Interview with Dez Farfara of Devil Driver
By Robin Steeley
I had the opportunity to chat on the phone with Dez as he traveled through the mountains on his way to the first stop on the Sounds of the Underground Tour. Although our conversation was disjointed due to losing our connection a number of times, we covered a lot of material and Dez is both articulate and easy to talk to. I’ve heard so many rumors about him being a “rock star” and I disagree entirely. He has a down to earth approach that is refreshing in a genre full of rock star attitudes. It just goes to show that confidence should never be mistaken for arrogance.
Crave: So where are you at today, what are you up to? Dez: I’m just sitting in the front of the tour bus and we are cruising through Connecticut. We left Sunday; the drive is almost four thousand miles to Lowell, Massachusets for the first show. Were about two hundred miles away now it feels good. We had four days straight just driving. We sleep a lot.
Crave: Do you fight? Dez: We don’t fight, cuz that would mean fighting with me and no one wants to do that.
Crave: You were sick when the Machine Head tour came through Portland, are you doing better? Dez: Sorry about that! That was the first time in ten years that I have ever had to cancel a show because of my throat. Rob Flynn in the beginning of the tour had it and he had to miss six or seven shows and we had to cover him and we ended up headlining and I didn’t get it for five or six weeks but it just slammed me at the end of the tour man, really really hard. So sorry we missed the show. When we come, we'll play extra long when we hit Portland for sure, and Utah as well.
Crave: Are you looking forward to Sounds of the Underground? Dez: Its gonna be great, we’ve got so many good friends on the tour.
(we lose the connection right now and after a minute, I call him back to get reconnected)
Dez: I’m back! I’m going through the mountains right now. Just call me back if it happens again. I’m sorry
Crave: No problem it works out for me, I’m just sitting here wake and baking and drinking coffee. This is my interview day, its all I’m doing today. I’ve been looking forward to talking to you though I really love the new album. It’s fucking amazing. Dez: Thank you, we put a lot of work into it, it’s hard when you put yourself out there naked as an artist, until people start coming back saying they like it, so thanks for that
Crave: And you don’t realize just how good it is till your just spinning it in the background, and I’m doing something else and its playing , I’m writing, and all of a sudden I’m just moving, my feet, my arms, I’m fucking rockin out ready to get up and start a pit in my office. Its great stuff. Dez: I gotta love that, thank you.
Crave: How has the early response been to “Fury” and are you excited about the June 28 release? Dez: It’s been absolutely amazing, the release is in five days, everyone is excited, it’s been crazy the stuff that’s coming back. After I left coal chamber and put that first album together with these guys, I really buried myself in the sand, I didn’t really read a lot of interviews or reviews or any of that stuff, but this time around I’m taking notice and it’s really good.
Crave: Has it been hard with the recent line up changes? Do you think you have the right guys now? Dez: There has been a lot of line up changes since the very beginning, mostly because of the way we tour, not a lot of people can handle spending time away from home like we do, but I think finally the band feels solidified with Mike Spreitzer. Evan left twenty-four hours before we were leaving to go play Europe with in flames so it was difficult on us and mike came through in a big way. not only that but he wrote “Hold Back The Day” the new single..
Crave: Has the sound changed a lot since the last album, what are the major differences? Dez: I think that we’ve grown as musicians and I think that its definitely apparent in the second album there’s more melody, there’s faster songs, there’s more solos, I’m letting the music breathe a little more and that just comes with knowing these guys can hold their own without vocals on top of the music you know, I think it’s a definite growth, I’m extremely pleased with it.
Crave: What’s your favorite track off the new album? Dez: It would be so difficult right now to choose let me tell you. When we start headlining, I would like to play the second album in its entirety from start to finish. That would be cool for us. Live I like to play “Hold Back The Day” and “Driving Down The Darkness” has been fun live. (I lost the connection again and had to call back)
Crave: How was the studio experience? What was it like working with Colin Richardson? Dez: it was wonderful, he’s a genius. I’ve never seen a guy with his work ethic, he just works so hard its unbelievable, he’s in the studio at 9 30 in the morning and out of the studio at 3am. The mark of a good producer is not to make you sound like he produced it, but to define the band, and that’s what he did with us, he really defined our sound. He wouldn’t let me lay anything down unless it was ultimately extremely intense. He would tell me “I think you can catch better emotion, have a glass of wine, think about what your saying here” So that was really cool, we were out in El Paso, so we were like 150 miles from anywhere, and ten miles from the Mexican border on a 1700 acre pecan ranch, it was great. It’s called Sonic Ranch and there’s nothing really to do out there but just do music, and I think that had a large part in it. No distractions, no manager, no girlfriends, no wives, no anything. That was a big deal I would opt for that environment again to make a record, rather then be in LA where everybody is stopping by, partying, and want to go have Japanese food and this and that.
Crave: And one of the great things about ‘Fury’, a lot of the metal albums that are coming out right now sounds really polished, and to me metal isn’t supposed to be polished, it’s supposed to be raw, and I think that really came through on the record, that raw brutality of the music. Dez: That’s so true, I’m glad you picked up on that. (We lose our connection again here)
Crave: Sorry about that I know it’s a hassle. I didn’t catch anything you said after what I said. About the music not being polished. Dez: Right I just think that it works well for pop, but it doesn’t work well for heavy metal to be so polished and I think he has that ability as a producer to capture that vibe, and we knew going into it that we wanted to capture something raw. The bottom line is devil driver really wants to cut its own path, we want to make our own mark.
Crave: What was the writing process like this time around? Dez: I have books and books of lyrics but something happens and it just doesn’t make it to the music. So I wait till I hear tunes. It usually takes forty songs before I will want to write to like ten of them. The way I know if a songs gonna work or not is if I come up with a lyric right on the spot, if I hear a song and I don’t come up with something right on the spot then its not gonna work for Devil Driver. Some people can just sit for weeks and write, I can’t do that I've never been that guy. I’ve got to do it when the inspiration comes to me and if it doesn’t come then that means the song is not meant for me.
Crave: How are things going with Roadrunner? Dez: They are a great label. I have been with them ten years, I had the chance to go elsewhere when I formed Devil Driver, but I figured I might as well come back to family, they have always been good to me they have always supported me and my family and done well by me so it was just a natural choice.
Crave: I think they are really pushing the album hard. I have been part of the Roadrunner Road Crew almost since the beginning. I still go out and promote for them and they have really had us out there pushing this album and getting in people’s faces about it. Dez: That’s so cool man. We love the road crew, it’s amazing. We really enjoy meeting all the crew on tour and it’s a big deal for us, for a band like us, we need the road crew, we need those kids out there handing stuff out and it helps us so much. I mean all the bands on roadrunner would say the same thing that I do, which is “ALL HAIL THE ROAD CREW”!!! I mean five kids can change hundreds of people, they have that kind of power, and they are going out there and doing it. It’s like wildfire and it starts with just a few kids. Our road crew man, we love them, we appreciate them so much.
Crave: What was the first album that you heard and had to go out and buy? Dez: Man I was sneaking into my parents record collection and they had like old hippie stuff, like Steppenwolf, The Doors, stuff like that, so the first album I ever bought myself was probably X ‘Under The Big Black Sun’. I was really into punk. I still am, I’m way huge into old punk, like real punk, Black Flag, and the Circle Jerks, the real shit. The stuff they call punk now is pop music man. I used to sneak out of my house to go to punk shows when I was twelve years old with a shaved head and I would have knots in my stomach approaching the gig knowing that somebody could get hurt. The new punk scene is laughable.
Crave: How old were you when you became interested in music? Who has been your biggest inspiration, personally or musically in life? Dez: Really early on in life, like most kids I come from a family that got divorced and I was shifted around a lot but what always kept me strong with myself was music, so when I was real young like seven years old I went to live with my father and met my stepmother who was from the south, with long red hair and drove a red Cadillac and did nothing but watch and listen to Elvis, so that’s where I really got turned on to music too was listening to Elvis Presley and if I had to like state one guy who really changed it for me it would be Elvis, that and finding Johnny Cash as I got older and listening to his lyrics. Then the rock and roll stuff came in, Motorhead, Ozzy, and Pantera.
Crave: What does your family, your kids, think about your career? Dez: They love it my kids just got done watching the new video yesterday and called to tell me it was great. My young one who just turned seven his favorite song right now is 'Iron Man' by Ozzy, he sits and writes the lyrics to make sure he’s got it down. I’m gonna call Sharon and Ozzy up and get a picture or something for him, he would freak. (We get disconnected again)
Dez: Sorry about that, we went through this weird rock area I knew I was gonna lose ya.
Crave: Its alright, were almost done then I can let you go back to whatever you were doing. What do you do on the road when you’re not interviewing? Dez: I ride up in the front of the bus and listen to serius radio. Ride in the passenger seat, sitting with the driver, looking at the road. I love being on the road there’s nothing better then it. Traveling is fun, going to a different party every night, its good times. When you leave tour, it’s a difficult thing, everyone saying goodbye it’s a strange thing. Kids experience it when they leave summer camp, it’s that bittersweet feeling. It’s a lot like that for musicians. I’ve got bloodhound in my soul so I’m not gonna stop running
Crave: What’s a day off like for you? Dez: I sleep in, get a shower, do laundry, and go somewhere nice to eat and get like something as close to home cooked as you could possibly get, then go back and try to get rest. Days off you gotta take advantage of it. I’m not up kicking it having a huge party on days off you know. Unless I’m at Joes crab shack and there is a huge mai tai staring me in the face, then I’m going down with it.
Crave: Has touring and being away from home gotten any easier at this stage? Dez: It’s extremely difficult, it’s always gonna be that way. But when I met Anastasia, I told her she had the life of a wife of a sailor. I think she gets it you know. She sees me, I’m sitting on the couch and after five or six days I’m going nuts, unless there’s a stage underneath me and a microphone in my hand I’m really not alive. That’s what I’m cut out to do. Most people get up and go to work and come home and their done and that’s not how my life is, its never going to be.
Crave: I remember seeing you come out on stage barefoot, do you always do that? Dez: You know if the moment strikes me, if I’m feeling in the moment I'll do it definitely. There is something intensely grounded for me about being barefoot onstage.
Crave: What do you do to prepare for a show? Dez: I try to hang out with the band and listen to good music, have a couple glasses of red wine, and think about what you got to go do and then go out and do it. I can’t think about it too much, I gotta lose myself. I’m gonna smoke a little, drink a little, and try to lose myself before the show starts.
Crave: I know it’s incredibly different for each person and I don’t usually ask this question because being on stage is a hard feeling to describe. But Are you in the moment; are you with the crowd, or do you go into this kind of zone? Dez: If I remember the show then I didn’t do my best. And I’m not saying getting drunk or fucked up, I’m saying actually if I’m doing the show and afterwards its like a blur, then that’s a great show, and if I’m doing a show and I’m like above myself, watching myself do the show, then that’s an even better show. If you can get into that state, it’s a great place to be. I hear a lot of blues musicians say the same thing “Man I was sitting in the rafters watching myself play all night” I think that’s the epitome of it.
Crave: Do you have any advice for new artists looking for a career in music? Dez: Get good people around you, make sure you’ve got control of your finances, make sure someone is doing good business for you, and do what’s coming from your heart. Don’t go out there and try to sell something, go out and make good art. If you can make good art then people are gonna come see you and they are going to buy it. In ten years, I’ve made some good art and I’ve made some bad art, and that’s the way that it is. Every painting is not gonna be Mona Lisa baby! You know what I mean.
Crave: What is the craziest thing you have ever seen happen in the pit? Dez: I’ve seen everything from teeth coming out to broken noses. We just played New Orleans House of Blues and I’ve never seen this, the guys came out and actually told the pit to stop. So that’s a good sign but at the same time, you want to let the kid’s dance ya know.
Crave: So what’s up for Devil Driver after SOTU? Dez: I’ve been hearing rumors of all sorts of stuff man, festivals, something about Chimaira going overseas, we might go with them as main support. I’m hearing slipknot approached us to do some shows. I don’t know at this point it’s going to take us a week or two to figure out what’s going on.
Crave: Things are gonna blow up, the albums gonna drop and that’s gonna be it. Dez: That’s what I’m hoping and we are just gonna stay on the road really, I know one thing for sure, in early December we are going to do a headliner here in the states, and It will be the first one we have ever done, were gonna put together three or four really great bands, a great package, and were gonna play six nights a week for seven weeks straight so that will be a good time as well. We will definitely come out to Portland.
