Back between 1993 and 1994, Devin Townsend sang with Steve Vai, and was the ripe old age of 19. Y'know, the age where nobody ever did anything stupid, or did things they'll tell hilarious stories about for years.
In an interview with Talk Is Jericho, Townsend recounts the time that he had to sing on Jay Leno's show. Townsend said he was managed by "really famous dude who did not get me," and before the show he had to rehearse all these "frontman" poses, which really pissed him off.
He adds they tried to make him wear fake hair too, so he and his buddy Mark shaved their heads and bought Walmart clothes.
"So the day before The Tonight Show, me and my buddy Mark who's still one of my best friends – we shaved all of my hair. I shaved my eyebrows, I went to Walmart and got a pair of gray shorts and wrote my buddies' names all over myself – arms and everything."
"We were like, 'These guys suck. This sucks.' And Steve's in a shitty mood and Jay Leno's like, *funny voice* 'How you doin' kid?' So Mark's like, 'We should fuck with them.'
"So we went into the backroom, there's an office there, a green room, a phone and all this stuff. So we locked the door, I took all my clothes off and started doing all these poses and Mark's like, 'You should stick that phone up your ass.' So I did and we took a photo and it's online.
"If you look up online 'Devin Townsend phone in ass,' it's a picture of me in the back room of The Tonight Show with a phone up my ass. //it's not there, unfortunately :( // We thought it was funny!
"So we left, thinking nothing of it. We went to Jay Leno's desk, taking pictures mooning… Anyway, next morning, phone rings, management was like, 'What, in the fuck, were you guys doing?!'
"And I was like, 'We played the show? What?' He's like, 'I can't believe you did that! Did you stick the phone up your ass? Why would you do that?' I was like, 'No, I didn't,' but they had it on camera. 'They've got all these images of you with a phone up your ass and now we can't come back!'
"So we went on tour after that, Steve by this point was thoroughly confused with my guitar pick saying, 'Don't use Jay's phone.'"
So there you have it, kids. If you shove Jay Leno's phone up your ass, you'll eventually make great music. Watch video of the performance below:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-ynEpNTcVQ[/youtube]
Related: 10 Great Metal Performances from the '90s on American Television
[via Ultimate Guitar]
