About 8 years ago, when I was watching a late night music video show called Heavy Shift. Some good stuff, some forgettable stuff, and stuff I had seen/heard before. Suddenly Strapping Young Lad's video for S.Y.L. comes on, and I think, "OK, this isn't bad." Then the heavy crunch just before the first chorus kicks in, and by the time Dev is screaming "I fucking hate you!" over and over, I was hooked.
It wasn't long before I had a copy of HAARHT, and for awhile it hardly left my stereo.

About 4-5 years ago I heard him on Ayreon's "Human Equation". I decided to find something about Dev. Then I played Accelerated Evolution.. and now nothing's the same as before

I first heard Wrong Side, after being directed from a Nile video.
I thought: "yeah, cool" then thought nothing of it.

I bought Human Equation and liked his music, then downloaded You Suck and Satan's Ice Cream Truck.
I then heard Earth Day and thought: "This is fucking incredible".

After being diagnosed with Bipolar last year, I fell in love.

please......don't forget yer meds.

we don't need any scenes.

I saw the video for Love? on Fuse in 2005. at first I didn't like it, but then it kept coming on and I got used to it. within a couple weeks I was like "ThIS SHIT IS AWESOME!!!". then I got into Ocean Machine and Infinity... totally creamed my pants in 0.5 seconds... repeatedly...

I saw the video for Love? on Fuse in 2005. at first I didn't like it, but then it kept coming on and I got used to it. within a couple weeks I was like "ThIS SHIT IS AWESOME!!!". then I got into Ocean Machine and Infinity... totally creamed my pants in 0.5 seconds... repeatedly...

i'm sure mom and dad are very proud!

I was a very young lad when i first heard "All Hail the New Flesh" I was around 8 years old City had been out for a few months and we were on our way to our City's Expedition called "Klondike Days"

My older brother and cousins popped in the song (we had one of those discman to cassette deck cords hell yeah old school) and I swear to this day I've never heard something so heavy it blew my fucking mind my neck hurt for days from headbanging so hard

Ever since then I was hooked

I think around 6 or 7 years ago, I heard "Devour" on a Metal Hammer compilation CD. I liked it and decided to buy the SYL album. I thought "Yeah, this is pretty cool". An online friend urged me to join these forums, so I did, and looked on the official HevyDevy site, too. I noticed the solo stuff, listened to the "Life" and "Christeen" samples and thought "OMG THIS IS THE BEST THING I'VE EVER HEARD IN MY LIFE!!!!!" And that was pretty much it The same friend sent me a few tracks and I bought City, AE, Terria, Ocean Machine and Infinity.

A friend and I were discussing death metal and how much of it sucked. The friend was all, "Yeah, but there's good death metal, like that Devin Townsend guy." And then he sent me Earth Day and I fucking wanted more.

Devin Townsend is the real deal in death metal

It must have been 2003 or so when I discovered there was simply "better" music than Korn, LB, In Flames and even Opeth which I started to admire. Then I heard "Bad Devil" on a sampler and didn't consider it as too special.. yet hardrocky or sthg like that. But some months later I read on The Metal Observer e-zine that review for the "For those about to Rock" DVD and ordered it.
I was simply amaaazed by the vocal range (never had that "AHA" feeling again this way) and the look/mimics of that freak

So I went through the SYL discography and started being interested in his solo stuff, led by "Earth Day", "Storm" and so on.. bought the Synchestra edition with Safe Zone DVD later on and was amaaazed again. (It was a slow process, but maybe one of the most important ones in my whole life. I dig everything he does so deeply, except maybe for the Hummer and other ambient-only works)

HevyDevy is since then my second favourite artist of all time. cheers!

I used to really like Sex and Religion when I was pretty young, then discovered SYL when I was 11 and that was when I really got into metal

Heard Love? back in 2005 in a Metal Hammer sample CD when Dev did an interview in Subterranean to promote Alien. Still have that tucked away in my room somewhere. I think hearing that single track was the spark that ignited a proper adoration of music in me (bit late at age 15 but sher...), where before music had just been sort of there and not all that important to me.

The first song I heard was "Universe in a ball". Twas on the radio, a friday night last winter. Before that I didn't even know the man. So I thank the heavens, the radio, my girlfriend, my cat and everything else that helped me get into this one moment when I heard Devin's voice for the first time!!!

Rock'n Roll!

At college with a friend one day, and he hooked his ipod up to some speakers and said "hey man, I think you might like this," and put on Triumph. At the time I was just impressed by the fact that someone could sing and play guitar like that, create an epic song, and just whack some banjo smack bang in the middle. I was need of some more interesting stuff at the time and went home and typed in Devin Townsend on youtube. The first thing I clicked was the video of ki with that awesome slideshow. Gave me goosebumps. Since then I have listened to SO MUCH Dev, exploring the backcatalogue and Strapping, and then when he came to Aus earlier this year, me and a couple of friends went to see him. Amazing experience!!!

About 5 years ago I remember hearing some songs like "Life", "Bastard" and "Christeen" as my brother has the habbit of listening to single songs he digs over and over. I thought it was pretty cool stuff but kinda weird for me as well as at the time my comfort zone in music was more in stuff similiar to Metallica.

Then a year or two later I found Ayreon and listened to The Human Equation quite a bit and found Dev's vocal parts pretty much the most awesome part of the record. Then Ziltoid leaked and my brother had downloaded it so I gave it a few spins. It was so whacky yet so emotional at the same time. So I bought the CD, listened to it a lot over the summer and winter 2007 aand... Then kinda forgot about Devin's music. (I remember trying to get into SYL a couple of times after that but it was a bit too intense back then)

Then Ki came out and my brother downloaded it (cause he was more excited about Dev's music back then, I suppose) but was apparently a bit disappointed.. But when I listened to it... I got TOTALLY hooked. Propably listened to Ki more than I have ever listened to any album so yeah... Over the next months I then started going through everything Dev had done (SYL, solo, Vai etc.) and found pretty much everything amazing so I turned from a casual Dev listener into a huge fan in a matter of weeks.


A bit longer story than just "first experience" but that's how it went (pretty much)...

Summer 2010 and Vampira.

Heard Daniel Lioneye radio interview and he suggested to listen SYL and Devin Townsend (and told about SYL in 2006 Provinssirock). After interview I went to youtube and clicked "vampira" and looked it like wtf is that guy. Soon realized that I've watched the video several times. Then listened more songs from there to there and I was completely addicted to Dev's music.

Are you saying that the lead guitarist of HIM is a fan of Devin? Didn't know that... Cool!

I'll never forget the first time I heard Dev. It was the BtBam tour, my first ever metal show. Scale the Summit was great, and the crowd was pumped. Devin came to the stage and had some funny banter. I was just impressed by this classy bald dude. Then he went into Disruptr. Hol-eee shit. The song seemed to go on forever, and I mean that in the best way possible way. As each verse increased in intensity I became more and more entranced by the music. And then when he went all opera voice with DIIIIIIISTRACTIONS and I was just like "Damn". Good times.