COFFEE WITH DEVIN TOWNSEND

[Music] there it is exactly I've done it records [ __ ] yeah and if possible can you take the microphone like like this probably yeah that's maybe that's the solution because uh I'm running into that problem at home too yeah like this that's perfect but like that aiming down yeah yeah right my dick makes no noise I guarantee my breathing dick yeah all right should we just start I mean yeah yeah yeah what's up everyone welcome to coffee with Ola today with Devin Townsend yes welcome thank you and you're welcome to my home I mean last time we did that but at Nam yeah the coffee wasn't nearly as good no and the Ola was much more tired absolutely maybe both maybe both holders are tired absolutely so so great to have you here and uh uh I'm just happy to have guests on my show like it's been two years of just people thinking that you can do a zoom call and it's great well it's not it's like you were saying though it's like the uh um the amount that people think they know you yeah is such that it's got to be exhausting as well I know for myself as well like you during the pandemic I was pretty active uh on social media and things like this to the point where uh when I finally came out again I had misinterpreted how easy it would be to interact with people yeah and all of a sudden I got on stage like holy [ __ ] there's like people are real these aren't just abstractions and I think a lot of people just forgot how to behave too like so people weren't really ready when it all opened up and it's like everyone's happy to be out and you know go to shows and sure have a good time but it's also like oh everyone just forgot how to be uh a gentleman I guess well I guess there's also a certain amount of people that felt like no one's going to tell me what to do anymore yeah and so yeah they're just like I'm gonna Park here I'm gonna go here [ __ ] you I've only been alive I don't even care I didn't die and I'm like I'm like all right well cool so there's that now but uh but touring we're this is the maybe the third tour that that I've done since it opened up again and uh yeah I saw you guys in the Gothenburg last year wasn't ready to tour then man holy [ __ ] it was a little bit weird it was like um uh they said Okay so I had just finished a record and they're like okay you're gonna be out for three months with a band you don't know with like no production opening for a band and and I just I just kind of held my nose and went at it but uh it's only now that I'm starting to feel that I'm ready to do it again yeah and even that like it depends on how much sleep I've had right right and that's that's your has become kind of like a your formula a little bit too just like you go you have like different musicians like for every tour yeah and are you like do you know how you will be around them and how they will be with you because I mean obviously touring it's very you're gonna be together with these people a lot yeah I sort of I make the decisions on people that I play with about 50 50. okay 50 50 as in uh 50 of their capacity to play the material yeah and 50 their capacity to not irritate the [ __ ] out of me right so and that's actually much harder to find right right and the and the balance between the two is is very difficult because it also includes Crews as you know right so so this time now that I had a little bit more time to prepare uh I put together a group of people that that works well for me but but touring has always been a kind of um a means to an end for me I just I just want to write yeah like endlessly and in order to keep the brand active enough that you can rationalize that uh touring uh is definitely where it's at yeah and it's it keeps growing which is good yeah but at the same time because I have been through enough scenarios with having bands and then you can't have a uh you can't have a democratic dictatorship where you give everybody a right and then at the end of it'll be like good I hear your point anyway we're going to do it the way that I want to do it right yeah so so this time around I've I've done it a little differently like you suggested where I I hire people per tour and the Rhythm Section is always uh very difficult so I found a really good Rhythm Section the same one that I had worked with on the last run and then uh and then I had Mike Connelly back on this one just because you know he's he's a really good friend and and the hangs are fun yeah you know absolutely and he's he's got a he's got a pedigree that's hilarious because he's just the wizard yeah all right awesome yeah I'm also saying you're saying it's Sunday and you're exhausted but it's Monday see that's how exhausted we are going back to uh where you're uh you know you like to write and you know the whole cycle of writing release yeah touring yeah writing release and it's funny because I I told John Petrucci same exact thing it's like a it's such a machinery for them because they're like I can always expect them to come back every two years yeah and they've released one album and they start in Europe and it's like okay so like oh what time is oh it's uh dream three o'clock time yeah in my eyes you're I would say something that I look up to in terms of uh the uh self-sustainability and you know the self-producing artist and you know you own your brand you do everything yourself and you know all of the whole sustainability there's a big difference between you and consider very much very much very much it's uh I can imagine that it is a lot of work it is but I love it you know it's like I was talking to um you know the last time we were out we didn't we didn't have the sound that I wanted for a number of reasons and so this time I got a sound person who's amazing and put together things the way that I wanted to and I realized it's like I've got guitars that are made specifically for the music that I write I've got oh shut the guitars oh yeah we'll grab it in a second yeah we'll pause it no that's fine I'll run out and you can keep [ __ ] okay you do that I promise I won't talk [ __ ] but I mean I think a lot of it for me is is I just want to do whatever I want you know and I do and I think a lot of the things that that gets lost with that statement is because I work so much people think that I'm compounding my own workload with with things that aren't necessary but for me all the things that I do I like I love it yeah I love it man and I love that it's like now I've got when I was a kid I was always I've always had a vision for the music I'm like I want to perform like this I want it to sound like this I want to use this for the recording I want this for the pickups you know all this stuff and so to finally be at a point at 50 years old where I can do that is [ __ ] awesome yeah it's awesome I love it and it's uh it's funny sometimes you have to remind yourself that because I think there's a certain amount of entitlement that comes with this as well where after a while of doing it you start thinking oh you know we have to this is a a [ __ ] part of the job or waiting in airports is difficult or you know sometimes the social interactions that that that come with the job are are exhausting because um uh some people really feed on the social aspect of the job but I don't like I find it exhausting I should talk to a friend about that the other day he's like why don't you want to go out after the show and I was like dude because I got this much energy in a day and every person I meet goes like this and I gotta play a show but that aside I was thinking this morning about how how amazing it is and and every day when I wake up I'm like man I got this idea for this project I got this idea for this musical Thing I Got This idea for this product I got this idea for this this vision of whatever like theatrical or orchestral or whatever and to be in a position where the only thing that's stopping that from being actualized at this point is is effort yeah is uh just an amazing place to be in but I also recognize that I tend to get too excited and then fill up too much of my plate right it's like the buffet on the ferry yeah I'm like I want this and this and this and at the end you're sitting in bed making weird groaning noises yeah which happened yesterday on the ferry by the way but it doesn't seal yet but it doesn't seem like you have a problem with you know it's procrastination in the sense that you're not finishing stuff no no no I mean you you constantly pump up albums and projects and yeah yeah it seems that you have the formula figured out in a way well so what I've been doing over the course of the past couple years is setting up an organization for myself that I have um people that I can delegate certain aspects of the work to so I can say okay so if we have a prototype that we want to make we've got somebody that can make the archetype in the uh in the uh you know through AI we can see if this particular thing is working and then then we can have other people that can build it then we have people that do Woodwork and we have people that do pickups and we have people that do orchestration we have and so as soon as I have an idea I'm just like I can send it to someone immediately totally and then it's just over time things just start to evolve in the background while you're doing something else yeah man and it's it's like but it's taken a lot of work over the past couple years to sort of identify who I can trust enough to hand these things off I'm sure you I've gone through the same thing right and there's missteps but at the same time you know I've there's also people that that uh in my world that feel that the potential for a misstep is enough for them to not start right but I feel that any success that I've had is because uh like yourself it's like I I failed enough times and I'm not afraid of that anymore necessarily so for every three failures five failures there's something that works and at the end of it I'm like I still haven't lost that oh my God it's [ __ ] awesome you know what I mean like I don't know I'm a smarter man I'm more tenacious though right right but um ever since I was a kid I I've always been of that mindset it's like well life's short you're gonna die so you know try and make it as simple as yourself on yourself as you can while still being fascinated with the process and I'm I'm so fascinated with music man like I'm writing three or four different complete things right now that are um I just I [ __ ] love them man it's just do you just let your let it because that's also you can see like in your in your whole uh travel from you know early 90s and Steve I and all that to where you are today it's really like a journey that seems that you don't really have any boundaries in a way it really it feels like you're right really writing to music you want to write oh my God it's like you're not set to an uh a genre or you're just like you hear the orchestration and then that's on there and it's it's just it it's really it's really artsy well I mean I think a lot of what I've also had to contend with is the fact that when I was younger I I always used to think well I'm not confusing like I'm not a confusing person I'm really simple and everybody says no dude you're [ __ ] and I'm like I'm like no I think I'm pretty straightforward and then the older I get the more I realize I'm like oh yeah maybe I am what these people think maybe I am more confusing maybe I'm normal to you but it is you know yourself so I think the biggest thing I do know myself and that's the biggest thing man so now uh one of the things that I have had to constantly remind myself of in order to actualize all these ideas which the foundation of is I just think they're they're super fun it's like awesome is I have to get past the fact that people think you're a weirdo or people think that you know I wouldn't I that's that's stupid or I wouldn't have done that or what were you think of doing that or that's childish or whatever I'm like you know when I was younger of course I was much more insecure than I am now so there'd be a certain amount of my process that I would have to fight through to be like oh maybe it is stupid maybe it is childish or whatever but then as I get older I'm like that sounds like a new problem yeah absolutely yeah and I think that now um with all these things that come out the vision for it uh we were talking about this with one of the people that have been collaborating with recently you know you know you get together with your buddies and you have a bunch of coffee or you get hammered or something and you're like wouldn't it be cool if yeah but it never happens but for us it's like wouldn't it be cool if and then we just do it oh yeah you mean it yeah yeah and then it may not work but at the end of it it's like man I love the fact that we invested tons of time and resource into something that is of zero value yeah it's like I love that man I think it's fun because yeah dude events she's just dead so you might as well just have some fun right do you ever feel that you need to like sometimes I really just want to chug you know yeah some really like tight ass Mel riffin you know sometimes they do but I also feel that it's like one of the things that I've uh I've had to also contend with is over the years my tastes have changed right absolutely and now um when I was 18 the job that I chose for myself as an 18 year old when I really needed the attention and I was really pissed off is not as congruent with a 50 year old that's like often really tired yeah so when I um like I walk around with these headphones and my Spotify playlists and everything it's all just like super low-key like ambient Japanese noises yeah that's all I [ __ ] listen to okay that's it it's like a soundtrack of your yeah that's what it is yeah yeah sometimes I like the vaporwave [ __ ] but it's like the only time I listen to metal now is when I'm mowing the lawn and I want to check out what my buddies have done right because at that point there's momentum to it it's like I'm going in a straight line and I can just like focus on it but other than that I'm like oh my god dude it's like same reason I never watched Breaking Bad or the wire or Dexter people like dude you should see it it's [ __ ] super intense I'm like at the end of the day I don't want intense man you know I want to watch the the trains go from Oslo to the north right North Pole for nine hours right just sit there with a guitar and make little ambient noises right like but at least you're listening a lot to music all the time because for me it's like okay I work with music but I just don't want to hear it at the end of the day like the there's a very big difference there I go home and I shut off like completely well maybe it's like what I listen to doesn't necessarily uh count as music it's it's literally just like soundscapes yes right and but I also realized over the past couple of years that um if that's what I'm listening to always always yet I am still trying to hold on to some uh version of myself for the sake of other people of course then I think well who are you doing that for yeah you know if your intention is to is to like satiate the needs of somebody that you don't [ __ ] know then then that's just insecurity so although when it comes to chugging but for me uh because I'm an open c yeah I gotta get my guitars okay but it's like okay I'm out thanks all right so I'm going to talk about all the women first time I met him I was at NAMM a couple years back and he's you may not know this by watching these videos but the guy's huge he's like this towering human being and uh oh oh you can't stop he has a he has a very wide uh uh penal helmet really it's like uh it's like a is this a Portobello monster yeah so I'm working with two companies now okay yeah so the other one that's important to have the other one I was thinking okay let's hang him up here but yeah nowhere right but the other one so basically it's um it's uh over the course of the pandemic I got sent well here I'll talk about it when it's when it's going here anyway he's got a huge penis tip like enormous oh yeah yeah urethra we talked about this guitar yeah so this frameless is the main company that I've been working with for years and they make just they're [ __ ] amazing guitars man like I've had opportunity to work with a lot of companies but this guitar is astounding dude like like just It's [ __ ] amazing dude like this thing is just crazy yeah that's cool it's [ __ ] crazy you know and so I designed that one with them here give you a pick because El cruncho Grande oh yeah it's open C always you know [Music] [Applause] it's just open to one finger and you're good so everything sounds great everything sounds great it's Led Zeppelin yeah foreign so I've been working with them for years and we designed this guitar together and it was specific to my needs and and like little things about it like you know it stands up when you let it go and it's like and it's like you know the picture what's that something you want to work and the pitch of the headstock is such as well that they had that that uh it's a set neck um uh but it's the same scale as it's 25 inch scale but a lot of the thing I was going for is I love the sound of like a Les Paul Custom but I just they look so stupid on me right and uh and so this one we designed so it's it's even though it's it's got like a through um feel it's still a set neck and uh um this one's KOA with a bunch of crazy hippie [ __ ] on it but um uh it sounds perfect for what I do for metal it's [ __ ] perfect uh during the course of the pandemic though I got sent a little headless guitar from Kiesel and I was I was uh yeah yeah man and I was at first I was like I'll never use this [ __ ] thing you know what I mean but then I started writing and I wrote three records with it I wrote the puzzle snuggles and then a lot of light work with it and uh I endorse things because I love them and and I contacted framis and I said you know you don't make a headless guitar yeah I don't want to leave famous I love these guitars but I'd like to use these ones as well yeah and and so Hans at fremas said okay so now for my ambient working for headless guitars I use these queso guitars and they're they're so much fun dude yeah it's like they're they're super well built they look so I mean I think they're really cool looking guitars but they're so much fun so live I use this for like a solo section and and deep piece and everything but we're uh one of the projects that I'm working on on the side is this thing called uh dream piece which is you know hippie to the degree that one rarely can be even uh uh concerned about being that doesn't make sense it's [ __ ] super hippy but um uh I've got this ambient rig that I've been working on and I've been putting out all these things slowly on on YouTube of ambient work and it's all these Keisel guitars uh running through just a series of effects and again I endorse things because I love them and I love this and I love this they're very different um very different uh utilizations but you know for example the thing I I like about this is that I like doing this or I can just kind of like just chill yeah you put it on the bus and everybody's kind of play one and the headstocks don't bump into anybody right while I was well during the during the pandemic while I was riding at home I had this little couch set up and I had that's really cool dude this is freaking awesome then I on the side I had all my delays and I would watch uh these 10 hour videos of people just driving the trains to the North Pole from Oslo right okay and then I would just sit there and just and just [ __ ] around [ __ ] around [ __ ] around and then uh and then I had um this little uh recorder so anytime I made a loop I'd like I just record it and then I'd store it and then just keep playing and then by the end I started thinking man this is really neat and then I made all this music based on on that guitar so I think what's really interesting with with whatever you end up using and as you know with like endorsements it's so easy for people to be like I endorse the chord chart piece of cardboard or something right just yeah yeah you don't you don't it's stupid yeah you know but for me I really endorse the things that I use and so I'm very grateful to framers for for understanding that that actually served a really cool purpose for me as well right and also live I use an aristides as well which is great because the famous doesn't make a tally and they sent me a white Air steedies it's gorgeous right yeah but yeah man it's like I just love it man don't you miss the ever tune on this one yeah I do I do but um uh with that I use the bar and it's like you know a little a little tendril of saliva just came out of my mouth towards your arm there but it missed you by about four inches so that's fine tendril of saliva is also a good thing for whatever first time yeah man yeah it's good but no there's a good song name it is right another one just came out it's the lighting it's just like yeah but I just I love those guitars for sitting on the couch yeah and before the shows that we're doing now I do an ambient intro okay and I just yeah I use that right and it's but it's also interesting because the companies that I work with uh it's important for me that I have like a a personal relationship with them as well and like Hans Peter and Marcus at framis are they've been so kind to me and they've made me you know seven foot long guitars with small machines and spikes and yeah yeah then I went to San Diego with Jeff and Chris at Kiesel and and really had a great time and I was able to say this is why I use this yeah you know like the reason why this one was designed the way it was is because for the sake of the work that I do it's like that's what I wanted right whether or not works for other people it's like I'd love to say I care but I kind of don't and I think that with that as well um it works so well for that thing that I was like I really want to use that so yeah I mean you're not speaking to an Damascus of selling a guitar I got no desire to speak to the masses you know what I mean it's like I think I think that's one thing that um uh in order for me to do the things that I do I had to get over yes very young this is like dude what you choose to do is not of Mass Appeal no but I also was thinking when I was out for lunch today that I really love just observing life yeah so I love going to a restaurant or to a park and sitting there with my headphones and watching the world go by and no one gives a [ __ ] no I couldn't imagine what it would be like to be so famous that you couldn't do that right it'd be awful yeah so maybe there's a part of me that sabotages any potential success just like I'm just like this could be popular all right we'll make it multi-colored and put lights on but it's not like a fear you have that you might become too famous no I I think you have to you have to let it go yeah but I mean it's rather than it being a fear it's not an objective yeah you know if if I was to get successful on a larger degree based on doing whatever I wanted that's fine yeah but if it was you know if it's I have to fundamentally change what I do and straighten my teeth to do it right no right right thank you now that's funny because I'm currently streaming my teeth are you yeah they look good though oh thank you well the the yeah I'm doing this uh if that's the line [ __ ] oh yeah my son's doing that too the um um I saw something uh somebody put up a uh like a picture of me playing on one of the shows the other day I don't know who it was but they gave me a name that I thought oh I could I could deal with it they called me the prog Goblin and I was like that's all right that's great yeah man I but I I think it's it's also like if you can get if you can get past the things that you think you need to be in order to do the things that you want to do man it's it's in a lot of way in a lot of ways at that point you're you're really free and the freedom to do and be who I am is so much more important to me than than whatever commercial considerations may be there right yeah yeah man I love it I love what I do I [ __ ] love you that's that's the thing you own yourself and your product yeah that has to be so revealing like like relieving I we're gonna say yeah but it's it's not because I mean you're sold yourself you haven't you haven't sold you haven't what you call it sell out you didn't sell out you sold yourself basically yeah but but the only reason it ever sold anything is just accidental because I I never really went out of my way to sell it at all I uh I was thinking the other day as as well the um the the reason I do the things that I do is is is because fundamentally I'm in love with it I'm in love with sound I'm in love with conceptualizing things I'm in love with the process I'm in love with and there are a lot of that [ __ ] that comes along with it like editing drums and all that sort of stuff is pain in the ass but in order to get to that point which I love so much I mean that's just part of the deal and when somebody said the other day it's like well if you love it so much why do you feel the need to sell it and I'm like well everybody needs a job I mean I got a family yeah so if I can do this for a living yeah it's fantastic absolutely fantastic and I'll and uh throughout the process there's been many moments where I've had to um make decisions as to well if you do this you can do that yeah but I think well how much do you actually need though you know like in order for me to do the things that I do I just want to keep the bills paid it'd be nice to go on vacation every now and then and I you know I like the tool I love the tools that I have but at the same time it's like their tools right and uh I don't know I'm very thankful uh uh to the companies that I work with really thankful for providing me the tools and these are two examples of of great tools for me right now so it's fine it's something I also notice because I follow a lot of like I watch Reddit and stuff like that sure is that uh you have very devoted fans like you you created a great community of fans and I think it's because you just because of what you just said like you own you're just yourself and you don't make music it's it's almost it's becoming religious like you're a prophet in a way oh no I I'll I'll I'll uh I'll leave that one then what I would say though is I don't underestimate the audience's intelligence and I think a lot of times we're asked to do that yeah you know it's like I'll just re-release it with a different cover you know right Malibu Stacy with a different hat yes right that's a great analogy yeah and it's and I I keep thinking to myself and so like I'm making this musical now this this Broadway style musical that's like it's gonna cost so much money to do it properly and so when we're talking to investors about it they're like who would who would go see this [ __ ] and I'm thinking I honestly think that there is a portion of the audience that is under serviced because they're just sold [ __ ] yeah all the time and my uh whole aesthetic idea for whatever I do is I want to make something bananas or or creatively free that sounds a little less condescending but with the same commercial um Quality yeah you know when I see like what they do with films and like orchestration for [ __ ] Ant-Man yeah you know like I think I just want that but with something that's really interesting to me and to I'm fortunate to be surrounded by all these artists and creators that have got uh a breadth of experience making commercial and art so they can bring to the table those things but the idea is to do it without the commercial tropes and uh I firmly believe that there is an under serviced portion of the audience that if we can pull together all these artists and Minds that have experience with that it's just it's like the most elegant middle finger man yeah you know what I mean it's like [ __ ] you here's something incredible does it make sense probably not I mean it's like put look at it it's amazing and it's got 200 people singing yeah I love it I think a lot of times uh there's a misinterpretation of the work too in that I'm just trying to be a jackass but but he's like yeah yeah absolutely yeah I've seen that yeah absolutely but also when I'm with my buddies a lot of times we're just like that's [ __ ] funny yeah it's funny yeah or um on another level uh the the things that Inspire the music for me I've often been very uh hesitant to claim ownership of anything artistic right like uh there's people that I know like a lot of Bangles on their wrists you know I mean and here they'd be wearing sunglasses that are like well my music and of course you know my art and all this stuff but I've always kind of been of the thought that it's like it's the collective unconscious and and music exists regardless of who writes it so your biases and your upbringings and your experiences allow you to sort of uh participate in those those kind of vibratory experiences in ways that your entire your entire objective becomes doing it justice rather than claiming it in a sense so with that and I mean how many times you hit the mark yeah almost never but of the times that you do yeah it's like yeah man yeah yeah you've got to live with something you got to live a little too I mean take a couple of risks yeah why I'm pretty good with that yeah can you tell me a little bit about the uh like how did you end up with Steve I like in the first place there in the beginning like I got signed to relativity records for a project of mine at the time called noise Scapes and uh that was before Steve and then the a r guy at the time his name was Cliff culturi he uh called me up well I went to New York and we signed the deal and then I went home and I started recording they said there's another guy on our label Steve Vai that's looking for a singer and of course you know when I was a teen I was all about passion Warfare and all that um but it was also you know at that age you're you're cycling through identities so quickly right that at that time I was like I just want to be like Napalm death and God flesh and then then I descended into Steve's World and he was just like I think there's probably some moments where he was like what the [ __ ] it probably still is but um we kind of fell into each other's world and and and I think we I learned a lot from him and yeah and maybe he learned never to work with a 19 year old again but we're we're better friends now than we ever were and he's he's he's a good he's a good person man I like him do you ever like catch up with him oh yeah yeah yeah we send each other memes of people [ __ ] themselves you know just like no no but I'm just saying it's fun that Steve is like that because obviously what I've seen and you know the times I've met him it's always been like you know he's uh a God among Mortals oh but he's so he's very he's all Untouchable yeah he's touchable oh my God he's he's just he's a buddy yeah but I think that's a lot of maybe the things that I came out of that experience with because he's he's of course he's a brilliant musician he's an incredible guitar player but he's a person just like anybody and I think that maybe the the 80s and the 90s and when that sort of rock and roll thing was arguably at its peak people were deified so quickly as being uh otherworldly or what have you but for me I I find that at least for my own work on a much smaller level uh that's problematic like if people have assumptions of you or they've made up um uh an impression of who you are based off of what your strategically uh created public Persona is it to me at least for what I do it's in opposition to the intent yeah like the intent of what I do is to just try and be as as open uh uh receptacle for whatever I feel is appropriate for me to to sing and write about and it can be absurd or it can be really serious or it can be really emotional or it can be really stupid it's like um and in order to do that I think it's important for me just to be who I am yeah remember another quote I thought was amazing it's like if you always tell the truth about how you're feeling then you never have to remember anything yes of course yeah so it's like if somebody says you know yeah anything about you so like if you if you're gonna lie all your life you have to remember so you have to remember so many things so if people like I remember remember when I first started going bald my buddy was like you're bald and I was like yeah I really am man you know it's like and uh you know I think that if you know yourself then you're gonna get out of your way easier not effortlessly but easier than if you're believing a bunch of [ __ ] about yourself and I still do of course right but uh but uh for the most part you know sorry oh there you go sorry no I think I think I think it's because device one a little like last guitar Heroes kind of he's still on the same you know in there I'm thinking you know Untouchables right now English then and him and uh maybe not so many others in this world or in the metal aspect I would say maybe yeah um he's my friend yes that's good that's what I know that's cool that's what I know and he's amazing of course but he's my friend right and so that is where our relationship ended up yeah as a 16 year old to hear that would have been pretty funny but but as a 50 year old there's much more um collateral in that for me than than anything else man and I think you know the pandemic uh brought that to light more than anything else it's like I know a couple of people in rock bands that were incredibly successful but they were alone during the pandemic because all of a sudden all the people that are you know cleaning the pool and and making the dinner just like yeah my parents are suffering I'm out and they're like yeah but I don't know how to do anything so I think that I often gauge relationships now with like okay so in a zombie apocalypse right how are these people going to be right yeah exactly yeah do you have like a uh Judgment Day kind of plan I hope wherever the bombs drop I'm closest to it that that's exactly what I said yeah exactly because I think to myself if you end up Surviving for another six months with the [ __ ] the most irritating people in the world that's like you know be like I told you you know I'm like oh [ __ ] just count me out man like so so tell me a little bit about uh light work has changed yes absolutely yeah um I saw a bunch of your uh uh your videos on the YouTube channel going through the uh song by song oh yeah very cool thanks yeah Lightworks another record I did yeah yeah I was thinking like okay let's promote it a little bit yeah no no no I I actually really like it and I think um the record I really [ __ ] liked I put out before and everybody thought it was bananas right like I put up this thing called the puzzle where it was you know I had this box set with all this there's not the two album yeah yeah you see the boxes dude it had a movie in it and it had all these like these casts of like polymer characters that are supposed to represent like uh so there's a little like the um the wounded inner child and then it's surrounded by all the ego and then there's the clergy and there's guilt and then there's like 60 people that were involved with it it was based on an ambient Jam that everybody's ended up orchestrating and then it became this metaphor that I thought was so [ __ ] cool man and I put it out and everybody was just like uh what so but the fortunate the fortunate thing is it's like um uh whatever I do the next things inevitably inevitable and inevitably gonna be the opposite yeah and so light work was a reaction to uh the puzzle because I was so it was such a uh like claustrophobic messy chaotic piece of work because that's where I was at it was a pandemic it was [ __ ] there's no linear trajectory to it all and so that's what I that's what seemed so compelling to make and so after I did puzzle and I knew it I put it out too I was like oh man this is gonna bum a lot of people out right and it did but um as soon as it was done I I felt like when I sat with the guitar because in the morning I I sit with the guitar every morning and I just drink coffee and I just write like every morning every morning and then after that I was like oh it's now it's linear now that that's out of my system now I want to hear a chorus now I want to hear an intro now I want to hear uh something a little bit more uh traditional and overarchingly the thing about light work that was important for me was I wanted to make something that was consciously a positive statement in the face of Relentless negativity because at that point in my life there was just like a lot of us over the course of 2021 I would say there was a lot of loss and change and anxiety and and people in my life that were coming and going and a lot of fear and and a lot of just ugly tension and so I wrote light work to be in the face of that uh something that was as uh positive as I could and I thought that that would be uh again the biggest middle finger that I could give to that frame of mind and as soon as it came out again uh people are like well I I want to hear something angry right now yeah you know and everybody's putting out you know I'm seeing all these records are coming out it's Lamb of God and everything it's like the accuracy we've ever done I was like I listened to it on the lawnmower and I was just like yeah I was pissed but it's not that I wasn't angry it's not that I wasn't upset but I was also Max Capacity with that emotional content in the first place and whatever I write I'm gonna invest a huge amount of time and effort into and so by doing that whatever I'm feeling gets compounded by it I remember when I did Alien like strapping a lad and it was I was in such a an awful state of mind I was like oh I know what I'll do yeah I'll make something that compounds that tenfold right and then at the end of it I was in a much worse place yes and I remember thinking at that point like oh okay note to self in the future if you're already feeling unbalanced compounding that sense of of unbalance is masochistic and unless you thrive on that which I don't yeah then work in the opposite way and so light work I was in such a an anxiety-filled state that I use the music as a beacon for myself so that while I was sitting in front of the computer every day when I turned the songs on it would be a moment in my day where I felt some degree of relief rather than you know man I'm so stressed [ __ ] bruh yeah you know but then of course when that came out people like yeah but you know we're stressed yeah we want to hear something that like that like mirrors that while it's more like it's what you needed it's what I needed yeah that's what I needed same as puzzle is what I needed same with the moth it's what I needed and a lot of the reason I'm so thankful for the audience is number one they're patience right but number two it's like for the most part when I meet people who have been really supportive for a long time there's a degree of of that type of Personality that I very much relate to I'm like oh I get it yeah yeah you know there's not that sense of like deification to it and and like like you would said I really like it's like a prophet or something [ __ ] right [ __ ] that [ __ ] dude like religion you know what I mean it's like I feel that the whole the whole thing that I bring to the table in terms of my artistic commodities the universe is [ __ ] amazing and if I'm so dumb but it's to me it sounds like this and this is this is the most I can get out of my own way so that when I'm representing what I feel is an intuitive reaction to the emotional experiences that that life presents to me through like being a father or like loss or pandemic or whatever that the things that people relate to in it are things that are more um like they're less about me and they're more about just how [ __ ] up it is to be a human right yeah yeah right should I shut up now no I mean you're you're doing so well that's all I do man no but I think it's just sorry for calling you a prophet but I think it's just because people admire you a lot and they admire what you put out and and uh it's it it's pretty easy like you create your own fan base and you know you create the expectations of your fans sure okay that's right the people that I've waited for them that are strapping well they already maybe left you know yeah so you know it's yeah it's pretty obvious like but also I would also say to to anybody who's disappointed in the fact that I've changed I think to myself so you haven't yeah right I mean it's like it's one thing to be under the we're gonna swap again yes yeah absolutely it's one thing to uh to to have an emotional connection to to a work that makes you want to relive that but to expect that somebody who's a Creator artistically has no desire to learn from the past and specifically the past mistakes I mean just by Nature that means that it's going to change and so I think that maybe there's a certain percentage of the audience that is been so loyal to it because whether or not they like puzzle whether or not they like light work whether or not they like ziltoid or empath or whatever they relate perhaps yes to the like the fact that I don't know what the [ __ ] going on they're like I get that yeah yeah I don't know either where are we now oh that's where you are okay you know yeah and I feel as long as I put enough effort into it then my job for it is done so when I hear a song whether or not it's Equinox or Genesis or shitstorm or whatever it's like the same amount of effort goes into making it right yeah because it's just it just bugs me until it doesn't and then you have a deadline and then you move on right exactly so do you have any what else do you do in your life like you write music but is there anything else you yeah yeah I love stuff like Minecraft or oh I don't like video games at all man I keep trying but it's just you keep trying to keep trying because everybody tells me that it's like there's some fundamental flaw in me for thinking that they're just like work or that you're you're like you just haven't played the right game yeah exactly I'm thinking like well you would love video games I like gardening I like meditation I like eating um I like it sounds like enjoying life yeah yeah like coffee I like tea yeah sometimes I uh you know uh obviously like when you're playing video games you're you're gonna get stressed out a little bit like you go and play fortnite you're gonna get shoot shot by a 14 year old in the face yeah and they're gonna shoot me too yeah I uh well plus I remember always there was uh the whole you just haven't been play the right game thing there's a guy who's always like dude you haven't played the right game this one and he puts it on it's like some 75 inch screen and I'm like oh this is horrible it's a horror show much impression yeah the guy's like yeah you know there was a guy that spent six months making sure that the horse's balls shrunk when it got cold Red Dead yeah and I'm just and I halfway through it I'm like that's the only thing that's interesting about this to me because they're like well we go here and you press a scope and it opens up this other thing I'm like that's [ __ ] work that's work that's not fun yeah what's and it's the same thing I don't want to watch The Wire the same reason I don't want to watch Breaking Bad they're like you know what man I know you've had a really heavy day and you've had interaction with all these people on an emotional level that you find draining but at the end of the day we're gonna watch somebody melt a kid in a barrel of acid like yeah [ __ ] man so I just like my algorithm on YouTube is just like Korean baking people making cakes train videos people you know people cooking you know what I mean like some weird so do you watch train videos all the time all the time dude is it just because it's going so like it's it I love the momentum in there yeah and it's it's like it's like I'm sure there's uh an analysis we could make on on why that's interesting but I think on a real simple level I've toured for 30 years yeah and I've always just like sitting in the front of the bus and so it was really comforting during the pandemic but I also find that it works great for me while I'm while I'm writing to have this sense of momentum on the screen right and yeah man it's like yeah I think that uh things can be as complicated as you choose to make them and uh my tendency to analyze myself is is often based on insecurity and and like anxiety yeah but more so now than than before I'm like whatever the cause is I like it yeah so hey on that end uh thank you so much for coming here it's been a pure pleasure you too man and uh good luck tonight as well oh yeah shall we cross the streams all right it's like wild stallions man holy [ __ ] so anyway hey um bonus material boner material we'll see you soon love you buddy I didn't drink any of my coffee did you drink yours oh but yeah yeah I've already had enough bad yeah yeah I know it's good man that's good oh one thing before I go you gave me a coffee mug a while back yes it's awesome I know it was I saw it on the stream it was a perfect ratio yeah okay yeah do you want another one I'd like to I don't know if I need it no okay yeah plus I won't be able to get it home yeah that's that's the thing I give coffee cups to people I know they're just gonna throw under the bed yeah I wouldn't throw it in there yeah but the T-shirt you'll get oh yeah yeah what's it say chug life chug life yeah chug life man all right guys when you were presented a glass of life chug it absolutely bye that's so cool yeah man peanut hasn't ever fallen over oh tons oh yeah [Music] oh

2023-03-11 19:41

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