Loudside.com managed to catch up with Devildriver frontman Dez Fafara during the "Invaluable Darkness" tour stop at San Francisco's "The Warfield", to talk about their upcoming album 'The Last Kind Words', being on a tour alongside (as well as sharing their bus with) Kataklysm, with whom there had been a previous disagreement of sorts, and the state of metal in general.......

Loudside.com: So how you doing man?

Dez: Good man, doing killer! Just got here, running a little late today getting into San Francisco, but....just trying to get all the interviews done, and then crack open a bottle of wine.

Loudside.com: Cool. So how's the tour been going?

Dez: Killer man! Absolutely fucking killer! A couple of sold out shows, and everything else has been packed, to the brim. And everbody's been really cool. Dimmu's a great band to tour with. As well as Unearth. We're sharing a bus with Kataklysm, so we've made some friends there. It's a good time.

Loudside.com: Right on. Now, each band on this tour is extreme in their own way, and sometimes the fans can have strong differences of opinion, especially with the metalcore crowd mixing in with death and black metal fans.....

Dez: Oh you mean like Unearth?

Loudside.com: Yeah....

Dez: Yeah

Loudside.com: From what you've seen, has everything been cool in regards to the fans?

Dez: Yeah, everybody's great man. I don't think that fans of music are that close minded. I mean, this is a really different bill. I mean, you couldn't get further than DevilDriver or Dimmu, or Dimmu than Kataklysm, or Kataklysm than Unearth. Everybody is so different. I think that's what makes it a good show, and a good package man. And I think that's important too, ya know. 
I wouldn't wanna go see five bands that all sounded the same. I mean, that's just not my idea of something that's uh.....eye opening, ya know.

Loudside.com: So there haven't been any full on fights in the pits amongst fans?

Dez: Tons of fights in the pits man, at least when DevilDriver's on. I'm not watching anybody else's pits, so I don't know what to say. (laughing)

Loudside.com: Ok (laughing)......So now, the whole status of the situation with Kataklysm....that's obviously a question that's been asked and answered. My question in regards to that is about the first day of the tour, or just prior to the start of it. Did you know you would be sharing a bus, and were there any initial tensions?

Dez: No, this is DevilDriver's bus. We didn't need to share a bus. I reached my hand out to them and......in a gesture of friendship, and it worked out from day one. Those guys are really cool. Me and Mauricio have been drinking wine together and talking about our families, and it's a really good move, ya know. And I.....now I look back, about why they went after us when we got the Opeth tour and they didn't. They've been in the grind for SO LONG dude. They've been around WAY LONGER than DevilDriver. Not longer than ME personally, but longer than DevilDriver, and so they thought that that Opeth tour was their shot ya know. And DevilDriver, by getting the tour, took it away from them ya know. And so I understand where he's coming from  on that, but we buried the hatchet and it's all good.

Loudside.com: Ok cool. So tell me a little bit about the new album, 'The Last Kind Words'. Was there any specific inspiration for the title?

Dez: There's a line in the record that says, "The last kind words you will hear will be 'You Will Live Below Angels and Above Beasts'. Which for me basically says the last kind words you're gonna hear when you're born, or when you die are 'You're Human'. With no manual at all, and all the fucked up emotions that go along with it. So have fun, and try to make your way, ya know. And as you look outside the bus right now, the neighborhood we're in man, you see people going NUTS! People that do not have a handle on life. So, that's what that title stands for.

Loudside.com: Now, with......Jason Suecof is a relative newcomer to the  scene at large, but already has a reputation for producing some stellar albums. Was there a specific reason you chose to work with Jason, and what was it like working with him, as opposed to Colin Richardson?

Dez: We went with Jason because of Bury Your Dead. Have you ever heard the Bury Your Dead record? Fucking production on that is so incredible it's unbelievable. It's UNBELIEVABLE!! So that's one of the reasons we went with him, is because of that. And then working with him.....man I've never worked with a guy who could get takes so quick, and who could really get the feel of the band. He was a great guy to work with. He brought some shit out of me that was unbelievable.
For instance, when I worked with Colin, I might work 6-7 hours on one tune vocally. If I work with Jason, I work about an hour, and I'm done. He gets these first takes that are these 'On Fire' takes. So That was really killer!

Loudside.com: Now in terms of production, I know some producers play guitar, some play an instrument of some sort, some do vocals.....and from what I know, Jason is pretty eclectic in what he does musically. And I know he has, or had,  his own band.....

Dez: Jason is probably one of the best guitar players I've ever seen in my life. Ever!

Loudside.com: Did he have any ideas that he threw out there during the whole production process?

Dez: He had alot of ideas, but my guys did all the writing and stuff. He might have helped out with one solo on the record. Um, I know that with other bands that he works with, he plays a significant amount of guitar on the record and stuff. But no one really wanted that in this band. I mean his ideas and stuff, they're off the hook. He'll have like 500 ideas ya know. He had an idea on "Monsters Of The Deep", and it just......no one could come up with anything and he came up with it on the spot. So having a producer that plays an instrument I think is an extremely great thing for a band ya know. Because when he goes to make his point, he can make it really valid by grabbing the guitar and doing something that sounds better, or showing you a different way to go about things, ya know. But when we went in, we were extremely prepared and the songs were already done.

Loudside.com: Alot of pre-production for this album?

Dez: ALOT of pre-production with just us, yeah.

Loudside.com: And how many songs were actually written for the album?

Dez: Twelve. A total of twelve written and recorded.

Loudside.com: So you guys didn't write upwards of 20 like some bands do, and then picking out the best ones?

Dez: We wrote alot of songs, but wejust....alot of them fell to the wayside. We took pieces and parts out of other ones to make these better. We wanted to make sure that this record was just, through and through, full of Killer songs. No filler on this one.

Loudside.com: Now I know that you guys have plans to shoot a video for "Not All Who Wander Are Lost". Is everything in order in terms of the treatment and who's going to direct it?

Dez: Yeah, we're gonna use Nathan 'Karma' Cox. And I mean, that dude is just doing us a favor. We don't have the budget to use him.  He's just coming in to do us a favor and we're just SO appreciative....I can't even tell you how appreciative I am about that. And we're coming up with a date, which is gonna be in the next two weeks. He's got a really crazy treatment, and we're gonna do something extremely different than what everybody else is doing out there right now, and we're gonna put something out that uhh....shed's light somewhere else, other than just the usual metal video.

Loudside.com: More than just the band playing?

Dez: More than just the band playing FOR SURE! It's gonna be extremely artistic. I mean, Nathan is a really artistic guy.

Loudside.com: Now, because of the album release date being pushed back, is there going to be a limited edition of the album, and if so, are there plans to have that video added on?

Dez: Umm, yeah. I mean, whenever they do limited editons of a cd, anything that's there they'll put on there. Any Live songs that we got laying around, or anything we give them. But the United States version IS gonna be the 'bonus' version. It's gonna have a bonus track, it's gonna have a poster, it's gonna have a twelve page booklet. And it's gonna have some other things that I can't talk about right now, that are gonna go in there that are gonna be unbelievable.

Loudside.com: Now along those same lines, are there any official plans for a DevilDriver DVD?

Dez: Oh Yeah! We're gonna hopefully put it out Devil's Night, October 30th. Hopefully. We're going through the label right now and seeing if all that's gonna work out. But we've been filming for quite some time. We just have to do a.....like a ten camera shoot or whatever. But we've got SO many hours of footage, I mean, this thing is gonna be IMMENSE! And you're gonna really get to know the band through it. So we'd like to get it out October 30th.

Loudside.com: How much footage do you have approximately?

Dez: We've had a camera guy with us for near on.....two years now almost. So it's just a matter of putting it all together.

Loudside.com: Cool.....Now, I read that you guys showcased two new tracks at the Metal and Hardcore festival. Are those songs part of the set list for this tour?

Dez: Yeah. "Not All Who Wander Are Lost", and "Clouds Over California". We'll be playing them tonight. As the album draws nearer to it's release date, we'll play more new ones. But two is good for now. Just to give the fans a taste, ya know.

Loudside.com: Getting back to the new album, what are some of the biggest differences between this and the last album?

Dez: Way more guitar work. More insane drums. Way faster tempos. Different song arrangements. I mean, even half way through this thing just steps it up all the way through. This is definitely the direction, where we need to be going right now to define ourselves.

Loudside.com: Well with the last album, there was a decent amount of 'Scandanavian' influence to it, or at least, in my opinion based on what I heard. And there are alot of bands right now that are a part of this whole "thrash resurgence" thing. Where do you fall into all of that?

Dez: We just.....DevilDriver.....we have so many influences, and we just kind of do what we do, and we make sure that we can't get pigeon-holed or can't get defined, as any kind of "sound". And then we know we're good to go, ya know. But this record will definitely define who we are and where we're gonna be going in the future. I always talk to people about you know, what are your favorite records, the first one or the second one? And I get all sorts of mixed reactions, "I love the first one, or I love the second one" ya know. But, I think......my drummer came up with this.....If you didn't like the first one because it wasn't extreme enough, and if you didn't like the second one because it was maybe more experimental or not extreme enough, You'll LOVE this one. And if you love DevilDriver, if you're a fan of DevilDriver then you're gonna freak out when you hear what we're doing now, and where we've taken it. But I think where we've taken it now is where I can finally see the vision, and going ok let's for sure stay on this path right now.

Loudside.com: Cool. So what are the plans for DevilDriver in regards to summer tours, and for the rest of the year?

Dez: We're gonna finish up this tour here, then we go overseas for Festivals. Then we come back here in July for something.....that I can't talk about yet....hopefully soon (laughs all around). And then we'll see from there. But basically we're gonna keep touring. We're gonna do South America, Australia, Japan.....gonna go over to the UK and do a significant headlining run. Start in the UK and go all through Europe. So we're gonna tour until December 5th. We're gonna come off after that, and we'll start touring again sometime around January or February.

Loudside.com: And that will include your own headliner, correct?

Dez: For Sure!! In July, we may headline, if what we're gonna do works out, or doesn't work out, ya know? But it's time now for DevilDriver to step up. We've already said we're not taking anymore third slots. We're only taking second slots. But we might take third slots if it's for Certain bands. And even if maybe some bands have sold more records, our draw is at a point now where we're only gonna take certain things. And we're gonna definitely need to headline, cause everyone says Dude, I wanna see an hour, an hour and fifteen minutes of you guys, ya know. And it's true....after 40 minutes, we get off stage, and we gotta have a couple of drinks just to wind down ya know. So we could easily go another 30 minutes.

Loudside.com: Now getting back to the Summer touring overseas......were there any offers thrown out there for any of the U.S. summer festivals?

Dez: No U.S. festival offers? Well, I can't say that. It's just.....we're just not doing any U.S. festivals. I mean.....we're just not. And you'll see maybe soon enough, why we're not. And if that......even if we headline, that's why we're not. You know, it's just certain slots we can only take now, certain things we're gonna take, ya know. It's a matter of now....us saying well, we've spent four years, five years in the shit. And our fanbase.....I mean some bands might say "Well, we won't open up for you because we've sold more records", and I'll say look at our fanbase. We have an incredible draw right now, and so it's definitely our time to step out, so that all those people that have been with us from the beginning, all those people with DevilDriver tattoos and whatnot.....need to come and see a fucking REAL show from us. We put on an hour and fifteen minutes and we'll walk off stage looking like we gave it all, ya know......