There is no way I'll ever write an album for Avril Lavigne or Christina Aguilera. I just couldn't do it. There is no way I could ever do it because my musical process is about being directly involved with whatever I'm going through in life.
'Epicloud' is the first record that I felt confident enough to include all those things on one record, so it goes between melodic hard rock to schizophrenic heavy metal to country to really ambient stuff, and it's all in one place.
'Deconstruction' is a really heavy record, a real symphony in a lot of ways, but with heavy musicians from the metal world - friends of mine.
Strapping Young Lad is a vehicle for me to be wild and extroverted and ridiculous. It gives me the chance to say, 'Look at me. I'm a heavy metal guy. I'm Rob Halford or Bruce Dickinson or whoever.'
Producing is getting the performances, tracking it, making sure all the parts are there. Mixing is when you take the finished work, and you make sure all the levels are right. It's putting all the parts together.
The reason Strapping Young Lad was such a good band was we were honest about what we were doing.
When I was going to high school, in the high school band we would play these kind of hour-long concerts for our parents. All the parents would come to the gymnasium, and the band would play an hour-long kind of orchestra piece. 'Synchestra' is supposed to be similar, like a high school band orchestra piece.
For me, music is about expressing the inexpressible, and as I get older, man, what I feel the need to express becomes less and less poignant to others.
I'm doing this record called 'Epicloud.' Over the course of the full record, there's sort of new agey stuff, jazzy stuff, really heavy stuff. We basically cover the gamut.
As someone whose music is connected to his personal growth, I feel an obligation to follow this muse wherever it leads.
As a drummer, I'm rhythmically so disabled that it's hilarious.
Essentially, 'Z2' ended up feeling the way that it should, but it was through a considerable amount of trial and error that it took to get there.
As a vocalist, I can scream, and I've got a really good singing voice, but I can't do the really heavy vocals.
