Music

Devin Townsend is writing a musical about a coffee-addicted alien

by Tyler Munro

After starting out as the vocalist on that Steve Vai album nobody liked, Devin Townsend’s musical trajectory has seen the multi-talented Canadian metalhead go from one of the genre’s angriest frontmen to become arguably one of its silliest. In the time since Strapping Young Lad broke up, Townsend’s experimented with everything from cock-rock to new age, but somewhere in the middle of all his evolutions he released an album that, even for the man that made the skullet famous, was probably a bit too weird for its own good. It was called Ziltoid the Omniscient and it was a concept album that told the story of a coffee-addicted alien.

Well, after months of rumours and speculation, Devin Townsend has confirmed that yeah, Ziltoid’s headed to Broadway. Er, hopefully.

“Ultimately where I want things to lead in three to five years is to really epic performances, so that’s where it’s going: Broadway! And Z² is the name of it!” said Townsend, talking to the Quietus at this past weekend’s Bloodstock festival.

“Everything is a work in progress and I think there’s some people that are concerned by that, but at the end of the day I’ve been doing this 20 years and everything I’ve done has been like a very public work in progress. It takes public failure as well – if you can’t roll with those punches man, then you’re doomed if you ever what to do something like a big musical because shit happens right?”

This won’t be Townsend’s first attempt at bringing Ziltoid to the masses outside of his music: he’s also made puppeteered webisodes featuring the caffeine addled puppet alien.