DEVILDRIVER's FAFARA: 'I Have Books Of Lyrics That Will Probably Never Make It To Music'

Greg Prato of Songfacts recently conducted an interview with vocalist Dez Fafara of Californian metallers DEVILDRIVER. A few excerpts from the chat follow below.

Songfacts: If you want to start off by talking about the new album, "Winter Kills"...

Dez Fafara: Well, we started a little bit at home before we went on tour. And I did write a lot on the road, which is a different thing for me. When you're a vocalist and you're writing lyrics in the back lounge of a tour bus for four or five hours on end, and then you can call the guys back at the end of the day and read them the lyrics and get instant feedback, that's an important thing that I've never experienced before that I really, really, enjoyed. Otherwise, I write daily. I got up this morning and wrote. I try to write daily. And that being said, I had an abundance of material for this record and still do have an abundance of material left over, but that's par for the course.

Songfacts: Will some of the material that was left over be on future DEVILDRIVER albums or issued as B-sides?

Dez: It's real strange for me, man. When I do write like that and I have an overabundance of things, it never ends up on another record. It's always specific times and moments in my life that I don't know if I can recapture two or three years from now, so I have books and books and books of lyrics that will probably never make it to music. However, I wish they would make it into print at some point. My wife and I have spoken about that, actually, about putting together a book of lyrics and putting them out in print.

Songfacts: So you if just want to talk about how [the split with Roadrunner Records] happened. The label DEVILDRIVER is on now is Napalm, right?

Dez: Right. Well, you know, Roadrunner was around for years and a very formidable metal label. In the end, they were letting go a lot of bands; a lot of bands were leaving. They were letting go most of their staff that had made the label, and I just thought it was time for a change. You need passion in this industry. I didn't feel like the last two records were well-served on that label in the United States. Overseas, however, they did do well. When you're going to turn your art into commodity — which sounds like an ugly word — it serves you well to have somebody with passion involved and not bean counters and not formula makers. And these guys [Napalm], they have passion. They love the music, they back the music, they weren't just putting us into a specific formula. They weren't putting us into a specific mathematical equation: "If we ship this many, this is what it'll do." It was all about the art and all about being passionate behind it. So I really, really, have been loving dealing with them so far with the business aspect of it, and watching them and their passion. Every time they received a new song, every time they received a new photo, I got emails for days saying, "Man, we love these photos," or "We love this record." "We love this song." So it's been a wonderful, wonderful thing so far.

Songfacts: What is the current status of COAL CHAMBER, and is a new album being worked on with COAL CHAMBER?

Dez: There's no new album being worked on and the current status is we finished touring, and got to revisit what made us in the past and bury some old hatchets and it was a great time. But I don't foresee anything as of right now in the future. Now, that being said, never say never.

Read the entire interview at Songfacts.