DEVIN TOWNSEND Says His Friendship With JASON NEWSTED 'Ended Strangely'

Argentina's Jedbangers magazine recently conducted an interview with Canadian musician/producer Devin Townsend (STRAPPING YOUNG LAD, STEVE VAI, LAMB OF GOD, DARKEST HOUR, GWAR). A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Jedbangers: [Your] song "Resolve!" is too similar to the "Vanilla Radio" song by THE WILDHEARTS. Why did you decide to do that? I mean, I know it's not like you tried to rip them off and get away with it.

Devin: Yes I agree, I was in THE WILDHEARTS for a while, and I LOVE that song ("Vanilla Radio") so when I was jamming one day, "Resolve" just seemed to happen, and it seemed like a great addition to the record, a great homage to THE WILDHEARTS, and I'm a huge fan of [THE WILDHEARTS frontman] Ginger. In the credits for "Addicted", I made it very clear that "Resolve" was a direct influence from THE WILDHEARTS, so I tried to not "get away with it" more than include it because I thought it was a cool statement.

Jedbangers: Are we going to ever see what TREE OF THE SUN (Devin's project with former METALLICA bassist Jason Newsted, Scott Reeder and Dale Crover) sounds like? What memories do you have of working with Jason and Scott?

Devin: I'm sure someone somewhere will find a copy of that...I really liked those two guys; Scott was really cool from what I remember. The relationship with Jason was nice but ended strangely. I had never done acid before, and we did it at his house and I tripped pretty hard and started acting pretty strange with him...I think he's a pretty "straightforward" guy, and I think I freaked him out pretty hard. It was really fucking weird... For several years he was in my life, and then overnight, I never heard from him again. I hope he's well.