“I don’t talk to anybody in the band anymore” – Devin Townsend excludes any possibility of Strapping Young Lad reunion

Devin Townsend, Canadian musician and producer, has reaffirmed that he has no intention of reuniting with Strapping Young Lad, the groundbreaking industrial metal group he led until 2007. Townsend has been asked frequently since the band’s breakup if he would form Strapping again, but he has only responded by citing the emotional and physical toll the band took on him as well as his desire to pursue new artistic endeavours. In light of the recent comeback announcements from Oasis and Linkin Park, Devin was asked in a recent interview with Teraz Rock of Poland if Strapping Young Lad will be the “next big band” to reunite.

I don’t think so, no. don’t think so. I don’t talk to anybody in the band anymore. And the person that I am 25 years past that is just I’m a different person. And I don’t want to. I think that’s my answer. And it’s a hard one because that’s tinged with guilt because I know other people want it. But if there’s anything I’ve learned over the past couple of years is that I have to pay attention to my own needs, and I just don’t want to at all.

It’s clear that he cannot please everybody.

Well, no, no. I can’t please anybody, but I can work on myself. And my hope is that anybody who listens to the music will see — maybe one or two people — would see that as inspiring. I think there’s a lot of other people who want to please everybody, and for many years my whole personality was based on people pleasing. Like, I just wanna make everybody happy — I wanna make the audience happy, I wanna make my family happy, I wanna make kids happy, I wanna make management happy, I wanna make the label happy — and so you’re always kind of dancing for people. But then, after a certain amount of time when you hit a wall and you get burnt out and you fucking crash, like I did, I was, like, who the fuck are you doing this for? Why are you so insecure that your needs are to make everybody like you? It’s not the way forward artistically and it’s not the way forward as a person. And so I do what is right for me now. And it’ll appeal to less people in some way, but it’s what I choose, man, because it’s, like, life is short, and that’s what I want.