Devin Townsend shares some of his earliest concert memories and favorite music with Ghost Cult:
Johnny Cash at The Expo. It was cool. I liked it and then it was Billy Joel, and that was really good. I was maybe 13, 14. The first metal show I saw was Metallica and it was fucking awesome! I loved it and i think eureka moment happened with all of that, but I remember specifically that one.
Easily, I remember Gretchen Goes To Nebraska by King’s X or Nothing Shocking by Jane’s Addiction, but then I saw the Ride The Lightening tour by Metallica, and Def Leppard. I love Stravinsky and all these show tunes and everything and new age. I think this show that I saw that really fucking set me off was Mr. Bungle and I was a big fan of Mr. Bungle for sure. I was on the box and I was super into it, but the opener fucked me up in such a way, I liked Mr. Bungle, he was great, but this covered the band and the band was called Grotus. They were from San Francisco and they were unsigned. They had independent records. The potential in what I saw of what they did was just so awesome. It was like bleak and industrial like a savage dystopian thing, but it was like a real workman, tribal primitive thing. I was like “dude I fucking loved them. “I would die. Every time they came to town, I would bug them. They’d see me at the show and they’d be like, “it’s that fuking guy.” I’d be like “hey guys, wanna play something tonight? You can come stay at my place if you want.” They’d be like “no dude, we’re good.” It’s funny because I remember I was in Strapping (Young Lad) and we used a line from a song called ‘Black’. I got a hold of the singer and I was like hey man, I’m in a band now and were doing a bunch of stuff. We’d like to use these lyrics, blah, blah, blah. I don’t know if you remember me, but when you were in Vancouver, you used to play shows, and he was like “yeah dude, we remember you.” They had two albums. They had Brown and Slow Motion Apocalypse that did it for me. They have an online live performance of the song called Brown from like mid 90s. Check it out. It’s fucking awesome.
Catch Devin Townsend Project on tour with Between The Buried and Me and Fallujah. Transcendence is out now from InsideOut Music.
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