Top 103 Quotes & Sayings by Devin Townsend - Page 2

I don't have a lot of time for people who don't take care of their own problems. Everything that needs to be done takes effort.

I have no interest in being told what to do.

I think I've been playing bass for as long as I've played guitar, and I love them both.

If you think meet-and-greets are fundamentally stupid, then you're never not gonna think that.

I make music for people to hear it, so get it however you want!

I don't think anything that I have done has been forced by commerce exclusively.

I'm not a big fan of options, to be honest. The more options that I have, the less time that I spend actually completing things... ultimately, I think, if you have endless choices, I mean, the tendency to just choose endlessly is there, and that doesn't do anything for anybody, really.

Strapping Young Lad is a representation of me, just as much as 'Ki,' 'Ghost,' 'Ziltoid' or 'Infinity.' There's no difference; it was just a different period of time.

People are like, 'Nothing you've done is as good as you did when you were younger.' And I'm like, 'You may be right.'

I think live stuff is certainly stuff I enjoy doing. I do like performing for people and bringing it to people.

I think that when I got to a certain age, it was important to me to sort of analyze my relationship with myself and my past.

I really like female singers; I've got zero interest in working with male singers. Any male voice I need to do, I can do.

The best way of me not doing things is to demand it from me.

Because I think I am pretty left-brained - more than I gave myself credit for - I think I've managed to really dissect emotions. At least my own. And I've been able to understand what they do, how they do it, and when.

With 'Epicloud,' I wanted something catchy as the flu but with a sentiment that is romantic, positive, and beautiful. Spiritual without religion and set to heavy music.

It's really hard to foster self-love; it really is. I think a lot of people who claim that they do have a definite lack of self-loathing are either lying or just in a place that I don't relate to.

People say, 'Well, why don't you talk about being vegetarian?' And I'm like, 'People will find out.' The people who are interested in what I do and why I do it, being a vegetarian is a big part of that.

I like Canada for a number of reasons, politics and people and all that stuff aside. I was raised there, and I write music best when I'm in situations that I'm surrounded by nature, and when there's seasons.

I guess I'm not really into female vocals that sound masculine, I guess. A lot of times, the heavy female vocalists always end up sounding like they're screaming or whatever.

As Devin, the person, I'm very different from my artistic self.

While I was recording 'Ziltoid,' the movie 'Mars Attacks' came on TV, I think, six times in one week. So I don't know if there's any direct references or anything, but the aesthetics of that movie was definitely around while I was creating the music, so I'd be lying if I said it wasn't part of it.

I've been making music for so long, and the main hurdles I've run when dealing with any public exposure is that many of my projects are so different from each other.

What made Strapping Young Lad important, at least to me, was I was being honest about whatever was important to me at that time. In many ways, that musical process is there to resolve those issues, if you will.

I spent a great deal of my career willingly ignoring the fact that people are participating in it, because it allows me to function without second-guessing it, without thinking, 'Oh, I wonder what people are gonna think of this,' or, 'I wonder what people aren't gonna think of this.'

If you're making music strictly to make money, you might as well find another job.

I have, like, three or four friends and am a very private person.

For me, music is a byproduct of this process - the human process - and the fact that I've managed to eke out a career with it is a happy accident more than any strategy.

I'll be the first to admit when I'm influenced by something.

My dad's side of the family were calm folk from England, but the other side just loved to party. Somewhere between those two factions is me.

Luckily, my creative juices are pretty much on tap. If I'm compelled to do something, I can go for it and get it done.

There is no way I'll ever write an album for Avril Lavigne or Christina Aguilera. I just couldn't do it. There is no way I could ever do it because my musical process is about being directly involved with whatever I'm going through in life.

I love Strapping Young Lad. I'm incredibly proud of that band; I'm incredibly proud of everything we did.

When I make music, I tend to make music that are really over the top.

The reason Strapping Young Lad was such a good band was we were honest about what we were doing.

I've always loved the sound of female vocals.

'Deconstruction' is a really heavy record, a real symphony in a lot of ways, but with heavy musicians from the metal world - friends of mine.

Essentially, 'Z2' ended up feeling the way that it should, but it was through a considerable amount of trial and error that it took to get there.

For me, the one thing I've got going for me in terms of my attributes as a musician is vision.

The risk a lot of times, in my mind - and I may be incorrect - the risk of challenging people directly with their beliefs is that society is such that there's too many of us, so a direct challenge automatically engages people's defenses.

I started to see human beings as little lonesome, water based, pink meat, life forms pushing air through themselves and making noises that the other little pieces of meat seemed to understand. I was thinking to myself, 'There's five billion people here but we've never been more isolated.' The only result of the aggressive individualism we pursue is that you lose sight of your compassion and we go to bed at night thinking, 'Is this all there is?' because we don't feel fulfilled.

The thing that kills me is all these bands that use huge words in their lyrics, 'I'm swimming in a vortex of apathy.' I'm like, 'What?' I don't walk up to a friend and go 'That's a stylin' looking vortex of apathy you've got there pal. I was swimming up a river of deceit myself.'

Soberity makes me write dull songs about reorganizing the knick knacks in my house.

I'd be lying if I said I went into any project with any premeditated ideas of what's gonna happen or what's gonna be perceived as a result of it. I just kinda work on autopilot and then, when it's done, it's done and I have more of an internal sense of when that is. And then I leave it up to the audience to decide if one's better than the other.