This seems fitting somehow; a quote by French philosopher Albert Camus : "Nobody realises that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal."
Four things I love above Devin: his voice, his music, his sharing of his creative process (you get to see artistic genius IN THE MOMENT), his amazing emotional depth and transparency. He's a pretty amazing human being. My life is that much richer sharing this planet with him. I LOVE this man!
In 93, I walked into Soundwaves(Houston TX.) and heard a voice. I asked Stacy "What is this". She said "The new Steve Via". I said "No, the vocalist". She didn't know. I knew. Being in the business, I had heard of you. Was completely Blown away that you were working with Via. The demos for SYL where making the rounds. King's X were gearing up for their release of Dogman. At the release party Dug told me that we Would Not miss your show. You and I met at The Abyss. From that moment you had a fellow artist and a fan, No! A friend for Life!! After the death of my son (Feyd). You were one of the most honest, forthright Musicians I ever met. I will admit as the Tears fall at this moment. Know this. I Love You Man ;) Forever Meddle>!< Until we meet again at that Great Gig in the Sky. Burn Atmosphere>^
I love the “divulging” too much, the intimate mental details of the artistic process. It helps me to connect more to the artist and the music. Phooey and double phooey on whoever said that!!
I personally am grateful for Dev being as honest as he is. I don’t want to live with deception, and I vibe hard with honest people ; warts and all, people who put themselves out there with reckless abandon. I think that is why I have become so entangled with both Dev and this phenomenal community. Being who we really are is the only thing that we can do that truly matters.
You have been the most relevant and important musician I got into the last year, and I say this very deeply and seriously. Your music has changed my life for the better. I knew who you were for years, but I just didn't understand. I really can't wait to see what emotions come out through powernerd, and the moth.
As a person who does want to hear this process and type of explanation, the people who advise against it don't understand it yet. Not everything needs to be done the same way over and over. Music has a lot of boring areas because of that stagnation. I like your video documentation a lot, because it is applicable to any art im making. I feel it. Its not something that is limited to your experience, its a part of a flow that yields an endless supply of feelings and outcomes. Thank you Devin.
I was gettin real deep and reaching depths of of my own psyche I had not previously known and then there was a fart to bring me back to reality. Thanks Dev.
The crash, in autistic circles is called shutdown, and when enough of those happens, burnout. Burnout sometimes takes weeks, months, even years to pull out of. Not saying you are on the spectrum, mind you, but I certainly am, and I relate to the adrenaline burnout. Cheers, and feel better, sir.
Same. It’s two worlds to navigate: theirs, and our own. It takes so much to do what others find impossible to do…that we feel obligated to deliver, every day. Being ourselves is all that we have to overcome and reconcile. The flaw for the remainder of our lives, is expecting any of them to understand. Keep rowing.
I feel you, brother. I'm full time worker and a nursing student, just finished my 3rd year now (one to go). When this semester finished, my body and mind collapsed from the lack of stress, in some way. I just can't bare the thought of sitting down and study, but also, my body is unable to withstand the activities that I used to enjoy before this madness of rushing to work, then school, studying and barely sleeping, then repeat. The body gets used to those adrenaline and cortisol levels and then crashes, and the feeling of nausea is appalling. But it shall pass, as to you. We'll be alright, standing and doing stuff in no time, slowly but surely. Keep it up, Dev, as all of you.
We’re all broken, each of us, in different ways. That’s the human experience and you’re an excellent example of a human, and your music is so meaningful because you’re honest with it and you write it (fart) with such sincerity that those of us who are broken in the same way are able to sense it and feel ourselves in a new way. You help us see ourselves and within the fandom we get to meet each other. Thanks ❤
Dev, mate. We love you. Stoked to hear you got Powernerd out the door, looking forward to it. Sounds like you need to take a little day to yourself and watch some How It's Made though. Factories are fascinating.
32:25 - Star Trek TNG had an episode about that - a deaf negotiator loses his ability to communicate telepathically and has to teach sign language to the opposing factions, but uses it as a way for both sides to find common ground. The point was to take your disadvantage and turn it into an advantage.
Regarding live performances, I think you slightly missed the perspective of the people there to see you. One of my fondest memories is seeing you at the second RAH show with a bunch of my closest friends. It wasn't just the show (although it was great), but facilitating bringing people together, and allowing those memories to be born. We were in the seats right next to the stage. I remember you taking the time to talk to a little girl in front of us, who'll probably remember that night forever. My only regret was not coming up and saying thanks afterwards! We'll all cherish that day for the rest of our lives.
Totally get you Dev. A little over a year ago I started a project of my own, with the whole intent of it being to not overthink it, just have fun with it, etc. I had spent a long time prior to that overthinking EVERYTHING I did as a musician, to the point that I struggled to flesh out and actualize my ideas because I would simply get overwhelmed (come to find that I had a good ol’ one-two punch of rampantly undiagnosed ADHD and autism 🎉🥳), so in that sense, I think it was really healthy for me to do it because it really helped me to undo that pattern. But yeah - fast forward to now, the project is out, it’s gotten a good reception, and I’m currently writing/recording a second release. The one caveat now is, I am sooo fucking burnt out on it lol. I love it, but I also hate it.
'Beautiful car with a one square wheel'...that's allí I want to listen to. Thank you Dev...and thanks for the hypnotherapy reflection...so insightful , you meditate or not
Yeah, I'm getting what you're saying and relate to a lot of it. I'm still suppressing everything myself. I think. Can't feel much, which makes it hard to tell. Maybe I am and I'm just muting it in some way. I remember going through times a bit rougher than normal when things happened. Or maybe it was actually mild and I don't know what a hard time really is. I live in conditions where I feel the need to restrain myself at all times, and it's been that way my entire life. Going through it isn't really an option for me. I'm finding this vlogs and your music help a bit. I relate to it all a little more than usual. I think. It can be hard to tell; being alive is such a gray thing for me, and I feel an especially strong need to keep everything at bay that I'm probably going to spend the entire day carefully controlling my breath just to get to tomorrow. Loving your work and enjoying it more and more. Eager to see what you've completed come out. Back to.. just trying to burn the day away in the hopes I can feel a bit more free to just do anything tomorrow. And thinking again about my plans to try to get a copy of every album release you've made; I only have about a quarter of them so far. Really want that digital music in .flac quality yo. Just another little thing on the list I suppose.
I understand those questioning you doing these videos and spilling your guts to us. It's like, "Don't give away the industry secrets!" But, I feel like vast majority of people truly appreciate you doing these videos. I sure do. It's honest. It's a intimate insight into your "Why?". Everything you're talking about is so relatable and human. People need that. Especially fans of your music. It helps people feel like, "Holy shit, he gets anxious like me?!". It's cool, human, relatable and interesting. Now, PLEASE, show us those 3 new fuickin' guitars you're talking about, Dev!
Thank you for sharing your thoughts, insights and hard gained wisdom from your experiences both in music and life in general. So much what you are talking about resonates deeply with me. I also am really grateful for you sharing your thought process and feelings around the music. Your music has so many layers of emotion and so many dimensions to it that it is helpful to have context from you. Keep going my friend, and I hope, like all us you find that right balance of rest and work. Seriously excited for Powernerd!
I wish this video didn't cut off. Really wise words here Dev, I'm here for it. As someone who is not a professional musician but someone who likes writing and recording music, I wish I could STOP all the bullshit and be able to put energy into creating music. But life won't fucking stop
Self-care put on hold due to "obligations". Part of Devin's self-care is his being able to express himself fully through music, which, unfortunately, he essentially has to do the entire industry-side of it himself. Between the burden of that and the cost of it... "Stay Sane" should be Goal #1. Without it, you can't get to any of the other goals. Good luck, Dev!
"Modular forms and elliptic curves! Infinite fire revolving around infinite parallels! Fractals of infinite reality, each cascading, gliding in an infinite wheel. Tell me the true nature of my reality!" "You gotta chill man..." 😉
28:05 I interpret the value of live performance that you're touching on is like calling your friends over to check out a cool stick you'd found. Getting people together to appreciate music is an experience that live music can offer. It can also be a comedy show or a stage show, like visiting a theatre. It can be a mix of those things. I went to your show in Melbourne recently and I loved the vibe that you brought to that little venue. Being in that crowd was wonderful because everyone was there to be immersed in the music. Perhaps the important question is, what could performing with an audience look like that you would be most satisfied with? I hope one day to see the answer to that question.
These updates always get me thinking! First thing, I wanted to talk about art, music *of course* being included as an art, because what the hell else would it be... an industry? A hobby? A sport? It's a form of creative expression, it's an art. Even if your creative expression is a song about "grinding on chicks at the club", it's still an expression of an individual's perspective and creative vision. It may be shallow, superficial art, but I still consider it art. Maybe that's just me, though. Second thing was also about art. I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I find that art takes three distinct different forms. First is the inspiration, what we envision the art piece could be, what I call "the spark", the concept, that lightbulb or lightning strike moment. The second is the creation itself, which is always distinctly different from the inspiration - it includes changes and growth that happened along the way, and ends up being sort of a... document of the inspiration's transformation into a tangible form in this world. I see that as... the things that happen in our lives during the process of creating that inspiration shape our unique individual expression of that "divine spark" inspiration thing. That's MY hippie take on it - if you wanna see that as literally divine or figuratively "any artist could've fished that idea out of the aether" kinda thing, it's all good, I mean it all in kinda the same way. By all that, I mean... our unique process of creating art from that inspiration IS what makes it our own unique version of that idea, I think it's a MAJOR part of our unique artistic fingerprint, it INCLUDES mistakes and blemishes, and it tells the unique one-of-a-kind story of the whole creative process, kinda like your updates do. The third stage... is reception. It's what that final product of art is *to other people*, when they experience it. Rick Rubin defines this as a completely separate thing from the creative process entirely, but since it's present in the mind, I include it. Your reaction and chatter with your friends/family after watching a play, your experience when you sit on a couch with your eyes closed and headphones on and listen to a new song for the first time. It's where the experiencer gets to have a dialog with the finished product, and form their own opinions. I think that often... we want our art to be one contiguous line from inspiration to reception. We want to get some lightning flash idea, and then magically carbon copy that genius EXACTLY, and then somehow convince an audience to experience that same lightning flash we experienced IDENTICALLY. I get this feeling and this impetus A LOT, and when I "fail" to match the inspiration in intensity or profundity or complexity or depth, or in any other way, I feel like... I failed to create. I didn't do "my job". That is, of course, assuming that my job is like this... Metatron-esque "mouthpiece of God" diviner, who gets vivid creative inspiration and translates that with extreme precision, and manages to *persuade* others to experience the same thing. That... sounds a whole lot like control, precision, optimization, even a desire to manipulate the reactions of others for an optimal outcome... it sounds a whole lot like... the ego. And it makes TOTAL sense that ego would hop in there. 1 - you need to make money to keep you and your family safe, ego keeps you safe, optimizing a project = success = you/family safe. 2 - industry is built around predictable success... which is basically... wait for it... anti-creativity. Just... at a baseline level... creative expression is unique. You don't hear a jingle you've heard a billion times and go "oh wow, that was creative". Predictability is safe, at the expense of unique individuality. There's a reason people lie, and put on makeup, and dress in certain ways, and cater to social pressures. It's surprisingly not often malicious. More often than not, it's done to keep us safe, and we've made that an integral part of our social structure. It is innately anti-creativity, it is... conformity, right? My creative expression bloomed from the fertilizer (take that analogy however you want) of the Beat Poets. I immediately fell in love with the idea of pure creative expression, stream-of-consciousness. I love other styles of expression too, but stream-of-consciousness practices stuck with me because I've found improvisation to be the most reliable and direct path to *liberation* from my ego's prying need to micromanage. No matter what project I have going on, I NEED to have a project going on in the background that revolves around... "mistakes are not just okay, they are IMPORTANT, they are unique blemishes that are reflective of how all of life is essentially just different types of mutated 'mistake' cells morphing into new unique things." New always starts as a mistake, until it becomes a repeated habit, like when you're noodling and hit the "wrong note" and go... "hey... that actually sounded pretty cool"... and then it becomes integrated into your musical vocabulary and takes on a new meaning. One last thing... it's a doozy but it's one that's been on my mind for a long time. I, too, struggle with the whole "I don't want attention *in that way*" thing. A fear of being perceived as a predatory narcissist. Most likely because I grew up in a family full of them, I had tons of predatory friends who were like that as well. I know the damage they cause, I know the damage they caused *to me*, the last thing I would ever want is to become one. Since I struggle with this as well, it's a blind spot, but this is sorta... where I'm at with it. Pride... is a tricky one. I read somewhere a while back that Pride is considered the most dangerous of all sins, because it is the source of all other sins. It's also very complicated because...pride is also a source of a lot of good. Pride is the source of confidence, self-esteem, that sense of contentment in having done a good job. I can only speak for myself, but I have a tendency to approach this like a forbidden fruit or a dangerously addictive drug or something. I *know* what happens when people get addicted to Pride, I know the horrible things they do, and I don't want to even go near it, I don't want to even be associated with it. Like it's meth or something. But that, of course, leaves me horribly depressed and lost, feeling like I'm going nowhere, lacking purpose. Lately, I've been working on... teaching myself the difference between healthy, balanced pride (confidence, self-esteem, appreciation of my accomplishments) and unhealthy, unbalanced pride (vanity, narcissism, elitism). I think I grew up in an environment where those things were sorta treated in extreme ways, and I never properly learned the *spectrum* of pride. That pride is not boolean, it's not on/off, true/false, good/bad. It's a wide spectrum ranging from hollow emptiness to lavish, predatory self-indulgence... but with many many many shades of gray between. And in the vast gray in-between is a range of healthy spots, the healthy spot is not just automatically the ascetic penitent giga-humble extreme. I think since I lacked that education in my upbringing, I need to learn that for the first time as an adult, and I've been making a lot of progress on it lately through regular practice with the exact self-dialogue you described in your hypnotherapy story. Thank you again for your honesty and for the thoughtful and insightful Sunday brunch chat. Don't forget, meditation isn't just an exercise to stop thinking, sometimes it can be just reconnecting with the peaceful bliss of laying in the grass and feeling the sun on your skin for 5 minutes during a hectic day. It's reconnecting with peace and stillness, which is always there inside no matter how hectic life gets, even if that peace can only be there for a minute or two. Life can often be like a pond with rocks being pelted into it, full of ripples and waves, but its natural state is stillness, and I've found that intentionally finding and savoring those little gaps of stillness between ripples makes a big difference. Have a great week, look forward to hearing from you next Sunday!
I used to pour everything into my work, but came to the realization of how unhealthy it was. Had to create a work/life balance. I started going on more dates with my beloved hubby, trying new hobbies that weren't all encompassing but enough to be enjoyable and empty the brain. Stopping and truly appreciating the beauty in the little things in life. Those little "stops" have truly, truly helped. Keep finding your daily joys and loving yourself and who you are. Now, go take Tracy on a date😉
Great video and title! Honestly I believe the meaning of life is to simply exist. I do not think we are "important" to the universe. Take time find yourself, you will be happy you did but just a small warning complacency kills the creative mind. Moderation is key. Enjoy the rest of your weekend. I found myself by looking up at the sky and solving my purpose.
There was a guy in my rehearsal space; he played lefty but was so much of a musical genius that he'd sit there playing some classical piece right off the cuff on a right handed guitar, transposing notes and figurings as he went. Someone asked him why he wasn't doing anything with that talent. He just shrugged...."This is for me....don't feel like have to prove it to anyone", or something to that effect was what he said. Anything else was just too much pressure.
Waiting for Dev to just start producing records for others rather than touring and grinding out records. Also waiting for the 87 year old Dev's acoustic album that's a reflection of his entire life
Hey Dev. Regarding the unexpected outpouring of emotion at the dog, I had a very similar experience, and have had about 15 years of thoughts since then, and I’ve come to some coherent thoughts about it. For me I had had a couple close relatives die, and friends unexpectedly die, and other friends pour out their hearts, and cry in front of me. I had zero response. I was there and noticed my lack of response, and was confused. Then when I was walking home one day, I saw a dead cat on the side of the road, and I broke down and cried so much, and couldn’t be consoled. In retrospect, I’ve noticed that I had intellectualised what a response to death or big, expected life events would be. So I wouldn’t just experience emotion, I would examine it. But an unexpected life event, that had the slightest unexpected emotion just let the floodgates open. So it’s that from my trauma, I prepared myself to experience the things that we can expect from life: death, new life, love, hate, the things we know will happen. And when something caught me off guard, I felt my feelings. I had been protecting myself from my response.
My out in no particular order, it’s music cars, anime, Gundam (mainly the model building) I drove trucks in the live music industry for years. I loved every minute of it. It was exciting until one day. I just couldn’t do it. I could not wake up. I got no joy from it. I was burnt out. I just needed to step away to love music again , and if I return to it, I return it for me. It was a seven year break but I am back now in a different format and I can say I love music again. You just need to find your Gundam , The human brain needs to shut down every now then very hard when you have commitments and contracts I understand just give yourself a little bit of each day to something new Apologies for the grammar I am voice typing
I just sent my new tunes off last night finally, 3 weeks late, sick kids threw a spanner in the works 😅 I called it catharsis as a throw away but boy howdy it bit me in the arse and was more cathartic than I ever actually thought, so many suppressed emotions came bubbling up. Apparently my soul is a lot smarter than I am 😂❤
Love ya Dev and loved the farts! Totally get the "I love you" part. I struggle alot with all that too. All the best with The Moth ❤ I hope you enjoy the adventure 🤘🖤🤘
It"s funny when you say one part of you say 'I love you' to your other self, I"m sure many of us think 'We love you too' and subconscionsly that isbonenof tjhe reason we love your work
I loved Lightwork. It's not your best album, but that's only because you have albums like Ocean Machine, Infinity, City, Alien, Addicted, Epicloud, Terria, Accelerated Evolution and Syncestra in your back-catalogue.....
24 hours later, after my therapy session today, I finish this video from 33:00 and hear you say exactly the epiphanies I had in my session. Two parts of self that are actually two halves of my core -- one pure and kind and hurt, one tough and hard and protective -- who didn't even know how they got to be two from one so many years ago, and are now getting to know and love each other.
I think when it comes to live performances, I look to Alice Cooper. He lives to perform. Paraphrasing here, but what I hear is that performing for fans isn't the musicians right or purpose. Performing is a gift to the artist.
What is it with middle-aged men and Hawaiian shirts? I ask because I just hit 46 last month, and I'm finding myself think that Magnum P.I. had a great aesthetic and I suddenly want Hawaiian shirts. Why? Why is this happening to me? Is it normal?
You're experiencing human normality and it's coming as a surprise to you, tada! Not every output in ANY walk of life is equal, some are better than others no matter how it's spun. Also, you are transitioning mentally/spiritually/personally to a higher vibration existence, fear of the unknown future makes a normal human compartmentalize and cling a bit to the past with sadness because you LIKED some of the past even though it's time to let it go. You are about to experience some real joy in your life and it feels foreign and contrived because you live as an observer more than a participant. I get it.
Hey Dev am doin great a know I had a good sob there 2 weeks ago and that s not like me a normally keep all in . It's funny to hear that your butt had a free choice words to say lmao xoxoxox
