As with the last time I interviewed Devildriver frontman Dez Fafara, I was the last person to do so on this day. Contrary to that interview he had a lot to say. Read all about it:

How come this album sounds so much better produced than the previous one?

 

Ahm, different producers. The first one was Ross Hogarth and this one was Colin Richardson. It sounds better in it’s entirely because the first one was predominantly written by one guitar player who wouldn’t share his duties with others, didn’t play well with others. So we got rid of him and you have to realize that our drummer and bass player also play guitar so we have four guitar players in our band, which is makes a better record. More technical, everything. I find that to be the best, when everyone can put in their input. On the first record it was this one guy and he was like ‘no no these are my songs’ and that’s not how we work. So we said fuck off. That’s not a band.

 

 

That’s exactly how, right there. Refer to answer one!

 

 

Well when we started over we had to get back on the road in an RV and we were driving in the snow doing about seventy miles an hour on the freeway. And on the side of the van there still was a sail hanging out which struck us over into what could have been a semi-crash. Fortunately we avoided it, it then came of and hit a truck behind it, went trough the windshield, it was not good. But you know we’re on the road so much we see so many strange things, we just picked up and kept on going.

 

 

Yeah with In Flames we had only like 25 minutes, tonight we have 35 to 40 minutes, so I think we’ll do like ten or eleven songs. And I won't be doing a lot of talking, It’ll just be song song song.

 

 

Yeah, just shut up and play!

 

 

Well I obviously grew up in Coal Chamber, where I had all these obscure lyrics. You kind of had to figure out what I was saying, but as I came into age and came into my own I wanted to tell stories and take the listener someplace that they could understand. One of my favourite artists for instance is Johnny Cash, he’s a god and he can take you to a place in like two minutes and finish a story and that’s just unbelievable. I never realized how good he was until I started listening to him. That’s what educated me on growing lyric wise.

 

 

Oh yeah they wanted us to come over with Candiria and something else, just play some small clubs but no, I just didn’t want to. Wasn’t a fan of the band… I do like the early stuff though, like the first record was incredible, that’s ten years ago. I just wasn’t a fan of the package and I wanted to come over in a better package. We are friends with In Flames, we came over with them, friends with Lamb Of God, coming over with them, this package just more fits our style. I think Candiria, Meshuggah stuff like that, they go out together and that makes sense for them. We’re not that type of a band, we wanted to go out with other bands.

 

 

We’re just gonna do it the way I did earlier in my career and that is open up for everybody until it’s time for us to headline and we’ll know when that time is. It’s starting to look like it’s becoming time so we just have to see. We may come back with somebody else as a support, it just matters who they are. We’re hearing rumours of Slayer, if that happens of course we’ll come back with them. But we need to spend a lot more time in Europe, and that’s a conversation I’ve had with my management and the record label. I’d like to come over here like four times a year, which is a lot. But I feel like we need to be over here, like we need to break over here, so I’m just gonna be here as much as I can.

 

Hohoho, unbelievable! The pits are unbelievably large, we managed to get the biggest circle pit every night out of this tour, and out of any tour that we’re doing. Devildriver at this point right now is a band that is just undeniable live and I say that with the most humble humbleness in my heart. Right now we’re getting into our game and we’re gonna be unstoppable in the future. And I told the guys in the band that I want to be touring for the next fifteen years and if anyone wants to come just pack your bags.

 

 

Uhm looks bright. This album is getting an exceptional critical acclaim, which is good. You see I bury my head in the sand and don’t read a lot of the articles and magazines. You can tend to read into these things and become what they say. But I have been reading into some of the articles and it’s all nine out of ten or ten out of ten points, that feels good for me. That feels like we know where we're going, where it should be. And I think Devildriver right now in the realm of music, especially in the United States is doing something extremely different, much like Lamb Of God is. We’re not doing any slick sing song choruses, you know a lot of the bands on Roadrunner are doing it too, you know they’re all heavy and in comes the chorus and it’s all ohoha (emo crap) and I just fucking hate it! Emocore, I can’t stand it, we are just completely opposite of bands like for instance Killswitch Engage. We want to be that way, completely opposite of like Trivium. I think they’re creating a formula to get themselves on the radio a bit more, and that’s good, to get your art out there. But I’m a fan of what is underground should stay underground and the kids should find it the underground way. And they’re finding us the underground way because we’re not getting radio airplay that much, haha. Maybe some internet radio. But I think that’s really because that’s how I found music when I was a kid and it’s one of the reasons why I left my previous band. It was too eclectic to out there and too… safe. And I like unsafe, I like the unstable bridge, I’ve always been the one if you tell me to go left or right who goes straight and make my own path. And that’s what Devildriver’s doing right now.

 

 

Anybody who supported me in the past, thank you. And anybody who’s supporting Devildriver in the future thank you. And I can tell you that you’re only gonna get the best from us and we’re never gonna sell out, ever. We’re only gonna get heavier and more brutal and we’re always gonna keep the groove and everything that you like about Devildriver. We’ll always keep it there.

 

 

Thank you very much!