Tech metal legend Devin Townsend is about to unleash his epic rock opera The Moth on the world, something he says he’s completely “funded” on his own.
On Thursday, March 27, 2025, and Friday, March 28, Townsend will un-cocoon The Moth in De Oosterpoort in Groningen, where he will perform with the Noord Nederlands Orkest (North Netherlands Symphony Orchestra) symphony orchestra. Blabbermouth notes that the exclusive show will only be performed in Groningen, and will not be staged anywhere else.
In a new video message—transcribed by Blabbermouth—the Strapping Young Lad founder explains that The Moth is a longtime passion project, and something he’s been working on for a decade. The Moth is described as telling a “story of the human experience from birth to death, comparable to the transformation of a caterpillar into a moth. It symbolizes the human quest for meaning and offers perspectives on the fear of death through analogy and narrative.”
Townsend recalled the journey to the big rock opera performance and detailed all that went into getting it planned, which included realizing that “if you wanna do it, you have to hire somebody for exorbitant amounts of money,” leading him to make a big decision. “So, I said, ‘Fuck it,’ and I put together a team of about 12 people, and I have funded it independently from the very beginning to the very end,” he said.
“Now here’s the thing: the cost of this—if we’re lucky, if we’re lucky, we would break even on these shows,” Townsend continued. “Even though it’s sold out, even though the VIPs. So what does one do when one is debuting live a record of such scope that nothing that I’ve done even holds a candle to the scope of this.”
“But usually what happens is you release a record and you can meticulously mix it and master it and massage it so that there’s no rough edges and everything, and then you put it out and then you perform it,” Towsend went on to say. “So what was proposed to me was, we do it the other way around.”
“After ten years of writing this, the debut of ‘The Moth’ is actually this live performance,” Towsend also said. “And what that throws into the works is just staggering amounts of logistical problems. It has to be recorded, mixed, completed lyrically, orchestrally, score, the band. Everybody has to know it.”
In addition to seventy musicians from the Noord Nederlands Orkest and a sixty-member choir, Townsend’s bandmates — Mike Keneally, Joseph Stephenson, Darby Todd, and James Leach — will be part of the performance as well.
For more information on “The Moth” live stream, click here.
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