As every regular reader of band interviews will know, if it wasn’t for rock’n’roll and heavy metal, our streets would now be overrun by tattooed and hair- teased psychopaths and serial killers. They’d be roaming the cities and the small towns of the US and UK mainly, possibly Belgium, their voracious ids unchecked by the strapping-on of guitars, the mostly melodic expression of personal woes and party pursuits and the adoration of variously numbered, empathetic fans. And yet for all the countless potential monsters who have been saved from their life of frustration-induced crime and recrimination, the number of bands for whom music – and all that goes with it – has been a genuine calling, for whom a sense of something tantalisingly transformative radiating beyond the reaches of instant gratification, of something far bigger than them will shift the co-ordinates of ego, outlook and sheer physical conditioning into a devotional rite and way of life has been.
.. pretty fucking small.
Which is only part of the reason why this rare category of bands – , say, or Devin Townsend – tend to get treated with a particular kind of reverence and awe. Entwined with that is also the awareness that a) you couldn’t do it, and b) they’re like some kind of emissary, gaining access to the same spectrum of reverence and awe that flickers occasionally within your waking, worried hours and then overloading consciousness with it until There. Is.
Nothing. Else. You’ll get that wit.