1021 (30
Coal Chamber is a group that every
heavy band in America is destined to hate.
The reason being is that while they take a
similar approach and employ many of the
same techniques as countless other scream-
ers and bashers, they also possess a unique
talent for coming up with catchy songs.
Especially evident live, Coal Chamber man-
ages to be simultaneously crunchy but funny,
threatening but charming, a little bit goth, a
little bit punk. They have a female bassplayer
(Rayna), a guitarist named Meegs (short for
Miguel), a 19-year-old drummer named Mike
(English for Miguel), and a lead singer (Dez)
with a story to tell:
Dez, your lyrics are very focused. Did you
ever take creative writing in school?
COOL
Cham Ber
Dez: I never did well in anything else. It's
funny you asked, nobody else has ever picked up on that.
Did you have a teacher that especially inspired you?
Dez: I did, an English teacher in the 7th grade. Her name
was Miss Gina.
any
Do you have any acting in your background?
Dez: My biological father was an actor. He was in a lot of TV
shows when he was a kid, like Leave It To Beaver and Lassie.
Was he the one that committed suicide?
Dez: No, that was one of my stepfathers. My mom
remarried several different times. When I was 10 or 11,
my dad at the time put a shotgun in his mouth in front of
me and my mom and blew himself away. Ever since then,
I knew that that was not the way to go.
Does your ex-wife regret making you choose between her
and the band?
Dez: Oh, yeah... but we're on good terms, we still love
each other. I just saw her when we were on tour through
Georgia, where she lives now. But I'm going to be on the
road for the next 15 years, and, as a band, we feel that if
we're home for more than 2 weeks, we're not doing our
job. My relationship now is with the band, and that's it.
I know you drew a lot of inspiration from your breakup.
Dez: The whole album is basically about her.
Does she know that?
Dez: Uh, huh. But she's kind of one of those girls where.
even when I told her... I'd come home with songs about her.
and she'd listen to them and wouldn't even get it. I'd do a
song like
like "My Frustration, and I'd say, "Listen to the song
d
I wrote about you, and it's basically about, "Wake up.
something's wrong." and she'd say. "Oh, great song."
Maybe that's what the problem was.
Dez: It really was. I'd have a rehearsal to go to, and she'd
say. "It's time for dinner, let's eat."
I sensed a kind of witchy, voodoo vibe from you guys onstage.
Dez: My ex-wife used to practice Wicca, and she was
in a coven when she was younger.
She's not casting spells on you or anything, I hope.
Dez: I don't know... she came over to our apartment one
down to?
time after we broke up, and she did this
drawing on the bathroom wall, and it
freaked me out so hard, I showed Meegs.
who said, "Oh, man, you gotta get that off.
that's got really bad energy.
You all live together?
Dez: Yeah, we live in a little one-bedroom
place. Rayna lives in the kitchen.
Isn't that a little sexist?
Dez: Well, it is the biggest room.
Rayna, I hear you're playing with broken ribs.
Rayna: I have a couple fractures. The
have a coup
first time, playing a show opening for
Danzig, I fell on a monitor, and then the
other night at one of our shows, this
bouncer was taking out some guy from a
fight or something, and I was walking up
the stairs, and he fell on top of me.
Meegs, what key do you tune your guitar
Meegs: Some songs are in B, some are in A.
You get an amazingly crisp tone. Do you use acoustic gui-
tar strings?
Meegs: In fact, I use lap steel strings, they're really
heavy gauge.
Mike, you have an unusual drum set-up: oversize kick drum,
tiny rack toms, and a piccolo snare.
Mike: On the record, I used a regular size snare, but live the
piccolo cuts through better. And I like going from real small
toms to the big floor tom. I just cut out the middle toms. I like
the contrast effect better, rather than having 90 toms.
a
You have a really precise style, where does that come from?
Mike: My older brother Travis is a really great drummer, and he
pushed me hard to be better. I used to skip school to practice.
I've been avoiding this, but how do you deal with the com-
parisons to Körn?
Mike: It's better than being compared to Pearl Jam.
-Morgan Walker
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