By Carl Begai

Ryan Van Poederooyen made his mark in recent years as the drummer for an array of DEVIN TOWNSEND projects and bright ideas. Fans of the former STRAPPING YOUNG LAD will recognize Ryan’s name from the Accelerated Evolution, Synchestra and Addicted albums, while those that get out to the live shows or spend time perusing YouTube will spot his evil-Dev-twin haircut behind the kit and the hammer-meets-groove playing style. It wasn’t Ryan’s work with Townsend that fuelled this interview, however. Instead, the focus was put on his long suffering side-project TERROR SYNDROME thanks to a recent encounter with ANNIHILATOR frontman Dave Padden, who became the voice of the band in 2008 following the release of the self-titled debut.

Ryan offers a look into the how and why of Terror Syndrome, and assures his fanbase that in spite of how busy he may be at the moment there will indeed be a second album. Eventually.

“Devin broke up Strapping Young Lad and the Devin Townsend Band in 2007 because he was at a point in his career where all he wanted to do was production work,” he begins, summing up Townsend’s completely unexpected but short-lived hiatus from music. “He was having a kid, and as far as he was concerned he was done with making music. We always kept in touch with him and told him that if he ever got fired up again, we’d be around. In the meantime I wanted to do a project, which was a solo album, really. I just wanted to write music and offer my take on metal. I wrote a bunch of songs, talked to several very cool musicians about guesting on it, and ended up recording the album. I paid for everything, I co-wrote some songs with people, I drummed on it, I produced it – there was no label, no management, nothing like that at all – and I got an overwhelming response. It was crazy seeing the number of people coming to our MySpace page.”

In spite of the initial buzz – back when MySpace wasn’t the digital swamp it is now – Terror Syndrome seemed to fall off the map before Padden joined the band. In fact, news that he’d come on board was the last real spike on the chart.

“Things were still going well when Dave started to get in there,” Ryan insists. “It was a little bit after that where Terror Syndrome kind of fell off the map. One of the reasons for that is, from Day 1 there’s never been any promotion other than through my website. Even with the sales we’ve had through iTunes and stuff like that, it was really surprising to get such a huge reaction because there was no promo. I made a lot of the money that I put into it back, which got me to thinking that if I did that with zero promotion, imagine the damage that could be done with proper management in place.”

Adding Padden to the Terror Syndrome line-up only sweetens the possibilities. Once considered to be a lame successor to vocalist Joe Comeau, Padden has become an integral part of Annihilator guitarist / founder Jeff Waters’ creative process.

“It’s an amazing line-up,” Ryan says of the current Annihilator roster . “I know Annihilator has had a lot of great singers in the past, but I’m sorry, Dave Padden is the champ. He’s the diamond in the rough. Whenever they’re on tour I check out the YouTube footage, and those guys are amazing. Dave and Jeff gel perfectly together and it’s an awesome combination. That’s how I feel about Dave being in Terror Syndrome. I have a great connection with Denton, the original singer who did the first record. We have a long history and our chemistry was incredible. What he laid down on the album was perfect; it was exactly how I’d imagined it. When Dave came in the chemistry didn’t change all that much. Their styles are a little bit different but they have a lot of the same approaches as well. It was a seamless transition because Dave is very easy to work with and a complete professional.”

Talk is cheap, of course, and folks are waiting to hear the “new” Terror Syndrome in action.

“As far as that goes, Dave and I were supposed to get some writing done a couple months ago,” Ryan reveals, “but things have just blown up in the Devin camp (laughs). It was really hard for us to get together, but the plan is for us to write an album’s worth of material in 2011. The thing is, the Devin Townsend Project is my bread and butter just like Annihilator is for Dave; it obviously takes priority over anything I do. When I’m called upon to do the Devin stuff, I have to put everything else down, but ultimately I’d love to start recording the new Terror Syndrome album this year. We’ll be doing it all ourselves again, but I kind of like it that way because if you get label interest or distribution deals, you still own your product.”

Click here for more, featuring an in-depth discussion with Ryan about working with Devin Townsend and performing on the forthcoming album, Deconstruction.