DevilDriver: Coiled & Ready To Strike!
The day before Distorted Sound sits down with Dez Fafara to talk about Strike and Kill, the killer new album from groove metal titans DEVILDRIVER, he drops a bombshell. On the Garza podcast, he reveals that’s he’s been living with a tumour just above his salivary gland for the best part of two years, something very few people knew about up to that point.
“Only my bandmates, my very inner circle and attorneys knew what was going on,” he tells us. “I carried that weight for two years, writing and recording the new record in that time. Somebody asked me the other day ‘why would you go on a podcast and tell anybody that?’ but I’ve been part of people’s lives, for good or bad, for 30 years. The metal, rock and punk community is my family, and you don’t just not share shit with your family.”
Mercifully, the tumour is benign and Dez is happy to live with it while he goes about his life. “Is it going to take me out from touring? No. Is it ruining my life right now? No. And it’s actually shrinking too, which is wild!” Given that Dez is a man who is always on the go, the fact that he isn’t being hindered is a huge deal. When he spoke to DS eight years ago, promoting DEVILDRIVER’s country covers album Outlaws to the End, Vol. 1, he mentioned that, if he could, he would release a new record every 18 months. When asked if he still has that mindset, he says new material is already in the works.
“Yeah, we’re already writing again! But in regards to that timeframe you mentioned, all records have different shelf lives, right? Some can go for three, four, even five before a new one is required. I’d like to be able to release every two years, sure, but I don’t know if that’ll be doable here because there’s going to be a lot of touring on Strike and Kill.”
It stands to reason that Dez will want to support Strike and Kill for as long as possible, because DEVILDRIVER’s eleventh studio album is the best they’ve done in years. A hulking, furious behemoth of grooves, solos and massive riffs, it wastes no time in tearing your face off with the opening double salvo of Dig Your Own Grave and Dead In The Water and takes no prisoners with the likes of In The Moonlight and You’re Just A Ghost as it bludgeons its way through to conclusion. It’s the sound of a band revitalised and, as Dez is quick to address, it’s not just him directing traffic.
“I know that people have this thing of ‘it’s the Dez show’ but it never has been; both bands I’m in (DEVILDRIVER and Dez’s nu-metal outfit COAL CHAMBER) are extremely democratic. Like, the songs we wrote on this one, I made sure that everyone had a say in what they wanted to record, what songs went on the record, the track list order, the first single, everything. I run as a team and while I do control the business side of things, in the band everyone has a say.”
He’s also full of praise for new guitarist Gabe Manegold, whose studio debut with DEVILDRIVER has been a roaring success. “Gabe grew up listening to us when he was learning to play guitar, so I told him to just write for the logo. And when I started getting demos of the stuff he and the other guys were doing off the back of some of the lyrics I had written, I was so hungry to write and record; I felt like I was 15 years old again, man!”
Gabe also handled production duties, with Dez’s initial reluctance on this turning out to be misguided “I’m a Taurus, I don’t like change and I had to have a lot of people talk me into him doing it, but once I realised he was quick at tracking it worked a charm. I have ADHD, so if I don’t get my lines right in the first, second or third take I want to move on, because it’s no longer in the moment, and Gabe captured that moment beautifully.”
Along with the – pun not intended – striking cover of a punk rock hyena against a luminous green background, Strike and Kill is a standout record both physically and sonically. Dez says he can see it being toured well into 2028 or even 2029 – “I’m not built to be at home, I’m built to be on the road” – and while that may be true, it’s also an indication of how much belief the band have in its staying power. For the first time in over a decade, DEVILDRIVER feel vital again; long may it continue.
Strike And Kill is out now via Napalm Records. View this interview, alongside dozens of other killer bands, in glorious print magazine fashion in DS132 here.
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