When the news broke of Devin Townsend ending the DTP band in early 2018, aside from the question of what will Devin do next come up, thoughts of what the rest of the band would move to was also inevitably on the minds of many fans who enjoyed the work of what DTP achieved in their time together. Drummer Ryan Van Poederooyen, also known as RVP announced shortly after of a new project he was working on which intrigued many who followe the drummers career, a career filled with such positivity through his work with his master class drum clinics and motivational talks that have inspired many fans, one of which is writing this very sentence. When the new band called Imonolith was finally announced some time later, it was a sign that all was well in his camp.
Featuring some notable names including fellow DTP member Brian Wadell who formed the band with RVP initially along with Jon Howard on vocals, of Threat Signal fame, Byron Stroud who had previously worked with Devin in Strapping Young Lad and Kai Huppunen, known for his work with Methods Of Mayhem, this clearly isn’t just some side project but what is promising to be the next thing to burst out of Canada. With the first track “Hollow” now released and work on the new album heavily underway, we caught up with RVP himself to find out how all of this came to be and his thoughts on the end of the Devin Townsend Project.
Andrew: We love the track that you put out, “Hollow”. It’s fantastic stuff and from what I hear, there’s so much different stuff that’s yet to be revealed so this is quite a different song to what else you have planned.
RVP: Yeah “Hollow” because obviously it’s our single, it’s the catchier side of Imonolith, let’s put it that way. Whereas the rest of the record it has some more catchier stuff that has some really crushing stuff as well, 200BPM double kicks and blast beats and then it’s kind of got a little bit of everything in between. We aren’t focused on just doing a heavy record, we aren’t focused on doing a commercially accessible record, we’re focused on doing what we love and I think that’s how you’re going to get your best work is, do what you love and love what you do as much as you possibly can and that’s what we did. We brought in a producer, we did the song “Hollow” at Brian Howes and my brother Jay Van Poederooyen production team out at L.A. They’ve produced and recorded bands like Nickelback and Chris Cornell and Airbourne and a whole bunch of massive bands and they did a phenomenal job on that and we signed Jay on to do the entire record. He’s helped kind of craft…OK here’s a good mixture of songs that’s going to represent Imonolith as a whole and we made a real strong effort to make sure that the album is diverse, it’s not just heavy, it’s not just commercial or anything like that, it’s a little bit of everythig.
Andrew: Sure and I guess with the lineup as well including one of the guys that many people that I know have been speaking about and quite enthusiastic about is Jon Howard from Threat Signal. So all these guys that have been in different bands including yourself and Byron [Stroud] from Devin Townsend all have different influences in this music so is that why there is so much different stuff on this album coming out?
RVP: You know what, surprisingly no if I were to be one hundred percent honest with you because I’ll give you some insight into how the band came together and I’ll answer the question you just asked. Brian Waddell and I were playing Devin Townsend Project, me on drums obviously and Brian played bass but in Imonolith Brian has actually gone back to his native instrument which is guitar. But back in 2015 Brian and I started writing together, we had the same influences and we just said, ‘Hey let’s give it a shot’. We started writing in between tours and stuff on the Devin Townsend Project and we started writing a bunch of really cool music. In the back of our heads we were like, ‘Ok we never know when Devin is going to pull the plug’ but we had a pretty good idea he would pull the plug on DTP just like he did with the Devin Townsend Band and Strapping Young Lad. So we kept on writing, come January 2018 the inevitable happens, Dev pulls the plug on Devin Townsend Project. We had about 15 songs written and we approached Byron Stroud because we were just jamming around with Byron at the time and we said, ‘Look DTP is done, this is what we’ve got, what do you think?’ And Byron was like, ‘This is amazing, I love it, I’m in’. Then we found Jon Howard as our singer and we got Kai Huppunen our second guitar player and you know, Jon was from Threat Signal and Kai’s biggest thing was he played with Methods Of Mayhem, Tommy Lee’s band from way back when and he’s a local guy from Vancouver too and a phenomenal guitar player. So basically this first record was written by Brian and I, but people that came in like Jon, Byron and Kai gave some ideas to add to the music and stuff for sure. It’s a band, it’s not based around Brian and I, I want to make that clear but just the way that it came about for this first record to develop the sound and how we want the sound to evolve from, it was based on the songs that Brian and I wrote over the past 3 years.
Andrew: OK and I guess for many of those that don’t know the whole back story to that was the assumption that this band came out of the fact that it was the end of the Devin Townsend Project but like you say, this was already in the works before that was an official thing.
RVP: Yeah it was. First and foremost my time in Devin Townsend Project was amazing, I’m extremely grateful I got to play in that band. Everything is cool, love Devin like a brother, wish him all the best. I know his new album is going to be amazing but within the same breathe, we knew this would happen. We could see this happening, we could see the internal battles that Devin would have even while we were on tour so we were just preparing ourselves man, we wrote a bunch of music that we really enjoyed and even if we ended up doing another record after “Transcendence” like this one that Dev is doing now, we still probably would have tried to do Imonolith because we were really vibing on the music. When he ended it in January, it just made it the obvious choice to move forward with Imonolith at that point.
Andrew: Sure definitely and speaking of the whole Devin Townsend thing then, how did you personally take the news? Obviously as you said you were expecting it but what was the feeling when you first got the news from him?
RVP: I can remember it very clearly. It was morning, I woke up and was having my coffee and the phone rings and it was Dev. Dev usually is an email guy, he rarely calls and I kid you not I’m like, ‘Oh he’s breaking up the band’. It was my initial thought, oh he’s calling it. He called and right away I could hear the nervousness in his voice, when you’re telling people, ‘Hey we’re not doing this anymore’, it affects your financials and I got a mortgage to pay and a wife and all this stuff, you’re going to be nervous right? But he told me and I wasn’t shocked at all, like I said I was expecting this to happen. Was I expecting it to happen then? No not really but it’s Devin right? You don’t know what you’re going to get. The one thing that I like saying to describe Devin, he’s the Forrest Gump of metal! You don’t know what you’re going to get man [laughs]. And I mean that in a very nice way, I’m not mocking. He’s a brother to me. It’s just you don’t know what you’re going to get with the guy so when that happened it was just like, ‘Oh Ok, I get it. It’s all good, I’m going to move on with Imonolith, let’s do this’. That call is just like, I totally get it, it’s all good. I wish you the best, you’re a brother and we’ll move forward. No bad feelings, not at all.
Andrew: Yeah and I mean I follow you on twitter and so I’ve been following the whole thing and before even the band was announced as an official thing I remember you were talking abut this project that was coming along. Through out the whole time it’s amazing how optimistic and postive you remain and sometimes where other people might take it differently or the wrong way or whatever. I guess that’s why you love to give out positive vibes to people.
RVP: Yeah and you know what man? It’s funny in another interview I just did before this one, there’s an equation I love to follow in life and it’s based off being 100 percent responsible for your life and this equation which will help answer the question you just asked is this: An event plus your reaction to it will equal your outcome. So for example, Devin breaks up the Devin Townsend Project. If I react poorly to that and I sit around and I’m all depressed and I don’t do anything with my life, what’s the outcome going to be? It’s going to be nothing, it’s going to be a crappy life because I’m not going to be doing anything. But instead how it played out with the event is Devin called me, broke up the Devin Townsend Project, my reaction was I totally understand, all the best to you with your new record. I’m going to form Imonolith, get out there and kick some ass and that’s exactly what I’m doing right now.
Andrew: That is great stuff! And that first track as you mentioned “Hollow”, it’s a great song and I’ve listened to it numerous times [available on our podcast here]. But from what I read in some of the press releases, it’s quite a personal song where it talks about personal battles and that kind of stuff. What was the main inspiration behind that track?
RVP: Well the thing is with “Hollow” when we were writing it, the lyrics were the last thing to be written. The melody, vocal melodies, the music, that was all done first and I’m not saying that all metal bands are like this but you definitely get the vibe from metal music that it can be depressing or they’re talking about depressing things or hate this or hate that. Not all bands are like that by any means but I don’t want to fit into that type of genre and I wrote the lyrics for “Hollow” and I thought, ‘Ok what’s something cool I can write about’, because it’s kind of a moody song but it has an uplifting chorus. So I thought, ‘Well what’s everyone deal with? What’s something that people can relate to?’ If this is a song that’s going to be released on radio and stuff, and I’m like, personal battles. All of us go through personal battles, now we face social pressures, self expectation can drive us to the point of feeling hollow because we don’t meet specific standards whether it’s social standards or self expectation. So instead of driving you to the place of feeling hollow, it’s a song about not feeling hollow and what you can do to prevent that feeling and get out of developing negative thoughts and limited beliefs. So that’s basically what the song is about in a nutshell and the inspiration was that all of us deal with this so let’s make a positive spin on it and that’s basically the inspiration behind the song.
Andrew: And are the other songs on the album as personal as that as well or do you vary it up and be inspired by a whole different range of things?
RVP: Yeah there’s a few different things. For example there’s a song, the last song we wrote for the record called “Forgone” and that song is basically about how the world is today. It’s not necessarily a negative look on it either but it’s not necessarily a positive look on it either, it’s just how we deal with how the world is today. Another song is a song called “Big” and it’s just about people burning bridges, and about responsibility. You can burn a bridge or you can make it cool and you can move on so there’s a bunch of things that we touch on the record but the overall vibe is definitely more positive than negative.
Andrew: When can we expect to see the release of this album?
RVP: This album is going to be coming out around the Summer of 2019. We go into the studio March 6th to finish it completely and then it should be wrapped up by the end of April is my guess, mixing and master and all that stuff and then start working on the artwork and all the stuff that goes with it like the promotion and all that stuff. So there is no date as of yet but definitely Summer of 2019 is what we’re aiming for.
Andrew: OK and before that you have a few shows that I guess is going to be a sort of warm up before you do some serious touring. You’re going to do 3 or 4 shows in Canada?
RVP: Yeah we’re going to start February 23rd in Vancouver and then on March 1st we’re going to go to Calgary and March 2nd we’re in Edmonton. So it’s just a little West Coast swing and you know what, I know we don’t have a full album out so people will only know the one song and the rest is going to be a surprise but we just wanted to test the music out to a live crowd. This is a great idea because they don’t know the songs so we can pay attention to how they react and because we’re headlining, we’ll play more than what’s on the album. The B-sides that won’t make the album or maybe that will change depending on how the crowd reacts but either way we’re just going to play a bunch of our music and just share it with all the people who are supporting us now. That’s the most important thing we can do and then follow it up when that album is out man. I can’t wait to get back to Australia, I love that country. I love it there so much and there would be nothing cooler than to bring Imonolith there, get on the new Download Festival at one point, that would be amazing. I did Soundwave and loved it so yeah, can’t wait!
Andrew: Looking forward to it! Everything sounds promising and hopefully everything will turn out great for you guys. I really appreciate your time, it’s been great chatting to you again. Good luck with the new album, I look forward to hearing the rest of this thing as I’ve loved this new track you have put out so far so hopefully it will be as exciting for everyone to hear it in the future.
RVP: I appreciate it man and thanks for taking the time!
Show Dates:
February 23 – Vancouver, BC @ The Red Room –info
March 1 – Calgary, AB @ Dickens – info
March 2 – Edmonton, AB @ Starlite Room (Temple) – info
