Canadian vocalist / guitarist / producer Devin Townsend recently sat down with BigMusicGeek.com for a career-spanning interview. An excerpt is available below.

Q: In hindsight, how do you feel about the Sex And Religion era of your career? As a life-long Steve Vai fan, particularly of the Flex-Able (1984) and Passion And Warfare (1990) era, the music was a tremendous surprise.

Devin: “Well, I'm really good friends with Steve now, which is great. I talked to him yesterday. We're doing things together and we're good friends, so it's really cool. There was a fifteen year span where I hated everything about that project, but I don't think it had much to do with the project, the music or Steve. It had to do with my preconceptions of what it was going to be. I was a kid from Vancouver and was like 'I want to go to LA'. I didn't realize what my connection to music was. When I went down there, I didn't realize that music is everything to me. It has difficult to see music used like a commodity, to see people trying to write hit singles on purpose or using chords that have been exhaustively investigated through market research as to what sells. I remember being like 'My God, this is totally contrary to what my perception of music was'. When I started Strapping Young Lad, I kept thinking to myself 'If it's not about the beauty, then I just want it to burn', which was my reaction to it at the time. Through doing Strapping Young Lad, I learned about accountability and what you say coming back to you. All of that is a direct result of those experiences and Steve's influence. Without him, without Sex And Religion, I probably wouldn't have what I've got going on today at all. But there's also something about it that I thought and still think was awkward. Steve was coming off of Passion And Warfare and my involvement with him really wasn't what people wanted to hear. Some people still like what I did, but it was like 'Here's Steve Vai' and all they wanted to hear was him.”

Read the complete interview here.