Singer urges group to stay true to its sound after his first band goes commercial
Dez Fafara would like fans to know that he hasn’t done things the easy way when it comes to building his band’s career.
Fafara started DevilDriver after his stint in Coal Chamber. Coal Chamber had risen to prominence in 1997 with a gold-certified self-titled debut CD that established the group as one of the most promising on the then-emerging “nu metal” scene.
But Fafara felt the other members of Coal Chamber made a mistake in going for more of a commercial sound on its subsequent two CDs. By the release of Coal Chamber’s third album, 2002’s “Dark Days,” he had decided to start DevilDriver, and create music that was more challenging and inspiring for him.
Fafara said he knows some people have suspicions about why he left Coal Chamber. Most of those assumptions mistakenly relate to his ego, he said, instead of the artistic ambitions that prompted his move.
“You’ve got all of these people that were into Coal Chamber, and we sold a fair amount of records around the world, I mean, a couple of million around the world,” Fafara said. “They’ve got Coal Chamber tattoos. Then all of a sudden the singer left, and they don’t know why. They don’t take the time (to find out why). They just think, ‘Well, it was singer-itis, and he’s just going to do his own thing right now.’ But it wasn’t like that.”
Fafara said the other members of Coal Chamber started to focus on things other than making music, camaraderie and road trips, “so I left.”
And Fafara, DevilDriver’s lyricist and singer, said everything he has done with his second band has been driven by music and the integrity of the group’s art.
“I could have really hung my hat on the Dez from Coal Chamber thing, really went out and only headlined, and put certain bands on (stage) underneath us to create a draw and probably would have built this thing, not in seven years, but in two years,” Fafara said.
“It really would have been the easy way out, but I’m not the kind of guy who is like that. I wasn’t raised like that. I was raised (knowing) hard work pays off, so what we did was get back in the RV, and go and go get it. We opened for every band that ever opened for Coal Chamber, everybody. I’ve got to say that. And we took every single slot. So, if there was a 10 o’clock in the morning slot at Ozzfest and it was available, the ego wasn’t keeping me from taking it. I took it.”
In terms of the band’s sound, Fafara believes he has avoided certain musical elements that could have made DevilDriver more radio friendly and easier to digest for metal music fans.
DevilDriver’s recently released fourth album, “Pray for Villains,” seems to support Fafara’s point that he hasn’t been making music with commercial success in mind.
“Pray for Villains” further establishes DevilDriver as a band exploring the more extreme end of heavy metal. On songs such as “Pure Sincerity,” “Back with a Vengeance” and the title track, the group unleashes plenty of grinding guitars, pummeling and intricate beats, all topped off by Fafara’s intensely screamed and frayed vocals. Nothing is being done to soften what is a decidedly jagged edge of the group’s sound.
“It is a very popular thing right now to scream the verses, and when you get to the chorus you get this big, smooth, hooky clean, clean, clean vocal,” Fafara said. “What it says to me basically is just we want to get on the radio, so here’s what we’re doing for that. (But) we don’t think about any of those things.”
What he does think about, Fafara said, is honestly and passionately expressing himself in his lyrics, and helping the other band members — guitarists Michael Spreitzer and Jeffrey Kendrick, drummer John Boecklin and bassist Jon Miller — create intriguing instrumental parts. He also wants to build technically exciting twists into the music.
The intricacy of its music does create an issue for the band once it turns its attention to touring. And Fafara noted that the complexity of the songs on “Pray for Villains” is forcing each band member to raise his game, particularly in bringing the new songs to life on stage.
“Each individual player has to kind of stand up to (his) own test on different songs,” Fafara said. “So you can spend eight to 10 hours in a rehearsal studio grinding out just on three tunes to get everybody correct, and you really want to have it that way, too. If you’re going out to play a show, you want to have it dialed in.”
