COAL CHAMBER’s DEZ FAFARA Embraces All The Music Industry Changes

In a new interview with Australia’s Maniacs, COAL CHAMBER frontman Dez Fafara was asked how music industry changes have affected his band and whether he thinks it’s harder for younger acts to break through at the moment in any meaningful way. He responded: “There’s not been that many changes other than downloading and Spotify, and everybody’s had that fucking argument. Is it harder for bands now? Here’s what I think: I think that if you’re good, if you’re original, if you’re doing something from your heart, you’re going to crack quick. You’re going to pop quickly. Look at LORNA SHORE, right?

“I listen to a lot of metal; I know it all from the beginning to bands just coming up now,” he continued. “If you’re good, if you’re authentic and you’re doing it from your heart, you’re going to crack open pretty quick. I mean look at that Oliver Anthony guy. He sang a song in his backyard and now he’s the biggest fucking thing on the planet.

“There’s a medium here with the Internet. Use it. The only place where this medium is fucking up is that I think downloading and everything else is making it very hard for bands to earn money by releasing records.

“To be honest, you know, Willie Nelson said it best: ‘I never thought I’d be going on tour to make merch money.’ Meaning, he makes the predominant money in his career off of merchandise or shows, not his records, which was certainly not the past for a guy like that, a huge writer,” Dez added. “But I try to embrace it all. I tend to embrace a lot of shit. You know, a lot of guys my age want to talk about downloading all day long and what it’s done to the industry. To me, some 22-year-old kid just found my music today because it was on a fucking playlist, and now he’s coming up to the show and he’s bringing three of his friends. They’ll love the show. Then there’s 10 of them at the next show, then there’s 20 of them at the next.”

COAL CHAMBER recently completed a U.S. tour as the support act for MUDVAYNE. Additional support on the 26-city “The Psychotherapy Sessions” trek, which was produced by Live Nation, came from GWAR, NONPOINT and BUTCHER BABIES.

COAL CHAMBER played its first two shows in eight years at the Sick New World festival in Las Vegas in May and at the Inkcarceration Music And Tattoo Festival in Mansfield, Ohio in July.

COAL CHAMBER existed for ten years before disbanding in 2003 to pursue other musical projects. They reunited in 2011 for touring purposes but it wasn’t until 2014 that the band began work on a new studio album of original material, 2015’s “Rivals”. Several months of touring activity followed before Dez returned to DEVILDRIVER to make a new record, 2016’s “Trust No One”.

Image courtesy of IFM RAW