Strapping Young Lad

Devin Townsend, who had previously made a name for himself as a vocalist for such artists as the Wildhearts and Steve Vai, formed Strapping Young Lad but surprisingly took a much different musical direction, focusing on dark and heavy industrial metal. The debut, Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing, featuring himself along with Adrian White (drums) and Jed Simon (guitar) came in 1995, with a full band being recruited for the follow-up release of City (1997) by replacing White with Gene Hoglan (ex-Testament/ex-Dark Angel/ex-Death/ex-Old Man's Child/ex-Daemon) and Byron Stroud stepping in to assume bass.

John Morgan was in for keyboards for the next album, No Sleep 'til Bedtime - Live in Australia (1998) a live album, but was gone by the time the self-titled album came to be in 2003 under the original line-up once again. Alien (2005) and The New Black (2006) followed, along with the compilation albums 1994-2006 Chaos Years (2008), Classics (2009) and The Complete Works boxed set (2013); the last two released posthumously as they split in 2007.

In addition to his efforts with Strapping Young Lad, Townsend has recorded several solo albums (along with Jed Simon), and also recorded with another project named Ocean Machine. He also sponsored another project called Zimmers Hole that featured Simon and Stroud amongst its members; Zimmers Hole, however, predated Strapping Young Lad.