I have had the utmost pleasure in interviewing Devin Townsend a couple times and both were quite the experience whether he was cracking self-deprecating, sarcastic remarks or exposing his most vulnerable personalities and social anxieties. With the announcement of the eclectic prog-rocker's upcoming album, Transcendence, along with an amazing tour beside Between the Buried and Me and Fallujah, we found it fitting to unveil Dev's dream tour. During the interview, we spoke about his ideal tour mates, setlists, and other details. Personally, his response to the last question is one of the best things I've heard in awhile. You can view the full interview below.
What recently formed or relatively new band would you want to open the show?
Shining is a great band and live they really are an experience. It really blows people away, even people who had heard the records and don't really get off on the studio recorded songs.
And which band that you’ve known for quite awhile would you want to also be included in the package?
We've done a lot of touring with Meshuggah. It's great for me to perform with a band that's perfect like that because we can't compete. They're so well defined and so fucking good live. I like playing with bands like Meshuggah or Gojira because they're so devastatingly awesome, so I can do my puppets and weird shit afterwards. Recently, we had a tour with Periphery and Shining. We were in the same genre, but different enough. If you go see a show and there's six death metal bands, you get to the last performance and you're just over it.
If you had to pick one song from each album to be included in the setlist, which would they be?
- Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing – "In the Rainy Season"
- Ocean Machine: Biomech – "Bastard"
- City – "All Hail the New Flesh"
- Infinity – "Truth"
- Physicist – "Planet Rain"
- Terria – "Mountain"
- Accelerated Evolution – "Deadhead"
- Strapping Young Lad – "Bring On the Young"
- Synchestra – "Notes from Africa"
- Alien – "Skeksis"
- Ziltoid the Omniscient – "By Your Command"
- Ki – "Gato"
- Addicted – "Awake!!"
- Deconstruction – "Deconstruction"
- Ghost – "Texada"
- Epicloud – "Grace"
- Casualties of Cool – "Moon"
- Sky Blue – "Rain City"
- Dark Matters – "Dimension Z"
If there was a surprise guest appearance from another band, who would it be?
Weird Al Yankovic or Enya.
Which three countries would have to be included in the run?
I'd say Canada and the States as North America, the UK because they've been so supportive, and maybe Finland, Scandinavia, or Australia. Wherever will allow me to bring my puppets.
Any specific venues from those that you would have to perform at?
I've been really fortunate to play in some amazing places. We did the world cup in Korea with several million people watching, which was super intense. We did the Royal Albert Hall again recently and that's always a mind-bender. There's talk of Wembley Arena coming up and that's cool. I like the bigger shows versus the club ones. And maybe it's because I'm a narcissist on some level or maybe I'm stuck in the mindset where I just want to play huge festivals. It's easier to perform for me in big places because it's less personal.
And lastly for any visual component, what would you want given an infinite budget?
I'd be a menace if I had Nickelback or Ashlee Simpson's production value. I'd be dropping great white sharks on the audience. I actually always had this idea where there's a bunch of nets above the audience and each net had ingredients for a hamburger and the first person to bring you a completed burger gets a free shirt. You could drop a hot plate too. I'd love to have a crazy production values, but at the same time I loved the acoustic shows of just me and a guitar.
See Devin Townsend on tour this fall with Between the Buried and Me and Fallujah. Dates here.
