Strapping Young Lad

syl

Strapping Young Lad (usually abbreviated as SYL or Strapping) began as a solo project by Canadian musician Devin Townsend. Once he had completed his work as vocalist on Steve Vai’s Sex and Religion and that album’s subsequent tour, he recorded the majority of the instruments (except drums by Adrian White; excluding where drum machine is used) on the debut album, Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing. Rather than remain a solo project, additional members and the release of their album City saw SYL secure their line-up permanently. City was released to a huge response, prompting Kerrang! magazine to call it one of the heaviest albums ever.

After recording several very successful solo albums, Townsend founded The Devin Townsend Band in late 2002 as a separate entity with a different line-up to that of SYL, and the two bands have since existed in tandem; albeit with somewhat divergent musical directions.

SYL’s third album, the self titled Strapping Young Lad, marked the band’s first new release on Devin’s own label, Hevy Devy Records, which was founded just after the release of City and is managed by Devin and his wife Tracy. Strapping toured heavily throughout 2003 and 2004 making stops in the United States, Europe, Japan and Australia.

In early 2004, Devin advertised on the band’s official forum for fans to join SYL for a free show at the Commodore in Vancouver. This show was filmed and released as the first DVD from SYL: For Those Aboot to Rock: Live at the Commodore (the title being a pun on the band’s Canadian heritage and the anthemic song “For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)” by AC/DC). Blame Canada, the infamous anti-Canadian song from the South Park motion picture was played over the PA as intro music at most SYL shows in 2003 and 2004.

Strapping Young Lad’s fourth album, Alien was released March 22, 2005, to a mixture of reviews, mostly favouring the progressive element Devin Townsend continues to bring to extreme metal. The band spent a considerable part of 2005 touring North America and Europe in support of the album. They entered the studio in March 2006 to record their follow-up, titled The New Black - which was released in July 2006. In addition, Strapping Young Lad embarked on a short festival tour of Europe in June (e.g., Download Festival at Castle Donington, England), and were added to the bill of the prestigious Ozzfest, where they played to some of their largest audiences thus far, in July and August 2006.

Prior to embarking on Ozzfest 2006, Strapping Young Lad flew into New York City to shoot a music video for the song “Wrong Side” with director David Brodsky. The video can be seen at the My Good Eye production company website (www.mgenyc.com [1]). Brodsky hired professional ballerinas to enhance the “heaven” set up and to “flit around Devin”. A consummate professional and frontman, much of Devin’s moves were ad-libbed. Brodsky is quoted as saying that “there is nothing I can tell him to do that he didn’t already think to do, so I just hit the playback button and watch him do his magic”. Interestingly, the majority of the band’s outfits and gear were “misplaced” by the airline prompting the band and production crew to quickly gather formal-wear and instruments on the day of shoot, which happened to be the Sunday of Memorial Day Weekend 2006. However, the airline managed to recover and deliver the band’s gear in time for the final set-up of the day, hence the different guitars and bass guitar from the “heaven” set to the “hell” set. Long-time Brodsky collaborator, Mike Milia, co-produced and was the Director of Photography. The video aired numerous times on MTV2’s HeadBanger’s Ball during the summer of 2006 as well as collecting tens of thousands of internet views on popular websites such as YouTube and MySpace.

“Wrong Side” was nominated for Best Video of 2006 on MTV2’s Headbanger’s Ball.

Devin’s comments about the album and 2006 live shows: “The recording process went amazingly well, and STRAPPING as a whole is really excited about this effort. We were very inspired with the idea of doing Ozzfest, and the concept we are running with on this record is really based around abhorring the current music scene, yet being a part of it in some weird way. SYL is ready to be a subversive product for the unwitting 14-year-olds to scream along with. We also intend to sprinkle a little ugly around all the pretty bands this year. You can think of us as the proverbial pubic hair in the cheesecake of this year’s festival. We are ugly, large and angry. We have also been around longer as a band than 90% the other bands. Most of all, we’re just really excited to be a part of Ozzfest and this summer is going to be crazy.” (Bio from wikipdia)
www.strappingyounglad.com

VIDEO:
S.Y.L
Detox
Relentless
Love?
Zen
Wrong Side

DOWNLOAD 2006 FULL SET
All Hail The New Flesh live
Love? (live)
CAPITAL CHAOS TV 2005
In The Rainy Season LIVE
You Suck Italy 2006
Decimator Italy 2006
Love? Italy 2006
In The Rainy Season Italy 2006
For Those Aboot To Rock
Devour
Aftermath
Oh My Fucking God
Detox
Far Beyond Metal
Hultsfred 03