CASUALTIES OF COOL Vocalist CHÉ AIMEE DORVAL On Working With DEVIN TOWNSEND – "He's Always On Point; I Look Up To Him So Much As A Person"

Louder Than War recently caught up with Devin Townsend’s Casualties Of Cool partner Ché Aimee Dorval for a career-spanning interview. An excerpt from Part 2 focusing on Dorval’s working relationship with Townsend is available below.

Dorval: “‘Flight’ (see below) was the only song that we co-wrote 100%, split down the middle. In that period when we were writing it I was as I guess we all get sometimes pretty depressed, especially from November to February. Maybe it’s seasonal. I was feeling really, really shitty and music is a perfect way to sort of release some of that. It’s like talking to someone and feeling that they’re understanding you. I was feeling really awful at that point in my life maybe for a couple of different reasons. Writing those lyrics was like I was giving up. I wasn’t actually giving up, but it felt like exactly what I would say if I was giving up. It’s pretty simple, I just felt like shit.”

Devin was so moved by what she sent him back that he wrote his own version, “Fight”, which appears on the double edition of the album. With the titles of the two songs referring to the well-known psychology term, it strengthened the bond of understanding between them…

Dorval: “I think it (‘Fight’) is really beautiful. That’s my favourite part of writing with him, having another perspective and someone to have your back when you’re feeling awful. We’ve got to know each other a lot better now. We’re good friends. He’s quite amazing. That song ‘Fight’ was obviously like a ‘Chin up, man! You can either just give up or try to face it and get up over it.’ That’s the kind of guy he is, which is really nice to have in my life. He’s a really strong person. He plays it down a lot. He’ll second-guess himself a little bit like ‘I’m just being crazy!’ but he never is. He’s always on point. He knows where he’s going and he knows where he’s been. I look up to him so much as a person.”

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Towsend recently issued the following update on Dorval’s activities:

“You all know the lovely Ché Aimee Dorval from the Casualties Of Cool and Ki albums, but if you want to see her live performing her own repertoire be sure to score a ticket for the upcoming Kim Churchill UK tour as Ché has just been added as main support. Congrats Ché!”

According to an update from Dorval she’ll be performing some Casualties songs during her set. For tour info go to this location.

Casualties Of Cool performed at London’s Union Chapel on September 4th, 2014. Fan-filmed video is available below:

The Casualties Of Cool album tracklist is as follows:

“Daddy”
“Mountaintop”
“Flight”
“The Code”
“Moon”
“Pier”
“Ether”
“Hejda”
“Forgive Me”
“Broken”
“Bones”
“Deathscope”
“The Field”
“The Bridge”
“Pure”

A video for the album track “Mountaintop” can be seen below.

Devin comments: “Here is the video for “Mountaintop” from Casualties of Cool. I have been a fan of Jessica Cope’s work for a while now, and the opportunity to work with her rose for this album and we are thrilled with the result. Although the concept of the video is loosely based on the concept of the record, we found it worked better as a stand alone piece. Ché and I therefore decided not to have the characters in the video portray us personally. I hope you enjoy this, I’m so happy to have an opportunity to work with brilliant artists in my career. I’m very proud of this album and video!”