DevilDriver's Dez Fafara Is Pretty Impressed He's Not Dead Yet

Californian metal behemoths DevilDriver last year released Outlaws 'Til The End, Vol 1, a selection of outlaw country covers, leaving some fans and industry types as puzzled as when they saw the ending of The Sixth Sense for the first time. However, frontman Dez Fafara has never hidden his fandom of this style of music. “I was a punk rock kid who grew up on goth, that found metal… I was a punk rock and goth kid before I was a metal kid. And then I found outlaw country as well."

Fafara says not only was the record commercially successful and the songs well received live, such an approach appears to even be spawning a small scene stateside of metal acts covering their favourite country tunes. “I was told by many people, ‘You can’t put country and metal together, you don’t want to do that to the DevilDriver brand.’ If anybody really knows me or has been following my career, I’ve got a gigantic middle finger for anybody who thinks they understand what art is, or what art should be, or tries to put art in a box.”

It’s testament to Fafara and his band's work ethic that not only is there another covers record in the pipeline and a sizeable touring schedule booked, but DevilDriver are also working on original DevilDriver material. “It’s a double record, staggered release,” he says of their next project. “We’re releasing next year, and we already have the month and everything. We’re releasing next year, and then the following year, at the same month we’re releasing. So you’ll get a record every year, starting next year you’ll get a record every year. And then I’m going to do Outlaws number two, which is going to come out in the third year. So you’ll get 2020, 2021, Outlaws II [in] 2022, and then another DevilDriver record in 2023/2024.”

However, there are no plans to reactivate defunct nu-metal favourite Coal Chamber again, although the singer notes that DevilDriver will continue to play beefed up, “monstrous” versions of a few of said songs live. And the aforementioned upcoming releases could prove fruitful for Coal Chamber fans, too. “If you’re a fan of DevilDriver, and if you’re a fan of Coal Chamber, you’re going to get both of those things put together in this double record. I’m breaking all the rules; it’s a completely new sound for what we’re doing.”

"I left home at 15, I slept under bridges, I stole food, I went to prison. I’ve got a story."

From DevilDriver affairs to his Oracle Management firm and surf apparel/lifestyle brand Suncult (the latter a partnership with Lamb Of God’s Randy Blythe), the vocalist and family have established an entrepreneurial mini-empire. Retirement is certainly not looming for Fafara, now in his 50s.

“Not at all. I’m vegan, I’m sober, I was out skateboarding with my kids last night until 11 o’clock. I run five, six miles a day. I’m in better shape, [a] better place in my head than I ever was in my 20s. I look at the future as being extremely bright, and the fact that I conquered my past and came through 25 years of touring, starting with Black Sabbath and Pantera and learned how to drink from them. The fact that I came out the other end, I’m not dead, raised a great family with three sons. And now here I am, literally at the pinnacle of the career as it’s getting ready to launch off even harder.

“With Oracle Management, I’ve got probably 20 clients, I’m up at 5am, I’m working ‘til midnight. I’m extremely active, so I don’t put anything on age whatsoever. Any time a musician hits 50 and has been in it a long time, it’s like, ‘Hey mate, when will you stop, or consider stopping?’ And what I’ve always said, ‘When it doesn’t feel good, when it doesn’t look good.’ At this point now I can come out without my shirt on on stage, with a six-pack, and fucking rip.”

Fafara also plans to write his autobiography, which will include stories from more than two decades in the heavy music game. “My wife just secured a book deal with a major publisher. It looks like I’m heading in to start writing that this year. It’s going to be a very personal book, because my life wasn’t easy. I left home at 15, I slept under bridges, I stole food, I went to prison. I’ve got a story. To come out of it, to where I’m at now, sitting in a gigantic house across from a golf course and raising three beautiful kids, having multiple businesses, I think it’s a good place to be in right now.”