DEVILDRIVER Bassist: 'I Feel Privileged To Be Able To Do This Career And Play With My Heroes'

Aniruddh "Andrew" Bansal of Metal Assault recently conducted an interview with bassist Jon Miller of Santa Barbara, California metallers DEVILDRIVER. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Metal Assault: This is the last show of the current tour. How has it been?

Jon: This was one of my favorite tours in the world, just because SUFFOCATION is one of my favorite bands and I can't believe that we got to tour with them and they are opening up for us. The guys in GOATWHORE are some of the nicest guys and a killer band too. THY WILL BE DONE are old friends of ours. So, overall, it was a really good time.

Metal Assault: At the Pomona show [January 7, 2010], some of the SUFFOCATION fans left the venue after they finished playing, not choosing to stay to watch you guys. What do you have to say to that?

Jon: Some kids are into certain scenes and into certain bands, and don't care for other bands. Its cool with me, man. I mean, no one gets butt-hurt about it. Actually, as the tour progressed, we didn't really notice any walkouts, nothing drastic. May be just the die-hard death metal kids. Actually, before the tour started I thought may be that would be a problem, but usually when a band is headlining, most kids come to see the headliner. If SUFFOCATION were headlining and we were opening, I think that would have been a different story. (laughs) But yeah, there were no drastic walkouts and everyone has been getting along really well. There were no kids who started shit with other fans. Everyone's been having a good time.

Metal Assault: You've said before that the bands you tour with influence your songwriting in a big way. How has this tour been in that respect?

Jon: I think, even before we toured with these bands, I mean, its funny man. I feel like I've gone to tour with all my influences like IN FLAMES, OPETH, even MORBID ANGEL, and the list goes on and on. It's not like we tour with bands and then get influenced later. I've been listening to all these bands since I was 14-15 years old. I feel privileged to be able to do this career and play with my fuckin' heroes.

Metal Assault: What's going on with the band recording-wise?

Jon: We're going to do one show in the U.K. for Metal Hammer. It's called Hammerfest which is a two-day festival in Wales. We're going to do that and then go to Texas in April and do the fifth record.

Metal Assault: That's great. So you guys are obviously keeping busy in the studio. It was less than a year back that you came out with "Pray For Villains".

Jon: Yeah, we just want to knock it out again, keeping the kids interested and not let anything run dry and get stale.

Metal Assault: That's a very good thing you guys are doing, because I feel that most bands these days get lazy and don't come out with enough records.

Jon: Yeah, and these days fans are a dime a dozen. Kids will lose interest in you quickly unless you keep them interested. The whole industry is changing and we're trying to do whatever we can to adapt to that.

Read the entire interview from Metal Assault.

"Another Night In London", the new video from DEVILDRIVER, can be viewed below. The clip was directed by Daniel Burke and contains performance footage that was shot in October 2009 in London, England during DEVILDRIVER's last European headlining tour.