DEVILDRIVER

INTERVIEW WITH SINGER DEZ FAFARA BY TOM CRANDLE

DevilDriver and vocalist Dez totally different story with me. I went Fafara have spent the last 18 as deep as I could. I hit my own deyears singing about pain, dis- mons and society’s demons. It was honesty, betrayal, anger, loss, uncomfortable to go as close to myand the worst traits of humanity. self as I could, and then tell people This will come to a glorious head what the songs are about lyrically.” when DevilDriver release their epic new double album. The first half, Like so many other bands, DevilDealing With Demons 1, arrives on Driver’s best laid plans were deOctober 9 through Napalm Records. railed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fafara will attempt to once and for “The album was done, in the can, all exorcise the things that haunt late 2019. We were supposed to rehim so he can begin to take the lease it late 2019 or early 2020,” Faband in a new lyrical direction. fara recalls. “The plan was to do a “This record is about taking chanc- by a year or a year and a half, stay es for us,” he says. “I’ve always kind on the road for three and a half of written about the human condi- years straight, literally straight, then tion—love, hate, and all the rest of come off and take a year and a half it. I just want to write about differ- or two-year break. Then COVID hit.” ent things. Here’s the situation, I’ve been writing about the same thing This isn’t the first time in recent since I was 16, and basically, I need memory that Fafara has had to to move on from that. It was going to deal with unexpected adversity. take a double record for me to do that, and I could get everything off “In 2019, my family and I had some my chest.” heavy difficulties that we faced as “We wrote almost 30 or 35 songs for uate our house from wildfires, and this thing, and had maybe 50 ideas, we didn’t know if we were going to and narrowed it down until it was all come back to a home. It was insane.” killer no filler,” Fafara continues. “I double record, stagger the release a team,” he says. “We had to evacknow a lot of bands say that, but it “We beat that, got a double record, is the fact with this record. I could got touring coming, and my wife release every one of these songs on had cancer,” Farfara recalls. “So, volume one as a single.” she had to get two surgeries at once on that, and then we beat that. We “This double record put me out of beat wildfires, beat cancer, got a my comfort zone to the point of this double record, got some touring, and - when you asked me in the last 20 here comes the pandemic, and riots years what a song was about, I would and civil unrest, and all the rest of it.” never tell you,” he explains. “This is a “We watched a lot of bands pull their records because of this thing, and it was a good business move on their part, but a terrible move towards the fans,” he opines. “This is the time when people need a good metal record. And besides, everything that I’m discussing within the record are things that people can identify with. I think this is the time to release it.”

“It’s like boxing—you’ve just got to stick and move,” he says. “You’ve got to punch and duck, and that’s where we're at right now. You’ve got to learn how to make different moves at this point. It’s become all about giving people new music and keeping up on your socials.”

“I love music. It’s all I do,” Farfare concludes. “When it becomes a chore to tour, when it becomes a chore to write, when it becomes a chore to be in this life, I’ll get away really quickly. I still really enjoy what we’re doing.” �� �� ��