I know this is my second time asking for help on an assigment, but I have somehow related an R.E asignment to Devin Townsend.

My task:
Create a presentation, such as a storyboard, that shows the triumph of goodness over evil. The presentation can be EITHER a natural evil OR a moral evil. The presentation mush show the story of the evil and explain how the transformation to goodness occured. Images AND text need to be included. The work can be presented in a variety of ways such as a hard copy posted or a digital presentation.

I have chosen to do Devin Townsend, removing all substances (drugs, ect) from his life.

Any help whatsoever on how to do this would be appreciated.

[swervedriver]

I don't mean to knock you for your choice of subjects, but this one isn't easy if the point is to show HOW the transformation occurred. Also, while I'll be the first in line to say drugs are bad/evil, you cannot deny that it spawned some awesomesauce like Infinity or Alien. I don't think the argument "when on drugs Dev wrote bad music, now that he's clean he writes good music" is valid (if you were planning to use that one). You'll have to take it to a very personal level, and even though I've seen Dev make some personal posts, explaining the why behind the transition will be fairly difficult. I suggest reading some interviews done around the Ziltoid-era and some of the ones from around the Ki-release, in which he explains some of his past. I have my reservations on whether this will make for a solid story though. Good luck in any case.

Personally I'd go for Darth Vader as subject matter. Or maybe Dr. Evil.

I was more aiming for an approach to how angry and depressed hew was in The New Black Tour, compared to now.

Or, you can choose a better subject.

Goddamn, fanboyism goes far...but to do two projects on a guy? That's a bit stalker-like.

Only because I can, and I am a fan of his music.
Its too late to change subject

Or, you can choose a better subject.

Goddamn, fanboyism goes far...but to do two projects on a guy? That's a bit stalker-like.

He's just too lazy to do it himself so he relies on us to do it for him

Not to lazy, I justs assumed the Devin Townsend forums would be the best place to get 1 on 1 information on this subject. To be fair, the first assignment wasn't on Devin, it was on modern music and the music industry.

[swervedriver]

Like I said, look up interviews from all the relevant times then and extract the necessary info. There's a stickied interviews thread in this forum, but it's fairly new. Fortunately Google can be your best friend if you treat it well and ask the right questions.

To be honest, I don't think I could better describe the 'why' of the transition (from the things I've read) better than "At some point Devin realised that his lifestyle was self-destructive to himself, his family and friends and so he quit. It was a hard decision to make.". Or something, I dunno. I'm a bad biographer.

You could also argue that Devin was only doing TNB to fulfill the 5-album deal with the label and not really being behind the SYL music anymore, hence the depression. Now that he's free (I'M FREEEEEE!) he's calmer and happier. Drugs may have played a role here, amplifying such feelings but perhaps the abdication of them has more of a health-related reason (eg. drugs cancel out the effect of the medication for bipolar disease) than any other.


If you came here with that question expecting an answer from Dev on this personal matter I'd think that to be rather rude and intrusive. He may think otherwise though. It's not like I know what's right or not.

I'd do it on The Transformers!

Thank you swervedriver, your information has been quite helpful on this topic, I didn't expect a reply from Devin himself, I only wanted ones of fans such as you.

You should consider that Devin never said that drugs etc. are "evil" or that finally "goodness" has triumphed. He always talked about it in a very personal way, that it was the best to him to quit some addictions, because he realized they weren't good for him (anymore?). I read an interview by him from 2001, i think, where he said, that he not really liked to use drugs etc., but that they were really helpful at that time and eventually necessary to deal with some issues he had at this time and avoid even more dangerous or destructive actions. It took a few years for him to find another (obviously better) way to deal with his life, but i think it was never the point for him to say that those times were "evil" and everything is "good" now.
Because you can't change the subject, maybe you could give it a little self-ironic or self-reflective touch that points out, that it's quite hard to see those "black & white" good/evil things in real life.

Edit: The interview by Michael Schübeler was called "Devin Townsend: The mental battle of light and dark" (november 2000). It was in the press-section of the old hevydevy-page, but isn't anymore...

[The Dev]

No good or evil, only pleasure and pain.

No good or evil, only pleasure and pain.

pretty profound.

Yeah, it's over simplifying the matter by calling drugs evil, "drugs" is merely the cultural codifier we attribute to certain chemicals we as a society disapprove of, caffeine, tobacco and aspirin are all still drugs and I don't think there is any morality involved in any of those, although I avoid all three as much as I can.

The notion of these substances as either good or evil is a bit strange, it's personifying the drug, giving it a character of moral ineptitude and applying the same character to the user. I don't like that at all.

As Dev said, there is no good or evil. Some of the best thinkers and artists of the 1800-1950s were heavily dependant on opium, similarly, some of the best artists of the 1950s+ were and are baked out of their mind and suffer no ill health, mental or physical. It's a choice and it always is. To indulge in cannabis does not instantly label you a bad person, except in the eyes of the law. Do legal drugs make you a good person? I think not.

I was more aiming for an approach to how angry and depressed hew was in The New Black Tour, compared to now.

Remember Dev is also bipolar and SYL was his release at the time, you can't blame all the anger and depression on the drugs. SYL as Dev says was an outlet for his pissed off at the world youth. His quitting of drugs can be attributed at least to growing up, he's a dad now, and not a twenty-something rocker.

If drugs help people through hard times, and I don't think you can unequivocally say they don't, how can they be considered evil...

Sorry, I'm going to stop now, I'm in the middle of writing an anthropology report into the motivation behind drugs and I'm getting sidetracked I also like a good smoke myself and I am not evil