Devin Townsend interview (excerpt)

And speaking of the right tour package, you’re heading out with Dream Theater, who I know you’re familiar with and Animals as Leaders. It’s a pretty great package for prog fans.

Yeah! I don’t tour a lot, and so when I do, I really want to make it count in a way. My primary objectives are to write, now more than ever. And so when tours come up, of which they get offered all the time, I almost unanimously turn them down. But this was great for a lot of reasons, because I think that the package is three very distinct aesthetics and characteristics.

Dream Theater has got a very loyal fan base, but it’s very different music than what I do. And typically the crossover from that has been slight, to be honest, because I think the reasons for the music between myself and Dream Theater are coming from different places.

But what I found by touring with them is that I really enjoyed their company. I really appreciate their musicianship and I think we’re more on the same page than either of us had assumed. And I think, really, one of the fundamental ways in which that is the case is there’s no drama. You know, sometimes when you’re on tour you have divas or you’ve got people who have got no consideration for others or they’re always there, if that makes sense. They’re always present, but because we’ve both been doing it for a long time it was like zero drama.

And this time around, of course, I’ve got Mike Keneally with me as well and he’s kind of their contemporary in a sense, where he’s a little older than me... and so when the opportunity came up to play with Dream Theater again I jumped at it because they’re good shows.

It’s a great crew, but really it’s no drama. And then knowing that Animals As Leaders is on there is fantastic as well because we’ve toured together a lot actually. And I really like those guys. I really like Tosin and I really like Javier, and I don’t really know Matt, but I like him too. But I think that the thing more than anything else that makes that interesting is that they’re very different from the other two. So if you are a progressive, heavy music fan, it’s a show that gives you three very different things to participate in.