When Alien came out, I was in the "yeah man, this is heavy, but we need to go deeper!"-phase that many metalheads may recognize. Well, my dad (who has a most peculiar taste in music) saw a review for the new album, checked it out and gave me a burned copy to listen to. I don't remember what I thought of the first tracks, but after "We Ride" I was, like many, thinking; "WTF is this!? Give me MOAR!". It was like riding an angry velociraptor on acid through the surface of an exploding star.

So I was (also, like many) first hooked on SYL. Eventually I stumbled upon Ocean Machine. Turning back was no longer a viable option. Gradually the solo-stuff grew to have an even greater impact on my life than SYL.

As for what I like about Dev's music, I think mymomlikesdogs pretty much nailed it. I love theatrical music, packed with emotion (even if it's cheesy... especially if it's cheesy) and huge melodies. I love the intricacy and the details that he takes the time to lay on his tunes.

A friend burned me a copy of Terria back in 2002. At the time, it was the most amazing piece of music I had heard So, it didn't take very long until I had bought all four albums released by then.

It was the year 2000 and I was 16 years old. I walked into my local record store and listened to both Ocean Machine and Physicist at a listening station. I was heavy into Metallica, Megadeth etc at the time and wanted something heavy but different. I purchased both albums and have been following Dev's stuff ever since. I remember anticipating Terria for almost all of 2001, I thought that album would never get released! Now here I am 10 years later hopelessly anticipating Decon and Ghost.

I heard Devin for the 1st time with Ocean machine and City in 1998 i think (i was 15 at that time). Since that, i'm an addict (to Dev tssssss). That's fucking sad that the best artist on earth isn't as famous as people like MJ or the Beatles.

I personally don't think enough people in this world deserve to listen to him.

I think I first heard Devin in late 2004 when I was really getting in to guitar virtuoso music (Steve Vai, etc). I jammed all of Vai's albums, including Sex & Religion. I didn't know I had heard Devin though, as I paid no attention to who was singing. About a year later, I was recommended I get Accelerated Evolution. I enjoyed that album so much, I got the rest of Devin's stuff. As I did more research on Dev, I saw he was on S&R, so I came to these forums and asked which tracks he was on, and learned he was on all of them except Rescue Me or Bury Me. Cool story, huh?

I first heard Dev when a friend played me Pig from Vai's Sex & Religion (I loved P&W and had wanted to know if S&R was worth buying...) and it was such a mess of a song that I didn't bother with S&R, which in retrospect was a shame. It's a bit of a patchy album, but there are some good songs on there and some phenomenal performances from Dev.

Dev's name stuck around as someone I should try and investigate by virtue of him joining the Wildhearts briefly (the Wildhearts being easily my favourite band for several years after hearing Earth vs. in late '93) but there weren't really many opportunities to hear samples of his music at the time so I never managed to do so at the time...

...until .mp3s were born and downloading music meant you could get at artists that YOU wanted to hear. It would've been about 2002 that Dev's name came up again as someone I should give a try (I think from Ginger Wildheart name dropping SYL) and I got my hands on some of his music. It was certainly between the releases of Terria and AE.

These days him and Rush fight it out at the top of my Last.FM playlist.

I can't remember the year I first heard Devin, but I certainly remember the place. I heard "Storm" on SnakeNet Metal Radio.

I don't know if you're familiar with that site, but they have a list of most of the albums in an artist's catalog. You can quickly "catch-up" on an artist just by browsing their site.

So AE was my first CD. OM was next, and that was pretty much it... I was hooked!

Loved his parts on Ayreon's The Human Equation, looked him up from there and...

Storm (through a previous incarnation of this site) is the first Dev song I hear. Boom, headshot.

This.

For me it was Fly, i'd heard the stuff about Dev being a monster metal head and all that with SYL but I was blown away by that. Then I heard Deadhead and I added another artist to my top 5 lol

The City video on a belgian music channel, around 2000.

A friend gave me a copy of the Synchestra album and told me THIS IS THE SHIT!!!! But I was like meh.. and left it on my desk for about a month and forgot about it. Then one day I looked at it and said why not. After hearing Triumph I was like zoomg epic!! And I've been a fan since '07.

Devin! Never stop making music!! =)

Back in the days when I was addicted to Fear Factory I started to search for other industrial metal-bands and eventually I read about SYL, then I heard a song from the self titled record and, hold on to your hats now, I did not like it at all. Eventually I gave SYL a second chance and gave “All Hail hte New Flesh” a listen, after that I bought “Heavy As A Really Heavy Thing” and “City” and eventually got into Devin's solo stuff.

When Vai was putting together the band Light Without Heat, as it was called then, and it was announced he had a new vocalist..soon after it was reported that same vocalist had been deported, lol.

Saw them at hammersmith on the Sex And Religion tour, earlier that day met Steve and Dev at a signing at Tower Records. Both were warm and friendly, I asked Dev how the tour was going , he said it was great but he was tired.

Andrew Haug's metal radio show on 3RRR, City, early 90's.