page_title: Devin Townsend
section_title: Projects
hierarchical_section_title: Devin Townsend / Musical style / Projects
caption_attribution_description: Strapping Young Lad at the Tribute to Flame Fest 2006
context_page_description: Devin Garrett Townsend is a Canadian musician, songwriter and record producer. He founded extreme metal band Strapping Young Lad and was its primary songwriter, vocalist, and guitarist from 1994 to 2007, and has had an extensive career as a solo artist.
  After performing in a number of heavy metal bands in high school, Townsend was discovered by a record label in 1993 and asked to perform lead vocals on Steve Vai's album Sex & Religion. After recording and touring with Vai, Townsend was discouraged by what he found in the music industry, and vented his anger on the solo album Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing, released under the pseudonym Strapping Young Lad. He soon assembled a band under the name, and released the critically acclaimed City in 1997. Since then, he has released three more studio albums with Strapping Young Lad, along with solo material released under his own independent record label, HevyDevy Records.
  Townsend's solo albums, a mix of hard rock, progressive metal, ambient, and new-age, have featured a varying lineup of supporting musicians. In 2002 he formed the Devin Townsend Band, a dedicated lineup which recorded and toured for two of his solo releases.
context_section_description: Townsend designed his two main projects, the aggressive Strapping Young Lad and his more melodic solo material, as counterparts. Strapping Young Lad's music was a diverse mix of extreme metal genres: death metal, thrash metal, black metal and industrial metal. Townsend's solo material blends many genres and influences, with elements of atmospheric ambient music, hard rock and progressive rock, along with glam metal and arena rock. He described it as "a highly orchestrated type of expansive music based in hard rock and heavy metal. Dense and produced with a large amount of ambient elements." Despite Strapping Young Lad's greater mainstream acceptance, Townsend identifies more with his solo material, and has never intended Strapping Young Lad to be the focus of his music.
caption: Townsend (right) performing with Strapping Young Lad in Bologna, Italy (2006).
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