“My presence in the industry will be much different in about a year and a half”: Devin Townsend hints big changes to musical output

Prog-metal mastermind Devin Townsend has revealed that his future is looking very different indeed.

Dropping hints and breadcrumbs throughout his interview on the latest episode of Kerrang! In Conversation, Devin explained that after the release of his upcoming projects The Moth and Axolotl, we might not see as much from him anymore.

“My objective is to run out of things to say, you know? And then the next part of life, what's starting to appear is like, you need to simplify, you need to pull this all back, you need to get rid of all this shit that you have, all this stuff that you've collected.

“The more I've been privileged to be able to have these experiences, the more it's starting to galvanise the fact that now's the time to make that change.”

Pushed on what this change actually looks like, Devin elaborated that, “I want a simple existence and I want to be at peace with myself and I want to provide for my family and I think that's it. And I will always make music, I will always make art, I will always do the things that I do, but I recognise the more success that I've had and the bigger things I've gotten, the more problematic it's become for my personality, right?”

He continued, “And that gets exacerbated by certain aspects of the industry. It's like, 'Okay, you've done this, so now you can do this, but it's going to require getting back out there and breaking into this market and all this sort of thing.' And when I was younger, I never questioned that. I was just confident in that these are the right decisions, because of course, it's like you want to be successful. But as I get older, I'm like, 'Is that really what you want, though?'

“I enjoy playing music for people in that, if you can make people happy with what you're doing, that's great. That's rewarding. And I'd rather do that than make things worse for people. But I never really thought, 'Oh, I want to be a rock star. I want to be onstage. I just kind of fell into it… But the more I do it, the more I'm just like, I don't know if I like this anymore.”

And when looking ahead to the future, past The Moth opera and Axolotl project, Devin succinctly said, “I can fairly accurately and confidently confirm that my presence in the industry such as it is, will be much different in about a year and a half.”

Does this confirm some kind of winding down? It certainly sounds like we'll be seeing and/or hearing less from Devin post-Axolotl. Listen to the full interview below for more on what the future holds for Hevy Devy, and why he believes the process is more important than the outcome.

Listen to every episode of Kerrang! In Conversation now.