EMQ’s With The Divine Project
EMQ’s With The Divine Project
Hi everyone! Welcome to another EMQs interview, this time with Canadian Hard Rock/ Heavy Metallers, The Divine Project. Huge thanks to founder member and guitarist, Eric Divine, for taking part.
What is your name, what do you play and can you tell us a little bit about the history of the band?
Hey, everyone. I’m Eric Divine, founder and guitarist for The Divine Project. I started TDP as a passion project after my high-school band broke apart. For several years after that, I started working with a bunch of local musicians to finish writing and recording the songs I had going. In 2017, I released these songs as an album called ‘In The Eyes of Chaos’, which was only available on CD. From there, I wanted to start playing live, so I started searching for people to create a live band to play music. Year after year, playing live with many talented individuals, I started to realize that none had the same drive to push TDP as much as I wanted to. Then COVID happened, and everyone stopped chasing the music dream. Hell, I almost threw in the towel as well. It was the summer of 2023, one day, while I was in Europe (I’m pretty sure it was Valencia), I was talking with my girlfriend (wife now) and told her that something inside was telling me to give TDP one more shot. So, the winter of that year, I started reaching out to individuals again and managed to connect with Ro Stevens. I told him my goals with TDP, showed him what I’ve done so far and what music I had, and he was 100% in. After that, we found David, who also drank ‘the TDP Kool-aid’, and joined the line-up. Mitch (who worked with David in the past) also liked what he heard, and there, the band was almost complete. I saw DRock (Derek Boshkov) through the social media pages of the local music scene. He had the persona of a rockstar, and I knew I had to get him onboard… which, to be honest, wasn’t that hard. He heard what we had going on and was instantly hooked. This was 2024, and now I had a team that went through the grind of the music industry in our own ways, but all shared the same passion, the same goals, and the same love for music. We began working on rebuilding and refining The Divine Project, and in 2025, we re-launched, closing out the year by releasing our debut EP ‘Rebirth’.
How did you come up with your band name?
Funny enough, it was a bit of a ‘fuck you’ name. When I started doing music on my own, I wanted it to be labelled as something great. Like awesome, or amazing, or legendary. So, I came up with the idea of writing music that is above all else, a bit of an ego-driven thought, and wanted something that’s bigger than big, ‘god-like’ if you want to call it, and landed on the word Divine. From there, everything I wrote was with the intention to be the best of the best, of a high calibre, for this divine musical project of mine. So, I eventually called it The Divine Project.
What Country / Region are you from and what is the Metal / Rock scene like there?
I’m based in Toronto, Ontario (Canada), and the band is from the surrounding cities, which make up the GTA (Greater Toronto Area). Being from a big city, you can find all kinds of music here. There is no shortage of bands and artists, but unfortunately, there is a shortage of venues and places to play. The music scene itself is great, with talent you wouldn’t imagine, but at the same time, it sucks because there are only a handful of venues that cater to the local music scene, let alone those that cater to the metal scene. We used to have places like the Velvet Underground, the Opera House, and the Hideout, where you could make a name for yourself as a local band, but these venues have either shut down or been bought up by Live Nation. But if you look around, outside the downtown core, you can find some awesome shows. And if you’re fortunate enough to catch a Neurotic Entertainment show (strong supporter of the local metal scene), you’ll be amazed by the music that’s out there.
What is your latest release? (Album, EP, Single, Video)
On November 28th, we release our EP, “Rebirth”. The first 2 singles off the EP, ‘Don’t Startle The Murder’ and ‘The Revolt’, both have music videos released for them; whereas the other 2 singles ‘Ruins Of Truth’ and ‘The Longest Night’ have their own lyric videos. All videos are on YouTube, and all music can be streamed on any of your favourite platforms.
Who have been your greatest influences?
This is tough to answer. For my songwriting, there really isn’t an influence on it. I take personal experiences and craft them into stories that are told through the music I write. But if we want to talk about influences on my guitar playing… this is also a tough question *laughs*. Over the years, there have been many artists and musicians who have inspired me to become a better player. That said, if we are going to start at the beginning, I would say my 3 main influences that shaped the way I write music would be Zakk Wylde (Black Label Society/Ozzy Osbourne), Brad Delson (Linkin Park), and Rich ‘Duke LaRue’ Ward (Fozzy). That was tough to narrow down, as James Hetfield (Metallica), Nikki Sixx (Motley Crue), and Alexi Laiho (Children of Bodom) are all musicians I admire… but yeah, the other 3 are the reason why I play primarily in dropped C tuning. Hell, the main guitar I use for recording is my Gibson Les Paul Zakk Wylde Custom.
What first got you into music?
Peer pressure *laughs*. Honestly, it was my high school era that really got me into music. I remember my buddies introducing me to all kinds of music, to the point one of them made me a CD of tracks to check out, which included Slayer, At The Drive In, Deftones, Soulfly… But I think the 2 critical moments that really made me go ‘oh I love this’ were:
1. When I got my first paycheque from Sunrise Records. I remember I wanted to buy a CD but wanted to make sure it really counted. So, I looked at compilation albums and landed on the Ozzfest 2001 live CD. To me, that CD was perfect, and to think about it, it still is. Actually, that CD can easily summarize my influences as it features a lot of my favourite bands.
2. I remember going over to my cousin’s house, and his dad was watching a live performance. Coming from a Spanish family, I was the ‘oddball’ as I was the only person who listened to metal (let alone rock) music, but my uncle was also a metal head. Anyways, he was watching Metallica’s ‘Live Shit: Binge & Purge’ on VHS, and I sat there and watched it with him. I remember he let me borrow the boxset, and I watched the tapes over and over again. At the beginning of the show, when they go from ‘Enter Sandman’ to ‘Creeping Death’, at that point, I knew I wanted to do that for the rest of my life.
If you could collaborate with a current band or musician who would it be?
A dream of mine would be to work with Zakk Wylde. The man is a legend and pretty much the reason I picked up the guitar. I think it would be awesome to blend his BLS sound to our TDP style, really create something new. 2 more I need to throw out there are Bad Omens and PVRIS. I first heard of Bad Omens through the ‘Paradise City’ series. Their sound was unique, heavy, and something I’ve never heard before. At that point, I wasn’t into Metalcore (or whatever you call it), so discovering them introduced me to a new wave of metal. PVRIS is a different direction, music-wise. I’m a huge fan of music; I used to go to the record stores every Tuesday to find something new to listen to. Anyways, I remember hearing ‘All We Know Of Heaven, All We Need Of Hell’ for the first time and thinking there hasn’t been an album this great in years. From start to finish, that album was a great listen. If we could collaborate with Lyn, write something as emotionally charged as AWNOH/AWNOH, and mix in the force of TDP, I think we would explore new territories never done before *laughs*
If you could play any festival in the world, which would you choose and why?
It would have been Ozzfest. That’s where my love started, and all my favourite bands played on that stage. To be able to do that would be a dream come true. Rumour has it that Sharon (Osbourne) might be bringing it back, so there may be a chance! With that said, Wacken Open Air has always been the goal for the band. We competed in the Wacken Metal Battles to see if we could make it a reality, but unfortunately, we weren’t selected this year. That just means we gotta find another way to get on that stage.
What’s the weirdest gift you have ever received from a fan?
I wouldn’t call it weird, but once a fan told me she loved our music and really liked our sound. She went on to say that she really liked my style and my guitar (who wouldn’t) and proceeded to give me a rock, but on it was a drawn-on star. I remember looking at it and then looking at her, and she was like ‘a rock star for a rockstar’. I still have the rock, and it sits in my home studio.
If you had one message for your fans, what would it be?
To all our fans, never forget you have all the power. In anything in life, you control the outcome of what happens. If it wasn’t for all your support, love, and dedication to The Divine Project, we wouldn’t be able to do what we love. You all help shape our existence, and we truly thank you from the bottom of our hearts.
If you could bring one rock star back from the dead, who would it be?
Lemmy. Unfortunately, Motorhead was one of the bands I never got to see live. No matter what festival I was at or when they came to Toronto or nearby cities, I was always away and never able to make it to their show. I love Motorhead, and to not be able to see them, and now never be able to, hurts my heart.
What do you enjoy the most about being a musician? And what do you hate?
The whole creative process is the best part for me. I love writing music, writing lyrics, telling a story. To be able to express yourself through music, and have the listeners not only hear you, but feel your emotions as well; that is my favourite part of being a musician. I really don’t hate’ anything, but the thing I dislike the most is the music industry. There was a time when being a musician or an artist allowed you to create these pieces of art and still make enough to financially sustain a way of living. Now, you need to be a self-running corporation that does everything beyond being an artist, just to make very little money. You constantly operate at a loss, with cards stacked against you, to try to turn your passion into something more. I don’t know when it happened exactly, but if I had to say I hate something, it’s the moment we accepted the arts as leisure instead of necessity.
If you could change one thing about the music industry, what would it be?
Make it easier for artists to make a living from music. I’m not saying make everyone huge rockstars, but allow for fair pay and opportunities for artists to make a living wage. It’s crazy that we all accepted streaming platforms as the main source for all our musical needs, but an artist needs millions and millions of consistent streams to afford to live. That to me is crazy.
Name one of your all-time favourite albums?
I hate this question *laughs*. Ok, if I’m picking 1, I think it’ll be Linkin Park’s “Hybrid Theory”. I still listen to that album today, and from start to finish, it’s awesome. They are the reason I started playing guitar in dropped tuning.
What’s best? Vinyl, Cassettes, CD’s or Downloads?
I grew up in the CD world, so I’m going to say CD. If downloads and streams paid out artists fairly, I would say that for convenience, but for now, CD is the winner in my books.
What’s the best gig that you have played to date?
My favourite, hands down, was the “Rebirth” EP release show at the Bovine, Toronto. To start, the bill was amazing. We had Vulpecula, Night of The Snakes, and Jupiter Hollow, who, overall, the band are fans of, play the show with us. From there, the crowd was insane. We ended up packing the venue, and the crowd was into the music the entire night. That was an awesome night. I’ll never forget that show.
If you weren’t a musician, what else would you be doing?
Well, the day job is being a project manager for a construction general contractor. Been in this industry for well over a decade. After that, I’m really good with numbers, so I could be doing accounting or bookkeeping in some capacity.
Which five people would you invite to a dinner party?
Oof. Never been asked this before. I think an interesting dinner party would be Zakk Wylde, Jason Momoa, Nikki Glaser, Chris Jericho and Scarlet Johansson. That would be a fun, random group of funny people.
What’s next for the band?
We are joining Selias as they bring their March Mayhem tour across Ontario. We haven’t really mentioned it before, but we have completed the demos/pre-production for our next EP; hoping to hit the studio in the spring to record it. There are a couple of other things we are planning, but it’s too early to talk about them. In short, we aren’t stopping any time soon!
What Social Media / Website links do you use to get your music out to people?
For all the TDP info, links, and beyond, always go to www.TDP-Official.com. There you will find everything TDP you’re looking for.
You can listen to our debut EP ‘Rebirth’ on all your favourite streaming platforms (links below):
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/68zNwLCRuRHNugsslV5cqi Apple: https://music.apple.com/gb/artist/the-divine-project/133367614 and all other quick links here: https://ffm.to/jo88mv8
You can purchase the digital copy of ‘Rebirth’ from our Bandcamp page. This includes bonus instrumentals for each track. (Bandcamp: https://thedivineproject.bandcamp.com/).
All the latest news comes from our socials, Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/TheDivineProject/ and Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedivineproject/
Finally, you can check out our music videos and visual content at YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thedivineproject and Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@the.divine.project
Time for a very British question now. As an alternative to the humble sandwich, is the correct name for a round piece of bread common in the UK either a Bap, a Barm (or Barm Cake), a Batch, a Bun a Cob, a Muffin, a Roll, or a Tea Cake?
I need to go to the UK *laughs* I don’t know what most of these are, so I’m going to play it safe and go with the muffin!
Thank you for your time. Is there anything else that you would like to add?
Support your local bands. Go to the shows, buy the merch, show all your friends their music. We need to keep music alive and in a time of industry control and AI invasion; we are soon going to lose all the authenticity that made us fall inlove with our favourite songs. You can help keep it alive by supporting the arts. So start today, but liking, following, and streaming all The Divine Project things \m/ \m/
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