Live-Metal.Net - Interviews: Devildriver

May 30, 2006

Stepping away from the nu-metal scene in which he rose to fame, Dez Fafara re-emerged in 2003 with the punishing metal act DevilDriver. The band’s second album, 2005’s The Fury of Our Maker’s Hand, which is heavier than the self-titled debut and showcases a growing technical prowess, has shown DevilDriver is force to be reckoned with in the metal world. The band currently is on its first headlining tour, traveling the United States with a package that includes Bury Your Dead, Remembering Never, If Hope Dies and Artimus Pyledriver, the first band signed to Fafara’s Sever Records. DevilDriver guitarist Mike Spreitzer checked in from the road with Greg Maki of Live-Metal.net.

Live-Metal: DevilDriver is out on its first headlining tour. That must be pretty exciting for you guys. How’s it going so far?

Mike Spreitzer: This tour’s been going really well. It’s definitely been very successful for us so far.

How much input did you guys have in selecting the other bands on the tour with you?

Artimus Pyledriver was definitely a selection that we wanted. Dez signed them to his record label. The other bands – we didn’t really know much about Remembering Never or If Hope Dies, but they were available to go out on tour and we liked what we heard from them. We really wanted Bury Your Dead to come out with us because we heard a lot of good things about them as far as their music, as well as their personalities. They’re very cool guys. We’re happy to them out, as well as all the other bands.

Is there more pressure on you now that you’re headlining?

A little bit, for me. Obviously, Remembering Never, If Hope Dies and Bury Your Dead, they’re gonna have more of the hardcore following. We’re more of a straight-up metal band. But I don’t know. It seems to be meshing pretty well. The crowds haven’t been thinning out and if kids are there from the beginning, they’ve gotta watch four bands before they get to us. But it’s going pretty well.

I saw you guys earlier this year on the In Flames tour and judging from the crowd reaction – the pits, the singing – it really seemed then, to me, that DevilDriver was ready to headline. Was there a specific time when you thought the band was ready to do that?

Let’s see. We had just recorded our new album, The Fury of Our Maker’s Hand, and we did a tour with Machine Head. [Machine Head vocalist/guitarist] Robb Flynn got sick. He had some sort of viral throat infection where he couldn’t sing for maybe four or five shows. So they asked us to headline those shows and the promoters offered refunds to the ticket holders that wanted them. I think, at most, we had four returns or something like that, maybe five. Some of the shows no one returned their tickets. So we were like, “Alright, we can do a headliner.” So over a year ago now. We definitely put more time in to make sure things go well.

You guys have had a pretty intense touring schedule and it looks like that’s going to continue for the rest of the year.

Yeah, we’re gonna be out for about nine months out of the year.

What do you do when you’re out there for so long to keep things interesting and prevent it from becoming a grind?

You’ve gotta bring as many things possible to keep entertained, like a portable DVD player. Most of the time, I’ll just go in the dressing room by myself and sit there and try to write music on my own. I think the biggest thing is making sure you go out with bands that you like to talk and hang out with because if you make good friends with the bands, when you show up to the venues you’ve always got someone to hang out with. We all get along really well. We all hang out. When we’re in the RV driving to the next show, like I am right now, is probably the most boring part of the day. Once we get to the venue – we don’t have any techs with us right now, so we all have to unload the trailer, set up our own equipment, string our own guitars. Then right after the show’s over, we’ve gotta do the opposite, pack everything up, load the trailer. If we have time afterwards, we go out and have a drink. So we keep pretty busy.

What do you do before you go on stage to get yourself in the mind set to play such brutal music?

If I have the time, I like to warm up on guitar for an hour or two, do some stretching exercises. When we were on Ozzfest, I had a real bad pinched nerve in my neck for about half the tour, so I stretch before I go on stage every day. But basically, put on your stage clothes, stretch, warm up your hands, get out there and make sure your guitar’s in tune. That’s pretty much my daily routine.

Have you ever had anything really embarrassing happen on stage, kind of a Spinal Tap-like moment?

Well, I’ve had this mystery problem with my guitar rig ever since the In Flames tour – we did the Opeth tour right after that – where every four or five shows my guitar would just start cutting out. I think I finally figured out the problem. It always sucks when your guitar goes out. I wouldn’t really call it a Spinal Tap moment. It’s more of a technical failure. I’d be up there kicking my soundboard four or five times trying to get my guitar to work. I would kick it and it would work for five minutes, then it would go out and I’d kick it again. Everyone thought I was kicking it for the fun of it. They didn’t know that I was kicking it to get it to work. But other than that – I haven’t fallen on my ass on stage yet. I haven’t fallen off the stage either. That’s pretty much it.

After this current tour, you’re heading over to Europe, is that right?

Yeah, we have a lot of cool shows over there. We’re playing Download the same day as Metallica. We’re headlining a small festival in Ireland. We’re playing with Trivium and 36 Crazyfists in Germany. We’re going to Denmark, Spain and there’s one other country that we’re going to that we haven’t been before. I can’t think of it off the top of my head right now. We’ve got a show with Korn, Deftones, Soulfly. We have some good shows coming up over there. We’re all really excited about going.

How does the European metal scene differ from what’s going on here in the United States?

We’ve been there twice. This will be our third time going over there and we’ve toured the States – one, two, three, four, five, six – like eight or nine times. Actually, I think this is our ninth or 10th tour of the States and I think we’re doing just as good, if not better, in Europe as we are over here. I think definitely in the future you’ll see DevilDriver be bigger in Europe than in the States, which I think is common for a lot of metal bands today.

I see there are also plans to go to Japan and Australia later this year.

We’re gonna try to get over there. The next thing I know is coming up is we’re doing a short tour with Venom in August. I’m not sure if it’s 100-percent confirmed, but I think it is. We’re doing that. It’s only like eight or nine shows. In Flames has wanted to take us to Japan and Europe. I’m not sure if we’re going with them yet. I know we’re going to go to Australia, for sure. Japan, I think, is a little bit up in the air at the moment. If we don’t go there this year, it will definitely be next year.

What would be your dream tour? What bands do you really want to go out with?

Hmmm. That’s a tough one. I would say Ozzfest, but I already did that. That was pretty much my dream tour. I don’t know. I like bands like Rammstein and Nine Inch Nails and stuff like that. I’d love to go out with bands like that, but I don’t know how DevilDriver would go over with that crowd. I think I would love to go out with Rammstein just because they’re one of my favorite bands. I’ve seen them like five or six times. They put on amazing shows.

Have you started writing new material for the next album?

Yeah, we have about three solid songs right now, three or four that we’ve worked on as a group and I’ve got a few more. Whenever I’m home, that’s pretty much all I do. I take a break from the partying. All my friends are calling me up every day and asking to go party, but I lock myself in my room and try to write music.