Aniruddh "Andrew" Bansal of Metal Assault recently conducted an interview with vocalist Dez Fafara of California metallers DEVILDRIVER. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.
Metal Assault: Your new album,"Winter Kills", is coming out on August 27th via Napalm Records. I was listening to it, and I think it's pretty dynamic. It's very raw in many ways but it's also melodic. Would you say that's a fair description?
Dez: Yeah, absolutely! It's got a lot of presence to it. It's upfront and not over-produced. The vocals for pretty much every single track were recorded in first takes, so it has a very "live" feel. It's full of groove and hooks, and has very tight arrangements. So yeah, that's a fair assessment.
Metal Assault: Talking of the past two records,"Pray For Villains"was a pretty melodic, metalcore-type album but then"Beast"was a lot heavier, and now you are coming out with"Winter Kills". What would you say about the musical changes from album to album? Are you going heavier with each one?
Omar Cordy of Ghost Cult magazine recently conducted an interview with vocalist Dez Fafara of Californian metallers DEVILDRIVER. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.
Ghost Cult: You've been with Roadrunner Records forever, basically. So this is your first time away from Roadrunner. What made you decide it was time for a change?
Dez: You know, I think it was beneficial for both of us. I think the label and I came to the same conclusion. A lot of people were leaving the label, a lot of people were getting let go, a lot of people that worked me and signed me, getting let go. A lot of the bands were getting let go. I didn't feel the passion there. I felt like on "Pray For Villains" and on "Beast", especially in the United States on Roadrunner, they didn't really pay attention to it, and that bummed me out, man. You need to have passion within the people that you work with, and that work alongside you, and I just wasn't feeling their passion anymore. Napalm Records, I feel their vibe I feel their passion for the music. They're a great business partner. We still have Roadrunner/Warner Brothers over in Australia, and we signed with Metal Blade in Japan, so we have good working business partners with this. It's difficult for me, because I'm artistic and I don't like the art to be turned into a commodity, but you have to, at a certain point, in order to get out there and tour and reach certain goals. You have to have people, that if they are going to do that, they are not just numbers people, they've got some kind of passion behind them, and everyone that I'm working with now on the business end has a lot of passion for the music. So I'm pleased to be with all these new business partners. It's a new venture, it's a new record, it's a new bass player, it's a new feeling for us, and we've definitely captured a record that's going to back all that.
