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Stoking The Fires With DEZ FAFARA From COAL CHAMBER · HEAVY Music Interviews

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  Hey, what's up. This is Deviz for Far from Cold Chamber and we
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  are coming down in February with mud Vane and we cannot wait to see you
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  Australia. Get ready, it's gonna be a good time. Good morning day.
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  Thanks for joining us today, brother, Thank you brother. I appreciate
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  you well just as you say, Man Pulch. I have a returned to
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  Australia for a run of shows with Mudvaye next February, starting on Valentine's Day
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  in Brisbane and then got to Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide and finishing in Perth
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  on February and the twenty first so on behalf of us. He met a
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  lovers everywhere. Mate, welcome back and thanks for even thinking of us.
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  Cannot wait. We're excited. You know. We went out with Mudvaine all
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  summer, did big amphitheaters. It was an amazing package. All the crews,
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  everybody got along really well. No drama over a seven week tour was
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  a great thing and obviously the pairing works extremely well. And so when it
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  was poised to us to come over, we decided, yeah, we cannot
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  say no to this. Plus it's aj that's putting it on. I've known
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  Aj since sound Wave. He's been a very close member of my family know
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  him. My wife is very good friends with his wife. And just knowing
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  that he was behind it, mud Vane was behind it, Coal Chamber was
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  in Yeah, beautiful man, and she's already going to be one all the
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  most anticipated lot of music event in Australia for twenty twenty fours. How are
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  you gonna live up to the hype and expectation. We're gonna bring good production.
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  We're gonna be on it, man. We can't wait. I mean
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  some of the shows that I saw this summer from us on on YouTube were
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  the tightest we've ever done in our entire lives. So you're getting a very
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  special Coal Chamber right now, you know what I mean You're getting. We're
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  firing on all cylinders and we cannot wait to come down. And last night
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  we were texting for like two hours straight. I was I was laughing hysterically.
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  We're just having such a great time, right, And that's what you
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  want out of a band. You want a band to enjoy what they're doing.
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  So we're gonna enjoy coming down and giving you, giving you one hundred
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  and ten percent, and you mentioned that you've been playing shows with mud Vein
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  on that start of the world over the last couple of months, and all
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  the show's actually been going. Shows were great, Summer was fantastic, and
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  it was great to see like the audience out there was predominantly a younger generation.
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  I mean people that were twenty two, twenty years old, I mean
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  born when we broke up. So it's pretty crazy to see that that genre
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  really coming around. I mean some of the biggest bands anyways in the genre
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  have always been their corn et cetera, et cetera, right, But I
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  think that that us as a pairing coming over to Australia. I think that's
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  going to be fantastic shows and everybody should get their tickets right away because they're
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  definitely going to go clean. They're definitely going to sell out. Colt site
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  of his first show back was at Sick New Days on my thirtieth in Las
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  Vegas, Mate, which be your first show together since twenty fifteen. So
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  were you nervous, Uh, not really nervous, because we had a lot
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  of rehearsals. It was more like it went by way too quick. It
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  was only a half an hour slot we were on a round stage. We
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  got on the stage, it turned around here we were we were off in
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  five or six songs that made us all meet later and kind of say,
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  hey, now we need to find something that's that we can do a full
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  show on, which is either fifteen minutes or an hour and twenty minutes whatever,
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  you know, but we want to do more. And that's when the
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  mud Vane run came up. So for us it was like, did you
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  have a good time? Yeah, we did. Were you nervous now?
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  Not really nervous. I don't really get nervous anymore. I don't. I
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  don't think you know. And how did that set guy? Man? Like
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  I said, it was only half an hour? But how did it feel
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  being all back together on stage again? Amazing? Amazing? I mean from
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  the time in rehearsal to that moment was fantastic. Everybody was having a great
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  time and just you know, really, like I said, firing on all
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  cylinders and that's what you want out of a band. Your nets cult Chambers
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  returned earlier this year after previously having serious doubts that it happened. Like I'm
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  not gonna ask why you break up, because that's no one's business, but
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  you're own. But what actually changed to make you decide now was the right
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  time to go again? I think it was a scenario where where are we
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  all at in our lives. You know, I've been sober off alcohol since
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  twenty sixteen. Those guys are sober off of hard drugs. They all got
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  families, they're all doing their thing. It's when it's meant to be,
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  you know, it'll happen again. You know. There's actually a Cold Chamber
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  of lyric about that. You know, if it's meant if it's meant to
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  be, set it free. You know, if it's meant to be,
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  it'll come back, you see. And this this is from our second record,
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  this lyric, and so it's just it's a perfect timing, man.
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  You know, the friendships have aligned, our lives have aligned. Our families
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  are all friends and have aligned. Our wives have all aligned, our kids
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  have all aligned. It's just a magnificent time to be in a band,
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  the band that made me who I am. I mean, Devil Driver wouldn't
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  be who we were if I had never been in Cold Chamber and did songs
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  with Ozzie and traveled the world with Black Sabbath, and the world with Pantera,
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  and you know what I mean, to come back to something that made
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  you and come back in it more whole than you ever were, all of
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  us individually making the unit and a collective stronger. There's nothing more to say
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  other than get fucking ready Australia and you'd be planning some Cold Chamber songs live
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  at Devil Driver, mate. So did all of those songs make it under
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  the set list for the recent run of shows? Yeah? I mean,
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  look, we did Loco with Devil Driver before I knew that I would ever
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  get back with Cold Chamber. I've always loved that song. That's the song
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  that made me, you know, gave me my first gold record, et
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  cetera. So and and although the response was great when we played it as
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  Devil Driver, it's it's a Cold Chamber track and should be reserved, should
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  be reserved for just Cold Chamber to play. And uh, and that's what
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  I've done now, I don't I don't play those songs with Devil Driver at
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  this point right now. Yeah, But did you find you have to reconnect
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  with a certain mindset or psyched to perform with Cold sign beginning off to spend
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  in the last seventies, or say just Devil Drive. Yeah, it's a
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  totally it's a totally different headspace. I mean, Devil Driver is a bludgeoning
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  right mentally, I'm in my head bludgeoning everything in front of me and every
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  band around me. I mean in my head when I have been mic That's
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  where I'm at. Cold Chamber is a very specific mindset, and I can
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  coin the phrase spooky core, but it's a much more artistic. It's a
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  very it's it's still a bludgeoning heavy mentality live for me vocally, but it
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  has aspects like we do Rowboat, uh, you know, we do songs
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  like that. That's very different from from Devil Driver, a track like that,
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  you know. So yes, it is a different headspace that you got
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  to get into for sure. For sure. You know it's it's easy for
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  me to do. Man. It's just two different pairs of pants hanging in
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  the closet, you know, and you know that, you know, one
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  of them looks like this, and one of them is this. And with
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  this one comes this, you're gonna fight and brawl a little more. And
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  with this one comes this, you may take her home, you know,
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  choose, so choose wisely. Yeah, take us back to when you first
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  started Cold Shaving back in nineteen ninety two, made in LA, Like,
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  what was the musical climate life that gave birth to the band and where did
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  you fit in? Initially there was no music climate. Hollywood was dead.
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  All the all the all the hype from all the hair bands, poison and
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  all that had completely killed the scene. Man. It used to be kids
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  walking up and down from the Roxy to the Whiskey next to the Rainbow,
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  handing out flyers and this and that for shows. And it became like a
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  dead world, man. And I mean to the point where Corn would play
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  in LA, they would bust people up from Alle County. So the scene
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  was devastated. Now Cold Chamber at that time, and this is before Static,
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  before system as Korn was bussing people up from Orange County, which is
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  almost two hours away for shows. We were selling out the Whiskey, selling
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  out the Roxy, and creating some vibe. I have no idea. We
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  were just doing what we were doing. But behind us was like this faction
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  of not just kids that liked bands like say Fear Factory and Machine Head,
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  but also kids that liked you know, early Manson that was just starting to
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  pop at the time, or Gothic stuff as well. And then we had
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  a lot of actually a lot of Latino gangs from Southgate and stuff that were
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  coming to see us and making our shows extremely volatile. And I think that
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  in part comes from Meigs Raskon right, this hispanic comes from those areas as
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  well. As I was raised in San Juan Capistrano, I was only I
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  was the only weddo the only white kid in my school or on my soccer
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  team, you know what I mean. So I think we had our song
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  was Loco, So I think that's what brought in that element as well.
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  But at that time, there wasn't a lot of bands having a significant draw
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  within within LA and we were one of them. So and it popped off
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  out of nowhere. We went from playing, you know, shows in front
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  of nine people, fifteen people, to two hundred people, to sold out
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  to two nights sold out. It was crazy. And what we did is
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  we gave away T shirts, right, So every show we had tw hundred
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  and fifty three hundred shirts and we gave them away. And you couldn't go
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  anywhere in LA between ninety two and ninety well ninety two and two thousand without
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  seeing a cold chamber shirt really, especially the ones that we gave away,
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  just black with a white which, by the way, if you have one
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  of those that are worth a lot of money on eBay, I would hold
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  onto oh no, a long those because I custom made those myself with a
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  screenprint. So right, yeah, yeah, I mean back then, you
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  know, we didn't have the internet, right, so of course dating myself
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  as always, but we didn't have the Internet. So the way we did
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  it is we slung flyers and we slung posters, and uh, you know,
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  we would get in a van and this is actually in my autobiography,
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  but I'll let you in. We would get in a van, uh with
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  coveralls on and five gallon buckets of glue and huge posters and we would go
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  up and down Sunset Boulevard and cover all the movie posters Terminator covered, Reeditor
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  covered, and and we actually got a call from the city at my house
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  because I was stupid enough to put the phone number to get a hold of
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  the bank and the city, and the city calls me is like, hey,
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  we see one more poster. You know, you guys are all going
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  to jail. And I was like, fuck, you you can't find me.
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  And they called back two minutes later and said, really, you're at
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  this address. And I was like, we won't be putting up any more
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  posts. There's every years he got me. So, I mean, it
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  was it was like it was a free for all. You know. There
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  was a bunch of good bands coming up at the time. Pothole was one
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  of them. I remember Manhole actually with Terry b was coming U Snot had
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  come out from from Santa Barbara and trying to make their way into the scene.
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  At that point, it was just really after we were out about two
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  years, it started to kind of pop off. But in ninety two we
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  were called She's in Pain, and in ninety three we switched our name.
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  In ninety three ninety four we made our demo or ninety three we made our
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  demo, and then we got a record deal by Roadrunner Records, and I
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  said no to the deal for like a year because I had a decent job
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  and this and that, and I didn't know. I didn't know if I
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  wanted to take it that far, right, So after that, about a
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  year after that we came in, we signed the deal, and the rest
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  is history, you know. That's it, the rest is history. Yeah,
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  and then you're really connected with fans instantly. On your devorty self taddled
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  album in ninety seven by saying, what do you think that was? What
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  did fans gravitate to that? Like you mentioned all this background stuff you put
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  in which were to help, but the music would have been sold. Say,
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  I think with something is not done for financial purposes. Any art that's
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  not done for financial purposes, people are drawn to it. So right,
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  if I know that, and I said this before in another interview, but
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  if I know that, you know, painting with red paint will sell me
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  a million dollar, million dollars worth of art. But I am really a
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  painter who loves with paint with blue and orange, and I moved to that
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  red color to go make money. I don't think it's going to transfer.
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  It's not going to catch on, it's not going to go the distance.
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  And I think what Cold Chamber did was unique in the time, from our
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  heart from the street. I mean we were from the street completely, and
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  I think that that caught on with people. You know, they felt the
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  authenticity from each member of the band in our own characters that we had,
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  and I think that's another thing that transferred over, you know, and then
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  you have things like you tour the world with Black Sabbath, you tour all
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  the world with Pantera, you tour the United States with Danzig. On our
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  first run, Hot Topic picks us up, they put us in the stores.
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  Next thing, you know, it just starts rolling over and there you
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  have it. You know, you're releasted. Most Racing Toll shot about album
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  Rivals in twenty fifteen, and I read in a recent interview that you said
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  you felt that you write that album ten or twelve v's ahead of its time.
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  Can you all right on that true story? I mean, I don't
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  think you know, new metal wasn't in the place it was at ten twelve
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  years ago. If we would have released Rivals today, and I'm telling you,
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  anybody watching this that gives a shit about Cole Chamber go after this and
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  listen to Rivals. I mean, it's got Al Jergens from Ministry on it.
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  It's a fucking great record, and I just think we released it at
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  a time in our lives we didn't have our shit straight, so the band
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  wasn't cohesive, but the music was. And obviously the whole new metal thing
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  or whatever hadn't really swung around. I mean, some bands had remained large
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  coren et cetera, but it hadn't really swung around. Now we do meet
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  and greets, and it's all twenty year old kids that were like born when
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  we fucking broke up. So there's something happening right now that's extremely special because
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  a lot of these bands that came out at that time, the bands that
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  I aforementioned, along with Cold Chamber, we're doing something extremely authentic and from
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  our hearts, and we didn't know what the fuck we were doing, right.
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  I mean, it's literally like you put picking up a paintbrush that you've
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  never used before. Just let's see what this will do next thing. You
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  know, you're looking at something that no one's ever done, and you're like,
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  I don't know, let's put it out. Oh shit, people like
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  it. Weird cool, We like it too, And if we like it
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  and they like it, there's something fucking authentic to there's no big mystery,
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  and if it's not authentic, people will feel it, you know. I
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  believe there's a lot of bands that came out on that third wave of new
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  metal that for me, were way too radio pop driven not authentic in my
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  opinion, but the Cold Chamber reserves, you know, reserves the right to
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  say, yeah, we were coming from our heart and rivals, especially because
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  when we wrote that, we were in another kind of tumultuous time in between
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  us as writers. And I think that push and pull really made for that
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  record. Just it's fantastic that record. Are you probably sick of answering this
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  question, Mike, but I have to ask, like, is there any
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  any music in the whites? You know, I'm not a guy who sits
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  around and watches TV, So there's always music in the works. That's what
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  I got to say. There's always music in the works, man. And
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  after what I survived, I've been my past year, I'm going to make
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  as much music as I possibly can. I mean, if something happened to
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  me today, my wife has hard drives and hard drives of music from me
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  making it with different people and different circumstances. But it's all I do,
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  is I mean, I woke up this morning and we're having coffee in after
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  fifteen minutes, you look at me, She's like, you know, good
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  morning, like actually saying to me, like, what are you doing?
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  And I was writing a song I was on my phone writing notes and I
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  wrote, I wrote something I think is fantastic. So this is kind of
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  what I do. I just I can't I can't stop, you know.
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  I think there's a there's a drive there, so we'll see. Very cool.
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  You also released the first book of a two part or bibiography, soarted
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  like a Chaos, Climity and Toltai. But back in early September, might
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  say, how's that been received? Well, no, that hasn't come out
• 16:53
  yet. That's postponing. Yeah, it's postponed till next year. It's on
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  Rare Bird Books. I've got some great, huge artists actually writing the forward
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  and the backward to that, and I'm adding another chapter to it because after
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  we read it, we realized there was something else in there that you need.
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  But it's basically my childhood through Coal Chamber to where I met Devil Driver.
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  And it's going to be interesting to see where I came from because,
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  like I said, I you know, literally was raised on the other side
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  of the tracks, you know. So for me to have anything the roof
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  over my head, anything I do, I feel incrementally blessed on a daily
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  basis. Really, So yeah, that's that's gonna come out next year.
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  Just look for it because it'll be it'll be everywhere when before it does come
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  out. So that little quiet you gave us from the book before was actually
• 17:41
  from something that hasn't even been released yet. Yeah, no worries, man,
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  Now before we let you go, right, we've started a new thing
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  with heavy so people who can get to know the bands that we speak to
• 17:52
  you. So we've got three different Spotify playlists, so can you give us
• 17:55
  a song from Cole Chamber for each of them? So one of them is
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  to get the party started, wants to save your marriage and wants to potentially
• 18:02
  end your marriage. I would say, sway, we'll start the party real
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  well. Yeah, uh to save your marriage listen to clock and uh,
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  what's the next one? To end your marriage? Potentially end your marriage?
• 18:21
  Yeah? Fuck, I don't know. I owe you it's probably a good
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  one because the chorus is I owe you nothing that'll do it. If you
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  said that to your partner, you'd be asked out. All right, thanks
• 18:44
  very much for you talking that. I might just being a pleasure. You're
• 18:45
  definitely wiping me up. But told Chamber in Australia with mud Vein next February.
• 18:49
  There's still a few tickets left, but get under him now through the
• 18:52
  Phoenix dot Com. Have a good one, brother, Looking forward to seeing
• 18:56
  you down under and looking forward to seeing everybody at these shows. Could Chambers
• 19:00
  very excited so from all of them and me. Can't wait to see you
• 19:03
  guys. Get a ticket, We'll see you soon.