confused. Right. And we're like, at this part here, you guys need to explode through the vagina. And then we're going to just chuck a penis at you, right.

And they're just like, oh, okay. So and on that one, we had so many technical hurdles to to get over that when we went through it and managed to sort of scrape our way through it and through a bunch of failures, like technical, like failures. By the time we got to the Royal Albert, it was just like, oh, sure. Yeah. Okay. Well, this time, why don't we have this? We'll have all the risers and these big screens and all this.

The puppets. That's it, man. And so the next one that we're doing, like, I can't, I can't divulge because it's such significance. What's happening next? But man, where we're going to take it from here, it's like, I feel like again, a petulant 12 year old is like, oh, I got away with that.

What about this? Let's be so exciting for you though, because then we'll get into how you came into the business. But now like over the years, like I said earlier, you've been able to carve out this niche for yourself where it's Devon Towns and you know it's going to be wacky, you know it's going to be unique. And you know it's going to be amazing because musicians shipwise.

Let's not forget and never deny the fact that you're a virtuoso. Your stuff is great. Your hooks are great. I just think because you're here. It's heavy. It's melodic. It's very much you. How did you get to the point here we are in 2016, almost 2017, where you're able to just basically do whatever the fuck you want in this world where it's still so regimented on this guy's metal, this guy's rock, this guy's pop. How were you able to get to that point?

Well, two things. First off, relationships, honestly, it's like when you're touring and you know I work with people that you've worked with as well. And I hear a very similar thing about the way that you have managed to sort of make the hierarchy of your touring crew work. And that is there is none really.

It's like everybody's sort of relies on each other to do these things. And I think if you can foster an attitude and an environment of positivity creatively and making sure everybody keeps it in check, you know I mean whether or not it's the the egocentricities or all these things. Then ultimately you're going to have a bunch of people that create a team where the deficiencies are evened out just by the fact that you've got a bunch of different personalities. There's one thing.

But secondly, it's failing. I know a bunch of people who have never failed. And as a result of that are afraid to do anything. You know I got a buddy that we were going to do like an improv thing together and he's like I can't do it. And I was trying to figure out why and it took me a little while to recognize well this guy's been in a band that has never done anything that has been significantly like pand.

And so when it comes to just like letting it rip and playing notes, it's like there's this veil of like I can't allow myself to be publicly humiliated. See I never had that problem. Because since the very beginning it's been humiliation and failure and all these sorts of things. But I love doing it so much. And I'm surrounded by such good people that eventually you're just in this position where it's like what do we got to lose? What's the worst that can happen?

You know that's interesting thing especially when you mention like if you go on on the road and you have a good crew and then the first thing is that everybody's a good person but cool. Some cool people are degenerates and horrible people. But let the guys do their job. Like if you have a sound man or sound woman like Lisa which I didn't even know she was on the road with you to send that picture.

Let her do her job. You know she's good. Let the bass player play his part. You do your thing. You do your thing. I find that always works and it's almost like the proverbial giving the dog a bone if he does something right. Let the professionals be professional. And you'll always have a better team that gives you a better show because no one feels the pressure of like, oh, I'm in trouble.

Exactly. Exactly. And I think that's where a lot of times specifically if you're running a situation that's rooted around you. You know, Devon Townsend. Right. It's your things my thing. But ultimately I've learned through kids I think more than anything else that what I'm good at I should focus on. And the things that I'm not good at. The only reason why you would want to control those things is because you've got an insecurity.

Great point. Yeah. And that's it. And so now it's like exactly what you say it's like let the bass player play the bass. Yeah. You're hiring somebody to do to do sound or to do lights. I don't do that. I may have like a vague idea of what I'd like to portray. But ultimately by trying to to control this sort of chaos, all you're going to do is make yourself mad. Right.

I think it's like this in wrestling and it's like this with a band. If you consider like a great hockey team because we're from Canada or football team because this is a majority of US audience. You let you know you put the team together and if one guy's job is to play one, you know, if your job is just to play the the the the penalty killing and only time you plays if there's a penalty kill and you go there and kill it, your team will win.

Right. You know, if I'm the center and then I'm staying over the left wing and then I'm skating to the goal and then you're not going to you're never going to do that. You're lose. Exactly. Right. And because you know, I hang my head in shame because I was never particularly good at sports. I know it might be hard to tell just by looking at the opposing. You're strapping young last. See it. We're strapping middle age.

Glad at this point. Very middle age. So here's the thing. Like I'm going to take that sports analogy and bring it back to something as nerdy as as I believe I can portray. And that is Dungeons and Dragons. Yeah. Right. If totally. So huge does his dragons. You were. Yes. All right. I was until all of a sudden my dungeon master.

I was like rolling to dice to see how many times you know the orc got because I was like I hit puberty and all of a sudden I'm just like whoa, she's the female orc walks in the room bang in the York 20 times with the dice. Right. How does that work? Did you make up your own system? I just saw it all the sudden. Really. You know what? I didn't. There's no Dungeons and Dragons sex rolls.

Well, now there should be. There should be. And now we need to get this happening. So if you have the 20 side to die and you roll over a 10 then you're lucky. And if it's 110, she slaps you in the face. Well, maybe with her orcans. 10 you're like on the bottom. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Right. Okay. Dude, this could be good. This we got a whole new thing here like dungeon Gary guy gags. I don't know if you're alive or not. But if you are give us a call. Devon.

And I got some ideas for you. What were you the name? Dungeons and Dragons and Dungeons and Dungeons. It's an excellent. It's an excellent thing. I like it. D and D. D. D. D. Yeah. Okay. So my analogy for that in the same way you're talking about with sports is you may have a wizard and he's got, you know, he's the ability to cast spells.

But he can't protect himself. Right. You know, I mean, putting head or something. Right. And then you've got the other guy that wields a battle ax and is not particularly good at math. Right. But you get a bunch of differential differential. That's a good word. Yeah. Thanks. It is. There's a bunch of it's Canadian for different.

Different. Yeah. Characters in one place and then the goal is ultimately you get a really strong team. Yeah. Everybody plays their role. What was your big guy in Dungeons and Dragons? Valoric. He was a 16th level cleric. Yeah. Did he live or did he know? No, my buddy killed him and it sucked at that point because it was right in line with the testicles dropping.

The whole Dungeons and Dragons episode ended up just ending so poor. Terribly. Yeah. And I was so mad too because it was a passive aggressive thing. You're bringing me back to this. Well, I'm I because I have a retort for you. That's why I want to. But first of all, how did Valoric die? You know, it's such a scarring memory. I don't even remember.

I remember every little thing is if it happened on yesterday and ain't talking about paradise for the desperate light to heaven. Go. Okay. My guy was halting. Okay. He was a paladin. He was. Yes. Which is kind of like a warrior, but more of like a night like a like a glorious night. And I don't remember what level he was on, but dude, I had hit points on a pop. The hit points. I had treasures and battle axes and magic and spells. I was the shit, man. He came up against a chromatic dragon.

Dude, which if you know anything with Dungeons and Dragons, I do and I'm very sorry for your loss. Thanks, man, because that's that's punishing for those you don't know. It's the worst guy you can ever get. The chromatic dragon is the worst of the chain of dragons and basically killed me in like three preblasts of his fiery breath. We're like 90 hit points 60 30 dead.

Was your buddy that was doing it? Yes. Oh, Colin Swanson. Forget that guy. From Wordsworth Way out of here. Yeah, I have a big guy. I got a bone to pick because he would have ever seen your ass again. Stupid idiots. When he went to he plays D D and D. He's under 10 every time. Exactly. You know, be great as well as if you take him to the point where it has like real world ramifications to.

So it's not just hit points. You lose. It's like your house. Right mortgage payment. That's it. Kid gets pulled out of private school. Yeah, has to take the bus. Why? Why? Why is he cheating on you with an arc? If he was a type of guy that would nail you with a chromatic dragon, his kids not in private school away. Barely make it through public. Barely in the bottom half. He's got a backpack.

He's just scraping scraping through the 62% of it. D D and D coming soon to a bunch of sad, most troubled middle aged men near you. You. Talk is Jericho. Let's talk about the first time I ever saw you. And it was it was funny because I see the video for sex and religion the Steve Vi record was just Vi. I came over to what was the first video. It was down into the pain, I think.

Deep down to the pain. That was a song called. Yeah, don't giggle. Serious. This real. The last part was here's the thing. So I'm with my friend Lenny. And when we were watching the Vi album, a Vi video and you come on. Yeah. We were called in like 1992, no one's bald. Yeah, total leather jacket leather pants were like this guy looks like the hell razor guy. We were called that guy. Hell razor is awesome. Yeah. Hell razor is great. So we love the hell razor on that record, which would be you.

Well, I was such an interesting experience for me because I was 19, you know, and it was like, dude, tell me about I'm 44 now. Yeah, excuse me. Nice. So nice. That's a water. Arrowhead. There you go. We spiked it. You did. Yes. Now it's a roof. We're ready for the DD in the life. I'm going over 10. So anyway, yeah, with the vibe thing, it was like I was 19, dude, and I moved to LA.

And I had all from Vancouver. Yeah, I'm pie in the eye like the whole is that pie in this guy. I'm a pie in that. I'm like, ah, I've got an eye full of you are a Vod Villian comedian apparently. How are you? Yeah, I got who wants the pie in the eye? I got to get on laugh in with I got a story. Okay. Chris, sorry. So okay. So basically where was I? I don't know time where you were pie in the eye. I was a Vod Villian performer in the 20s. I had a hat.

And it was a very specific one. It was a velveteen type that only came in the game. One monocle is dripping down from the eye. See, move from Vancouver to LA to find your fame and fortune. I did. And my 19 my idealism was such that when I moved to LA, I thought to myself, well clearly what's going to happen is I'm going to go here and I'm going to become a big star.

And everybody's going to really like, you know, my connection to the rain and all these things that I felt like creative to the rain. I love it. That's the whole thing Vancouver man. I write based on the fact that they're the weather there is constantly raining. Yeah. Move to LA and everything I started writing sound like smash mouth and it was like the truth. I love smash so basically.

This is not a cut down against smash mouth. Any smash mouth fans right right is when I'm being on the sun. There you go. You know that song. I know it. Yeah. So they have another one to I went down there. And it was like, but at the time it was like I love by when I was in my teens who didn't. David Roth band. That was it. Zappa. That was it. You must love Zappa. I didn't actually really. Yeah. I liked him.

But I always felt like he was. You know, and this is a heart. It's actually a hard thing to to put across because the the Zappa fans are really like serious. Super hardcore. Yeah. And I mean I would never in a million years deny his brilliance and and a thousand times more than I was. Of course. Of course. I just felt like he used his intellect in a sense that sounded condescending to me. It was more like I'm really smart and I've got a bunch of really smart people playing with a Zylophone.

And I but I think he's brilliant. I never liked the tonalities, but you know who I did like and I loved was Captain Beefheart because it was a very similar kind of creative. Yeah. But it was oblivious to the fact that he was out of his mind.

And I love that because Captain Beefheart was like, I'm going to write a pop record. And it's like, I'm sure, dude. So I liked that aspect of it. But when I went down there with Vi, it was like because the Zappa fans and all this sort of stuff. I just didn't. I didn't jive with it. Plus that was right at the time when like Nirvana and sound.

And Pearl Jam and like for me, a Godflesh and and Napalm death and I sort of moved out of that kind of guitar centric stuff. And as a 19 year old, I really wanted my identity to be seen independent of Steve. And so I came into that experience. Well, how did you get the gig in the first place? Well, I'd sent a demo to relativity records and they had signed my band to a deal. And because it was called Noiscapes. Yeah, dubious.

And then because it was been noise scapes. Come on. It really rolls off the tongue. My high school band was Simitar. See, that's good though. No, no, no. What is a Simitar? It's see. You ever seen a sin bad the sailor with that curved. That's a similar. And the tea in Simitar. Yeah, was a curved sword. I see. Oh, dude. That was my band. I think that's awesome. Well, it's not as good as noise scapes. Noise scapes. So I appreciate it.

And now tour Noiscapes and Simitar, Co-Headlining tour coming to a middle age problem, childhood near you. No, I, it was, he sent the demo. It's relatively, right. I did. Yeah. And then I got signed to that and Steve needed a singer. So I went down to the Steve thing and then it was they called you said, listen, Steve Vineys, a singer can get you know you have a long hair where you're bald of that. long hair. I had that type of hair that faithed the more head. You know what I mean?

Were they shaved the sides? Yeah, and it was only about six months after I went to LA that it all started falling out. Oh yeah, cuz you had a wicked skull it for a while. Dude. Yeah, well, and that's also the petulant part as well. We're like someone who's like giving me a hard time about going bald. Screw you, male part of town baldness. That's it. I'm just gonna grow it. I'll frame it. But you are glasses. Do you look like a crazy genius?

And it's funny because I look back at these images from 15 years ago now and I think to myself like, God, how did someone not just pull his side? I had friends. Really? Can they tell me? Come on. Yeah, dude. You're my wife. I mean, now I look her. I'm like, well, why did you? Why did you sleep with that guy? It was like messed up, man. I like skeletons. What can I say? She didn't. She had a manager now.

She just ignored it. She ignored it. So you had the, did you have an audition with Steve? No. I just moved there. So you just, you were so great. You just moved there and they said, here's a gig. Well, that was it. What? And it was funny because when I moved down there, I had never auditioned. I had never sang for him. And he just had me come down. And it was like up to the day that the tracking of the record actually began.

I never sang a note for him. Wow. And I was nervous. Updude. Like, as you would imagine, because I never considered myself a singer. You were going to guitar player at that point. Yeah, I just started singing because every other singer that I tried to audition was a douche. Yeah. Right. So I was like, okay, well, let's do this and see if I can do it in tune. And so that was it.

I moved down there and it was like two months of just living in LA and like freaking out about the fact that I know I'm not good. And then he just kind of had me go in there. And I guess because he committed to it. And because perhaps he liked where I was at creatively or emotionally or whatever, he decided to commit to producing it. And the ramifications of that ultimately led to strapping, I think, because to this day,

being told how to articulate emotions is something that descends me over the top. And that's why even why I said earlier, the rain. The way that I write has always been connected to things that are not technical. Like I guess it's anesthesia or whatever where I. Great word. Yeah, it's good, isn't it? It's like anesthesia. Great and Scrabble. You'd be in Scrabble. I am multi-celad. If words for friends are still a thing, you would kill me right now.

Well, I think that my undulating multi-celabic solabit. Yeah, no, I'm really good with those, man. I get paid by this labble. I feel so legubrious that you just did that right now. You don't look at them. I kind of when I came in, I was professional inside leguhide. You know what, man, we amp each other up so much. Dude, it's like there's a great connection here. I know, but I keep feeling like we're both going to have like a

manic episode. And then I try and like bring it back down. I'm like, oh my god, it's like it's fun. But then I'm like, oh yeah, but then I think up at Chris's got this big thing and it's like it's like a podcast. It's a bunch of people listening. This is listeners thinking right now. This is the nearest I would cap and spectacular is. I know you get to check it out. You got to check it out. Yeah, just down. Available on iTunes now. Don't even just down. Okay, for free.

Go on Apple Tunes right in street. Yeah, if I buy a shirt, go to the Royal Opera Hall if you're in England. If not, then just don't worry about it. Well, what, you know what's funny though? Just like change stuff. Yeah, so I did the buy thing and then I did a bunch of records and it's all. No, no, no, but I don't want to, I don't want to gloss over it because here's the thing. Okay, go. Listen, and this is interesting. I'm sure you've just told the story 100 times but never on this show.

Okay, so to me, it's interesting. You're a 19 year old kid and you move from Vancouver to LA to find your fame and fortune. Yeah, very, very at that point in time too is probably 91, 92, maybe 93. I think it was 90. Steve I, David Lee Roth, White Snake, Zappa, his own shit. Totally. And you're the singer for his first big kind of solo thing. You get the gig. Do you have a good relationship with Steve? Is he cool to you? Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, but at the time, I mean, I'm 44 now. He was 35. Right. Or 33. And you're 19. Dude, but I look at buddies of mine now that are 35 and 33 and I mean, it's like he was a legitimate rock star. Yes. You know, like an iconic guy. That's in, right? And so my perspective of him was two things. On one hand, I thought of him as Steve Vi, that guy that I liked as a teen. And and on the other hand, when I first had my interaction with him, there was like a connection

that was cool. It was like there's, there's a sense that beneath that kind of veneer that, that the 80s had, there was a guy that was, you know, awkward and very musically astute and, you know, unkind and awkward, you know, awkward. And so I really resonated with that. But then when I went down to LA, it was one of these things where he was still trying to figure it out. And our relationship now is such that we can emit these things to each other. He's like, dude,

I was going to our buds now. You know, each other. Oh, that's great. That's cool. But it's like, but he was like, dude, I was going through some crazy stuff. I had, you know, made a ton of money and I was like, I was a kid. And, you know, and so he was a huge thing too, because it was the first Vi. Oh, yeah. It wasn't Roth or White Snakers app, but it was Vi. Right at the point where all of a sudden the industry didn't want that, right? You know, they wanted either

him to be that or they wanted it to be like Nirvana. Yeah. So he had, I think he would admit as well, like there were certain aspects of controlling that that ended up backfiring on him. And there were certain aspects of my inability to articulate my discontent that resulted in me like taking a dump in his guitar case. Okay. What? Yeah. See, that was it. And okay. So here's the best part. Here's the best part. So we did. Okay. That's it. You know what? I had a hard time articulating

myself. So I have to go where? Yeah. I'm not going to talk to you. I'm just going to dump. That's what I was like, but I, I, you, you, and that was it. So here's the best example. So we did the tonight show. Did you really? Yeah, but check this out. It's brutal. So the, I'm not even, like, I just finished a book, but I can't give the specifics of it because the management at the

time was this really like famous dude who did not understand me. And so we did the tonight show and the day before, you know, they had put me in this thing where I'm supposed to rehearse all these moves and like, how do I just, they wanted you to like dance instead? Like, not dance, but like, you know, the whole thing, the whole thing, right? And they had me look at

like pictures of like, Axel Rose and all the stuff. And I'm going, I hate this. Like, like, this is, and they had, you know, spent like a bunch of money to give me all these big fake dreadlocks. It looked really cool. And like, what was ever was hip at the time, you know, like nine inch nails and all this stuff. But I was like, oh my god. So the day before the tonight show, me and my buddy who now lives in Long Island, who were rooming together, who's one of my best friends still,

we shaved all the hair off, shaved my eyebrows off. And as opposed to like the black leather suit, I went to Walmart and got a pair of gray shorts and a gray shirt and wrote all my buddies names all over my arms and everything. You'll see it still alive. And we did it. And it was, is this on YouTube? Oh yeah, it's punishing because you got like a big band and all that. And I'm like, oh my god, brutal. Right. Is this you invite? Is it still Terry Bosio? No, it was, it was

Abe. He was Abe. He's with like, Paul McCartney. Hey, but he was with Steve. He did the tour. And it was on base. Uh, TM Stevens. Oh my god. That's a bad killer. Great. So you think on the surface, this, this, this night is going to end well. However, as things go, so we were in the backstage area

and the green room area. And we met everybody. And everybody was really like me and Mark were hanging out and everybody was kind of like, I'm not a peckerhead, but just like, you know, it's just kind of like the L.A. thing. You and who had met? Oh, Mark, sorry, my buddy. Okay. Got you. You're like, got you. Yeah. We were men, a stepper, right? So we're just like, these guys are like, socks, this sucks. You know, when Steve's in a shitty mood and everybody's doing, you know,

Jay Leno and he's like, are you doing there? Okay. You know, and all this is wearing his denim shirt. So, so Mark goes, we should be with him. So we went into the back room and there's like the office there and the green room and the phone, all this stuff. And I was like, well, Mark, we're jacking up on the windows. So no one can see, right? We locked the door. And I took all my clothes off and like started doing all these poses all over the thing. And then Mark said, you should

stick the phone up your ass. So I did. And then we took a photo. It's online. Like the phone in the dressing room. If you look up online, Devon Townsend phone in ass. It's a picture of me in the back room with the tonight show with the phone of my ass. And so we thought it was funny. Yeah. You know, I went to. Yeah. It's funny. So then we left thinking nothing of it. Then we went out onto the main, with Jay Leno's desk and we took pictures mooning in front of the desk. Great. We're going home.

Anyway, next morning, phone rings, management of the person who I can't bring up the name, who is just like, what in the, where you guys doing? And I was like, no, we play the show like what? And he's like, I can't believe that you did that. And I was like, we didn't, he says, did you stick the phone up your ass? Why would you do that? And I was like, no, we didn't hide it. They're like, but they had the cameras like all the backstage cameras were recording the whole thing.

So they've got all this image of you with the phone up your ass. And now we can't come back. So we went on a tour after that for about a year and a half. Steve, by this point, was thoroughly confused with my guitar pick saying, don't use Jay's phone, right? Sorry, Chris. That was the best I can do. You put that in here. I was an anecdote. You put that in your guitar? Yeah, yeah. Best anecdote. What do you think of that? It's a crazy. It's a pretty damn good

idea. Thanks. Well, let me just clarify this. You put on your pick. Don't use Jay's phone. Fix that Steve's playing with it. I don't think he, I think he gave up by that. Were you playing guitar too with Steve? Do you know him? I just briefly. I think whenever I've met Steve, he's been a perfect gentleman, but he's a rock star. Yeah, I don't know the real Steve.

He's like, you do. Yeah, he's cool, man. He's like, he's great. Actually, he's really cool. But I mean, it's like, I don't think you can like be raised in that era and like go through those experiences and and not have a color your personality, right? Like, I don't know, man. Especially since he was, you know, he was in case of your 44, but 10 years early, imagine if you had a 25 year old guy in your band. I hate him. And I'm sure he was kind of the same. Like, what?

I understand this guy because I was him once, but I'm not anymore. Yeah. You know, and now he's sticking phones up. It's like, what is he taking a dump in his guitar case? I'm just figuring out how to communicate with him. I was like, I'm really upset here yet our paths of communication have been blocked by months of of dysfunctional interactions. So clearly, that's the only course of action to take a shit. But I mean, did he yell at you when he found out?

No, I was super confused. He was like, why would, but why? But I mean, it's like, man, I don't do it. It's like, I feel like ultimately this whole process of like learning and like trying to figure out what I want to do and all this stuff, I really think that I just like having fun with my friends. I wanted to make sure my kids are okay. I want to make sure my wife's happy. And ultimately, when I get older, man, I want to be surrounded by people who don't think I'm an

asshole. Right, right. Right. So all this stuff that happened when you're younger, I mean, it's like, I can't imagine you didn't have someone to do. Well, do trust me. I guess that's why I didn't mention this earlier. I'm not going to say the exact thing, but you and me and my kindness from Allison Chains have a very interesting text chain that we have because we're all a little bit warped. Yes. Because you know why? You started in your 19. Guess what, old I was when I started

19. Guess what, Mikey was. We got an Aussie 22. Right. When you started a young age, you think differently from the rest of the world. And that's not good, bad, and different. That's just the way it is. Totally. You know, you've been playing. You were in a band with a record deal with tonight's show and blah, blah, blah. Yeah. Basically as a teenager, early 20s. Totally. Look back now. What the what do we know in early 20s? Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Did you ever do drugs when you were a kid?

Not as a teenager, but when I first got into business, I had a few issues. That was me too. Yeah. And see, that's exactly what happened. Like, I didn't do anything. Like, I was sober as a judge up until after the by thing. And then I was like, clearly now is the time I start doing acid. And then I remember just at that point, making just a series of terrible life decisions, right? That haunt me to this day. But you know, I think that like you say, when you started that young

age, man, it's like, there's this combination like insecurity and ego and all this. It's interesting because I whenever we have shows at Madison Square Garden with WWE, there's a way that you can go where you take a right and take a right. And there's a lot of traffic and you go the right way. Other times, if there's too much traffic, if I take a left and drive the wrong way, then a one-way street. Oh, I've actually got a, oh, Devon is here. Looks like he's actually, is that him pooping in the,

oh, that's the phone. Oh, that's the phone. I'm actually looking right now at a picture of Devon with his phone up his ass. Thank you, Jeff. I didn't see it. So that doesn't look like that anymore. So look up, Jeff. Just googled it, which is great. Thanks, buddy. Thanks, buddy. That's, see, there are like two elbows pressing together. Now it looks like two uncooked. Two bulbs of bread. But I can drive the wrong way down a one-way street in New York to get to the garden. No,

if any cop pulls me over, they're gonna go, hey, you can't do that. Oh, it's Jericho. Go ahead. Really? Yeah, because the New York cops know our thing. And when you are young and you start off like, you know, being in Viseband, you have a little bit of extra pull probably as a guitar player, as a singer, as a musician, because they know, oh, he's in Steve Viseband. Well, let him in the club or whatever it may be. So it does kind of warp you a bit when you started a young age

at a high level. I say something here. It's like these days, you know what I mean? I mean, I know that you've got a lot going on. But when we first met each other, we were at the Golden Gods. The Golden Gods, yeah. My thought was, I like this guy. Yeah. From Winnipeg and it seems like we can talk and it's cool. And it's only in hindsight now. Like retroactively, I'm finding out all this stuff about you. There's one day that you were sending

me texts and Mike was sending texts. And I'm like, looking on the phone at these images that we said, these very classy images for those. But then from the TV and you were on the TV. You were doing like some talk show thing. And I'm like, but his wasting his time texting me. But as you know, dude, like, listen, if I text you with something fun or Mike did and you're on in five minutes, yeah, you would respond. Of course, you got your on a five minutes. Hey, I'm on a

five minutes, but I got this first. You know, when you're a kid, you're like, I gotta be warm up and get ready to do. Oh, yeah. Now, just like, yeah, okay, fine. I'll be on in a couple of minutes. Well, that goes back to what I was trying to say a minute ago. I mean, I really enjoy music. And I really enjoy these things that I get to do and these creative endeavors that we go on. But ultimately, as I get older and with kids and all this stuff, man, it's like my,

I'd like to think that my identity is not so heavily invested in what I do. That without it, I would cease to exist or I wouldn't have cool people around me, you know, and I think that it seems like it's the same with you. You've gotten like people around you that you enjoy the company of and you've managed to. Absolutely. Especially when you spend, you know, it is spending enough time away from from home because you live in Vancouver still. Yeah.

Or Vancouver area. Yeah. I'm sure you don't tour Canada a lot. You tour, I mean, like I said, you're huge overseas in Europe and in England and all of these places. You're away from home. The only way to deal with that is to have people around you that are positive people. And people that, yes, absolutely. And also people that in maybe it's the same with you that have known you long enough that you can use as a litmus test to know when you're being an ass. Sure.

You know, it's like, I got, you know, guys in my band, I can look. I can, you know, things were happening professionally and things get more intense as time goes on. But I can always look at the guys and I can tell whether or not I'm reacting to it in a way that's inappropriate. This is talk is Jericho. When did you start realizing, you're not realizing, but you started forging a name for yourself. Like you said, where you're in Europe and you're in England and

you're selling out Royal Albert Hall has this been for the last two years, ten years. And what, what was that that got you to that point? New management. I think one of my, I mean, my dungeons and dragons thing, one of the things that has been not a failing, but a liability of mine is my inability to curb my creative impulses. So if I have an idea, the compulsion to take that to its conclusion is such that everything else goes by the wayside.

And for many years, I spun my wheels as a result of that. I'm like, I'm going to do this. Now I'm going to do this. Now I'm going to do this. And there was never any momentum that happened. I had managers at that point, but they were much more inclined to let me do what it is that I wanted to do. So when it became clear to me that the management was no longer pushing the career forward, I started looking for some new people. And I talked to a guy in a band that was doing

really well. And I said, can you suggest a guy? There's a guy in the UK's name, Andy Farrow. He does opeth and a bunch of other things. And I think that he would be able to get his head around what it is that you do. So I had him as a consideration. I talked to a couple other managers before him. And they had said to me, Devin, whatever you want to do is great. We'll facilitate that. Take it as far as you want to go. That's great. And I was like, this sounds

ideal. And I met with Andy. And he was like, I don't know what I'm going to do with you. He says, your finances are a mess. You've got no trajectory. You've got all this stuff going on. I don't think I can work with this. I don't even know where to start. And I'm like, yeah, but look, we've got all this like, there's all this success over here. He's like, yeah, but there's no trajectory. And without that, you're not going to proceed. I'm going to have to go

away and think about it. And I was like, oh, shit. And my first thought was like, this guy, man, he's not telling me what I want to hear. Right. And then he came back and says, okay, well, this is what we need to do musically because you're so diverse with, you know, at a new age, type record and a death metal record and a jazz record. And then the orchestra thing. He says, we need to sell it more as the personality and rather, rather than trying to categorize it as

any certain type of thing. And if we do that, we can put it as like a ringleader or, or like the puppeteer thing or make the book or make whatever you're doing creatively fall under the umbrella of a creative entity rather than a band or an individual thing like the Zappa model is what he was trying to go for. And as a result of that, now I've got a guy that tells me no. And for me, at first, I was just like, boy, I'm going to have to take a phone line something here.

I'm going to stick some kind of a communication instrument at my ass anytime, anytime. I'll take that. Dude, we got to do the thing at some point. We got to go between Ziltoid and Captain Zvittekina. But it was that. But that was it. And then all of a sudden, now over the past eight years, Andy's got me on a thing. I'm like, I want to make a symphony. I want it to be a metaphor for power and sex and a quest for God that's futile and ultimately it ends this way and it's going to be a

million dollars to do it. We got to do it in arena. It's going to have a hundred person orchestra, a hundred person choir and it has to be brutal. It has to be fundamentally unsealable. And it has to be all done in Icelandic and it has to have my own language and all this stuff. And the whole point of it, it has to be incredibly expensive to make the point about where consumerism in music and art has led. And he's like, okay, but before you do that, give me 10 songs with choruses.

You know what I mean? So we just did it. We put on new one and it's a little closer to that goal, right? And strangely, it's moving forward. But you know what's interesting to me, as you mentioned, like this is kind of like a zapper. It's almost like a Steve Vite. Very much. Steve is kind of like whatever it was and how many dumps you took and phones you stuck up your offices. You might have learned something from that guy. So this day he still does basically what he wants to do within his

within his brand. Well, here's the thing about my relationship with Vite when we were young together. It was a very challenging thing for both of us. But now the relationship that we have is like, we're really good friends. And I'll be the first to say that I am incredibly proud to be able to in some small way carry on his lineage because in terms of people being a mentor for me,

I don't think that anybody would come before Vite for me. Like I've learned so much about what I want to do, what I don't want to do, how to manage myself financially, business-wise, all these things, both in the positive and negative from Steve. What a great relationship you must have considering back in the day it was almost like, like you said, like the petulant child, he must understand the genius that's inside of you to want to continue to help you and mentor you.

Well, I mean, thank you very much by the way. I mean, it's like I think that talking about failure again, bringing this back to almost the beginning. For me, if I was to look back at all these times, I did stupid things and did childish things to my wife or to my friends to Steve, how would you go on? Like that embarrassment sometimes of making such stupid decisions is such that I remember thinking,

God, I'm a piece of shit. That was the mantra for a lot of years. But then when my kid was born, I remember talking to a guy who was maybe 20 years older than me and I was like, well, what do I do, man? I've been such a jackass for so long. I'm so embarrassed when I look back at this stuff. And he's like, well, honestly, you just got to get over it. Because if you don't, then you're never going to proceed. You'll just become addicted to that sort of sense of, I'm a bad person. I'm not

worthy of love or success or anything. And so I look back at these things now and all these experiences and my relationship with Steve, I think we flex that more than anything else. You just have to get over it. Yeah, yeah. You've grown up and moved forward from that in some ways. Quick question is interesting to me because we've never talked about this because we've hardly ever

talked about is this true because I've been putting a little bit of Sherlock Holmes together. So you did a thing that was never really a thing, but it was a thing with new stead, just a new stead. I rate, right? I are eight, like I rate. And at the time, Headfield flipped out on Jason because he was doing stuff outside of Metallica. Was that the project that he flipped out on? Yeah, but it could have been anybody. I think that it was inconsequential who was involved with it.

I think the intention of Jason at that point was to try and create some sort of sovereignty from the home Metallica camp. And I think that they were upset more at the intention rather than anything to do with the music. Gotcha, gotcha. Yeah. But that's basically when they kind of told him he was gone. Well, yeah. And in fact, it was like that whole, I did a number. I think five things with Jason in total. Five songs or five different projects? Five different projects.

But it was during all that time, you know, our relationship was, it was fun. We had a good time together, but it was never really like a real tight connection, I think, in terms of creatively. But it was fun. We were friends. Because just jamming though basically. Yeah, it was never a record deal or okay, right? It was just fun. And but I think that as a result of that time being so tumultuous for him as well, I was privy to a lot of things about his situation that made it clear

to me that that it wouldn't have mattered who was involved with the project. It could have been you, it could have been Frickin Johnny from down the street. It didn't matter very much. James didn't want to play with anybody. That's it. Right. But again, it's like you watch their evolution and

there's some people that are very critical of Metallica and the ways that they've gone. But I actually look at Headfield having never met the guy as a very inspiring cat because he seems to be an example of a guy who has put these supposed failures or creative missteps to use in his own mind of saying, okay, well, look at this is this is something that I tried and this is what I learned from it. And I think that a lot of people can glean a lot of inspiration from that, especially at his

level, you know? And yeah, man Metallica, it's it's Metallica. I couldn't imagine being in a band for 30 years. Right. That's still giving a shit. You know? With other guys. Oh my God. It's just you. You do what you want. But yeah, I still have a hard time giving a shit about it. You know, I want to give a shit about yourself very early, right? So to be in a band and like, okay, God,

now we got to be Metallica. We've got a whole thing that relies on us being Metallica. The fact that they're doing things that maybe can shoot as a misstep like a movie or a festival or Lulu or whatever. Yeah. Good on them. For you, I mean, at this point in time, it's like you obviously call the shots and you've done such a great job in carving your niche. Do you ever go on tour with anybody as a support band at this point? Oh, sure. Who would you go out with? Well, we went out with Gojiura

last week. We're there. The headliners and you're the, okay. In the States. Yeah. Okay. The States has never been in the States. Yeah. States has never been a big market for me. You know, all right, but I think it's, yeah, absolutely, man. And I think it's good for the creative process. Like we did, we were headliners of festivals in Europe there. We do it in like these ones in Finland. It's like 50, 60,000 people headlining it. And then we went back to Kingston on

Terror. Like to 18 people. You know what I mean? But I think without that, that's enough to keep you grounded, right? Yeah. And the best thing about that show in Kingston is because we couldn't get the gear up. I had to do it acoustic. And because it was advertised as not being acoustic, I had to stand at the door and tell people that it's going to be acoustic. And this girl came through. She was just like, what? Who are you? I don't care. I'm here to drink. And I was just, I felt like

this is probably really good for my future creative process. Listen, Devon Townshend. That's it. I don't care. That's exactly what's up. And she gave me the look that I was wearing her sweater too. She's like, why are you talking to me? You asshole. And I remember, but literally four days before it was like, you know, it's like this huge explosions going off in the sky and everything. We had a great, like we played Hamilton on Terror. I remember Sass Jordan was

backstage just rocking with us. And there's probably just one of them like the Sunday afternoon festivals, you know, it's like Kim Mitchell's the headliner or something. And there was 10,000 people in the rocking that we got to get in our car and drive over to Windsor. We played in front of 27 people. Right. You said. And I was like, we're never playing Windsor again. Until the next time when they offered us a big guarantee. We're not doing a lot doing it. Guess it's

many times there was 18 people at time. That's good. So Windsor Ontario, we're never coming back to play for you. Sorry. Every time you say it, the guarantee gets higher. And then if people get lower, if you're anything like me, then I feel bad for the people that give me the guarantee. I'm like, I'm sorry. You know, and I feel bad for the people who showed up too. It's like there's nothing worse than like they're looking around like, wow, we suck because there's nobody here. That's it.

This really sucks. But I think ultimately, man, that's what makes that's what makes it fun. And people have said to me before, you know, you put a lot of humor into your work. Do you think that's the wisest choice in something that you're trying to portray something of emotional significance to you? But just by the sheer nature of doing this for a living, it's hilarious. And if you, yes, you have to have tongue in cheek and have a ability to take the piss out of yourself. You have to.

Because this whole business is ridiculous. It's ridiculous. We know that. Yeah. And ultimately, you know, people are dying and things like that at home, where you know, you're parents are getting older and all these things. None of this matters. If you're able to support yourself and your family and have some good moments, someone like some good coffee even, you know, you're good to go. Like Zoltan's got, because Zoltan's coffee needs it. But I think that's it, man. It's like,

yeah, man, it's, it has to be viewed with tongue in cheek. And I think that's why I enjoy your company. Yeah. I see that. We know that we're just dudes. I mean, 10 years down the line, it gives a shit about us. Dude, even now, I mean, at least in my second, actually, right now, I don't give a shit about either one of us. I don't need it. I did care less. I did. I did. It's all over, man. It's falling apart. As we wind down here, I'm just laughing. Can you tell

what your worst gig was and what your best gig was? There's been so many. Yeah. Where would you even start? I mean, Kingston, Ontario, that's a good one. No boy, no to begin with. Okay. Well, let me answer this with you're from Candy. Can't talk Spanish. Wait, I did. It was no good. Ain't no way. It was no good, man. Well, let me answer that was something that, that I'm hoping you can, you can follow up on me. I can't remember. And that's what I was going to say is a good

portion of my job goes into forgetting the experience. Because when I get home, I can't drag anybody else into it. Because no one has any perspective. You come home and you're like, it was mind blowing. And people like, don't care. Just Thursday, garbage needs to go. I'm like, that's all it is. So I'm just kind of like, so when I come home, I'm just like, I just want to eliminate the memories. Right. So there's been tons of awesome mind blowing experiences. And

there's been tons of just brutal soul shattering, dark. You know, the only thing on TV is gummo-type moments, right? And it's like, but ultimately, man, we're still here. So hooray for lack of other job skills. Let's believe you talk about your new record transcendence, man. And there's been so many versions of Devon from I have ocean machine. I have stripping on land. I have Steve Vi. I have your cover of center on some Judas Priest tribute record from the mid 90s. You might even do

something on working, man, too. I did. What was the first one you do? I think it was natural science. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. You have so many different sides of the coin to you. But yet transcendence, it's very much the epitome of you. grandiose, a little fear factor, a little zap, a little dream theater, a little priest. There's a lot of a lot of all your influences kind of wrapped in there. Is it still

easy for you to put out these great records after putting out some many over the years? No. I'm bored of it. Yeah. And I think that's the biggest problem. And luckily, each record that I put out, I have to dig further to try and find inspiration. But man, I'm bored of this style for so many years, man. It's like that it's like I created this sort of thing that people dig and it's becoming more

successful the more we do it. And I got a great band. I got a great group of people. But it's if I was to define as like black era, you know, black album era, Metallica with like deaf leopard and anion, some weird classical stuff over top of it with like a ton of echoes and a logo that looks like a Pepsi commercial. And Phil Specter production. That's it. But you see to keep mining that to try and find inspiration, dude, I've been out of inspiration. What are you going to write about love? Come

on. 44. You know, I mean, I'm in charge for 25 years. Write a song about I hate going to the bathroom in the middle of the night four times and I have to sit each time. But that's a niche market, right? So what I tried to do now is I try and put myself out of my comfort zone to find things that

inspire authentic emotional reactions within the parameters of what is still working. And to be able to do that like with a record like transcendence where the theme was more given up control and allowing other people into the creative process allows me to have a record that I'm emotionally attached to sounds great keeps the thing going keeps the motion going and now I can go do my symphony. You know, and I'm not I'm not phoning it in. But I'll tell you dude, it's like to when I was

doing ocean machine, 22 years old, I'm like, this is all that I'm resonating with. But now dude, like I did a record last year called casualties of cool, which is like this weird sort of horror folk thing. And I love that because that's where I was. Now what what name was that under? A casualties of that was named in band. Yeah. Okay, got you. Yeah. And it's like, but that for me

is great. I love that. That's where I was at. But to do DTP now, man, it takes a lot of effort. But the one thing I will say about transcendence and all this stuff is it's probably the best it's been and emotionally I'm still connected to it. But it's not easy to be so anymore. Is there going to be another zil toy record? I banished him. Okay. You know, because I'll let me tell you a little story when Captain spectacular died. He's actually his dad. He can't be because my son

freaked out because you cut out the scream at the end. He freaked out. I cut it because I was like, what? And that was cut out of the album. He freaked out. Wow. He freaked out. He's 10. So your son loves time. He was eight. So he loves Captain spectacular. And when he died, he had him in the studio and he was like, what happens now? And I'm like, well, the the poosers come in that he named him because they're. That's the villains. The fuzzers. They're little bums because and literally

bums. Yeah, not like that out of work guys. No, no, no, no, actual asses. Depends on if there's another zil toy. But it was like, I heard that the moon of Saturn was called Titan and it had oceans of methane. And me and my buddy were sitting around drinking coffee and we thought, what sort of creatures would live in that poosers what it was. But when I get it, who's sitting around who's so excited. He has his little book and his doll. And then I was like, well, Captain spectacular

dies and floodgates opened up. I was like, not really though. He comes back. He comes back. It's just an illusion. It's just an illusion. So yeah, I'm I'm currently waiting for the inspiration to start again. Well, if you need Captain spectacular, my price is going to double this time. Really? Yeah, it's going to go from zero to zero. Well, there's no god. Zero to double zero. Can I tell you guys as well? Thank you. By the way, I said to Chris, I was like, dude, what

can I give you? You did off, man. What did I say? You said you can either give me a million dollars or you can just give me like some pictures on like a text. I think it might. Pictures on our Mike Inaz Devon Chris text for that. Again, man, it's like I might have made the wrong decision. I you know what? I have all these things that you've done and all these things that I've now retroactively seen you involved with, man. Honestly, brother, thank you so much. It was so much fun.

And I think you're being nice. My, my, my recollection was I said, I think what I said in my mind was you can even give me a million dollars or you can give me like an anal washing. That's what I thought you said, right? Oh, yeah. So I didn't get either. Yeah, which is fine. But if there's if you want ziltoid three and cap and spectacles back, I'm getting one of those two things. I'll tell you, man, I've got I've got a whole thing set up. I got the dice, too. And I'll tell you what, man, I'll

get him loaded. So whichever side you want to be on, man, you get every time. Last question, man, what's your favorite song to play live? Oh, God. It's hard sometimes. Yeah, I mean, some nights, all of them, some nights, none of them. I think on this tour, the song failure is actually really cool because it's the first song that I wrote with the band. Like I've been such a control freak about everything that have done that the song failure, I think, represents a paradigm shift for the band

because we all contributed to that one. And to play it live reminds me of the fact that, you know, you can always keep learning, right? Yeah, yeah. And it's always good to have a great team around you. Essential. Great team, man. Dungeons and Dragons and Dungeons coming to a middle-aged middle-aged, emotionally dead human being and near you soon. Thank you, Devon Houndsen.

Captain Spectacular says good night. Yes. All right, Devon Townsend project is on the road right now in support of their latest ridiculously awesome album transcendence. They're in Europe right now. They'll be in the state starting May 6th for the second leg of the transcendence tour. I saw it back in Las Vegas a few months ago and they're a tremendous band. What a great performer Devon is and he's just a total

whack job, which in a good and a good way. And they're doing days with the OPF in Gojira. It's a crazy lineup. It's a great lineup. So go check them out. You won't be disappointed. You get tickets at heavydevvy.com. That's HEVYDEVY.com. Go check out my fellow Junior Award winner, Devon Townsend. Thank you so much for being here. I love the, well, you might have got Jason Houston fired from Metallica. He'll always have that in his conscience. So go check out Devy and go check out the

transcendence album. You can get that on Amazon. Of course. And if you do, please use the talk as Jericho links. You can support Devon and your favorite podcast in one quick click. You find my Amazon links at podcast1.com. Click on the killer deals button in the top right corner of the pod. Jay, then hit the talk as Jericho button. I got them Amazon links USA UK, Canada A. Every time you use the talk as Jericho Amazon links Amazon kicks back a small percentage to this

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shows on the Jericho network. Got a lot more common. Believe me, got a lot more chomping at the bit. Chomping, chopping at the bit. Leave everyone a rating and review. We're recording the new Fuzzy record as we speak. Go to Chris Jericho, Fuzzy on Instagram or on the Twitter. I am Jericho to catch a couple snippets of a couple of tunes. People are going nuts for them. They're great, great songs. You're going to love it. And you're also going to love Nick Foley, March 15, 2017,

39 days and counting until the biggest podcast ever. Hard to believe we've been talking about this for almost a year. And it's coming true. It's coming. So you're going to love it. Thank you for listening today. Keep listening for the 60sick and AP News headlines coming up next and coming up next Wednesday. Banana banana banana banana. Banana banana. I was my invitation of Colt of Personality. It didn't do very good. But it's not CM Park. Sorry. It's Living Color, the band that

wrote the song that CM Park used to come to ring. And what an interesting band there. One of the first African American hard rock, heavy metal bands talking all about their experiences in the 80s. When they first showed up as a rock and roll band, they were directed to the rhythm and blues department of their record company. It's still some crazy segregation type stories from them. Living Color, all four members are going to be here. Doug Wimbish, Cory Glover, Vernon Reed.

And of course, Will Calhoun on the drums. You are going to love it. They're great. Boy, they got a lot to say. They're going to be here on Wednesday. I got a lot to say and involves this. Have a great week. Stay hard. Stay hungry. Peace, love and hugs. Be safe this weekend. And remember, always severe of every any doubt. Remember this. You're boy. You can download new episodes of Talkies Jericho every Wednesday and Friday at podcast1.com. That's podcast0ne.com.