Coal Chamber: Best Fiends.

Dark Days is in stores Monday.

Coal Chamber’s Dark Days is one of the heaviest albums you’ll hear this year. If you thought 1999’s Chamber Music blew your skull away, Dark Days combines electro, goth and classical elements to greater ferocity. Rowboat is a theatrical standout, and goes down a storm live. There’s no pity when he scoffs you’ve made your bed. He closes his eyes to imagine the character in Something Told Me and sees someone 10-foot tall, arms crossed, looking sinister at him. Fiend for the fans / fodder for the press! he roars on Fiend as the rest of the band crank up the bolt.

“I wanted to write about a band like Coal Chamber who absolutely deliver live, who work so hard, go on tour for five or six years straight and don’t have a home. On the road we do six days on, one day off. A lot of people would die with that. kind of schedule I wanted to capture what drives us leading stars, crashing cars, taking everything in sight all through the night, that’s what it’s about.”

When Coal Chamber trooped into a Los Angeles studios last May, they knew what they wanted. Guitarist Meegs Rascon had a built a home studio, and they worked at keeping the arrangements simple and hard punching, like the Metallica, Pantera, Sabbath and AC/DC records that fuel them.

“We wanted something different, sonically rebellious against what was happening right now, which meant it had to be raw, and work live with every single song.”

“I’m proudest of the fact that this record is raw because the whole rock scene is so watered down. It’s feeding kids something so sweet it’s rotting their teeth. We don’t want to be part of that. We don’t want people to cry at our songs, the way other bands manipulate their emotions. We want to empower them. They say the people who come to see Coal Chamber are freaks, man. They’re nothing of the sort. They’re intelligent and artistic. The ones with pierced faces and tattoos are the most imaginative, spiritual and free thinking. You do have some crazies, but they can be made happy, ya know! My house in California is full of things they give me hundreds of drawings, dolls, pictures, candles. I can’t bear to throw any of it because it’s great stuff. The last thing I got was a five-foot bust of myself, done to perfection.”

A great credit for the ferocity of Dark Days goes to producer Ross Hogarth, better known for his work with major stars like Black Crowes, Jewel and John Cougar Mellencamp. For their first meeting, he came to Dez’s house in Santa Barbara, and they went for a 90-minute drive up the mountains. He asked Dez what record he wanted to make. Dez replied it had to be raw but also timeless.

“At the end of the drive, I knew he was the one, because he was willing to take a risk on his career.’ He got some amazing guitar sounds out of us, man, and he came up with a lot of those sounds. He was like, ‘Hey, no-one’s using this sound’ or ‘this one’s right out of the box’. He’s a great guy. He allowed me to be who I want to be, for the first time, I felt so comfortable in my shoes.”

As sessions began, there were rumours Coal Chamber were close to breaking up. These started when they withdrew from the Tattoo The Earth tour with Slipknot, Slayer and Sevendust. Even as she laid down the bass lines, bassist Rayna Foss-Rose was planning to leave. She wanted to spend more time with her two-year old daughter Kayla and her husband, Sevendust drummer Mogan Rose. In January, she quit, and was replaced by Nadja Puelen, who had stepped in for Rayna when she went off the road to have the baby.

Tensions boiled over more recently during a show in Lubbock, Texas. The singer and guitarist were clearly not getting on. Meegs hit him on the head with his guitar. Dez stormed off, and returned to say it was the last Coal Chamber show ever. The band continued. Dez lives and breathes Coal Chamber. Did these stores leave Coal Chamber wanting to prove something?

“No, because there are four distinct people in this band, and that’s what makes our music different. Meegs and I are like oil and water; we disagree on everything. From what’s the best track on any album to whether a room is too light or dark! We hear rumours all the time, that I’ve died, I’ve lived different lives. What facts there are in the rumours is for us to know. We feed on those rumours. Meantime, we work out our issues and achieve whatever goal has to be achieved.”