Familiarity with your interviewee’s whole career tends to grease the wheels, especially if you have an informed take on that deep-cut only seasoned fans know. But what if the artist in question is Devin Townsend, a man who has made 30-odd albums running the gamut from industrial metal to prog to ambient new age, and, being a great lummox, you’ve only just discovered how fab he is? This writer comes clean, congratulating Townsend on new LP Lightwork and then confessing all.
“Lightwork is the only thing of mine you’ve heard?” he says, not even remotely offended. “You lucky bastard!”
Clad in a plaid zip-up shirt, Townsend’s Zooming from his home in Vancouver, Canada, his green beanie hat pulled snug, several acoustic guitars hanging on the wall to his left. The little exchange above breaks the ice.
“I’m covered in sawdust,” he says, smiling. “I’ve moved into a new place that required complete renovation, and I figured that if I could build a studio and a space to do green screen work and podcasts, it would bode well. The problem is I
