Metal Assault recently caught up with Devin Townsend to talk about his upcoming ‘Retinal Circus’ live CD/DVD package and the possibility of a Strapping Young Lad reunion. A couple of excerpts from the chat can be found below.
‘Retinal Circus’ showcases Townsend’s October 2012 show of the same name at the Roundhouse Tapes in London. Featuring narration by Steve Vai, the film celebrates Townsend’s 20 years in the music industry.
Townsend explained: “During that 20-year period there were a lot of people that were pivotal in my life and in my music, between Strapping Young Lad, Steve Vai, Ocean Machine, Infinity, etc etc. Typically, people either in media or the label or what have you, had a hard time finding ways to sell what I do because they can’t sell it to people as one thing or another. So for the Retinal Circus I tried to include all of it in one place, wrap it up and try to include as many people from the past that I had worked with as I thought would be appropriate.”
Townsend said he thought it was important to include Strapping Young Lad material in the set: “…I asked Jed from Strapping Young Lad to come up,” he recalled. “….there’s typically the notion that I’m ashamed of it or afraid of it. Absolutely not! Strapping Young Lad is as much me as Ghost or Ziltoid.”
However, Townsend quickly shot down any question of a Strapping Young Lad reunion: “I’ve got no interest in it. And not only do I not have any interest, but the more people ask me, the less I want to do it. The surest way for me to not do something is for someone to try and force me to. So the more talk that people babble on about in terms of reunion and all that stuff, it just makes me laugh! Oh my God, really? Is that where you’re at with it? For me, people can talk as much as they want, but I do what I want and that’s the bottom line.”
He said he didn’t even really understand why fans would want the band to reunite in the first place: “…in the way I’ve understood it is, people have a connection to a particular period of their life that music played an important part in, and they believe that by bands reuniting, it’s going to in some ways provide them with that period of their life or that experience again. But it just doesn’t work that way. It really doesn’t! It’s been proven time and time again by bands that try and come out to reunite and rekindle those sorts of things.”
‘Retinal Circus’ will be available in a number of packages from October 29 via InsideOut Music.
Click here for the full interview.