 In 1994 , Century Media Records offered Townsend a contract to make " some extreme albums " . He agreed to a five @-@ album deal with the record label , and also provided much of the guitar work on the 1994 album Millennium and the 1995 album Hard Wired by Vancouver industrial band Front Line Assembly . Townsend began to record material under the pseudonym Strapping Young Lad . He avoided using his real name at this point in career , looking for a fresh start after his high @-@ profile Vai gig . " At the beginning , I wanted to avoid at all cost to use my name because I was known as the singer for Steve Vai and it wasn 't the best publicity to have , " he later explained . " I was playing somebody else 's music and I was judged in respect to that music . " Townsend produced and performed nearly all the instruments on the debut studio album , Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing , which was released in April 1995 . 
