Following is an excerpt from a new interview with Devin Townsend conducted by Ultimate Guitar. He discusses working with Nickelback frontman Chad Kroeger, and working on his long awaited project, Moth.
UG: Speaking of all the different people you've collaborated with — you also had Chad Kroeger from Nickelback on your Empath album. And this was a pretty interesting combination. You wouldn't expect Devin Townsend to work with Nickelback. What was it like to work with Chad on that album?
Townsend: "Chad's brilliant. Chad is a phenomenally intelligent human being. But he's a rockstar, too, on levels that you and I will never participate in. And so there's gonna be a disconnect just based on that. You only have a few things in common, and then, after a while you run out of things to talk about.
I think it was flattering for me at first, too. But again, guy's got a very complex life, and I can't understand a lot of it. How could I? it's not within the realm of my world. But I think he's exceptionally talented. I think he's phenomenally intelligent. And I think that there's a certain degree of intensity to his life that I just can't hang with, man. It's too much for me. For every hour of social activity, I need two hours on my own to recover.
And there's other people, and a lot of them are the people that end up being at that level of success that are never enough. You play a concert in an arena, and then you go to a club, and then you go parasailing, and then you drink all night. And I'm like, 'I can't do it.' I hate it. Even if I respect and care for people, after a certain amount of time, again, I have to tap out. I'm like, 'Dude, I can't hang with this.' I'm in bed by nine, usually. I don't want to listen to Pantera at four in the morning, you know?
And that's not a character flaw at all, it's just a different frequency that folks like that exist on. I'm not like that. But sometimes it takes experiences with folks like that to know that. Maybe you think you can hang, and then you get there. With Chad, I remember being at his house a couple times, and just being, 'Wow, this is so intense, man.' He had a stage set up, and it's metal all night. And I'm thinking like, 'Man, you are so much more of a metalhead than I am.' But I do care for him. And I think he's brilliant."
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Townsend's Empath album was released in 2019. Kroeger is credited with additional vocals on the song "Hear Me".
