Dez Fafara of Devildriver & Coal Chamber
by Cameron Edney
Guest Staff Writer
In all the years I have been conducting interviews, never have I enjoyed talking with one metal maniac as much as I do with Devildriver vocalist Dez Fafara. Over the years I have had the pleasure of meeting and chatting with Dez in support of almost every album they released and upon almost every Australian tour and when album five was ready to hit the shelves it was only a matter of time before we would once again speak about all things metal! Having formed in 2002 Devildriver have worked their asses off to get to the position they’re in today. They are known around the world for holding the record for the largest circle pit, they have toured nonstop since forming starting out on the bottom of the bills and have worked their way up to headlining slots across the globe.
The band’s latest album ‘Beast’ hit the Australian album charts at #9 on its first week of release sparking Devildriver to be played on commercial radio in Australia for the very first time. DevilDriver’s love for Australia runs deep and the fans have certainly continued to show their appreciation to a band that deserves every single bit of credit they’re given. Since the album’s release not everything in the DevilDriver camp has been worth celebrating though. Since conducting this interview with Dez, Devildriver bassist Jonathan Miller announced that he has left the band with DevilDriver’s tour manager Aaron Patrick currently filling his shoes and doing a mighty fine job as all Australian fans witnessed during the bands killer Soundwave Festival performances earlier this year.
Whilst the band were back in the country I had the great pleasure of catching up with Dez to discuss the bands love and appreciation of Australia, his thoughts on breaking the top ten, life on the road and the ups and downs it can dish you, the band’s latest kick ass aggressive metal onslaught ‘Beast’ and much more. Sit back as we unleash the ‘Beast’ within Dez Fafara!
Hardrock Haven: Dez, welcome back to Australia! As always it’s a pleasure to be chatting with you today. How has the tour been going?
Dez Fafara: Unbelievable, absolutely unbelievable, we’ve been having a great time. first of all, anytime you walk on the grounds a t festival’s, here’s the crew you know all of them, here’s the bands you know all of them, I can’t tell ya how many people you’re hugging within the first hour. Everyone has been really polite to my wife and kids, stopping and taking pictures, everyone from Bruce Dickinson to Sum 41 and everybody’s been really cool.
Hardrock Haven: Since Devildriver formed you’ve always tried to include Australia on the itinerary’s what is it about Australia that you guys love so much?
Dez Fafara: What’s not to love man! I get to come down there in the summer time, the culture is amazing, the food is great, and the people are beautiful. The crowds are amazing and ramped for DevilDriver, it’s the place that we have to come to once or twice a year without a doubt, I wouldn’t miss out on it. Once you plant that seed, it grows into a tree and you have to come back and water it or it dies. We’re going to give it plenty of water this time around and watch things flourish.
Hardrock Haven: With ‘Beast’ now on the shelves I would imagine it’s becoming harder and harder to put that set-list together for shows, how do you tackle that issue these days?
Dez Fafara: We try to manage to put three or four songs from each record on, and we’re not a band that talks a lot between songs, so we can cram in thirteen or fourteen songs into a forty five minute set. Don’t worry they’re going to get their fair share of each record plus new stuff off ‘Beast’.
Hardrock Haven: How have the new tracks been going over live, are the crowd into it as much as expected?
Dez Fafara: They’re all singing along to ‘Dead to Rights’ and there couldn’t be more than a pleasing fact to have that happening right in front of you.
Hardrock Haven: Mate, you guys are certainly known for spending most of your time out on the road…. is there a possibility that the ‘Beast’ shows could be recorded for a possible future release? I mean five albums in… it’s probably time to shoot out a live album… is this something you guys are interested in doing?
Dez Fafara: We don’t know… it’s one of those things where you’re working with a label and its contractual. Do they want to spend money on a live record? Do live records work? That’s really where there head is that. My head is in the art of the live record… yes we’d love to, so should we be approached by the label and say lets record these for a live record… amen let’s do it! We try to record ourselves every night, where there’s the opportunity anyways. We just listened back to a recording we did in England and my drummer said it best, he said “man we wouldn’t even need to overdub, we could just put it out”, so sure, we’d love to!
Hardrock Haven: It’s obvious that when you hit the road; most of the time you have to leave loved ones behind, that aside these days what do you love and hate the most about touring?
Dez Fafara: Well first of all, the thing I hate the most is being away from my little red headed wife, my kids, my dogs, my cats and the things I love at home. I’m very fortunate that the things in my life that I just mentioned are the only solids in my life. I can always count on her; I can always count on the kids, my Doberman and Great Dane. That being said I love the road, The last six shows in Europe, I was sick as a dog, possibly phenomena, out in the snow and we didn’t cancel, I did all the shows, I’m that kind of guy. I love to wake up in a new place, experience new cultures, new food, new people, it’s gotta be moving for me otherwise I feel stagnant and that’s why we do tour so much!
Hardrock Haven: It’s awesome to see that your family has finally come down to Australia with you, have you guys been checking out all the obvious tourist sites?
Dez Fafara: Yeah we are, we seen everything from the zoo to the aquarium and we had dinner down at darling harbor last night. My wife’s my best friend. We’ve been together for fourteen years and I go literally from the bus to the stage or the hotel to the stage, I saved all the “hug a koala” moments until my family did come down. My wife wants to buy a house, it’s a lot like California here and the statement “no worries”, I think that brings me right to the level.
Hardrock Haven: Dez as everyone is aware Jonathan is sitting out the tour at the moment and Aaron is filling in doing an amazing job. You have seen firsthand how excess can catch up with people on tour, you witnessed that in Coal Chamber, and it seems history may be repeating itself with Jon’s current situation. What do you think have been the best lessons you’ve learnt on the road?
Dez Fafara: I don’t do hard drugs, it will take your life away, don’t do hard alcohol; it will take your life away. People should know that I left Coal Chamber because of that, not because of the music. When I fist left Coal Chamber I said that I wanted to go in a different direction musically, but that was because I was friends with all the families of those in Coal Chamber and I didn’t want to call them out and say they’re doing mountains of speed. Going onstage every night I realized that if I kept feeding them money they’d keep buying themselves drugs and that they were going to kill themselves. Now I’m great friends with the Coal Chamber guys and we run into each other six, seven times a year and they’re all clean off the hard drugs so I did my job properly as a friend, even though I had to kill my whole career because of it, move my family into a one bedroom apartment and start over. I did it for my friends so in the end my character will show the true test of time. What I’ve learned is stay away from the hard shit and don’t do everything full on, if you want to put the pedal to the metal eventually you will get a ticket and wind up in an accident.
Hardrock Haven: Getting away from touring I want to speak with you about the latest album ‘Beast’. The album is fuckin insane dude, it’s brutal, melodic, kick you in the fuckin balls perfect! You guys must be really proud of this one?
Dez Fafara: So proud of it man, we knew that this was going to be a defining moment. We’ve managed to define our sound with each record and we knew that this record was one of those moments where we had to nail down exactly where we were. I had a really rough go during the making of this record, the darkest places I’ve been in my life in the last ten years. Lucky I had family behind me, I had to leave the recording process twice, and it was a really difficult record to make. I had to move my family cause of wild fires again, I was going through heavy personal stuff with friends, health and other aspects of my life… when you go to a dark place like that you find yourself writing a record like ‘Beast’!
Hardrock Haven: Congratulations are certainly in order mate, the album debut at #9 on the Australian charts which is fantastic to see, you must have been ecstatic to get that news. Congrats man the album hit #9 on the Australian charts, that’s fantastic to see; no doubt you were ecstatic with the news.
Dez Fafara: Picture me at three thirty in the morning jumping up and down on my bed talking to my manager saying hard work pays off. The Australian fans man…. We’ve built this one show at a time, it’s been an organic growth an organic build and to break the top ten with the kind of music that we’re doing… I just did my first commercial radio over here and the first thing he said is we don’t play stuff like you’re here’s ‘Dead To Rights’!
Hardrock Haven: I remember chatting with you before the album’s release and predicting that ‘Beast’ would be an album that would make it in many fans top ten albums of the year and to see it in its first weeks smashing charts around the world is nothing short of incredible!
Dez Fafara: We couldn’t be more ecstatic, its appreciation straight from me, I don’t know how many bands have come out of one band and straight into another successfully. I am blessed sir, blessed beyond belief I have a great family, great band and a great future ahead of me, I’m keeping my head down and burying myself in work.
Hardrock Haven: As time goes on, being a band that spends so much time on the road, with very little down time or time to relax, does it become more difficult or easier to put yourself into that mind-set of writing for a new album?
Dez Fafara: Not this one, I had to get shit off my chest. This is one of those records that are intentionally personal to me, written about people in and around my life and I had to get it off my chest. I haven’t felt this way since my early twenty’s, this pissed and this ferial about these subjects on the record. My wife read a lot of the lyrics I had written before I put them to demo and she said “oh my god honey, you fuckin tapped in” and that meant a lot to me. The minute that I started getting the demos I had pen to paper and I wanted to really tap into these emotions that I’m feeling.
Hardrock Haven: You worked with both Mark Lewis and Andy Sneap on the new album, two guys who have done amazing work in the industry… tell us why you chose those guys specifically to be a part of ‘Beast’?
Dez Fafara: Marl Lewis was the engineer for ‘The Last Kind Words’ and I knew after doing that record and the amount of work that he did on that record he was almost the producer on that! It was Jason Suecof [that produced it] and he was engineering but to me it looked like he was doing the production. I said to myself that this cat needs to come up from engineering to production and I really want to work with him and a good thing we did. He spent a lot of time getting the tones he was really into the production of this record he wanted to make sure that we defined ourselves amongst the genre but he wanted us to try and create a genre out of our sound. Andy… he’s a total pro, he loves what Devildriver does, he’s very vocal about what he wants to do to the record once it gets to him, and I really appreciate that from everybody all around!
Hardrock Haven: There are some kick ass tracks on the album including ‘Bring the fight’, Black Soul Choir’ and ‘Coldblooded’ to name a few… What are you hoping the fans are going to take away from this one!
Dez Fafara: Honesty! You know what… I hope they take away honesty; I want them to listen to these songs and go that’s exactly how I feel. He tapped into what I’m feeling personally. That’s exactly how I feel, just like that! Those were really the emotions that I wanted to tap into! Everybody feels like that son of a bitch is cold blooded, everybody. Everybody feels like… you wanna talk, you wanna do this or that, fuck that take off the fuckin gloves, put down the knife, let’s do it! ‘Black Soul Choir’, that’s a cover man. Have you heard of Sixteen Horsepower?
Hardrock Haven: No man.
Dez Fafara: Have you heard of a band called Woven Hand?
Hardrock Haven: Yes…
Dez Fafara: Ok, the guy who sings for Woven Hand used to be in a band called Sixteen Horsepower, ‘Black Soul Choir’ is me and Spreitzer’s favourite song and he is one of our favourite artists, he’s a Christian artists by the way, if you listen to the original and then you listen to ours tonight, you’re gonna be fuckin shocked! His is basically a Country Christian tune!
Hardrock Haven: [Laughs] so you guys have fuckin smashed it up and metalized it!
Dez Fafara: Yeah but you know what… fuckin lyrically “every man is evil, every man’s a liar, in the black soul choir” it’s so fuckin poignant, everything that I was going through. It’s like this year really showed its face to me. Everyone around me, who were the vampires, who were the creatures sucking off my life, who was doing me wrong or right. Who was being my friends for the sake of being my friends and just wanted to suck on me! The only thing that I had that was solid this year was my family and being able to make this record. Someone said to me and its almost fuckin cliché… was this record cathartic to make? Oh Fuck yes it was [laughs], usually I would say that this is a question you ask to every band but let me tell you something… fuck yes it was cathartic!
Hardrock Haven: You said that this past year the one thing that was your rock was family, and how you re-evaluate your friendships. Years ago one of my family members which has now passed on pulled me aside and gave me some of the best advice I’ve ever been given, he said no matter what happens in your life, you will go through life counting your real friends on one hand!
Dez Fafara: That is so fuckin true man, just last night we were lying in bed and I said “you know what honey, I can always count on you and the kids”. My wife and I have had one fight in fifteen years and it was in the first six months of our relationship. How many friends do I really have? And you’re right, god damn it Cameron, I counted them and it was five. You know you need six pallbearers right? Bikers I hang around with they always say you’re going to be carried by six, but one of them is going to be a liar. You’re right, you can only count your fuckin friends on one hand most of the time, people who really give a fuck and would pick you up at three thirty in the morning if your car broke down!
Hardrock Haven: Dez, you’re a family man with a beautiful wife and three great boys and last time we spoke you mentioned that your son Tyler was playing guitar in a band…. I was wandering as the boys all get older, being someone who has seen the world, met so many different kinds of people and seen how different so many people lead their lives… what’s the best advice you can give your sons to prepare them for the “real” world?
Dez Fafara: Be happy in what you do, never do anything half assed, always watch your karma when it comes to any kind of business or working with anyone in an artistic fashion, and follow your dreams. That’s what I tell my kids. My youngest is a drummer, he’s thirteen and Tyler plays guitar and I’m sure my middle one will do something with music, I just tell them to be happy, healthy guys, respect people, be good to your family and those around you.
Hardrock Haven: Dude do you ever get worried that you’re gonna get burnt out on the road… since forming you’ve become mighty road dogs, staying out touring as much as possible, throwing out album after album with very little time off to unwind… of course you can now expect to stay out on the road for a minimum twelve months promoting ‘Beast’ but that being said, do you see the band taking any real time off to kick back and relax at this point, or is it all guns blazing?
Dez Fafara: Right now it’s all guns blazing, I don’t see us taking any time off til mid 2013 at this point. Right now as I can count we’re already booked to the middle of 2012 and bookings are coming in everyday! We’re going to work this record and usually we give a record every two years but I think with ‘Beast’ it’s going to be more than two years cause we’re going to work this record and then take some significant time off for family and for each other to recharge the batteries. We’re not the kind of band that needs to come off to recharge the recharge is actually when we’re together and hit the stage. Everybody in the band loves to tour as much as I do and everyone’s spouses are very supportive, so as longs as that’s going down and everyone’s supportive with the touring schedules it’s good. When my little red head that I’ve been with for fourteen years looks at me and says you need to take a year off then I’ll do it. She’s so stoked with the music that we’re doing and behind what I’m doing in life, it’s just good to have a champion like that, she’s a female Thor, my power centre and when you have that you can go and do anything!
Hardrock Haven: As the saying goes mate, behind every good man, there is a better and stronger women [laughs].
Dez Fafara: Totally, well said and I don’t think there is any good men without a good women [laughs].
Hardrock Haven: Just before we wrap it up, I was wandering what albums are you currently listening to, is there anything you that you just can’t get enough off at the moment?
Dez Fafara: It’s not new but the latest Cancer Bats album, its fuckin amazing. So amazing that we took them out and did a whole run with them, sum through the United States and all over Canada. Hanging out with those guys and watching them, they’re great live and great dudes. I think the new Off record, I don’t know if you’ve heard it, Kieth Morris the original singer of Black Flag and the Circle Jerks has a record with Off! It’s called ‘First Four EPs’ and it’s fuckin brilliant, if you’re into punk rock.
Hardrock Haven: Lastly a question I usually ask everyone I speak with and I don’t think I’ve actually ever put this one to you but… what is the one band you never want to hear again and why?
Dez Fafara: Honestly I fucking hate Coldplay, I cannot stand that dudes voice, it sounds like a fuckin screeching cat that being said if I met him I’m sure he’s a fantastic person.
Hardrock Haven: No, no you’re not allowed to try and make it all nice man [laughs].
Dez Fafara: No just t be a gentleman but honestly it’s just something that I’m not into!
Hardrock Haven: Dez, on that note I think we’ll leave it there. All the best with the rest of the ‘Beast’ tour, as always its great catching up! Do you have any last words for our readers?
Dez Fafara: I’m so appreciative right now of what’s happening with my career, I’m still a kid on the outside looking in.