Garza Podcast - 243 - DEVILDRIVER: New Album, Health Scare, Coal Chamber & Rules for Investing

Episode Date: July 27, 2026

Garza sits down in-person with Dez Fafara & Davier Pérez from California heavy metal band DEVILDRIVER. Their new album "Strike and Kill” is out now! https://instagram.com/devildriverSupport the podcast here: https://garzapodcast.myshopify.com 00:00 - Strike and Kill02:32 - Jon Miller Re-Joining Devildriver05:48 - 30 Years of Marriage09:30 - Lynn Strait & Snot11:16 - L.A. Nu Metal Scene // Early Days13:28 - Personal Lyrics, Influences & Outlaw Country17:02 - Childhood19:23 - Stand-up Drums & Punk Influence23:45 - Early Jobs25:11 - Moving From Puerto Rico29:43 - Quitting Drinking33:01 - Coal Chamber35:12 - Hot Topic & Nu Metal Fashion42:48 - Superjoint Ritual44:47 - Devildriver After Coal Chamber51:09 - Dez’s Rules for Saving & Investing59:19 - Freemasonry & Charity1:02:41 - NDEs & Tarot Cards1:08:04 - On-Stage vs Off-Stage Mentality1:11:28 - Tour Bus Driver’s Death1:15:08 - Chamber Music & The Haunted Studio1:23:10 - Writing/Recording Strike and Kill1:26:06 - Meditation1:36:19 - Dez’s Health Update1:53:54 - NRG Studios Lore1:59:17 - Rediscovering Love for Devildriver2:02:47 - Dig Your Own Grave Music Video2:04:30 - Future Book!?2:06:33 - Music to Check Out2:11:34 - Philip H. Anselmo2:15:18 - Garza’s Sobriety2:20:16 - New Album, Strike and Kill & Upcoming Shows

Cooking. Check, check. All right. All right, baby. Keep on rolling. You know what time it is. Well, we got Des and Dobby. Double driver.

Thank you for being here, man. Appreciate it, man. Thanks for having me. Us. Thanks for having us. Yeah. Dobby runs a band with me, so I call them number one. Cool.

In Star Trek. Yeah, Dobby was a pleasant surprise, but I don't know Dobby for a while. Cool. No, no brainer. Yeah, yeah. Cool. New records out. July 10th.

It's sick, man. So it's very like riffy. Yes. It's very riffy. Strike and kill. Slammy riffy. Thanks, man. I appreciate it.

It's cool. I mean, when we started to write, we normally released a record every two years. And this has been four years. So when we started to write. That's been four years, huh? Wow. Yeah. So when we started to write, everybody was kind of, because we have Gabe.

on guitar and producing. So we have one new guy, basically. And we were talking about like, oh, well, what's their direction? And this and I said, do me a favor. Like, don't go back, don't go forward, like listening to the catalog. Look at the logo. Like, I physically made everybody pull up the logo. Like, pull up the logo.

What does it tell you? I said, I want something volatile, visceral, heavy, violent, riffy, you know, and groovy. Right. Now everybody's using the title Groove Metal, but they hardly groove, right? We've got balance. We've got groove. So when normally. So what's the nickname California Groove Machine?

California. Yeah, nice. Yeah. I mean, you got to kind of take the monikers that people give to you. It took me a long time to do that. It's, yeah. I asked my wife as like, Groove, groove metal. Is that what way?

She goes, look, man, your favorite artist is James Brown. Like, you love groove. So that's what you guys are. But I normally start to write. after the bulk of the material comes in. And when I got three tracks, I called him immediately and I go, don't bother me, I'm going in the studio today.

And that was it. I wrote like probably two or three tracks that first day. Like I couldn't stay away from the material. So as I started, kept getting material from these guys. It was unbelievable. They were just playing as a team, like everybody writing. And John Miller back in the band after, you know, so long.

How long was John out? Well, he was with me for the first five records. I think he was out for a good 10 years, at least, right? A quick 10 years. Maybe more than that. It flies by, huh? It's weird. It does.

It does. I mean, when we first talked, John and I on the phone, I mean, there was laughter. There was tears. It was great. I was always closer with John, so it was good to have him back. It's good. It's good to have, like, the OG back, you know? It's cool.

It's cool. You're also able to mend that, uh, that relationship because sometimes, like, you can't mend it, you know? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, we never had a falling out. He had to leave tour. He had to go home to get his stuff together, man. He, I think if he would have stayed on the road, it wouldn't have been a good vibe for him. Yeah.

So we all got together and said, in England of all places and said, bro, you can't continue this, right? You might fucking die. Well, you have to care for people more than the music and more than the band. And that's certainly like how we felt. True. But like I said, man, when we got on the phone, it was like, we laugh. We talked for like three and a half hours, man. Wow.

And there was tears. It was everything. I was always very, very close to John. Like there's a famous, like a famous photo, but there's a photo of us back in the day where I got us all. We took an RV for the first run. And it's like him and I in the back passed out like holding hands. Like just done, like out drinking, you know. I'm glad I quit that.

But it was just awesome, man. And you move to Santa Barbara because of your. current wife Anna, correct? Yeah. And eventually that's how you probably would, that's probably where you met John. Yeah, that's where I met the whole band. So to go back, um, yeah, Anastasia was from Santa Barbara and, uh, we were looking for a place to raise the kids and she was from there.

I went up one night. I actually hung out with Mikey Dolan from snot. Oh, hell yeah. And had a great time on State Street and said, I love this place and I need a change. Let's go. We lived there for about 10 years, um, until I decided to, you know, to buy a house and then you realize it's two million dollars for nineteen seventy six one bedroom no garage like i'm like i'm out of here you know yeah and uh we got fortunate my parents live down

in murrietta so that's where i live is in murrietta now and in that's why you moved there yeah well we bought during the crash too so it's like the house over the over a golf course and i mean it's like we got very lucky so lucky unfortunately that's when they say that buy a house is during a crash yeah and what had happened is uh on state street in the middle of the day there was a stabbing of a 15 year old kid. And I told my wife, like, I'm not going to raise my kids in this environment. Because it's either the haves or the have-nots. And I'm very blue-collar, working-class family.

And I just didn't want to raise my kids in an area where shit could happen to them. So where I live now, it's very much like, you know, like the Andy Griffith show or something. I mean, it's like everybody knows your name, you know, Mayberry. You know what I mean? It's like you go to the local Ralphs. like, oh, you're home from tour. Yeah. Yeah, you know.

And yeah, it's a cool place to live, man. Real quick, if you don't mind, I learned something about your family yesterday. And I personally, because I'm in a six-year relationship, I'm also a musician like yourself. So I'm always curious how people make it work. Have you guys been married for 29 or have you hit the 30-year mark yet? We'll hit the 30-year mark next year. Next year. Congrats. Yeah, I think the way you work is you'd be best friends. So nobody comes before her. I don't

have guys night. And a matter of fact, it's funny when I do get called on those kind of things, like, the boys are getting together. I show up with Anastasia, you know. Yeah. And if it's like, you brought your wife, I'm like, cool, I'm out, right? Or whatever. I just, I bring her everywhere. And the way to do it is to just be honest, don't open it and be best friends and raise kids and And time goes by. It's great because the musician has such a back stigma when it comes to like the marriages and relationships. So when I see something work, I'm always curious and kind of ask questions.

It's also selfishly. You know, how do you, how do you twer full time? And is it true that Anastasia, your wife, saw you at a funeral? So. And that was. Yeah. So our story is, well, Lynn from Snott passed away. God rest his soul.

And it was his funeral. Yes. Wow. And it was in Santa Barbara. And we had taken the tour of us up there with Sharon Osborne. And I was out in the Rose Garden afterwards with my head hanging pretty low, drinking a bottle of wine, kicking rocks, you know. And she had saw me. But she didn't want to approach because obviously she didn't know me and it was a funeral.

It's a funeral. But then about two weeks later, I was out to dinner with Ozzy at his house. And then you went to house. The Blues, right? Yeah, and the assistant said, hey, I'm going to go to House of Blues. Do you want to go get a cocktail? And I said, yeah, it's like 930. Let's go. I was walking in and she was walking out from having dinner. And I said to her, hey, don't go anywhere right now. If you stay with me right now, you'll be my wife. And she goes, that's funny. I just told my girlfriend that when you were walking up, that there's my future husband. And then being the good girl that she is, she's like, anyways, here's my number. I'm not staying with you tonight. That's not how I work. And, um, I blew she had a pager so to date it a little bit and I blew her fucking pager up and from then on we've been together uh solid since then yeah that is so bizarre yeah we dated for a while and then that is that is bizarre yeah and then as soon as we felt we had so much in common dude like just just we have everything in common you know like there's nothing

i like that she doesn't like or that she likes that i don't like and i think that's that's what you have to look for you got to look for a best friend don't look at for like the peace on your arm and the this and that like look for a fucking best friend that'll get you through life and someone you can laugh with someone you can cry with someone you can share everything with like she no there's not there's nothing about me she doesn't know yeah you know and i think that's what you got to do to have a long time relationship yeah there's no rules especially after hearing that there's no rules how to meet somebody seeing someone for the first because if you if you say it out loud that story will sound psycho to someone somebody else oh yeah

you guys both knew at that moment yeah but i we did We did. And you got to get somebody that you take care of and they take care of you. So for instance, before I came here this morning, I went to the eye doctor. I got something going on with my right eye from an old fighting injury or something. And they had to dilate my right eye. So I was supposed to drive today. And she's like, don't worry, honey, I got you all drive. Right. So but that's an analogy for how relationship should go. Like don't worry, I got you. You got me. Thus the shades today. So apologies. Yeah. That's fine. It's fine. Do you and Lynn have matching tattoos? juice on on your hand yeah well he has a skull and i have a pumpkin and it was done by paul booth the same day yeah me and lyn there's a tumultuous beginning there which was awesome is you know we're very protective of los angeles coal chamber was and um when you know it was a dead zone uh even corn was busing people up to los angeles to get their shows back i hear the rumors about about the bus yeah and which is cool you know but when snot first started to come down um i was outside the Roxy and I actually said to Lynn, why don't you get the fuck and just go back to Santa

Barbara? And he's like, instead of taking that mode, why don't we go in the car, smoke a joint, then go fucking do a shot inside the Roxy and let's be friends. And then, yeah, we were friends since then. And I've always respected the band. I mean, very much so. I just helped snod out actually get their new agent. So yeah, yeah. I've always had a lot of respect. And I think far beyond most frontmen, I think he was probably in the top five of all time, to be honest with you. I only hear the stories about him. How he was like a great dude and great dude try to follow him have fucking fun with it and I'm a guy who was who's like bring it on and but that dude you know he had it um he just passed away too early man just uh real so sad

so sad dude yeah yeah i wonder where snot would uh would would be yeah unfortunately i think i think about that kind of stuff too you know it's a little like pop in there you know what What if? Yeah, yeah, you can't go back in time. You just got to move forward. And like the other new singer is badass, and so we wish them the best. And I'm actually trying to put them on a Halloween show with me now. I'm always trying to help friends out, you know.

So would you say it was snot and cold chamber that were kind of like spreading chaos in the L.A. scene because the hair metal scene kind of killed everything off, right? Yeah, I mean, I would say it was like Fear Factory and Cold Chamber. Snott was a little bit later. I found Static X at a place called the Coconut Teaser. I actually walked in and saw static in front of about 15 people and brought them to a bunch of people's

attention and they got signed. And then later on you had a system of a down and everybody coming out of there. But the deaf tones were probably before all of us, I would say that. The deaf tones were happening. Def tones in Fear Factory first. Damn. Coal Chamber. I mean, because Cole Chamber was technically around before corn.

and would have been signed before corn, but I left the band for like a year. We had a record deal on the table, and I said, I don't know, let me think about this. I'm just a guy who puts a lot of thought into things. So,

you know, so you even took a year off and even though you and Miggs committed to getting the tattoo, yeah. That would be considered bad luck. So you got the band tattoo prior to... Oh, years before we got signed,

I got the band tattoo. Oh, yeah, absolutely. But we were running around L.A. and jumpsuits and stuff with coal chamber everywhere and uh that's thick passing out beautiful passing out t-shirts and like we weren't even selling our own shirts right we're like if you came to a gig you got a free shirt so there was a point in in l.a you couldn't go anywhere without seeing a cold chamber shirt you know that was purposely done you know it's got to be on purpose sometimes yeah he's got it's got

hustle dude still grind and I mean the like the memories of probably you guys up because you shared a a bedroom in a top ramen right oh bro yeah yeah I had a one bedroom and uh Raina slept on the floor in the kitchen meigs moved in with me with my pit bull and we traded top ramen or stole food I stole a lot of food from Trader Joe's yeah a lot of food from Trader Joe's I would go to Trader Joe's and steal food Wow. You're up. So I'm about to combine Cold Chamber and Double Driver real quick because me being a fan, I've listened to your music for a very long time, Des. And so as a fan, I never really knew what, like, you were singing about.

And then later, I would hear you talk about how purposely Cold Chamber is very, like, absurd, you know, your lyrics you really don't know and then you had with devil driver you had to learn how to be personal and then and then you got that from john john in cash correct yeah absolutely was yeah i mean listening to i mean i grew up around first of all music so um but i grew up on punk rock psychobilly and goth so i'm probably the first heavy metal singer you'll talk to like what's your heavy metal influences and i'm like none you know i mean none really vocally um but i think you know interesting yeah i mean there's a lot there's a lot of personal lyrics within Cole Chamber, but I really wanted to kind of get down to the point of it with

Devil Driver. And so listening to Cash really, really helps out a lot with that kind of stuff. You know, and if you know me, you know I love Outlaw Country. Like if you ever been on my bus at 3 in the morning, you know, you're listening to Hang 3 and, you know, you're listening to Outlaw Country. The lyrics are so poignant in that scene that it's, you can learn from it as a writer, I think. You see that? He's had such an up and down career. So it's such a great example.

Exactly. I mean, one of the highlights of my life is, you know, Devil Driver did an outlaw country record covered heavy metal called Outlaws till the end. And I was actually told by a president of a label actually that I know very well. It's like, this is going to kill your career. You should not do this. And I was like, yeah, well, fuck you. I do what I want.

And I'm going to kill your career. Very nice. Classic. Classic. And I was like, I'm going to die trying. So then that record charted very well, did very well. And I actually spent about 60 grand of my own money because we got a lot of fucking vocalists on that.

I mean, Randy from Lamagod, John Carter Cash, leaving from fear, Hank three. I mean, I could go down the line with the guests. And so working with leaving from fear was like one of the highlights of my fucking life. I grew up on fear. I grew up on punk rock. I grew up with fucking Doc Martins up to my knees

and shaved heads and what have you, right? But one of the highlights is going to the cash cabin, working with John Carter Cash, recording at the cash cabin, signing the mantle at the cash cabin right next to Willie Nelson and Christopher Chris Christopherson, you know, and working and singing in the booth. I mean, and Johnny built this cabin with his hands, like built it with his fucking hands, right? So singing in that booth was like one of the highlights of my life and working with John Carter and we've become great friends. We're great friends with that family. So you kind of got to within the industry you got to do what you want a lot of people play the game i never

really have like at all you know at the top of my career with coal chamber i bailed right uh with devil driver i've done a lot of different stuff that that you know may or may not be considered um uh within bounds of metal right and uh i i think that's where that's where you make your statement uh is by doing something different always be different even when devil driver came We were very different, you know, and when Cold Chambers, certainly when we started, people were like, what is this? Like, we have no clue what's going on here, you know. I wonder where that comes from. I'm always like, why are some people, why are they, why are they like that? So I always, I'll like do it some region. I'll try like, you know, poking around and, did you have dead? Did you have complications with your birth? Because you were the first four months of your life, you were in an incubator, correct? Yeah, I think three months or something. And, you know, I mean, I was a pre-me, what's called premature birth. Yeah. But, you know, back then women smoked when they were pregnant and everything else, you know what

mean? And I've always been, my mom calls me the fighter, you know, my nickname is Peanut. I've got it tattooed on my neck, yeah, because I've just always been like, oh, really, let's go. Like, it's written in me. It's like, oh, because you're six foot, you don't think I'll fight. Like, let's go. So, I mean, even at my age, I'm still very.

contankerous so I'm not going to ever lose that I don't think my wife's over here laughing her ass off because she she knows you know but I'll only take shit so far as it'll go you know and then then it's like okay that's it uh then I have a very street vibe about me you know I mean I left home at a relatively young age I fought for everything I got and there was a time when I was homeless and camping out under a bridge for for a couple days with a friend and we're stealing food from AMPM and like Hollywood back then was very just in my blood I was like well I'm going to LA you know what I mean I was born and raised in LA and the parents moved back and forth and

ended up in Orange County. Elementary school was San Juan Capistrano where I was the only weddo I was only white kid in my school right so I'm covered in like Aztec ink and Mexican inks I was raised around literally on the other side of the tracks there's a YouTube of where I was raised in San Juan Capistrano where this guy is driving through and he's like Like, you don't want to come here at night, right? But I was raised around the culture and low riders and stuff like that and learn how to fight at an early age and everything else, you know. So then parents moved to a more blue-collar kind of area,

which is great for us as kids. And then I had a stepfather that I really didn't get along with. So I had to, I bailed out like at a, you know, a couple times at a certain age, you know. We just dropped some new merch. We got a chug shirt, a pizza shirt, even a hot, like the one currently on my body head over to garza podcast dot my shopify.com that's garza podcast dot my shopify.com or click the link below love you guys yeah I was also you're trying to uh next some of my dates because I know you had like some step bothers go go in and out

and you got you got you got to get the tattoo of the wolf and then you was that was that why you ran away no well I got tattooed something yeah I got tattooed when I was 15 yeah uh with a with a with a on my arm because I was in a psychobilly band called The Screaming Wolves. Okay. So I was actually a drummer. I was actually a stand-up drummer. What is a stand-up drummer? I heard you talk about it.

What's a stand-up drummer? So kick, drum, snare, high hat, two toms, and a crash. Think of Slim Jim Phantom from the stray cats, basically. Oh, the stray cats. Yeah. So think of, think of that, you know. When you said stand-up drum, I have no idea what the hell he's talking about. Yeah.

I mean, I got rhythm, man. I got beat. And I love the drums. It's still one of my favorite. even back in the day with John Berklin on Devil Driver, we used to go rehearse Devil Driver with just the drums and the fucking vocals. Like we'd head to the room and just do, you know,

with no guitars, no nothing. So drums have always been probably my favorite instrument, you know. If you see us live, you're going to see a lot of interaction between me and that. Yeah, there's a lot of interaction between me and Davy. Yeah. Well, no, you're a lot, actually. Like I jump on his kick drums and he's like, oh, like, you know. Stand-up drummer for Double Driver, Dobby.

Yeah. I mean, like I said, I was raised on punk rock and psychobilly and goth music. I found Motorhead was on a mixtape with GBAH and a bunch of other bands that I was, the partisans and a bunch of other bands that I was, and I thought they were a punk band and then saw a picture of them and they were long hair. They were a metal band and I mean, obviously rock and roll had been an influence, right? My parents had vinyl collection, so I got into all that, Doors, Zeppelin, Credens Clearwater, all of that.

And I was into Kiss when I was very young. I had kiss posters everywhere. So throughout the years meeting, you know, Gene Simmons and all of the guys actually was a great fucking pleasure. But heavy, heavy metal, I would say it started with Motorhead for me. And you started singing at like 15? I started singing about 17. I was in the psychobilly band until I was about almost 17. Was it the steaming wolves?

Screaming wolves. Yeah, the screaming wolves. And then, which actually... She was a sick, too. Yeah. Yeah, my guitar player, Buddy Dugie, is actually in a band called The Hot Rod Trio. I mean, he's still doing his thing, like in the scene, in the rockabilly scene. And I mean, he's got old school cars and everything else still.

We still talk, which is awesome. You know, he was quite a bit older than me. I was 15. He was maybe like 20, 21 years old. But I was always hanging out with older cats, you know, it was kind of my thing. Yeah, I mean, you, I mean, you were already working construction. like at age nine. Yeah, well, my dad, my stepfather around a construction company as a contractor.

So anytime I could, I would mow lawns, babysit dogs, fucking work with him, you know. Actually, living next door to me was the owner of Oakley. Are you serious? Which I worked in his warehouse when all he had was one bicycle grip and used to clean up the dog shit in his backyard for money. And the dog shit was from the dog Oakley. So that's how Oakley got its name is Oakley his dog. No shit. His name was Jim Gennard.

He was a great dude. I mean, I still wish, like, fuck, I should have just kept working at that warehouse. And who knows where it would have been now. But he was a really great guy. It was a Mormon cat at the time. And I used to go next door to his family, have dinner with his family all the time. Yeah, there is Oakley right there. Yeah, I used to play with that dog daily.

Absolutely. I didn't know that. He gave me my first BMX bike. For Christmas, he bought me a red torker bike with gold rims on it and shit. fucking I rode that bike all over Laguna Nigel and Orange County man I mean I would fucking ride 10 20 miles a day on that bike well Oakley was the name of the dog never never knew that and all they had was one bicycle grip and it was actually a like a bull grip like it the sides came up it was something new that had never been done and then he just he just kept going man you know

and obviously sold his company for billions of dollars really great guy and and I got a lot of work from him when I was younger, which was awesome, you know, because I loved, I wanted money, you know, to go buy down, down, buy candy or what have you when you're a kid, you know. So I've always had a real hard work ethic and then started working with my stepfather, doing anything, picking up trash on the job site, what have you. And then ended up in masonry and ended up doing bricklaying and stone. That's when you did a bricklayering. Brick lane and stone.

And this is all in my book that's coming next year. It's done. Are you serious? Yeah, we're just editing it right now. Finally, dude. Yeah, it's called loco. Oh. And it goes really in depth into all of this stuff.

But, and it's quite a ride, man. It's quite a ride. There was the other night we were reading some parts of it and I kind of got teary eyeed. My wife's like, you okay. I go, yeah, this is crazy, you know. But I think learning lessons from dudes on a job site, you learn to like get the fuck up and work. Shut your mouth and quit fucking whining. Like, it's time to go to work, right?

Brick Larian, that's like, that's hard labor, bro. Yeah, well, I had to show up at 4.30 a.m. because I had to get the mud ready, the cement, I had to get the mud ready and get that already and get the bricks ready and, you know, stack, you know, have gloves on and stack the stone walls and everything else. But I fell in love with it.

As soon as I started, was able to start chipping stone and laying brick or laying stone. And it's awesome because at three o'clock, you're having beers with dudes and you're fucking 17, 16, and they're all, you know, bikers and fuck. And you're looking up at something that you've done all day long, right?

I mean, I still drive by some of those buildings. It's like, There it is. Like I did that when I was 17, when I was 18, when I was 19, when I was whatever, yeah. Yeah. Wow. And Dobby, you're, you're no stranger to work either. Where, so people don't know about you. Where, where were you born from? I was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico. That's where I'm originally. San Juan. We're going. I moved to California when I was 24, so I've been here for 13 years now, 12, 13 years. How did you make that move? Because, I mean, I'm sure. people that are from your area and like how do I even get out of here I just played every venue

every local show I was in that like I was trying and trying and grinding and grinding and at one point I was like I played every place I need to go out and just just do it just go do it and I told my I did a last show in Puerto Rico and then I told my parents right there and then hey I'm not coming back I'm gonna do a quick run and then I'm not coming back he's one way ticket he's got great parents man and like Like, for those who don't know, I call Dobby number one. Like, if you watch Star Trek, you'll get it. But I call him number one.

Like, because I do a lot. I've got two bands. I run multiple businesses. And, like, you need someone. I've always ran the band with one other dude. And so he helps run Devil Driver. And when I needed a drummer, he was on tour with another band. We'll leave them nameless.

But I had heard, like, oh, this dude's out here right now. He's teching for us. He's such a badass drummer. And the minute I got on the phone with Davy, like him and I just fucking click. I mean, I consider him one of my best friends in the world, man. Like, I mean, we talk 40 times a fucking day, you know, and he'll always call me like, bro, are you okay? How are you doing?

I'm like, dude, I'm good. Like, you know, let's, you know, thanks for asking. It's good to have somebody that gives you shit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Dobby, you've always had a really great rep around. Thank you. Right.

He always had a great work ethic. Oh, you got to get a Dobby. You got to talk, Dobby because he's going to do everything. The things, man, it's like, I am grateful to be here. because a lot of things that you guys get here in the States or in Europe, we don't get back home. So every second that I get, even if it's a bad moment,

I'm grateful because people back home don't see any of this. So it doesn't. I mean, my whole life, I've never recorded in front of anybody but a producer. Like I tell my band members, get the fuck out of here. And Davy was with me every single day when I recorded. Wow. And it was awesome to actually,

I didn't know it would be that cool. is to experience, like, because a producer will tell you, like, oh, great job, let's keep going or whatever, but to hear it from the guy that's not behind the board going like, fuck, you killed it, bro, like, you know, do that again or what have you. Like, now I don't know if I'd want to record without Davy in the room, really, you know. Like, it was awesome. It was a fucking great experience.

It made my days great. And then I was like, are we done for the day? Cool. You want to jump in the pool or Anastasia's got food ready, you know. Man, that had to develop some fucking trust, man. That's, I think, part of it. Because you're a picky guy. Yeah.

Very, very private, I noticed. Probably one of the most private. I mean, guys you've ever met, probably. I said to the label, Davy knows the story, but I said to the label when we re-signed with Napalm, do I have to do press? And I was like, yeah, you fucking absolutely have to do press if we're giving you this money. And I was like, okay, great, you know. But it's weird for me.

I may seem comfortable, but I'm not. I'm not. I'm absolutely not comfortable even right now. But it is what it is, and I'll be honest with it. I'd rather just make music, go on stage, go back in the tour bus. And that's another way that your relationship will work great. There's two kinds of musicians, right? There is two kinds.

There's a guy who's at the party constantly, and the guy who's, fuck that. I'm in the back lounge watching Star Wars. I'm done with this shit. Like I'm done my job today. I don't need to fucking hang out until 4 in the morning. And then I end up in the back with Dobby kickback, watching fucking movies or whatever, you know. But that's a good way for you actually to monitor your relationship is, you know,

just don't be at the fucking party. Like I don't give a shit about the party. Like it's not my thing, you know. Like it was back in the day. Don't get me wrong. But as soon as you stop drinking, you realize like this, what am I doing? And then you watch people around you change after their drinks and say stupid shit and someone gets in the fight and some and you're just like, what is good? What is this anyways? None of this fucking mean shit, you know.

When did you stop drinking? 10 years ago. 10 years. Yeah. And I've only had two slips and not even a slip, but just sip of wine, you know, a sip of a beer. But it changes my head so hard and I'm like, wow. Yeah. And what I do is I tell myself every year on my birthday that I'm going to drink a bottle of cognac.

This is my favorite thing, you know. And then my birthday comes and it goes and I don't end up drinking. Even now I'm like, cool, my next birthday, I'm going to get hammered. And then it just never happens. Never happens. I am low key asking for advice right now, I think. But so I'm recently approaching four months and not drinking. Thank you.

Thank you. I appreciate that. And I've had said, you know, maybe like in six months or a year, I might have like a glass of wine or a couple of beers. and I've been getting DMs from people, which I really appreciate, you know, don't do it. Yeah, don't do it. Don't do it, dude. No, like, there was actually a cool comment that Randy from Lamb of God made to me one time when, after COVID, I was having heart trouble, like a lot of people that got COVID. And the doctor was like, you need to drink wine daily.

Like, you need to have a glass or two of wine or you need to have a cocktail. Like, you need to. Like, it'll thin your blood. Oh, shit. If you don't want to get on meds and shit. And I said to Randy, I said, man I might have to start having like a lasso wine he's like don't do it like so I went I went I don't even know eight nine years before I even had a sip of anything so I if I was you

would not think about even having you know alcohol right now what can help you is like what helped me and probably helped I'll speak for someone else as well because we talk about sobriety is uh is is is Randy from land of guys like we like any beer so love any you know like I like fucking Corona man makes an amazing, you know, you put a lime in an N-A beer, Corona beer, and you're cool, and I can, I'm sitting there, I'm hanging with the dudes and doing whatever, you know what I mean? And I love the taste of beer, and I love the taste of wine. We just found a couple wines that are non-alcoholic that are absolutely fantastic.

So, and you still get that, it's called reversible or something within the wine that's really good for your body. Oh, nice. Yeah, yeah. But stay away from it and stay away from the bars and the parties and the people who used to drag you into the 4 o'clock in the morning all the time, Just get them the fuck out of your life for a minute, you know, like, like, concentrate on yourself. Like, concentrate on yourself, your family, your friends, what you're doing, your job here, like, and just focus. And that's how you'll get off of, off of booze. Four months is a very delicate thing, but you're like a newborn. Like, you don't even, you know, you need people still to dress you and

shit. You got to be very, you know what I mean? Like, you got to be very careful. You got to be very cautious. I mean, you hit the three year, three, four year mark, then you'll think you can go out and have a drink. But then I, I truly, I wouldn't, you know. That's what I've been getting Everyone's been saying that Fuck I have a viewpoint But don't you feel better

But I wake up in the fucking morning I feel great I go to bed I go to bed I don't wonder what I said to somebody And I was the guy on the bus Like funny Funny like fucking how

Like you didn't want to Drink with me I would drink wild turkey Till 4 in the morning And listen to the same fucking song over and over And then if you said something wrong to me I would become 7 foot 5

And it's not good It's fucking not good Dude, how did you, as a fan does, how did you and me just coexist in that era? Bro out over alcohol and it just, we separated because I like to go down. I like alcohol and weed and I liked a lot of like pills that went down. And he liked to go up. And when that happened, when that thing happened, he was going up and I was going down, the separation started to happen.

Oh, my goodness, dude. So drugs and alcohol can combine you, bind you for sure. Yeah. But they can also completely separate you. And, yeah, terrible, you know. I mean, in hindsight, you know, I wish we were sober back in the day, but you would have never gotten what you got. It has to, it has the weird slippery thing. Never, bro.

Never. You've never gotten the crazy shows. You would have never gotten. I mean, we wrote Loco and Big Truck in one day and we probably fucking polished off, you know, the 12-pack between the two of us. Are you serious? In a little tiny downtown fucking rehearsal studio, you know, in L.A., right near Compton, actually. I almost got killed that day. I went in to get a fucking 40-ounce, and I was wearing all blue dickies with a blue-dicky shirt.

My hair all braided and shit. And this dude just said to me, you know you're in the wrong neighborhood. And I looked at him and he was wearing all red. I was in Pairoo country and I didn't fucking know it, which is blood territory for those who don't know. And I was like, fuck, I got in the car and immediately. got to rehearsal. The story's in the book and it's much, much more in depth than that. I can't wait to read it. The guy was real cool and actually just kind of checked me and kind of said, bro, like, like two miles that way, you're good. Like, I actually got goosebumps right

now. It's like two miles, you're good. But right here, you should fucking disappear right now. Yeah. I still to this day where Dickies, I had Dickies on before I came here. And my wife's like, you thinkies are timeless. Yeah. They are timeless. I got them on right right now. There's timeless, dude. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I try to switch. Shoes, jackets. It's hard, dude. Pants, I go right back. That's hard.

It's hard. Real quick. I was debating, but I was going to open with this. I ultimately decided not to. You does and Cochamber, I want to throw origin in there too and a band called 18 Visions were just ahead of their time as far as style.

Yeah. And I went into a hot topic, dude, freshman year old high school. And I bought a, like the one you're wearing right there. A fishnet shirt and I would wear at the high school. Yeah. Because I was trying to be like a cold chamber. I love it.

We, we, I always make the joke that, that we started hot topic. Here's the thing. Everything we would wear. And all that stuff is custom made actually by Terry King, who made all a Manson stuff in the beginning. God rest her soul, she passed away a couple years ago. She was still really good friends with us. But everything I would wear, I swear to God, two weeks later, I would fucking go into hot top and go, what? I mean, everything.

all the like everything not just fishnet like it was a trip yeah it was a trip like like even meegs outfit that he was wearing right there like they made you know um but they were always really cool to us too uh hot topic like they would come down and grab whatever you want and dude i'd walk away with fucking bags of shit out of their warehouse i mean my wife still to this day like has these cool like pink and pink and white uh checkered bondage pants that i got heard like and they still like fucking hold up which is killer you know so wow yeah yeah that was that was a fun time where did that uh why did you guys decide to dress like that um we just to be different like that's a very goth thing right like fish net uh bondage stuff around my neck like that's very you know but when we first started we were

wearing like dickies meigs had a bandana over his over his nose over his nose cover in it and then the the Vato hat low and I had my hair all braided we were very street at that point but we started to incorporate creepier gottier stuff and we were like we just we got to change it up like everybody looks like us right now in LA like all the bands we're like we got to change it up and when we did and that's you know no one had any thought process it's just like it just happened put on whatever you got and let's fucking go so yeah and now it's still it's still it's a style now Nope. It's real crazy.

That new metal is so back. I mean, I can remember when a lot of the bands from that era were just almost at their lowest point five, six years ago, really. You know, so it's cool to see. I mean, we're walking in the mall the other day to go to Lenscrafters to pick up some fucking glasses for me. And, yeah, as Kate had a coal chamber shirt on. And right next to him, he had his kid got a deaf tone shirt on, you know. And I told my wife, I'll pull my head down. I was like, let's go.

You know what I mean? And we just kind of walked out. But I think the kid did see me because then they started trailing us. Right. So I stopped. I stopped. And he's like, Dad's. And I turned around it.

Anyways, I ended up signing for him and talking to him for a minute, taking photos and stuff. But it's a trip. And I know the kid was 15. He couldn't have been 16, you know. And it's like, how did you get into this stuff? Oh, my parents. And I'm like, okay, here we go. There we go.

It's a blessing, man. I'm very humbled to be here after 30 years and to have anything that's relevant, which right now we're number two on serious radio. And I think number, I think number one on iTunes, like I'm very humbled and full of gratitude to be here after 30 years. And I think if you don't come humbled and you don't come with gratitude and instead you come with attitude, right? You're going to be like, you know, and Raiders at Lost Ark when he's trying to, the guy's trying to go through the cave and picks up his head and gets his head cut off, right? Like, that's what's going to happen if you don't come humble, especially after this many years of being in it,

you know. Oh, yeah, I was wearing a cowboy hat in that. I love cowboy hats still to this fucking day. That a boy. I got several fucking cowboy hats. I made Danny Filth wear one on the Devil Driver Cradle of Filth tour. And some of the best photos are him and I in black cowboy hats. I don't know.

There's something about it. We were on an airplane one day. and this woman looked behind me. I was wearing my black cowboy hat, and her husband was in front of me. We were coming from Texas, and he was wearing a gray cowboy hat. And she looked behind me and she said,

you know, only bad guys wear black cowboy hats. That's why my husband wears a gray cowboy hat. And I said, yes ma'am. I like kind of, yes, ma'am, my wife just started laughing. Just started laughing. Yeah. Well, it's cool to have everything come around full circle for you guys because I remember seeing something like eight years ago

where he said, yeah, I mean, we'll never do a record or it's worth. again. No, I didn't think so. I mean, it, it, it, and I'll go into this in the book, so I don't want to give too much of a way, but it ended up like him and I in a hallway of a bus, Miggs and I, full on fist fighting with me, with me screaming, you fucking ruined my life. I mean, I had wife and a kid's, and he was yelling at me, blah, and it is, we were both, it was time to just take a break, is what it was. And we kept touring, we kept touring. So, I mean, I love Miggs, I love Mike, I love Nadia always wish the best for our first bass player because she's there's stuff going on with

her we won't go into. But when you don't take time to rest, when all you do is tour the world and just we didn't come home for I don't even know how many years, you know, I just, I mean, we have a song called No Home and that's literal, no home. So yeah, you just, you got to take time to rest or you can't come back and we had we had gotten off you know a world tour with black sabbath and pantera like multiple pantera runs multiple headline runs going out with typo negative again back overseas and i think i think it just it just happened that way and um you know i remember the first time colchember got back into rehearsals davy was there because he works with us and um the smiles and the fucking laughter like we didn't even fucking play a song for like four hours dude like

It was just nothing but just like old friends hugging and talking. And so when that happens, kind of like when John Miller came back in Devil Driver, when that thing happens, that's rare in life, right? I'm usually a guy. Like, if you're cut out, you're out. Like, I don't want to talk to you again. But you have to also have openness in your heart and giving this, giving of your soul, right?

I believe. And so you have to allow those things to happen if they're going to happen. And certainly, when we got back together, Colchamber, it was a very cool moment. Like, I'm trying to search for the words. You can see it in me. I mean, just a very cool moment, you know. Because Loco made me who I am. These guys made me who I am.

Meegs' guitar riff, Mike, Nadia helped me to become who I am. And being back with them is fucking awesome. We have a great time. I'm glad the stars aligned because sometimes other side won't be ready to come back in and not could just ruin. So it's really cool that every side was just, oh, we're just homies. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you take four hours to even play one song, one note, because you're just laughing your ass off and having a good time and reminiscing and shit. It's badass.

Plus, I think, you know, they were glad that I went on with Devil Driver and they were glad that I kept on with what I was doing because I don't know if we would have been relevant, maybe if I had not. you know but there was a time when when I I even before we fought I wanted to leave to do something heavier there was a time when I would come off the road and I Sharon Osborne would either put me in a hotel in Beverly Hills for a while before I went back out or I would go stay with Ensalma with Philip so there was a time when I was in Norlands New Orleans staying at Phillips house and speaking with him one afternoon as we probably we were drinking and he was talking about super joint ritual and how he wanted to do that and a little more and just like everybody you want to branch out and do different shit like you doing your podcast you know

and um i had said oh yeah i've got devil driver and he had heard a couple songs and he said yeah well i'm telling you super joint's going to be doing a tour pretty soon and that was our you know we'll take you and that was my first run with devil driver was super joint ritual devil driver and like four 500 cedars i mean even though it was in sammo he got back in and And he dove into clubs and it was it was fucking awesome cutting my teeth with that. Because I still to this day love that. Love those records. The Super Joint records to me are like the most dirty, ugly fucking stuff ever.

Like it's so unique. And his voice is so fucking unique. It's unbelievable, you know. It was during the, they just dropped that first record, right? What? They Superjoint dropped their first record and they just went out, huh? Yeah. They dropped their first record, went out.

And, I mean, I remember Devil Driver in Santa Barbara was waiting for them to drop the second record. Anastasia's nodding her head because we had got like cases of beer and waited for Tower Records to open. And the morning it was open, we went in and bought the Super Joint record. The second one went to the house and drank all day and listened to it. I don't even know, 50 times probably. But it's, if you haven't heard that shit, fucking, I love stuff that's different and violent. That shit is violent. man so how did it feel for you does like uh because some of us we only have like our one

our one band like how was it for you like essentially starting over uh was good question uh difficult but i have the uh awareness where i can see the future a little bit and i knew that some foresight yeah and uh so when i was recording dark days in Los Angeles, I would record in the, I would say, hey, I'm out of here at two o'clock. So the producer, everybody better be there at 9 a.m. in the morning, let's work. And then I'm out. And I would drive back to Santa Barbara, two hours, and then go another hour up the hill into San Yanez on the 154 and was recording Devil Driver demos.

Oh, wow. At the same time, I was doing dark days. So the last dark days tour that I did, I was in the back of the tour bus. I had to have my own bus. We had to, it had to be separated or there's just no way. That way. Not bad. I needed sleep.

I couldn't stay up for days on end or what have you. And I would be in the back of the bus listening to, yeah, I love that photo, actually. Paul Brown did that photo. Paul Brown is responsible for doing a lot of the early Manson stuff. And we had found a box of antlers and he had an old couch. And we tied all that up and did that shot. And for many, many years, many years. I many years I never wore shoes on stage so that's why I've got bare feet in that but I would be in

the back of the the lounge on on the last dark days runs and listening to devil driver so and I had a real camaraderie with those dudes especially too because I was living in Santa Barbara so were they and I was kind of an island you know I was had no one around me but but them so they would be come over to my house daily and fucking barbecue I mean I remember one of the guys' parents parents actually saying to me, man, thanks for feeding my kid every fucking day. And I'm like, whatever, let's do this, you know. And so, yeah. So you had, you had some foresight.

I did. I did. And I wanted to do something heavier as well, you know. I, like I said, I come from punk rock. And so when I was staying with Ensoamo, I would hear shit like emperor or, uh, venom or like just, you know, just, I was just playing heavy shit. Just heavy, just fucking constantly. heavy shit and I was like God and it started to influence me in a way too or I was like yeah I want to do

something with more balls so yeah so you just have some foresight and like I'm just going to go full on yeah yeah and I knew I wanted something groovy like in the beginning it was really meant to be a heavy metal psychobilly thing like we had a stand up we had a stand up bass player oh wow and devil driver and the demos with the stand up bass player are fucking balls Are those out? No, I have them, no. Yeah, I have them, no. And when we went in to record with Ross Hogarth, who's very famous, and a great, ultimately great friend taught me a lot about vocals and a lot about myself and general.

Yeah, there's Ross right there. Great fucking guy. He brought out so much in me. It was unbelievable. So I, yeah, his father actually was the guy who drew the first, what's a guy? Tarzan. Yeah, he drew Tarzan first. I've actually got some drawings that his dad gave me.

Yeah, there he is right there. That's heavy. Yeah, I've got a couple. I've got a couple of those signed and I'm a tourist. So Ross actually gave me a bull that was drawing. on by him signed by him and I have that hanging in my house yeah so and was this

um this was around the first devil driver record the making of the first devil driver record in L.A. Yeah. Hey J. Can we find a date on this photo? Is that yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What? It had to be

He works with the Marley family. Yeah. He does a lot like he's he's he's uh, uh, I guess Grammy award winning right? Yeah. producer he's unbelievable man you know he's worked with ziggie marley which i love those records ziggie is fucking amazing man i remember uh hearing i could care less like we were all like on board yeah cool oh shit it was sick it does back dude yeah i you know so that thing was meant to be you know and have the stand-up base and everything in it i remember when monty conner from

roadrunner records uh flew out to santa barbara and in this little tiny garage actually uh the video for nothing's wrong from devil driver is recorded in the in the in the in the where we used to rehearse and Monty coming out there from New York I took him three songs you know we were planning on playing a whole set of music for him and after three songs he stood up and said let's go to lunch like I'm signing this that's it oh you know and I was like God thank God because I got a wife and kids at home and I don't want to go into my savings and yeah there it is right there what oh yeah Rex Brown from Pantera came and tried out for bass to really yeah yeah

Yeah, what a true? So while we were recording stand-up bass in L.A., the guy couldn't get it. He just couldn't nail it, and Ross was starting to get real frustrated, and you can't have a guy like that get frustrated because he may walk, and I wanted him to produce the record, and just so happened, John Miller was asleep in his car,

in the parking lot of where we were recording because he'd been hanging out with us, and he's a bass player. So I said, John, want to be on the record? And he's like, I do. And he came in and laid his shit in, like, three days. And that's how John got in the band. He's like John. Yeah, John, this stand-up bass player, I'm kicking him out.

And yeah, we had already got him a custom stand-up bass with these eyes that glowed and all this other shit. And he just couldn't cut it. And the music was turning out really incredible and was like really turning into something fantastic. So I get it where Ross was like, we need a real bass player in here. And it was so killer that John came in. You know, he just happened to be asleep in his fucking car hung over. So, yeah. Yeah, I also heard you mention having a family being like a driving factor.

Yeah. It's like, whoa, I have like a wife and kids. I got to fucking do something. That's it. I got a wife and kids at home. I wear a pinky ring with a penny on it. All my sons actually have one because I saved all my pennies my whole life. Right.

And so I probably at that point, I don't even know if I needed to go back into music. I probably could have, probably could have just done something else and just chill. but I just, I wanted to tour and I had music in me. So I just, I rolled. And I knew I didn't want to like go in that fund, you know, but I had a wife and kids at home. And when you got two young kids at home and a wife, you go to work, you know what I mean?

You get up and you fucking go. If you're a man, you get up and you go to work and you do what you've got to do. I mean, I was gone for a very long time. Still to this day, breaks my heart. I missed, he's going to kill me for even mentioning it. But I missed one of my kids graduating high school because I was like in Idaho on a fucking Tuesday, night and that broke my heart i actually told my wife okay that's it from here on out family is

going to take precedence over this um and from then i made the conscious choice of like do we have anything going on to the kids do we have anything okay cool so i can run yeah okay so i would book tour you know yeah you kind of have to have like a calendar like two years out or or something yeah i mean i try i try to do that that's hard because festivals will come offer or other bands will come offer. And then you're like, I wish I could have done this run with you, but I already put my own headline thing on sale. You know, so I tend now to, you know, I don't do the whole like 18 months up front at all. You can't. No, I can't. You said something, I don't think you realized what, what you said. You had a savings account. Yeah. Back then. Yeah, I still haven't touched that.

It's all, I was into stocks and everything back then as well. How did you, where did that come from? like the month because it's very very common i'm i'm one of them you get a little bit of money it's gone i don't know where my money went back in the first few records i don't know yeah uh so how did you how did you do that um if you're ever homeless or if you ever trading top ramen or you ever stealing food from a mpm or trader joes you learned that a dollar is actually uh 10 dollars you know i mean a dime is five dollars you know and so i just saved like i'll give you for instance uh My sons came up to me years and years ago. I was like, Dad, there's this thing called Bitcoin.

There's this thing called Dogecoin. I'm like, what is this? It's crypto. And this is it back when it was like 0-0-0-0-0.1. Like you couldn't even quantify what it was worth. And I was like, cool, let's throw some money into it. And now it's like, take a look at it. Right.

So I'm lucky I listen to the kids. And I just, I've just always saved my money, kept, you know, started retirement. entire men accounts like when I was way younger. How old are you when you started your account? Well, I was with Anastasia. So I would say I was probably 28 years old, 29 years old. Congratulations, man. Wow.

I mean, yeah, my father, who I wasn't raised with is a big actor. His IMDB is incredible, but he was a regular and leave it to beaver. Yeah, I saw that. And he's a very smart business guy. He was responsible. for bringing Panasonic to the United States. Are you serious? Yeah, he was in Vietnam when I was born,

and then my mom wrote him a dear John, and they were never together. But, you know, he's always been in and out of my life, but you go to his house, and the photos are like him and John Wayne, and him, I mean, it's incredible, but he was always a great businessman. And when I would go visit him,

he would have, like, I had a house in Westlake and would drive me, like, out to Malibu, because I grew up surfing, you know, if I stayed with him in the summertime or what have you. And just being around him, And seeing what he had done with his life made me really like think about big boy life, right? Like, okay, cool.

I'm in this musician thing, but like, let's be, let's be smart about it, you know. So even through all the chaos, you're like, I don't know, I'm going to put this in savings. I'm going to invest this. Well, my rule is always 40%. So if I have $100, if I have $100, $40 goes to a savings or something, yeah, or crypto. I love, I still, I woke up this morning early to day trade. So I'm up at 5 a.m. day trading. I love day trading.

Like before I came here, I cashed out on a, on a call. They call it quickly and made a grip before I even got in the car. So I enjoy that. And I think, you know. Next level, does. It's cool. Well, put yourself in it, you know, like, uh, yeah, SpaceX. We got into SpaceX before they, right when they launched as well.

And that's doing incredible. But, you know, you guys, like, everyone watching this, right? Like, has YouTube. Like, I never had a phone like that, right? Like, I had a fucking pager, you know what I'm saying? I was dealing weed and had a pager, you know? So, like, you guys have phones. You got fucking YouTube.

You can learn about anything. If you want to fucking speak Italian, you could do it in a week. It's just all about applying yourself, right? And that was the same pager I had. I used to 911, my girl. I'm drunk. 911, man, you know? I just fought me as again.

Yeah Yeah Yeah I would just say like You know use a 40% rule With anything you do Like you know You get $100 put 40%

In a fucking somewhere You know I think that's really important For people to hear Because I don't know if you're aware But the past six months It's kind of been like a hot topic Like how do you make money

Or even being an artist in general It's difficult And I'm always like Wolf I mean It sucks I'm 40 And just throwing this but I wish someone like if I was in my 20 and say you should you know not waste your money even like yeah I mean your your your analogy of a dollar is actually 10 dollars yeah I didn't I never

thought about money in that way before because as artists and musicians we're not trained uh in a business sense at all so so even when there's like a little bit of money coming in we don't even know what what to do with it and it's the fact that you are that you naturally had that was this it's this fucking fascinating well I always say like get a good attorney, which I have two, and get a great accountant. You know, and they should lead you into that, you know, they should lead you into that. And, and you never know, you never know what tomorrow is going to happen, you know, you never know what's going to happen.

So you never dipped into your savings. No. Wow. No, no, no. Wow. No, and it's why I own a house and everything else. I mean, plus touring, look where it's at now. So buses have tripled, crew has doubled, flights have tripled, gas,

is tripled. Like, you know, we run a management company for a lot of bands. And there's many, many bands, even my own at times, is starting in the red, which is, you know, so common, which is like, you know, okay, we're down, we're going to start the tour down five grand, down 10 grand, down 30 grand, but it's okay, merch, meet and greets us, and that will be fine by the time we hit the five, six, seven day mark. Like, that's ridiculous. Like, for me, that's ridiculous. But that's where the business is at. And, you know, five years ago, you may have, have drew this many people at a club. So the promoter was like, cool, well, last time they were here, I gave them, let's use a number. Last time they were here, I gave them 20 grand, right? So now they're

coming five years later. That's what I'm giving them, right? It's like, no, dude. In five years, everything has tripled. So it's, it's rough. I mean, my youngest has a, has a record. I'm actually going to be singing two songs on it with him. Sick. You know, we talk all the time about him leaving his really good job that he's got now and going on the road, getting in a van, you know, trading, you know, eating del taco, sleeping on the fucking couch of somebody's house because they can't afford a hotel. I say this, life is short. Go for what your dream is.

Always go for your dream. Go for broke. Throw everything out the fucking window. There's being my youngest at, I'm a Mason. He's a Masonry's a big deal to me. Oh, beautiful. It teaches a man how to become better. We have these things that called stones or called Ashlar's.

and one of them is a rough stone all chipped away, and another one in the lodge. It's a very smooth square stone, and that's what you're supposed to do to yourself through Freemasonry, is learn how to do charity works. I got into Freemasonry because of my love for charity works, and I started doing a lot of charity works for the Navajo Nation. I'm actually put in the Coyote Pass clan on the Navajo Nation,

on the res via shaman in a Hogan, I think one of the first Caucasian males, and I don't even know how long, because I did a lot of charity work with my Navajo family. I've a Navajo brother and sister and Navajo mother and father on the res. And I started seeking more light that we call it in Freemasonry and more charity works. And a friend of mine hit me. I posted a picture of George Washington on my Instagram one night because I love the founding fathers.

Like, I don't know if you really read about George Washington, he was a badass. I mean, the guy made his own medals so he looked important. Like he was just, yeah. And he was made a mason because we all meet on the level. It doesn't matter. I've got guys in my lodge that are very wealthy and guys that aren't. We all meet what's called On the Level, right?

George was made a Mason by his gardener. So raised as a Mason by his gardener. But I had a friend hit me. I posted the picture of George and he said, are you a Mason? I said, no. And I said, but I'm into it. I've done a lot of research and I love charity works.

And he goes, then this is the place for you. Like if you want to give back to humanity and the people around you and meet really great people and learn how to be a better man and that's the way to do it. So all the conspiracy shit, throw it all out the window, you know. Is this hard to find accurate information?

Yeah, it's so hard because it's a secret society with secrets, but we're not so much a society of secrets. We're kind of a, well, we're a secret society. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I will tell you that I've seen more good done in the lodges that I've been in and more things done good for humanity and charity than I could possibly imagine these guys, the things they do.

They're out constantly. We just raised a bunch of money for another charity that we, plus I also know a widow's son, which is a writer's group. You have to be a master mason to be in the writer's group, and there's, I don't even know how many guys, 80, 100,000 people worldwide. I have no idea, a lot, a lot of guys.

And, you know, it's just, it's something it's something i i love i i want to be part yeah there's a widow sons yeah i'm part of the brazen pillars um in california we are the premier chapter um of guys and they are they go to lodges every night they go to church they do charity works every night i mean i can't keep up with them like yeah it's unbelievable even as a as a child you are already involved with our rescues right yeah yeah i mean Well, I kind of got that from my mom. When I was younger, she had a lot of foster kids coming in and out of the house. So she liked to help foster kids coming in and out.

And I must have got some of that from her where I just, I want to, you know, look, when we all die, you're going to get a one second rewind. Like, everything is going to flash in front of you. You're going to feel everything you did to everybody and everything they did to you. And hopefully you wrote a good story. and you know hopefully you can cross into some kind of a light you know what happened to me is when i almost died from covid i watched about 300 near-death experiences on youtube are you serious yeah and that will that will fully change your world will make you think about what you do in the world you know just don't be some rock guy with ego that's another thing i can't stand of at all

it's like a tough balance dude it kind of gets you there but also you need to realize that you're Hand me the microphone and it's fucking on. I will come after you. I don't care if you're 20. You're going to get some. But other than that, there should be no ego in life at all. Yeah, near death experiences. Go watch them.

It'll change your whole world because some people are like, I crossed into the light and then came back and some people are like, well, I didn't want to go back to where I was. And I came back and changed my whole life. And I'm like, yeah, cool. Yeah, they say, it's funny, like the past year, I've been kind of going into like the next realm, you know, and people that have either passed away or close to, they either they were either atheists and came back and found some kind of like, like, religion. And that kind of like, oh, that kind of like blew, blew me away. Yeah, yeah. I mean,

organized religion was real touchy with me because I was raised with it. Yeah, because you went to a Baptist school. Yeah, I did. Well, because I fought so much in public school, my mom put me the last years of high school and a Baptist school. But I was, you know, my mom was Christian science. My father was Lutheran. My stepfather was Catholic. Like, I mean, it was all around me. And so prayer has always been a huge thing with me. I've never lost that. But I did delve off into a lot of other things. I can read tarot like nobody's business. My wife, you don't want her to read tarot for you if you're around anyone because she'll nail everything. And when you start going into those realms, Yeah, and I've seen spirits and I've had ghosts at my house and I've got a lot of stories in my book about that kind of a thing as well

My stepfather passed away from shooting himself with a shotgun in the head and he came to me a week ago When I was fifth grade, he came to my room one night and I ran fucking downstairs told my mom like fuck He's in the room. She's like no honey and I'm like oh yeah. Yeah, he was So I'm an empath. That's another thing. I will walk into a room and be like I don't want to be here or or someone will come up and start talking to me in five minutes into it i'll look at anastasia and she'll know the look which is like this guy wants something from me i want out so i think that comes with the territory of of of making sure that you keep your life and do balance man and in due grounds you know i'm not i'm not really um keen on this on this world thing

but i'm trying to do my best and trying to do my best by my by my wife and my children and by other people really you know same it takes a good partner and make you make it makes you look at yourself yes all like the bad things i'm like trying to change about myself i've came from looking at my partner i'm like how how do i how can me be better because i don't want to lose this great person and learn to listen without ego right so if they're like well you know yeah yeah no it's not it's not actually like what's tough is if you have ego about like ego is everything right so drop it and then people can say things to you yeah right like oh bro every every time you walk in a room you know you still step in shit it's like stop oh cool and if you learn to listen then you come walking in the room you

don't step in shit so you just got a you got to you got to listen now anastasia is a mirror of me and i'm a mirror of her so um you know even on the way over here we were having some like heavy conversations about just life in general like we always do you know and i think if you get to a certain age you can have start you know you start having some pretty heavy conversations and um And I tend to, I listen a lot more than I speak. And so even in a room full of like masons or widow sons especially, because they're all alphas in my, in my writers group, like all of them, ex-military and stuff, I tend to just fucking sit there and shut up and listen,

you know, you can learn a lot if your mouth isn't running, you know, and if you don't lead with ego in this lifetime, I think, you know. There's a power of listening. For me, I've accepted Just walk in a room and be the dumbest person Yeah, don't ever let them know you're dumb Because they're going to take advantage of you You just said, but what happens if you're silent

They're gonna fucking, you know who's real good at that And I hope he watches this Because I really do love him a lot And I did a lot of touring with him is Rob Flynn Like you know when you talk to Rob Like, and I do it a lot as well But you talk to him, you ask him a question And he'll stop for like three seconds

And then he'll say something That's to get your fucking attention And I do the same thing all the time. There's Rob, good guy. Yeah, we did a lot of touring with him, the Cold Chamber, and he's taking me out quite a bit with Devil Drivers. So, yeah, he's just always been a fantastic guy anytime I see him.

Rob's a really good guy. Family guy, too. I love that, you know. I got it from Mike from the former guitar player for Spine Shank, where, like, the artist part in you will spill over. It only works in this little, like, songwriting, stage, but once it spills over, like the ego, it fucks everything up. And I've learned to really, it's kind of made me feel like a psycho, kind of like bipolar is not the right word,

but knowing when to be psycho with the music. But then when that's over, you literally switch over. You're like a different person. Then you're more like no ego, listening. But it's a complete opposite of what I just did like half a second ago. Yeah. I mean, I always say like 15 minutes, you know because i'm holding the microphone 15 minutes before we go on stage so it's like 15 minutes before we go on stage like just on you're fucking done i'm done i'm fucking i'm out like i'm dust like even my wife is like can you hear me i'm like no like i'm going you know and then about five minutes maybe 10 minutes after we come off stage we kind of all just like let's take it off like take take the fucking take it off you know so play some music chill out play some music chill out bring it down yeah yeah

yeah yeah what do you guys do after when it's like Food. Done. Food. Me and this hang out in the bus. I'm not, I'm like him. I don't, once I'm done, I'm. Dobby likes to work out, hang out. That's it.

Yeah. Watch movie. Like, he's a lot like me, actually. He's very much like me. So I got to have guys like that around me, you know. And it's cool if you want to run in and run into the bar and hang out till three in the morning. Cool. Have a great time.

But like, I'm going to feel so good in the morning. You're not, you know. You're waking up feels so good, dude. Dude. You're like, wow. I mean, for those who don't know, you want to be on a time. tour of us hungover. Like, first of all, the first thing they do when they pull up to a venue is have to park. That means he's got about 40 fucking moves before he parks. And you're in a, you're in a rack

this big by six foot hung over. I've been there so many times. It's, it's fucking horrible. And you go to a little fucking bathroom and the corny start puking. It's horrible, dude. All those yager bombs just coming out. It's horrible. I've done it. Okay, I put my time in with that shit. I learned out a drink from touring with Pantera and dime bag Darrell and all of them. So, you know, I did my, I did my duty, you know. But it worked for that specific time. Absolutely. I don't think, you know, we've had conversations about this Anastasia and I don't think I would have been able to do 27 years of touring straight, like 25 years touring straight without, you know, booze, to be honest with you. Why? Because it just, it just, what'd you say?

Yeah, no, in Germany, I only canceled one show because I was fucked up and hungover and I felt terrible. I'd tell my band, like, I can't go on stage tonight, you know. Yeah, and it was weird, man, because in Germany, like, they sent, like, two dudes and, like, these weird orange jumpsuits and, like, a little pinto, like, next to me that was supposed to be an ambulance, like, you need to come with us. Yeah. Like, you're dehydrated, you. And I'm like, bro, I'm not getting in that. With you wearing those, I would rather die here on this bus. then go to a German hospital right now.

And they made me sign all this shit off, you know? Yeah. And yeah, so I don't mean, I'm done my time, you know. And I'm not saying that it wasn't a great time. It's a fucking great time. You know, it's just time to wake up and time to smell the coffee. You seen some crazy shit. Didn't you do like a routine gas station stop in like Arizona and then your bus driver died?

Yeah. Right. What happened? On the way to an Oz fest I never forget this Richard I think was his name as well We were riding And we had like four hours

We got to Arizona And I said to him I was riding the jump seat With the drivers I was hanged with my crew And I always ride with the drivers I'm just raised like that I guess And I was riding in the jump seat

And I said to him man You ever had the In and Out burger And he's like no man I was like fuck what? I go I know for a fact Four exits up from here Because we just stopped and saw his wife and his kid real quick on the bus right before he was leaving with us yeah it was yeah

and we stopped we got a burger and about two hours in uh the sun had already set we were listening to music up front i was probably drinking whiskey and um he said hey man like i'm gonna stop up here now i'm gonna go take a shower like my arm is hurting me right and i rub some bengue he rubbed some bengue and stuff on his arm and he's like i got i'm gonna stop i'm take a shower get this bengay off my arm and then you guys go to bed and when you wake up you know we'll be in texas in the morning or whatever wherever we were going i think it was texas and i woke up and the bus wasn't moving so i was like what the fuck and i looked out the window and there was like 20 cop cars at this stop and i went huh that's weird and uh as soon as i got off the bus it started to walk this cop goes

get back on that fucking bus and i was like okay and they came up immediately and go sit down and i was like And I immediately was like, am I in trouble? And they're like, no, just sit right there. And they started searching and boom, they pulled a big bag of meth out of the fucking underneath the seat. Apparently he had gone into the shower and he had passed away. And meeting his wife and his kid prior to that. Like, that ripped me fucking up, bro.

And I called Sharon and I said, I don't know what we got to do here. And she said, look, we knew before you guys did, you were asleep. Somebody had contacted us. We already have a bus driver coming. He's going to get on the bus and he's going to take you guys. And I was like, no, like I want off of this bus. I want another bus. It's no way I'm taking this bus.

No, you guys are going to be fine. Down the highway, I would say, fucking a half an hour into the trip. Dude, all the lights were going off and on. TV was going off and on. Stereo was going off and on. Siren in the back for some reason, some kind of like smoke detector things going on.

Like, I mean, the bus was literally flashing everywhere and we had to ride like a couple hours wherever we were going to get there um that was a there's a terrible moment when someone passes away and you know you meet their wife their kid and i had so many conversations the guy was a vet my dad was a vet like we had so many cool conversations being this guy and you know you get past the tears for his family and then you just you got a roll you know so that was difficult actually was it a cardiac arrest a hearted Yeah, I think it was a heart attack. I think, you know, he's doing meth. I mean, kids don't do meth. Like, don't do speed. Like, fucking don't do speed, period. I never done meth. Yeah.

I mean, well, nowadays, you can't go do cocaine without fentanyl being in it and you can't go do speed without fentanyl. And, you know, a little piece of fentanyl as big as one of these buttons is going to kill everybody in this room if we touch it. So, you know, I think things change, drugs change. That was rough, man. I felt through his family, you know, and myself, too. We became friends. I mean, I hung out with a guy for eight hours before he died, you know. Man, you've seen a lot. I got two more selfish questions. Why don't you play anything off chamber music? What's your beat with that record? Oh, we do, actually. Yeah, we played not living. We've played no home. I wouldn't say I have a beef with the record. I would say we were staying in Boston writing that record.

and um every day at a west lake yes okay and every day or westlake what was it called uh what was the place called but we would get i would get songs from them you know we're all staying in rooms and stuff on this big farm long view farms yes that's it and i would be getting songs from them and like i'd be like what it where are we going here like the first record was heavy and ballsy like where are we going here it's like this is what we're writing it's like this is what we're writing And it's like, okay. And I remember the first song I wrote was no home. And that's exactly how I felt like, no home.

Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. You know, this is your trap, your crap. This is not my thing. No home. No home. No heart. And I was just like, I was done. I was like, I don't want the music. I'm not hanging out with these people.

I'm up in my room by myself. Raina at that point was getting like locked in her room by ghosts. and like would and the place was haunted as fuck to be honest with you i mean still to this day no doubt um the people that worked there would tell me stories about it and stuff but they were all gracious and cool but rena would get locked in her room by ghost so we couldn't get her out and we i would hear through the door people in her room talking to her while she was saying i can't get up off my bed there's people in victorian period clothing holding me on my bed And then we would have to break down the door to get her out.

And she would literally be like in tears white as a ghost. Like thank God you guys got in here. Like I mean, so there was something, you know, plus she was an empath. She had a lot of that. So that was a real tumultuous time. So no beef with the record. Beef with the time. Beef with just what are we doing here?

So there was already like a disconnect. But absolutely material like, yeah, 1,000 percent. It was a disconnect. Yeah. It was me drinking wine and weed and them doing other stuff. It was separation of church and state completely at that point. And that's why Dark Days is quite a bit heavier because I said, I'm not going to do a third record until I get the demo.

Don't book a studio. Don't send me anywhere. You guys were already there because you guys couldn't even get in the same room to write music. So you had to just lock yourself up with nothing. With nothing. You know, look, I mean, there's a lot of songs on that record that I love. I mean, obviously we did shock the monkey with Ozzy, and I don't know how many people have recorded with Ozzy,

but there's not a lot. No. So I blessed to do that. What a fucking guy for doing that. And I still thank Sharon Osborne on a daily basis in my prayers, you know, for that and for her managing us for so long. I mean, Amy Echo was on it. Elijah Blue from Dead Z was on it,

which I spoke to Elijah a couple months ago before he had his thing go on with him. I wish him all the best, you know. But I have no beef with the record. It's just that live, it just only some of it works. Like Tyler's song works, not living works. We've never to this day played Shock the Monkey live. I know. Why haven't you? No Ozzy, no Shock the Monkey.

For me. I'm sorry. I did a song with Ozzy, no Ozzy. And they were like, we'll put Ozzy on tape. Not Ozzy. It's got to be Ozzy on it. Or no, you know. It's like what's the biggest song in the record is don't, you can't play it.

I could, they all wanted to, and I could sing it. I just could. and do it like feed my dreams that's another one like feed my dreams works really good live actually what about like untrue ever try that totally untrue is a badass song um yeah i don't know there'll be some revisiting of that i tragedy tragedy i love actually truth is like a tragedy hello because sometimes it is um yeah anesthesia was on that shoot obviously because she's on the cover uh on that shoot and um yeah i fell in love with her that day hard like i just fell in love with her walking around and little angel wings and I was watching all these

photographers trying to pick up on her and shit I was like bro I will fucking punch you it's a kind of a cool moment for it for me because uh I've sat here you're in his chair with like a I mean it sounds weird to say but with a picture of your wife on on my shirt awesome it's cool yeah yeah well we needed I I feel that it needed kind of an ethereal thing and um it wasn't like I'm putting my wife on I literally before that all happened. I was actually saying, I've got this idea. Well, I was in the back of, this is great, I was in the back lounge of a bus. It's Eddie Money's bus. Oh, yeah. And it had a picture of like chamber music, like playing cello and all this stuff. And it said chamber music. So for fucking six

weeks, I'm back there and it said chamber music. Oh, wow. So I was like, that's going to be the name of the record. And we need someone with a cello. And I picture a girl. And by the way, I'm dating this hot young thing and uh you know she's she's willing to do it so um yeah i mean that was a huge photo shoot there was they brought in a fake tree and all of this shit to that photo shoot you know do you still have those demos that that you first heard you're like what what is happening right i do great news the federal eve rebate is back eligible customers get up to five thousand dollars with the federal evap rebate on select twenty twenty seven volt and twenty twenty six Equinox, EV models.

Visit your local Chevrolet dealer today for more details. I do. I have... One day, you guys got to show me. You come to the house. I would be honored. Yeah, I've got two bins that I haven't gotten into in 25 years. Wow.

People always ask me, I say, I don't have time to look back. Like, I just don't. Like, why don't you have this framed in the house and that? I'm like, because I just... I got my mind on going forward. Going forward, dude. But there will be time when I take a look back, but I have two or three bins.

Well, I have about 20 bins, but two or three. of them is just that era. Every magazine cover, every odd disc that was different or what have you. Yeah. You know, I mean, he's seen my garage. Yeah, he has seen the boxes.

I'm like, oh, I don't know what that is. Me and Darby are going to come over sober. Dude, yeah, there's the first demo right there. I think there's only like three in existence and I have two of them. And there's my old phone number, which we used to put up all sorts of

before shows, right? We used to go take a van around with a five-gallon bucket full of paste and paste these huge posters all like, oh, there's a Terminator poster, put it over it, like post all over fucking Sunset Boulevard and stuff, right? So one day I got a call on that number from a cop and he's like, you better quit doing this. Like you're covering up all these posters. These people are paying for Sunset Boulevard.

And now all we see is coal chamber all over town. If we see it again, we're going to arrest you. you and I was like ah fuck you you don't know where I live right I hung up and he called me back two minutes later and he just all he did was read my address to me and I just went I went yes sir thank you so much I appreciate you I know we live dude yeah I appreciate you um but yeah there I found that um I got two I got two of those I don't even think the band has those at the original snot demo original system of a down static X original deftones demo we were at the deaf tone show when they got signed by Madonna that was a great night

We all went to Mark McGrass House from Sugar Ray and all were partying that night, all of us. And yeah, that's all in the book. There's some cool shit. Oh, there we go. Unmastered finals. Yeah. Real old. Somebody wrote real old school.

That's hilarious shit. That was somebody going real old school. Yeah. Yeah. We didn't know what we were doing. We were just doing something for fun. I mean, it's kind of what Devil Driver did in the beginning too, man. It's just like, what do you want to do?

I mean, what's the first thing I said to you, Davy, when we were doing this record, like, right for the low. and have fun I when the process started I stopped myself and I went back to what did I like when I was 13 years old because right now we're like when you play music for so long you develop a different taste and you see things from a different eye and I was like yeah but when I was 13 years old none of this matter what did I want it I wanted heavy I wanted something that caught my attention and I wanted fun and that's the attitude I think we all read on the studio, have fun, and make sure to write for the younger you, what the younger you saw. And write for the logo. For the logo.

I mean, I back all the records that we've done, but I've had a couple different writers involved, and it's like, well, they feel like they want to write this or they feel like they want to write that, but you're not writing for the logo. You're not writing for Devil Driver. This is the first record and many records, I think, where it's like, obviously this is Devil Driver.

And I think because it was a lot of fun around it Everybody had a good time And I made the comment Like give me something where I can sing punk rock vocals Almost on to it What's like so if someone is like So a lot of people are going to either Revisit

your band right now or they're going to hear Double Driver for the first time What's like a record you think they should start with first? Hmm God I don't know I always start at the beginning Sam Start at the beginning you know

Start at the beginning you know start at the beginning because then you're going to get to like eight, nine, ten records in, be like, man, the maturity level is killer and they're different. And then you're going to get to strike and kill and be like, fuck. You know, somebody said to me, man, this is very reminiscent of the first records. You guys do this intentionally. I'm like, absolutely not. If you skew your art, this is, I say this all the time. This is the analogy.

You're a painter. If you start painting with red paint, you're going to fucking sell a million dollars in paintings. Next thing you know, you're using all red paint. You've just blown it. you've just skewed your art don't ever write for the crowd don't ever write for yourself right for the logo right for the fun of it and then if people

dig it cool if people didn't dig strike and kill which they apparently are because it's the it's killing right now no pun intended striking I wouldn't have gave a fuck because I love the cover it's very very punk rock that cover

I love the music I felt punk rock like writing it like it was it was the only time in probably be 10 years that I like fell asleep in my studio and my wife would have to come downstairs at two in the morning like are you coming to bed and I was like just pitch me a fucking pillow and I would sleep on the floor because I thought I had more coming. Wow. You know um and I would demo a lot of it by myself like I would put on the demos and go in I have a booth at my house. I would go in and I would be singing and I'd be like that's per I'd go out I'd write write it down I mean I'd physically write

I don't use the computer to fucking write. Do you still meditate in your booth? Yes that's sick. It's isolation space. Yeah. So you don't hear anything. You know, a siren can go by outside. You don't hear anything. So I take 15 minutes of meditation. Anastasia does a half hour of meditation every morning.

Wow. We're separate from that. It gives you a, how do you say it, babe? Like, it gives you a point of reference for the day. Right? Totally. You know, and don't think too far in the future and don't think back. Think about right where you're at now.

Like, first thing I do, especially where I've come from with all the health stuff that I've gone through and especially after I ended up in a in a fucking ambulance and having vertigo and in the emergency room and stuff a couple years ago like I wake up and I go oh killer okay another day to do what I want to do I tell my wife I love her I kiss my dog I love my dog and take my dog on a walk I call Davy like how's your day good boss look what are you doing it's like you're getting coffee me too you know try to do try to do something positive with the day and and move forward but yeah strike and kill pre-order now it's doing very well and i'm so blessed man i the guys i have

surrounding me like davy and alick's been with me a long time um and john miller obviously coming back in the band but gab is a wonderful guy who's great uh producer funny to work with great obviously great guitar player but when he was learning guitar right he was he was learning to devil driver like so he knew devil driver um but working with him on production i was real if he's gonna produce the record too and Dovey is the one that knew Gabe, said he is a cool guy, got me to talk to him. And once I vibed with him on the phone, it was on me, it was on, right? But what I told Gabe is, dude, we got to get all this stuff in first, second, third takes. Like, if we don't get this in two or three takes, like, we're not laboring four hours over a three-minute song.

Like, we'll call it for the day or we'll go to another song. And I'm very ADHD in the studio. Like, I'm very like, go, did you get it? Okay, cool, let's go. Okay, ready? Punch me in. And he was like, okay, go. Okay, go.

Like without that, we had never had this record. The record is very fiery just because of that, you know, just because he was just, yeah, it was great to work with, you know. And he made me try all sorts of different shit. Well, can you do this? I'm like, I can't go that low. You know, I can't. I can't.

Well, we'll try. Okay, well, that was killer. Can you go lower? I can. And I would try. No, you can't. Okay, cool. You know, can you go higher screaming?

Yeah, yeah. Okay. I want to put a clean behind this part and just mix it in. So there's some money. I feel weird about that. Just try it. Okay, let me hear it back. Oh, man, that's crazy.

Like, he made me try a bunch of shit. I think Gabe said it best. When Gabe sees this, you're going to laugh, right? Because he said it best. He said, I speak. I speak des. I speak des. So I have a note for that.

When you were pulling all the pictures, I was laughing. But the reason why I'm laughing is because there's different eras and personas of des. And we utilize that in the studio. Because whenever we wanted a characteristic, or we were going for a characteristic of Desd's voice, we wouldn't go, like, go low, go highway, go like, give me this, Des.

And we would show him pictures, and we would laugh. Yeah, he would do. He'd go, give me Crazy Desk. And I'd go, give me Crazy Desk and I'd just like out of my mind. And then give me Gothi Des, and I would put up a picture because that's all him. It's different eras, but it's still all him. Yeah.

And it helped, too, because he's like, there's a couple songs on this record, like in the moonlight is one of them and summoning shadows where it's like very bow house sisters of mercy in the beginning and then you get the heaviest balls out devil driver you've ever gotten a minute half in minute in and to go there i didn't know how to go there and davy would show me a picture of myself or of whatever like give me this does and i'd be like and i would channel that let's say and then he'd stand i'd see him out the corner of my eye see him stand up in the front of me going yeah Yes, that's the best.

Great, I got it, you know. It was awesome working with him in the studio and with Gabe. I would definitely love to do a lot more records with this team. I'm not, we're writing already. We've already got three or four, maybe more tracks. What? Like, I think we got like four skeletons. Like four skeletons, but, you know, while we go into that and start to write,

I just want to focus on where I'm at at the moment, right, and really be in the moment with this record because I think everything about this record, strike and kill, is in essence what you would want from Devil Driver. And it's so different from anything that's going on right now. Like, it just doesn't sound like anybody that's out there right now. And we never really have.

I kind of like that, the fact that Cole Chamber didn't really sound like anyone ever. We got some comparisons to the beginning, but that was a lot of press people trying to take shots for their bands that they supported, like corn, right? And it's like, no, we don't sound like them. They're rap or goth, where, you know, it's a whole different thing. But a devil driver never sounded, you know, we never really sounded like anybody.

And even now, like I said, a lot of people use groove metal as their title. And I'm like, I'm not bouncing in my head to your shit, but I also don't use that. You know, don't use that. Now they call us, I guess, the dark, the dark groove. Dark groove. Dark groove. And I said to my wife, why is that? And they go, well, they know your love for goth and for dark, dark shit, basically.

And with monikers, you've got to go with it, right? You're not going to go against the grain with that, you know? You're not going to say, like, come up with a different hashtag for my band. You know what I mean? No, once it's there, you. Once it's there, dark groove. Yeah, there it is, dark groove. So, actually, I think we just posted that up this year.

We said, oh, we'll give it to you. Go ahead. It is what it is. I think when a band is around for so long and not really had a lot of member changes, I mean, not a ton. at all um you know you look at some bands and it's like there's not one original member right but uh ours is not that way and and a lot of my guys have been with me for a while i think you have to be very humbled by what is happening um i certainly am very humbled by what is happening with this

record right now that's great man congrats yeah yeah all right i got there's davy right there my guy Number one. How old are you? I'm 38. 38. Looking great, man. Thank you, bro. Thank you.

The kid looks like he's 21, bro. Some of the benefits of being sober. Every girl that we know, every girl that we know, and every girl that's friends with Anastasia always asks about Davy. Who is? Yeah. Who's that Davy? And Davy's always by my side, wherever I'm going anyways.

If I'm on a festival, doing press or whatever, Davy's always right there. Like I said, he's my number one guy, you know. And I run everything by him. people people for some reason like like it's like the fucking des show in my bands but it's not it's beyond democratic it's like okay we recorded these demos what do you think we should record for the record okay we'll do it uh what do you guys think should go on the record okay we'll do it how do you guys think the order should go i mean dovi did the order for the record not me what song should start what song song should end it's like okay cool like you know davy what do you think the singles should be and

he's like i think it should be this like cool we're done you know i don't i don't make you any of those decisions. I don't think you should. I mean, to have a team around you and of great guys. Alex speaks up. I mean, he's very quiet, but when he speaks up, you tend to listen. Gabe has a lot to say because he's fucking knowledgeable about stuff. And John is just so stoked to be back in the band. And yeah, it's a really cool time to be in Devil Driver. We've got a lot of stuff coming up. We leave for Australia, July 5th. I fly July 5th. We start like on the 9th. Something like that. You guys fly on the stuff.

I'm going out early because I got it. AJ, the big promoter out there is a great, great friend of mine. And I just gave him, just to give him a hug and a kiss for two fucking days before everybody gets there. It's like, that's worth it to me. Yeah. Like, he has my family's picture on his mantle above his fireplace. Like, that's how close.

Oh, wow. We are. And then after that, we do the states in August and September with a ponta burning body of sulfur and cultus black, which we just added cultus black. They're killer. And I love a pawna burning body and of sulfur is fucking. fucking heavy as balls. I mean, I can't sing that low. You know, you know.

Heavy as fuck. Yeah, but you don't have to. I mean, upon a burning body is heavy as fuck, right? And all great guys. Like, I can't wait. Like, I'm one of those guys that first day of the tour. I'm just like, what's up, everybody? Like, if you guys need anything, come up on the bus. Like, don't come up with a handle of whiskey and you'll be fine, you know? So. Starts August 14th in San Diego at the observatory and September 5th in Anaheim at the House of Blues.

Great, great venue. Yeah, huge venue. So buy tickets because we're, we're, we're, we're long right now but that's a massive venue you know to sell but um yeah too i mean and it's and it's kind of a short run i think it's like 16 shows something like that like kind of dipping our feet in you know but we're putting something together right now that i think is going to happen probably march next year i'm we're going to probably end up doing a seven eight week run and just like let's get it done like let's go everywhere we possibly can go because people are why no florida or why no canada and i i'm like i don't know like talk to the agent you know i don't book you know i just said take take the best offers run us run us a short time i've got to be home by this certain time you know and then let's let's go so and i wanted to be out

certainly i wanted to be out when we released the record so we'll be in australia when we release strike and kill. And the last time we were in Australia when we released a record, we charted so high. We knocked Kanye West down like one or two slots. Yeah. Sick. Like I got a call from my manager at the time before Anastasia took everything on. And it was like three in the morning. And I just remember myself bouncing on the bed like with the phone in my hand going, fuck. So we charted really high. So that was kind of a good luck thing with me. So I was like, ah, let's put on to Australia when we release, you know. It's hard to get down there. It's fucking far, dude.

Yeah, dude, it's a, you know, it's a long flight for me. I had to make sure that everything was, was cool health-wise for me. The vertigo thing really fucking threw me off, dude, because it was a great Saturday afternoon. I'd been running miles and miles on the treadmill every day, and all of a sudden I had vertigo out of nowhere. And that took me out for almost a year. They had to do all sorts of MRIs and all sorts of crazy shit to me to figure out what the fuck was going on.

And is now Anastasia maybe a good time or not? Yeah. So, you know, you don't want to. to say this stuff like before you book tours or before you're doing deals or before you're going out. But, you know, for I would say over a year, maybe almost two years now, we've been dealing with a situation where they found a tumor in my head. So they want me back in every six months. It's got to actually grow a little bit to be safe to go in because it's very unsafe. If they go to get it now, I could lose speech.

and a lot of other stuff. So, yeah, it's hard. It's the first time I've ever said anything about this, by the way. And so I go in every six months, and because I fast and I do intermediate fasting, and like right now I'm on a four-day fast. You never feel better than when you're like just drinking juices and stuff. Yeah, I feel like I can look through walls.

And I think that has kept it not growing. So the last time I went in was a couple months ago, Anastasia? And he said, hey, look, it's actually gotten a little bit smaller, which is we've never seen. And I said, well, part of that is probably prayer, a lot of it. And also just eating well and fasting and I don't do high carb and I don't do a ton of sugar and obviously no alcohol. But that's what I've been dealing with. So I wanted to really make sure that like I could take long flights because I don't know if anybody's ever experienced vertigo but I mean it happened on a Saturday afternoon

I ran upstairs and next thing I knew I was out cold on my floor my wife was slapping my face to wake me up I woke up spinning and then next thing you know I'm in an ambulance which is hilarious because the kid is like you know Des it was awesome being in your house I'm a huge fan because they had to come in to wheel me out on a gurney and I'm like bro I'm so glad you're a fan do me a favor give me something to stop the fucking spinning

and he gave me something in my IV that did not. And he's like, you're still spinning? And I was like, yeah, give me a bucket, you know. And he was like, bro, I don't know. Let's get you to the emergency room. And my vitals were all over the place. And they did a head scan with me. And I came into the dock.

And he's like, hey, good news. Like, I think you got the vertigo thing under control. I don't think that's really going to happen anymore. But I want to show you something. And it was a picture of my head. And, you know, you saw a tumor. you know and i'm like what is that he's like you got a tumor in your head and the next thing was the cancer test to find out if it was cancerous and um that was on christmas eve christmas eve

so christmas eve um yeah sorry but christmas eve uh my my wife's goes hey let's get on the car we got to go you know and i went in and they did the test and i'll never forget it's this little chinese lady she's maybe five foot and uh She goes, I'll be back in like 15 minutes and I'll know. And I'm sitting in the chair. I'm like, you'll know? Like, awesome. And when she left the room, I told Anastasia, don't talk.

Like, don't talk to me right now. Like, bow your head right now. Like, we need to pray hard. So, um, then she came in and she was like, uh, you know, hey, I got good news. It's non-cancerous. Dude, I fucking jumped up. Like, I scared the shit out of this woman. I jumped up and hugged her and lifted her in the air.

She was just like, oh, my God. gotcha and i was like i'm so sorry and amy anastasia was like i'm so sorry for him he's just you know emotional right now and i was like i'm fucking emotional hell yeah i'm emotional you know i got a tumor in my head and it's not cancer as cool we can beat this fucking thing you know and um next thing to know a lot of doctors appointments and shit and that's what put me on hold for a year and a half now davy has known the whole time and keeping kept my secret so that's yeah that's a that's a true friend i've been i've been around him he's never once right and that's my and he's the only other guy that knew um so

But I feel great. Like, I mean, this morning I was on treadmill running before this. And I'm just going to deal with it, right? And keep booking stuff and then take my looks inside. Everything's good. Okay, cool, book it. You know what I mean? And just and run, you know.

Okay, so they're, are they still waiting for it to get bigger so they could take? Yes. Okay. Yes. So it's, it's in my jaw line, a little bit higher. right and it's yeah and it's what yeah yeah yeah on my saliva gland and uh they're like you know it's got to be bigger for us to fuck with this because this could you know this is not yeah it could affect my blinking my smiling my speaking and so i'm i'm of the what babe

i've actually told me to take we want to take some video of you smiling now and yeah they told me to take We want to take some video of you smiling and linking right now to make sure that it doesn't change. So I'm of the mindset, and this will give you a little power into me here, is that I'm going to make it go away. I'm personally going to make it go away with dieting, fasting, and positive thought. It's going to go away. So the next time I go in is February or March, I think. Um, and it's going to shrink more. It's going to go away.

So period. End of story. You know. Des, can I share a little bit of summoning shadows? Yes, you can share. So there's a song on Strike and Kill called Summoning Shadows. You know, let Dobby share. So it is about how Des felt when he was going through that.

And one of the moments that I'd never forget recording the records and being in the next to him in the book. booth there's a certain part that he sings on the song that he goes emotional and you can you can hear clearly when he starts screaming is it's like a mix of relief but also uncertainty pain it's i'm glad we got it in one take that's a one take thing that's one of the things that are magical and like i love the song but for me it has a different meaning because I watched my friend go through it and now the sentiment is on tape but I was there in that moment and it was dude it was really powerful and I still like it gave me ghost bombs because

I was there and I felt it yeah so that's why I'm glad I did have him there because I've never shared that stuff with anybody but I approached this record as if it was my first record and my last record oh my goodness so now I will approach everything as if it's my first my last because then you're going to give it what you gave it but summoning shadows lyrically as well is about me in the studio like two in the morning writing by myself knowing my wife was upstairs with the dog and uh i felt swear to god like i had hands on my shoulders like i had someone in their writing with me because the songs were coming out so quickly that i would send him voice notes going am i just being lazy because i just wrote three songs this afternoon in like two hours and he's like and i would send him

voice notes to the songs right not just talking like singing it screaming it whatever and he would hit me back like fucking don't change a thing just leave it like just leave it don't you dare and i was like well should i go back over it he's like don't overthink it don't overthink it and um so summoning shadows has some pretty emotional moments in it because it's uh you know i i was on the phone my doctor that morning and shit so um which this guy's hilarious he's fucking cool he's cool anyways you know when i go into his office like how are we I'm like I don't know you fucking tell me you know you know and when you're sitting in an MRI machine I don't know if you've ever done it but it's like do you do to do do to do you makes these you know you got to lay in this whole thing and they put you in a tube

and I kind of go out of body I feel like I'm watching myself like at times I did feel like I was outside watching myself getting an MRI I told my wife that she goes well clearly you weren't but I was like I was and this guy's hilarious yeah there's a machine right there I've lived in that thing and then for the last year. And I came back out that this is the second or third time, Anastasia, I think the third time. And he's like, this is crazy, but this thing is getting a little bit smaller. And I'm like, well, have you had these go away? And he's like, no.

And I get rid of a lot of these, you know, when I can, when it's okay to operate. And I go, well, this thing's going to go away. And he's like, okay. And I said, you'll see. This will be a new one for your little medical booklet. you know but if you don't think that way about life uh you know um and the crazy thing is when i was going through all this um and in the emergency room and everything else is that's when i had uh parted ways with my long time guitar player and so i still haven't spoke to him um and i was going through

all this at the time too so well keeping in the secret keeping it secret from everybody but davy my wife i mean i called davy the fucking hour i found out you know on the way home and he said i don't give a fuck boss i'm here like that's whatever you need to do like we'll put it on hold like we had the record on hold for a big year and a half record was done for two years half of the record was well no we have almost all the songs yeah yeah so i just said look man just you know let's let's chill let's see what we're at um i i'm a very positive person man that's the thing you can't get me down though like if you kick me in the face i'll just be like oh that felt good what did i learn from that

awesome you know where most people will fucking cry about it oh my face hurts it's like bitch shut up you've learned from that didn't you so um yeah the record is very special because the guys that i recorded with i mean by the time i got into recording the band knew what was going on with me i mean especially Gabe and he is hilarious he's fucking between Gabe and Davy like I could I was like guys if you keep me fucking in stitches and laughing like I'll never be able to fucking lay these vocals right like can we talk about we got to talk about a little poor memory I've got or some shit that's going to make me get in there and get nuts, you know, um, and that's why Davy, part of him was like would show me, you know, myself on, on the fucking

phone, you know, give me this guy. Give me that guy, you know, and we're club. Yeah, I wanted to share that with you because I haven't shared anything. I think people need to know and obviously this is going to go out on the wire and people can go, fuck, that's what he's dealing with. But no, I'm not going to cancel tours. I'm coming to tours. I'm showing up in Australia. I'm showing up in August. Nothing's going to stop that. The vertigo thing won't come back. The doctor's like, you only have with this, you only have that once. Your body won't allow that to happen. Oh, wow. Which is odd, but true. And, um, and, um, and, and, yeah, and that's another thing, right? If I never had the vertigo, I'll never find out

I had the tumor until it was maybe too late. Is that, uh, is vertigo, is that like a typical, uh, symptom? Yeah. Anytime you get something like that going on with your head, tumor in your head, to you like your body is going to send you into a spin just to get you to let go check that bro like you know your your foot may start hurting if you've got something going on inside your foot so you'll go get an x-ray and then you can go oh shit that's what's going on i got a bone that's broken or whatever so same thing you know but i wouldn't ever found out about it that was a hell of a punch in the gut because i'm in i'm in the doctor and he's like hey look and everything's cool with the vertigo and this and that you know i want to show you this though and i'm like okay cool and show me whatever you know and he's

And I'm like, that's my head, right? I'm like, what's that? And he's like, oh, that. And he's like, that's a tumor. What does it look like? Is it like a... I'll probably now, after I do, when this comes out, I'll probably put a picture on Instagram so people can see it.

Oh, wow. But it's like if this is my head, this is the tumor. So it looks almost like the size of a quarter, but it's more like the size of a dime. And now it's shrunk a little bit. And it's going to go away. Like I'm going to. make it go away. So we should talk in a year because I'm telling you. And I told this dude,

prepare your practitioners, bro. Get your book out because this one is, this one is done. It's going to go away. And with fasting, by the way, you can do that. Yeah, I was, I was going to ask you how, how's, how's that the four-day fast been? I'm into holistic health. And I fasted for 24 days. I probably dropped, I don't know, 30 pounds, maybe, maybe more. Maybe I was. Did research as well and what to clear my arteries? So I was drinking like every morning on empty stomach, apple cider vinegar with turmeric and garlic and cinnamon and honey and lemon. Lemon and you boil the stuff and you make it into little shots and you put it in your refrigerator. And every morning on empty stomach I was drinking that.

Well, I went in a month later and this guy's like, well, first of all, when you came in here, you were heavy. I go, yeah, my wife had gone through cancer for, you know, twice and three. years we had COVID I laid around and fucking ate del Taco and chilled so I was probably maybe I would say like 25 pounds heavier than I am and I'm a small guy I'm 5-7 so 5-7 and a half I'll give myself that yeah and uh you know

and like I said if I drink if I drink whiskey I'm in with 7 foot 5 so and I came back in and he was a Indian guy like um like from India and he's like beau and I did all these crazy tests and he's like dude you you fucking look great you ran all the tests you've got no

with your heart you got no nothing I said so you would have given me stints in my heart for nothing he goes not for nothing at that point you needed him you don't need shit right now you just ran five miles as fast as you could in front of me and went in all these machines and everything you're good to go what did you do and I said I fasted and I drank this turmeric drink and all this shit and um yeah she said him yeah my wife and my grandma or my mother drink that stuff and I said to him because he's a doctor I said you couldn't tell me that he goes now I'd lose my license Wow.

So fasting, what happens is when you fast, you're getting metabolic switches on, and your cells go after anything that's bad. They go after cancer. They go after this. They go after that. They go after tumors. So I tend to only eat maybe three, four days a week, really, you know. Whoa. Yeah.

And you feel amazing. Let me tell you. Like, go on a seven day fast and you will look right through these walls, dude. I know I fast up like a day before and like your focus is like you're like yeah you like look here different like everything is different. Just like something primal kind of yeah yeah everything is different everything is different. So anyway so that's that's that's what's that's that's the announcement at the end of this thing try to leave it on a positive note. Oh my well unfortunately thank you for that yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well I figured that this is probably I mean I needed to say something eventually. Yeah you did and I'm not just going to go out on Instagram, look, by the way, for the last two years, I've been dealing with a tumor in my head.

It's like, just come to Garza. We know each other. I respect what you do. And I was like, look, this is a perfect opportunity to tell people what I'm dealing with. And please do me if ever and don't ever approach me. Like, I'm sorry with what you're dealing with. Like, don't do any of that.

Like, yeah. Just come to a fucking show and- Come to a show, dude. Come to a show and fucking get in the pit and get nuts. And I don't know if it'd be my last tour ever or my last record ever. And we, none of us know that, right?

Especially driving on the fucking freeway. over here. You know what I mean? I was like like, whoa, what is, you know? Yeah, so. And especially I own three Harley Davidson. So, you know, and I like to go fast. So you just never know when your time is up. But I think that, you know, I needed to

kind of let that out. And I appreciate you giving me the the grounds to do that here. Because now this record, people will, I think, understand. Understand how fucking vital and special this thing is to me. You know, and we'll come out to shows too and be like, yeah, we're going to go see

does now right because what happens if they do say like hey we need to get an operation well that's probably a year to two off i think you know but like i said i've been in several times now and he's like dude this thing is shrinking it's fucking crazy and i'm like well no it's not crazy really like you need to have more positive thought doc yeah right well does uh we will be praying for you good prayer is good i grew up with prayer and prayer works if you talk to the universe i mean no i'm not talking organized religion here for everybody listening but if you have prayer in your life and you think positively and you tell the universe what you want uh it doesn't know what you want until you script it out right so you got to script it out you know i want to get to this place safe i want to do this podcast

and be able to discuss these things i want to see my bro he's bringing good coffee for me we got uh we got two more quick quick questions sure um all right i'm here so uh there's there's There's a lot of history that's not really out there, especially me being like the new metal guy. It's just not really out there. Why did you, why did you and Cold Chamber go to NRG, which it seems like everyone after you guys went there and made these incubists make yourself cornfall the leader. First spine chain. I think made me like the second spine shake. Poparoach.

Limpiscus and another. Like what exploded the scene, but you guys were at the first band that went there. Why? So people don't know, but Jay Gordon, the singer of Orgy, like he started as a producer, and he's great friends with Jay Baumgartner. Jay Baumgartner's mom loaned him the money to open NRG, and NRG was just opening. Wow. That was back in a time when, like, everybody would get together at 2, 3 in the morning and

cut different songs. I remember that Chino and Jay and all these different guys cut this song that wasn't, the deaf tones called Blacklight. Just everyone would get together and cut tracks. Like how you hear about like the Pearl Jam and SoundGuard. on all those guys like cutting tracks and showing it to each other to up everybody's game that's what was going on and so we met jay i love j bomb gardner to this fucking day and when i met jay and saw the studio he was putting together i think the only other person was in there that came in was um

dedsy was elijah blue and deadsy came in at the same time they were they recorded there for i don't know they had money to be there for like six months we only had money to be there for a couple months or what have you but i loved the studio and i loved the vibe jay had never really produced anything jay Baumgardner hadn't really produced anything. And I was, of course, now that you know me, I'm into that. Like, let's do something different. Let's do something with people that have never been in it. And certainly we had great times there, man.

It was some fucking fantastic times. Reggie from Korn came by and loaned us a base amp because our base amp cracked out. So it gave us a base amp for that. And I remember, you know, Ross Robinson and all sorts of people stopping by and people drinking drugs and porn stars. And I mean, it was fucking nuts. It was as rock and roll as you can possibly imagine. It's all in my book.

But at 3 in the morning, that was the place you wanted to be. So if you were at a club in Hollywood, you would eventually come out to NRG and hang out with Cold Chamber while we tried to record. Try to record the first record. Yeah, with all the people there. And we got some very unique, you know, that was when you recorded on tape.

And, you know, you'd have to splice the tape and put the tape together and everything. There was no fucking pro tools. and shit. So a lot of that was just kind of off the cuff. And, you know, it was an interesting time for me, for sure. I mean, there's no, like, roadmap. No, no roadmap. Nothing.

No, no roadmap. I will tell several stories in the book about that and is no roadmap. So when you first heard, I mean, I've always wanted to go there. I mean, it formed me. I mean, what did you? Have you never been? Never been there. Just call me. I'll call Jay and you can go and hang out and do, you should do a fucking have him on the podcast.

I've been trying. And he won't come? Uh, being asked two years ago, I haven't been. I can call him. I mean, he should come. His stories are incredible. I remember when I did go back after years, seeing all the gold records up and, you know, our gold record, obviously there and gave him just the hug between him and I lasted fucking five minutes when I, when I came back to the place after launching the career kind of thing. Wow.

Yeah. He had incredible gear, incredible gear, incredible rooms. All the rooms were kind of like Indian. There was always candles and dark lights. I'm not a guy, like even in my house, there's no white lights. Like, Davy is really, if I'm cooking, there's white lights on in the kitchen, but otherwise there's never white lights on in my house. It's all dim lighting, blue, blue, red lighting, what have you.

I mean, that's how that studio is. It's very like, um. It looks beautiful, man. Ethereal and cool. I mean, now it's probably a million dollars a fucking minute. But back then, we barely had money to make the record. Wow, beautiful, man. I've always wanted to go there.

Yeah, I had many, that's the room, actually, and I had many nights in that room. This one are here? Yes, many crazy, crazy. My wife is over here shaking her head because she's very familiar. That was at the bar there, they had coffee and also drinks. Of course. Which was fantastic. I was like, they're not going to serve coffee at that bar.

I sat at that couch and rolled, you know, probably two pounds of weed during that session. How many joints that you roll there, man? Oh, man. I can't smoke flour during the day anymore, but back then I was just fucking... I have ADHD, right? So my parents had me on Ritalin when I was a kid, which is just fucking speed. But what I realized in halfway through schools, if I smoked weed, history was interesting. You know, all of a sudden, it was like social studies.

Ooh, I can do this, right? Yeah. I started to excel, actually, in school after I found marijuana. Interesting. I'm not telling all your kids out there. We're not abacating, but it is happening. Yeah, but I'm just saying it rewired my brain and made me chill out. Interesting.

Because, you know, you have teachers that are like, and today. And I'm just like, get to it. Fucking come on. Tell me. Yeah. That place is fantastic. You should get Jay for sure to come. I'll be honored, man.

There's so much history that's like, and me being like the fucking research geek, there's so much that's not even out there. I mean, what you should do is go and try to record there, try to even do a song there, you know? We could all do a song together. I mean, you play guitar. That's a great idea. You know, I love, I love tracking.

Like, I'm always hitting him up. Like, dude, we should track some other stuff besides Devil Driver. You know what, dude? That's been on my mind. It's literally on my calendar for like, first quarter next year. You know what, dude? I'm not going to do anything else. I'm just going to hit up people.

It's jam. Maybe like track some songs for like no one else. It's like, this has some fucking songs. It's jam. You'll find the love of it more. I don't want to say I lost the love of being in Devil Driver, but really in the last couple years I had just been, Like I told my wife, I said, man, I don't know.

I think I'm just going to fucking surf. And Davy and... Sorry here, bro, but Davy is what actually excited me to be in this band again. And then obviously having gave and all of a sudden, John Miller came back. And then it was like, well, we need a guitar player. And I need someone who understands, like, what to write. And Davy is the one who kind of made me feel. the love for my own shit again really beautiful yeah you gotta remember this i um earlier you were

talking about you found demos and you found uh motorhead yeah well the same thing happened to me with devil driver oh shit because i had that remember what they used to do and i think in like 2005 i think it's the the multiple bands sample that you'll buy in a hot topic yeah that's how i found devil driver and it caught my attention right away so that experience that you had with motorhead I had with devil driver so I bring that with me yeah the time I mean I have the fortunate thing in my life where a muse will bring me in right like so meegs was my muse to come in to to do cold chamber and Anastasia was my muse and my family was my muse to leave cold chamber do devil driver right same thing now with do davy has been my mu

been my muse to now i want to record 10 more fucking records i was like i'm 11 records in what do i got to prove i can tour forever on these records you know we don't need another record and uh certainly though people will fucking hear this record and be like we are so glad that you did record because i think what we've come up with is something that's uh going to stand the test of time i think it's up with the first couple records for sure um and has reminiscence of some of the the later records as well, for sure. But it's fantastic. And I think you need that, right?

You need a, like, you know, you're in a new relationship after six years, you said, or what have you, right? Or your six years, like, dating, yeah. She'll be your, you're still dating after six years. Well, she's my girlfriend. Yeah. Put a ring on that shit, ball. Yeah, I know.

I put a ring on my shit so quick. Me and Anastasia, we're dating, I think, two years. And I was like, no, that's it. We're getting married. Like, fuck this. You're right. Yeah, I mean, you should. Because, like, if you know, like, you already know,

go home tonight and just be like, it's on. What do you want to wear? Is it gold? Is it titanium? Is it silver? Is it onyx? What have you? I knew after the second day, I'm like, yeah, we're...

Then why wait six years? Yeah. You know what it is? You want to give her last name? She's got Fafara tattooed as big as I do on her stomach. So at the beach, we're both sitting there with Fafara. And she's got Fafara on her arm, you know what I mean. Talk about Kala.

Love, man. It's love. And you want to give somebody that. Like, that's what you'll give her. It's like, hey, man, fucking take my last name. Beautiful, man. Yeah, bro. Dez and Dobby, anything that I might, I miss that you went out there?

I think we covered a lot. No, I want to thank the widow sons for being in Dig Your Own Grave. They came out and spent a fucking 11-hour day, rode their motorcycles and did fake fighting and all this. Well, that was fake, but fuck, I would not want to, I would not want to get down with my guys in the fucking ring. Especially Pike, the leader here. He's a bucking. He's what's called a berserker.

He's a badass. But these men will reach down and help you out and do more charity works than you'll ever fucking see in your lifetime. They're really honorable, great, great men. I look up to, especially my president, Tank, my bro, pres, we call him. I look up to him a great deal. He's led me through some stuff in my life. And Brian, who I'm patching with, we've patched together.

He's called him bottle cap. My nickname is Rumblebee Because I rolled up on a gold bike with a black and gold I love the old school Biker look where there wear stripes So I had yellow and black stripes and gold bike And my vice president Actually they call him six cents because he

He sees ghosts like And this is a military guy like you don't question it Right like I fully believe that But he says Rumblebee I thought he said Bumblebee I said I said that's a name I'm fucking I'll get laid with that he goes no no no Rumblebee because your bike is loud. I said, oh, killer, I'll take it. But I want to thank

these guys for coming out and doing this. And then Davy helped edit the second video because the film, the film footage was great, but I thought it was a waste the way that it came back edited. And so he got me an editor and worked, I should say worked with a new editor and turned that video into like, I think it's at 200,000 views in two weeks, two and a half weeks right now. Sick. Right. So I want to thank everybody around us, man. I want to thank you. all the players. I've been very blessed to thank Napalm Records for resigning. They did a great deal with us, where we got an imprint, an Oracle Records imprint. They did a really different kind of deal from what

they do because I know the business. And I'm like, no, let's do something that's good for both of us, right? Record companies normally do something that's good for them. Not good for the artist, but they did not. They treated me very well. John being back in the band, yeah, I just got a lot of a lot of grateful feelings towards towards everybody in the last couple years of my life for sure, man, for backing what we're doing. You know, my wife for

putting up with me being gone in the studio writing because I just, like, you know, no, I can't do this, I can't do that. I got to go, I got to go write, you know. And Davy for like just having my back every fucking day. I mean, I hit him every day. And like I said, would send him lyrics and send him voice notes like,

bro, how did this come out in five minutes? Am I lazy? And he's like, fuck, no, this is fucking incredible. Keep it. So there was something going on with this record. Yeah. Yeah, you didn't really miss anything. I mean, we went into a lot of Cold Chamber and a lot of early stuff.

And there's certainly a lot of Devil Driver stories as well. But we've got a two book deal. So the first one is Loco. And then the second book is going to be when I am living it, and Sammel's house and decide to leave Cole Chamber and go into Devil Driver World. Oh, wow. And that is a fucking run of a book, bro. That is some stories that are just balls out.

So I'm fortunate to be able to still be here and tell those stories. So is there like a, so you said it's next year. Is there like an tentative date yet? It's going to come out around. If you're a Cold Chamber fan, you may want to hold on to your fucking britches here and just get into next year. I think you'd be happy. I'm looking forward to it, man. Cool.

Well, Des and Dobby, we close out every podcast, the same. there's no rules, but since there's two of you guys. No rules, I love it. It fits me perfect. What are three records people to check out? Three records to check out? Yeah.

Just other bands? Yeah, it could be old, new, it's done to have no metal. I mean, anything that you choose. I'll give you the floor first. You go. Hmm. Because you listen to all sorts of stuff, too.

You're not just a metal guy. Yeah. Um, well, discography wise, I'm very influenced by Salsa. It is a lot of that in my playing. Yeah, it's a lot of that in my playing. I just keep it like very hidden. Um, I'm very influenced not by a record, but by a player called Richie Gahate. Oh, yeah.

So everything he is involved musically, I, like, it's pretty much in my playlist. Okay. Percussion is over there. Richie Gahate is an amazing percussion. So, okay, so does he have his own records? He's basically a musician that participates on a bunch of records, but you can tell the same because he has a certain style of playing. Okay.

And then another one is El Gran Combo. That's like a big deal in Puerto Rico. Look at up, El Grancombo. I got to go to Puerto Rico, man. I'm taking it. Jay, great job, man. I'm like, I don't know how to spell that. And he just fucking nailed it, bro.

Yeah, that's like history right there. And Davy's sending me pictures. and I'm like, that's water. Like, that is so clear. I'm going to go. But yeah, that's usually in my playlist in the non-metal side. That's where the groove comes from.

Metal-wise. We went deep. Appreciate that, man. You're welcome. Because metal guys want to like, they just want to share metal, so they're metal. It's like, everything on my battle vest

is what I'm in. It's like, bro, please. You don't go home and listen to fucking Frank Sinatra when you're eating or some shit. Like, come on, bro. And then metal-wise, man, I got to give it to

I know it's not a new record but it's always in my playlist, Iowa. Like that record changed my life. You know, I've never heard a whole Slipknot record. And I took them on tour for their first tour. You never front or back? No, never.

So I wanted to check on that. That is so does. And I love, and I love, and I love, and I love Corey. I mean, he's one of the Swedish guys. That is so does, dude. You know, you're responsible for giving a tour opportunity to my favorite, one of my most influential.

him out for their first run and i remember seeing them going fuck we're in hell like we got seven weeks with these guys this fucking guy in a clown mask is throwing fucking kegs in the audience i go we're screwed you know um i'm so glad who they what they became and i love i love cori taylor every time i run into him he couldn't be he has no fucking ego about him or at least around me i could say you know but i know i never listened to a whole record um but a lot of my friends that i even guested with and stuff that are in metal bands, I've never really, I'm just not, I'm not, if I listen to metal, it's, it's, it's, it's gonna be odd, right? Like I listen to Iron Monkey from the 90s.

If you had never heard Iron Monkey, it's about the ugliest, dirtiest shit you'll ever hear. Very punk rock almost, very influenced by like Black Flag, obviously, and the germs, Dead Kennedys. I love a band called Kavakan, K-A-V-O-N. They are top of their shit. I, I've got about, 300 Tiki records. I love Tiki music. And Hawaiian strings, slack,

guitar. You know, I love that shit. Kavicon, the record that I like... The record I like is an atomic... Tiki for the Atomic Age. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's... Yeah.

This is a chilling music, huh? Yeah. But they're very cool. It's almost like Pink Floyde meets Tiki meets... It's just out there, you know? And then I listen to a lot of the stuff that I'm getting ready to tour with, too. You know, like the other night, I listened to a couple of burning, burning, you know, upon a burning body songs and some of sulfur stuff.

And I'm actually heading now to go to Sirius Radio to meet Jose to do a takeover. And I'm going to be playing those guys as well because they're getting ready to tour with us and stuff. But I like heavy. If I'm going to listen to heavy shit, I like heavy shit. And then, of course, like there's always Pantera, dude. So anytime I'm in a mood where I don't know what I'm going to fucking put on, reinventing the steel is my favorite because I was living with, Philip when he was writing that record.

So I remember him having conversations with Dimebag over the lyrics. And so it's a very special time in my life. Like everybody will say, I don't know if that's my favorite record. For me, that's my favorite record, reinventing this deal. I can listen to that in its entirety. When I got ADHD, I can't listen to anything in its entirety ever. I could barely finish a fucking TV show. My wife is, if we're going to watch a movie, my wife's got to give me like a two week notice.

Like, you know, so I'd be like, okay, I guess I'm in for it. Fucking two hours. I can't. What did you think when, when you saw the lyrics, you're like, holy Jesus. I was incredible.

I mean, I heard conversations with him and dime going back and forth about lyric lyrics. And, you know, I mean, Philip,

for me is, you know, I would say the top front man in the world, period. End of story. I love Ozzy, but I put him above Ozzy.

That's just because, fuck, I don't know, man, you know? That's just. Yeah, he has something. Bro, he's,

you know, plus he'll beat your fucking ass. Like, he's real. Like, He's a real fucking deal. Holyfield. He's a amazing front man,

an amazing writer. And, you know, obviously one of the biggest bands in the world, and influenced everybody. I mean, I don't think there's anybody

not influenced by Pantera, you know. I wish I would have found him earlier. I would have got influenced vocally, but I just, you know, that just never happened. I had a crazy story

when I was in Coal Chamber if we have time. I was walking down Melrose Avenue. I was walking down Melrose Avenue. and uh cole chamber was just got just about to get signed and i saw philip and i said hey man fucking you know i love your shit i'm listening to your shit you know and he's like he put his bags down he's like cool man he signed something for me i go one day i'm gonna fuck a tour with you and he goes you know what badass man i hope you will fucking a year a year later we pull up to a pantera tour in my bus nobody's on the

bus but me he fucking knocks on the door and it's fucking i hear the door knock and i answer it and it's en sammo and he goes get your shit and i go well i thought it was getting kicked off the tour it's like get your shit i'm like okay i got my bag and i go up on his bus and he's like this is my bunk that's your bunk below me throw your shit in you're living with me and that's how we became friends whoa no one no one that's that's that's unheard of yeah unheard of but the one of the coolest fucking guys you'll you'll ever mean he's wrote the forward for my book and it's very short it's not this big paragraph it's just one of the best things about des is his heart and i was like bro that is so fucking killer you didn't need to go into my music my this my that just you know he gets me for who

i am and i i you know i stayed with him for a long time off and on so yeah when we start talking about you know him it gets deep for me there's him and i and hank three that's probably four in the morning and i'm trying to light a joint, but I'm laughing so fucking hard. And if you look to the right and to the left, Philip has like a million tapes and a million CDs and a million records. And, you know, he's a music guy. Like, fucking he loves music. So, yeah.

Well, when the, when, when the book comes out, we got, we got to hear some more stories, man. Yeah, well, we can book it. I'll come in. We can book it. Yeah. We can book. Yeah, when the book comes out, I'll come in and I'll read some of the stuff for you if you want because there's some there's some crazy ass fucking stories man you know uh yeah

huh yeah our first date my wife and i well i was living at a hotel in beverly hills and she kept asking me if i was a drug dealer because i didn't tell her i was in a band she's a little goth girl she had no clue what i did and you know and i was like i'm not you know no i'm not a drug dealer you know and so our first date was i go hey come downstairs you know are you ready and she was in my hotel room getting ready and i said come on and we got onto pantera's bus and it pulled underneath forum to play with Black Sabbath and Pantera and she goes what is this and I go I'm in a band this and that we're going to see Black Sabbath and Pantera which she was like okay right and uh Sharon Osborne took her away for like fucking three hours man I didn't see her and then Sharon came back and

goes she's gonna be your wife and I say oh yeah she is so unbelievable yeah so that story is in the book that story's in the book but it goes it goes more into it yeah I'm blessed man I mean I'm still alive still alive man and um and got a record that's fucking hitting right now let's go And now I go to Sirius Radio to talk to my guy, Jose, and fucking do a takeover. It's going to be fun. Beautiful, man. And I appreciate the words about sobriety. Yeah.

And might have changed my mind. Well, here's what I think about. If you're thinking about getting sober, it means you need to. That's all. If you wake up and go, I think maybe, then you should. And just, you know, you won't feel changes until about a year. Like, you'll say to everybody, I feel so. fucking good but no not really a year in you're gonna feel amazing but just stay away from the people

who used to drag you down stay away from the places that used to drag you down uh you know i mean now i have a bar at my house fully fucking stocked i have actually the bar from the uh the mayan theater in l a from the 1970s the VIP bar it's i had a guy find it in a fucking place and i go bro bring that to my house right now and and it's fully stocked for people to come in and i'm a hell of a bartender you know i mean now i can do that thing without without going back but before the that you couldn't have a bottle of whiskey in my house because I would fucking drink that shit right now. Damn. I'm for sure you're going to smoke at some point. For sure. Because I, because to me, smoking isn't a escape. I don't like smoking. It makes me really think deeply about things. So it's,

scary for me, but I like what it brings. Yeah. I can only smoke flour if I'm writing during the day, but I don't smoke flour during the day. And very rarely at night too. I mean, I just, I hit a CBD pen because I have a bad knee. I got a fucked up knee and it helps. But I just, I just, I just feel like, you know, a lot of people will say, well, you're not really sober. It's like, well, I never did the AA. Got a chip. Got a this. Got a sponsor.

I just like walked off the bus, went and got the date tattooed on me 10, 9, 10, 9, 16. The guy's like, what am I tattooing this date for? I said, because I'm getting sober today and he just laughing. Oh, yeah. He's like, I've heard this. This is awesome. Hold on. Ten.

He's like, I go, am I done? He goes, oh, yeah, you're done. Yeah, you know? I don't even know if he charged me, actually. He may have just said, fucking get out of here, right? But I puked for the first four shows because I was on the road when I got sober. And I remember the first four shows were like, this is terrible. I don't know if I can do this.

Like I remember it. It was like yesterday. I was in El Paso, the first show. And I was puking in a bucket five minutes before I went on stage, you know. Now I couldn't imagine being fucking drunk on stage. I can't even fucking fathom it having to remember lyrics and everything. but I did back then. I mean, I was like obviously on autopilot.

You know, your body goes on autopilot. You're going to do fine, man. You're going to do great. Thank you. You know, keep yourself in the gym. Keep yourself positive. Keep yourself happy. Stay away from fucking the idiots that used to drag.

I cut a lot of people. I mean, I have a very small circle anyways. I'm extremely private. But I cut a lot of people out that, that every time we went out, we was like, all right, where are we going to go? We got to get drinks. It's like, bro, come on. You know.

This bug is sitting. chill dude and talk about life yeah i mean that's what we've been doing here you know so uh you know i'm fortunate i don't know if i would have made it through without sobriety to be honest with you but it was never a point where like bro you said so much shit last night to people or bro you told your wife to fuck off or none of that it was just you know two cocktails before the show three cocktails after the show 250 280 shows a year holy shit how many bottles am i run and you only have one liver and one kidney yeah or or two kidneys really in one liver how is that i don't know that yeah two kidneys one liver i'd like to keep them i'd like to keep all the relationships around myself you know davy's sober

so him and i that that works real well with him on i you know something i wanted to add is not just your body is um when you are past a certain point you lose memories you and like for me money comes and goes there's a lot of things that come and go but your memories and your existing in this world is forever you can relate this right i mean you toured drunk oh yeah and you forgot a lot of it yeah it's sad and you said stuff and people said stuff and you forgot it yeah and it sucks and you've been to places that you won't remember and you've you know dude i met you five years ago and i'm like i are you know i met you know i met you 15 years ago and i'm like i'm so sorry about i drank i don't remember well i'm so-and-so well hi hi dude we hung out of you know

out all night. How do you not fucking remember? I was up on your bus with my friends. I'm the one that brought the fucking this and that. Yeah. Yeah, no, I don't remember, bro. Like, I'm so sorry. You know.

That moment is never coming back. Yeah, that moment's never coming back for me. Now it's like, bro, I met you, you know, five years ago. I'm like, yeah, you were the kid down in the hotel. He brought me gummy bears or whatever. Which is Meeks' favorite. That's why I bring up gummy bears. He's got to have gummy bears on the rider.

He's fucking out, which is I can relate to. I love that shit. Wow, you kind of blew me away, man. You're going to be good, man. You're going to be fine. Oh, thank you for that. Yeah. All right, new record out now.

Tour starts in August through September, three weeks in the U.S. And you have an Australia tour. Yeah, we did the Australia tour. It went incredible. Nice. It went absolutely incredible. And well, Davy, Des, thank you for your time. And Dez, we will be praying for you, man.

Thank you, bro. Thank you. Yeah, I figured this is the time to let people know what the fuck I'm dealing with. You may want to come to a show. Let's go. Let's go, dude. Yeah. Every day, I'm living every day like it's the last man, you know.

Last night I was on a skateboard until 11. I think you called me and Anastasia said, I don't know, he's out on his longboard. I fucking, I told my wife when I can't. He's somewhere. Yeah, when I can't skate and when I can't surf, I'm out. So, yeah. Thank you guys. Thank you.

Appreciate it. All right, everyone, that's it. Later.