Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing

***Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing*** is the debut album by Canadian extreme metal band Strapping Young Lad, released on April 4, 1995.

## Background

Strapping Young Lad began in 1995 as a solo project of Canadian musician Devin Townsend. Following his work as vocalist on Steve Vai's 1993 album *Sex & Religion* and its 1994 tour, Townsend believed he had been a "musical whore", spending "the first five years of [his] career working at the behest of other people". During a brief stint as touring guitarist for The Wildhearts, Townsend received a phone call from an A&R representative for Roadrunner Records, expressing an interest in his demos and an intention to sign him. The offer was ultimately rescinded by the head of Roadrunner, who regarded Townsend's recordings as "just noise". He faced further rejection by Relativity Records, the label behind Vai's *Sex & Religion*, who saw no commercial appeal in his music. Century Media subsequently contacted the musician, offering him a contract to "make us some extreme albums". Townsend agreed to a five-album deal with the record label.

Following his tour with the Wildhearts, Townsend began recording and producing his debut album, *Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing*, under the moniker Strapping Young Lad. According to Townsend, the recording process took "about a week". Embracing The Wildhearts' anarchist approach "while focusing on dissonance and just being as over-the-top as [he] could", Townsend sang on the record and performed the majority of its instrumental tracks (with the assistance of a drum machine). A few songs, however, featured local session musicians, including guitarist Jed Simon, Townsend's future bandmate in SYL.

The chorus of bonus track "Japan" was reused in "The Death of Music" from *Ocean Machine*.

## Release and reception

Released on April 4, 1995, *Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing* was not widely recognized in the metal community. The album sold 143 copies in its first six months, but received favourable reviews from the heavy metal press. Its unusual musical ideas — a synthesis of death, thrash, and industrial metal influences — prompted Andy Stout from Metal Hammer magazine to call it "one of the most disturbing albums you'll hear for a very long time". Nevertheless, Townsend has repeatedly expressed his distaste for the recording. He dismissed the album in the liner notes of the record's 2006 reissue, contending that it contained only two great songs (the opening two). He also deemed its production poor in interviews, referring to the album as "basically a collection of demos that were remixed". When Century Media advertised the reissue of *Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing* as the "rebirth of a genre-defying classic", Townsend called it "record company bullshit".

The album was remastered and reissued on June 12, 2006, by Century Media Europe with revamped cover art. The re-release contains several bonus tracks taken from international versions of the album, the previously unreleased outtake "Monday," and the video for "S.Y.L." encoded in the data section.

## Liner notes

*Note: This text appears in the 2006 reissue:*

> *Yup, this was the genesis of the Lad. Here's the scoop... I had done the Vai band and a bunch of other shit that ended up presenting, at a relatively young age, the ugly disillusionment of the music industry that some find much later in their careers. I had been signed and dropped by Relativity Records, as well as Roadrunner, based on early demos named Noisescapes that would become SYL material. I had, at that time, included songs that would later be split between Ocean Machine and SYL. On the demos were the songs "The Filler," "Skin Me," "Funeral," "L.A.," "Amsterdam" and "Goat." Relativity deemed the project "schizophrenic" (ha!), and although Monte Conner at Roadrunner was into it (so he said), the owner heard the tape, thought it was "just noise" and said that he never wanted to hear my name again. (Oh well, it cost them an ass-kissing trip to New York and the most expensive thing on the fucking menu.) I told Monte at that point that I had another project that I had been saving that sounded like their current best-seller (Type O Negative); he said he was interested, so I used their FedEx account to send them a box of rocks and a photo of my asshole with the words "Thanks to Monte, Cees and all the lovely folks at Roadrunner". I think the photo is still on their wall.*
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> *Anyway, Monte is a cool shit and he gave me the mercy fuck of sending my demo to tiny Century Media Records. They presented me a deal that my lawyer at the time said was suicide. I just wanted a CD to put on my wall, and I thought my career was a lost cause, so I agreed to sign on the condition that it would be a nonexclusive deal, meaning I would do all the chaotic mental music for them, as long as I was free to shop Ocean Machine and my other solo stuff elsewhere. (Can you say, "Whew..."???) As Century Media grew, and we made better music over time, the deal got better and our relationship now is stellar. We were just kids, all of us.*
>
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> *Anyway, I phoned up the A&R guy at the time, Borivoj Krgin (Blabbermouth), who I credit for starting this whole thing, and he said, "Dick, nobody else wants your shit, so don't get demanding with anything, 'cause you're lucky we're even talking to your lame ass." I later moved in with him and Ula Gehret, who, at the time, also worked at the LA office. I really valued their advice and friendship, but Bori must have called me "dick" 150,000 times during the negotiations. When Byron first met Bori and was called "dick", Byron told him that it could only help our career if he was known as the guy who knocked him the fuck out. The "dick" ratio went down.*
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> *So all was said and done. I had a shitty deal, and they had a shitty band. Well, not even a band, because I just had a bunch of demos, and that was it. They gave me some money, and I went about the convoluted process of making Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing, essentially a bunch of demos with two good songs. ("SYL and "In the Rainy Season," the only things remaining in our live set from that time.) It was recorded at a whole bunch of lo-fi shitty studios and (very poorly) reflected my influences at the time (Fear Factory - Soul of a New Machine), Carcass - Heartwork, Entombed - Wolverine Blues, and a bunch of industrial bands like Skinny Puppy, Grotus, Pitchshifter, Meathook Seed). I had finished with the Wildhearts just prior to this, and they were so anti everything that I decided to take a similar approach while focusing on dissonance and just being as over-the-top as I could. Songs didn't really matter; it was just the intensity and the vibe plus lots of humor. Screaming and laughing are pretty close, I think, and I have just never been "hard," so we do what comes naturally, right? Right. Fart jokes it is. I was really stoked on the first two songs as songs, and City eventually was spawned from those, but for the rest... I REALLY didn't give a fuck. I just wanted my brain to stop exploding and hearing my version of chaos made it easier to deal with the nicer music. Most of the stuff was recorded at Mushroom Studios with our buddy Blair Calibaba. I was really into Fear Factory's EP Fear is the Mindkiller and got Greg Reely (who was from Vancouver and mixed that) to mix the Strapping record. I took photos with buddies to pretend we were a band. One of those guys was the mighty Jed Simon... who is the only one remaining from that time. I knew that he was a great metal guitar player, and he looked cool, and he became an integral part to what we are now. Jed's influence has been there from the beginning.*
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> *The first incarnation of SYL began as the following: Jed was a must-have. He was the coolest guitar player in Vancouver, and he wasn't in his band anymore. I got together with him and kind of spelled out my ideas for the first record, and he was interested in being a part of it. I wanted a drummer who hit consistently hard and could do blast and grind beats. I jammed with a few local drummers with the material, and although they could blast, they were "tappers". Adrian White was in a local band with a bunch of buddies of ours named Process, and they were the best around; he could blast, and he beat the fuck out of the drums. I got together with him and started showing him material, and although it wasn't a perfect match, he was, and still is, a phenomenal drummer. (Later he went on to play with Frontline Assembly and Simple Plan.) Byron had fired me from his band because I wanted to do other types of material (fag), so I actually didn't go to him first. What I did do, however, was visit a local music store and met Ashley Scribner. He was originally a guitar player, but he had a look like Byron, and I wanted him to try bass. He learned quickly and was an attribute to this version of Strapping. I had finished the Vai band a few years later and was so sick of guitar that I decided I wanted to be just the frontman. Jed had been in a band with his buddy Mike Sudar years ago, and he suggested him. Mike is an awesome guitar player, and he put up with a very juvenile Dev who didn't communicate well with him when I decided that I wanted to play guitar. Sorry bro... thanks for not decking me...*
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> *Live, all the samples were on a stereo VCR that Adrian played to with a click. It was unreliable and inflexible for the vibe I wanted to represent live, and there were many live "bloopers" as a result ("Rainy Season"'s chorus a bar ahead kinda of things). Our first show was at a place an hour out of Vancouver called Chilliwack. The venue was called Greg's Place, and Byron and Mossy (The Heavils) showed up on mushrooms to see us playing Twisted Sister covers and doing the Scorpions triangle... seriously... we sucked. Hard. They watched the show like we were wearing their clothes.*
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> *SYL V1.0 did one "tour" - a shitty self-booked jaunt down the West Coast of North America that ended with the infamous same-day booking at a club in LA named Malone's (made infamous by the fabulous Cryptic Coroner) where our buddy Ula booked us at 4:00 in the afternoon, and we played at 8:00 PM to four local drunks and a crazy old lady. Ashley was banging his head like a bowling ball on a spring, and he backed up into a mirror and it smashed on him. I was flipping my mic and smashed the roof (the owner was really pissed). We stopped at Carl's Jr. after the show, and I phoned Tracy to tell her how bad the show was. I left my wallet at the phone booth, and Ula had to lend us $400.00 to get home. Thanks buddy.*
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> *Bryan Seely, our current tour manager and buddy since the teen years, suggested his girl Tanya Rudy to take our photos down at the local mud pits. (Tanya, as well, had been in our circle forever.) Borivoj sent me the sales reports of the first six months with the words, "Dick, check out these whopping sales reports!" The sales of which were 143 units... (Hopefully, we've upped it since then!)*
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> *Heavy as a Really Heavy thing was, and still is, essentially a collection of demos that luckily morphed into something cool on City. The first two songs are definitely Strapping fodder, just enjoy the rest of it for the obnoxious mess that it is. I enjoyed doing it, and it set a precendent, so for those reasons (and maybe not for songs like "Cod Metal King"), it is a (ahem) classic.*
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> *Fuck you all,*
> *Devin*
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> *P.s. This record is dedicated to my stinky bum.*
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>

*Note: This text appears in The Complete Works vinyl box:*

> *I was signed to Relativity Records for an ill-fated project called Noisescapes. The record was never finished but what was completed was rejected by the label for being too "schizophrenic". Basically, the genesis of Strapping Young Lad and Ocean Machine were present in one place, and the label felt that the dichotomy between the two styles would be two confusing to an audience.*
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> *I tried to solicit these demos to other labels, but ultimately, this view was shared by all parties. I then moved to Birmingham, UK, to fill in as guitarist for my friends' band, The Wildhearts, and while there, began focusing on more aggressive material. The songs from this first record were written during my time in the UK. In the Rainy Season, SYL, and the other "pivotal" songs on "Heavy..." were written while we were touring Europe with Suicidal Tendencies. It was initially considered by Roadrunner Records, but they eventually passed it to Century Media Records - a new label, based out of Germany and Los Angeles, specializing in extreme music.*
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>
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> *Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing was recorded at Mushroom Studios in Vancouver and mixed by Greg Reely at the guitarist from Loverboy's house. I worked on the music with drummer Adrian White, who also played on Punky Brüster. It was a very uncertain period, and the most direct reflection of my frame-of-mind was this odd, angry, very "red"-feeling album. The production is spotty (I have produced all my own work), and the songwriting has some serious peaks and valleys. But as an introduction, it was pretty representative of who I was at the time.*
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## Track Listing

All songs written by Devin Townsend except where noted.

1. "S.Y.L." (4:47) [Townsend, Adrian White]
2. "In the Rainy Season" (4:37) [Townsend, Adrian White]
3. "Goat" (3:30)
4. "Cod Metal King" (5:08)
5. "Happy Camper (Carpe B.U.M.)" (3:00) [Townsend, Adrian White]
6. "Critic" (4:07)
7. "The Filler: Sweet City Jesus" (5:24)
8. "Skin Me" (3:29)
9. "Drizzlehell" (3:09)
10. "Satan's Ice Cream Truck" (2:33)
**Bonus tracks (Japan, Europe, reissue)**
11. "Japan" (5:18) [Townsend, Adrian White]
12. "Monday" (5:14)
13. "Exciter (Judas Priest cover)" (6:06) [Rob Halford, Glenn Tipton]

## Personnel

* Devin Townsend – guitar, vocals, keyboards, programming, mixing, editing, production, arrangements, art direction (as Nived)

### Additional musicians

* Adrian White – drums
* Jed Simon – additional guitar ("Critic", "Skin Me")
* Chris Byes – drums ("Critic", "The Filler: Sweet City Jesus")
* Chris Meyers – additional keyboards ("Goat", "Skin Me")
* Greg Price – assistant on drum programming ("Skin Me", "Drizzlehell")
* Smokin' Lord Toot – drums ("Cod Metal King")
* Stooly and E: Val Yum – Bon Jovi gang vocals
* Ashley Scribner – bass
* Mike Sudar – guitar

### Production

* Blair Calibaba – engineering
* Rod Michaels – additional engineering ("Critic")
* Greg Reely – editing, mixing
* Jason Mausa – mixing ("The Filler: Sweet City Jesus")
* Jamie Myers – additional editing
* Doctor Skinny – additional mixing
* Brian Gardner – mastering
* Tania Rudy – photography
* Byron Stroud – photography
* Robert Lowden – cover art
* Borivoj Krgin – A&R

## References

1. ↑ Rocca interview with Townsend, Loudmouth issue 2, 1997
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 [http://www.axs.com.au/~vk3aaw/devhard1.htm Townsend interviewed by 3RRR FM Australia (April 1997)
3. ↑ Devin Townsend: 'I Don't Have Anything To Say With Strapping Young Lad Anymore' (2006)
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 *Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing* reissue liner notes (Townsend, 2006)
5. ↑ Strapping Young Lad - *The New Black* Review
6. ↑ Metal Hammer April 1997 (Stout, Alan)
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Konstantinos interview with SYL

## External Links

* *Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing* at Discogs