DEVILDRIVER interview transcript.

Transcript of an interview I recorded with Dez Fafara of DevilDriver - 8/06/19.
Full article here.

MAL-
On the line I've got Dez Fafara from DEVILDRIVER. Dez, thanks for taking my call. 
DEZ-
Absolutely. Good morning to you and can't wait to come down and see you there.
MAL-
It will be f***ing insane.  Tell us about the early days formation. What do you remember? 
DEZ-
Well, you know, I remember leaving COAL CHAMBER and looking for something heavy. I moved to Santa Barbara where my wife was from. I was sitting in a cafe one morning with no band at the time. And a guy came up to me Evan Pitts, who actually, I was just texting with about five minutes ago, oddly enough, but came up to me and gave me a card and said, you know, or gave me a little piece of paper with his phone number on it and said, Hey, I recognize you, you know, you're Dez Fafara, I'd like to jam with you, I'm a guitar player. And I said, 'Okay, whatever cool', And I ordered breakfast and about a week later, I was going through my jacket, and I found that number. And I said to my wife, you know, let me just call this guy. Let me let me see and I called Evan. And the rest is history. We made the first record together. We did the first tour together and that's that's actually when he realized he wasn't cut out for touring and just didn't really want to leave home and really tour but we made some magnificent music and then from there, that's how it started.  
MAL-
You made your first album reasonably quickly, what's your memories of that first album? 
DEZ-
Well, I remember coming off making COLD CHAMBER's 'Dark Days'. And at that point, I was driving from LA all the way to to Santa Barbara, which is about two and a half, three hours, and then driving up in the mountains of Santa Barbara, which is another hour nightly, to record the demos for the first DEVILDRIVER record, which is at that point, we were called DEATH RIDE. So that's what I remember. I remember knowing I was going to go to leave and heading to Santa Barbara every night going up and recording DEVILDRIVER. 
MAL-
Was that a drag driving all that way every day? 
DEZ-
Nah, man, I like to drive man, so long as I can drive fast and I got good music. I'll drive anywhere. I mean, this is why I love the road, right? That's why I've been on tour for almost 30 years. And I'm totally I'm the musician who sits up in the front of the tour bus and I just can't get enough. So I've got a wandering soul and I'm a traveling man, it's always been that way. 
MAL-
Who's writing the majority of the music Dez?
DEZ-
You know, we all combined there, I think it's very important to have a band that throws everything together, together and as a unit. And right now this thing is a really tight unit, everybody contributes, and we really can't have anybody who doesn't contribute at this point. I was in DEVILDRIVER for a very long time with a guitar player, Jeff Kendrick, who really didn't contribute. And you know, that's not a good thing. So I, I can never really work with a musician again, who doesn't contribute to the music. 
MAL-
Are you one of the bands that can write on the road and then go into the studio and have a lot of the work, you know, song formation pretty much done? Or do you have to lock yourself away? 
DEZ-
I gotta lock myself away. Those guys write the music, comes to me, I tell them how I want it arranged, makes it different, you know, some different moves with it. And then when I do write I lock myself away for a very long time, sometimes, you know, 10-12 hours a day. I like to write real early in the morning, I mean, real early, like before the sun comes up and the energy of the day starts moving. So, between, you know, 4am to 6:30-7am is my prime writing hours. So it's a time when the ether is completely quiet, not a lot of energy, not a lot of people stirring, not a lot going on, it's a lot better than writing at, you know, say 10-11, midnight, when things are still happening, you know, and I just find it peaceful and quiet. And I get a lot done. I mean, there's some days I go in, and I can only write one verse. There's other days, I go in for two or three hours, and by seven o'clock in the morning, I've written three songs. So it just all depends how it hits me. 
MAL-
Been around for a while now had quite a stable lineup for many, many years then a few changes, but it's been quite stable. Again, tell us about how that affected the band. 
DEZ-
Well, I mean, if you look around at all your favorite bands anybody who's been around over five years there's easily a member change, right? I mean, even in METALLICA, there's member changes, and that's the way that it goes. So I'm lucky enough and fortunate enough over the 20 years, with DEVILDRIVER to only really have one big lineup change. And I think that was for the better. In all honesty, you can't be in a band with people you don't get along with or people who are not getting or seeing the vision. And there was definitely a time for a change in DEVILDRIVER's world and I'm glad that I did I mean, Neil Tiemann is probably one of the most incredible songwriters I've ever been party to play with. You put him together with Mike Spicer, who was an absolute monster in the studio. I mean, he's a producer in his own right. He just produced the new WEDNESDAY 13 record that's getting ready to come out, that's phenomenal. So you know, you have to surround yourself with guys that A- enjoy what they're doing, B- know what they're doing. C- know the direction of where you want to go, and D- everybody's got to get along and have a great vibe because life is too short. Music is not about not about fighting with members and everything else that goes along in rock bands. It's really about traveling, making music, making friends and having a good time. 
MAL-
Probably one of the best answers ever, dude.
DEZ-
It's true though, right? It's fucking so true. And every band, I mean, every band I talked to you, you know, they all have problems, you know, 'Oh, my bass player Oh, my drummer. Oh, I hate my singer'. It's like, well, fucking quit then, you know, I did it. I was on my own tour bus with COAL CHAMBER. I was on the way to fucking play shows, and do a tour with KID ROCK. And I said, You know what, this is not for me. I don't want to go this route with my music. There's gonna be 20,000 people that night that are going to see us with KID ROCK. I'm out of here. I don't want to be party to this. I want to go heavier. I want to be more underground. You know, I started as a punk rock goth kid. So I never really grew up on metal. I found metal when I found MOTORHEAD, I never grew up on thrash or any of that shit. I'm more of a punk rock kid. But metal is in my heart because it's vicious. And that's why I gravitated towards it. So you know, everything needs to work in Order for a band to do have that thing and, and do it right. 
MAL-
Tell us about the 'Outlaws Till The End Volume One' album. How did that come about? 
DEZ-
Well, I knew that it was going to be three years between records. And I wanted to do something special. Here in America, if you say, you go to a show, and you go to a SLAYER show and you're tailgating outside and people are barbequeing, you're going to hear Slayer into Johnny Cash into PANTERA into WILLIE NELSON, WAYLON JENNINGS, nobody even bats an eye. I mean, those outlaws that outlaw country music, old HANK WILLIAMS, stuff like that is really thought of as heavy. It can go along with heavy metal very well. And it has never been done proper. It has never been really done putting those things together. As a matter of fact, I had a lot of people reach out and tell me that it would be bad for my brand if I tried to tackle this, but I said I'm going to do it. And we started getting all these guests man John Carter Cash, the son of Johnny Cash, Hank III, Wednesday 13, Randy from LAMB OF GOD like I could go Burton C Bell from Fear Factory. I mean, I can go down the line on on the amount of guests were on that thing you know, I mean, I worked with Lee Ving, from FEAR, who was my, my childhood like fucking idol. I ran away from home at 15 with a FEAR shirt on. So I said look, I'm going to try something and even though people are telling me that it's dangerous to do that gives me a bit of a bigger middle finger completely. Now looking back, man, that think came out high charted, sold a lot. Nine out of 10, 10 out of 10. So, you know, with art, anything that's pure art, you kind of gotta stick to your guns, do it for the reasons you want to do it. And that's and that's that, you know,
MAL-
Coming up very soon. In late August, you're touring Australia again. When was the last time you were here? 
DEZ-
Five years ago, and we were supposed to be there a few a few years back, but we were supposed to do this festival that fell apart. That's a huge bummer to me. Well, we'll leave the name of that festival to be put in the mud because I'm pissed still. And you know it just bummed our fans out. It bummed the DEVILDRIVER family out. We wanted to go. And then consequently, last year, we couldn't come. And so now you're looking at five years. So this will never happen again. But we're coming down, these going to be our first headlining shows in a very long time. If we do come next year, we're probably going to be coming on the heels of another band, in support. So now would be the time to come see a double driver headliner, because we've got a double staggered release record coming out March next year, then March The following year, in 2021. We're going to tour till middle to late 2022. And then I'm going to take my first real long long break that I've had since 1995. You know, I mean, I started touring with BLACK SABBATH and PANTERA in '96. And so I haven't caught a break since then. And I've missed you know, some of my kids graduating high school, birthdays, deaths, you name it, and it's just time to really come off the road so now would be the time to come see DEVILDRIVER for sure. 
MAL-
And you doing all Australia mainland capitals, which is good. So you're doing Adelaide, we miss out a lot and you're doing Perth, they miss out a lot as well. So it's great. Well done that you're doing that. 
DEZ-
Thank you very much. I mean, I got to come over and I've gotta pay homage and work the markets that that supported me over there. I mean we were really taken in by the Australian fan base. And for us, that means a lot, you know, especially for myself. I mean, I remember waking up there in a hotel to a manager calling me telling me it number nine record and Kanye West was right underneath me. So I said, Okay, this is incredible. So, we're coming over, man, we're coming over with pure energy, we're going to get 110% I'm looking to burn down the stage. I want it to be shaking inside that venue. I want people to know that you know what it's about what a volatile metal band is about. And I think that we have such a punk rock spirit that you know, even though even here in the United States, man, like our reputation kind of precedes us. There's, there's some venues we can't play, because the promoter knows they're going to end up calling the police. It's going to be chaos and insane. Chaos and insanity. So we've kind of been barred from a few And, you know, that's okay man, I like it. I like it live and I like it insane. And when I grew up in the punk rock scene, it was like you walked into a venue with butterflies and you didn't know if there'd be a possible riot that night. If something was going to happen, I think that's kind of gone away. Metal has gotten real, real fucking safe. Everybody's singing these big clean choruses to get on the radio, most of the metal bands I started with now, it's been my mind to turn into radio bands. And we were putting our boots on, we're keeping our boots on and we're sweeping our path in front of us and we're leaving it nice and clean when we walk away, man, it's going to be you know, it's going to be heavy all the way. So the major majority of heavy metal bands have turned to this formula of, you know, a kind of a heavy verse and then a real clean big chorus with hooks and really, it just tastes to me like, you know, sweet milk in my mouth. it's sickening. I just can't take it and I'm not, I don't dig it and a lot of the bands that I started With a lot of my peers around me are going that route to try to either save their careers or get on radio or move the needle, move the needle with their brand, like, I don't give a fuck. Like I'm not chasing money, I'm chasing authentic, you know, something authentic. I'm chasing real. I'm chasing something that feels real to me and DEVILDRIVER has always been that I've always kind of had a no bullshit attitude about myself. And I think that's another reason why people may gravitate towards us and I just got a real you know, I got to no patience, and I've got a real low tolerance for anything that I see that's candy coated, or skewed for the radio, skewed for TV. You know, it's like painting a painting and knowing that if you use the color red, it's going to sell, well, right now all around me is nothing but red paintings, and I can see right through it. It all looks like bullshit to me. You know, I'm going speak my mind on that DEVILDRIVER's always stayed true. And I think people, people will enjoy that, you know, and they're going to enjoy the record that they're getting ready to get
MAL-
All right, Dez from DEVILDRIVER, absolutely great talking to you today. Looking forward to DEVILDRIVER hitting Australia right between the eyes in late August. Thanks for your time and we'll see you then. 
DEZ-
My pleasure, man, you guys put your boots on and get ready to get into the pit because it's going to be insanity and we're coming down with a volatile frame of mind. So thank you very much for having me today and take care of yourself.