Coal Chamber Are Set To Rock Australia With Mudvayne

After an absence of well over a decade, Mudvayne and Coal Chamber have joined forces for an EPIC Australian tour in February. Coal Chamber were one of the first bands to weave detuned guitars, noisy textures, white knuckle intensity, hardcore punk, and hip hop like they were always meant to be. Bridging the gap between heavy metal power and industrial groove at an infectious tempo, their self titled debut delivered the classics, Loco, Sway, Big Truck, and Oddity. Dez Fafara talks to Hi Fi Way about the tour.

It doesn’t get any better than touring with Mudvayne?
Cannot wait to come, cannot wait to come down and do this show. They’re great guys,
it doesn’t get any better than that. The tour in the summertime was fantastic through amphitheatres in the United States, we saw great turnouts and we are excited to come down. Australia for us has been, for myself over my career, has been a stronghold for Coal Chamber, it’s definitely a place where we do well and I think that Adelaide show is going to go off.

Have you been able to pick up on the sense of anticipation for this tour over social media?
Oh, it’s been incredible. A lot of people have been hitting me up that I know and it’s going to be good to come down and see friends and actually service the market properly. Right! I think these shows are very close to sellout. I don’t know where Adelaide’s at right now, but I would I say get your tickets now. You don’t know ever when Coal Chamber is even ever coming back, so if you want to see the band now is the time.

Are you seeing a younger supporter base coming to your shows now?
It’s pretty incredible, right? Everything comes around. I’ve got four sisters and my mom always used to tell them, don’t get rid of your clothes because that style of boots will come back around or whatever. I’ve been hearing that shit my whole life. But it is true, music is cyclical and comes around and what we’ve been seeing at our meet and greets and at the shows is like twenty, twenty-five-year-olds. The demographic is extremely young, and it’s incredible to see. We’re proud and cannot wait to come down.

Do you feel that sense of reinvigoration and purpose since reuniting the band?
We do, I think we take it as it comes. We’re not saying, alright, we’ve got to set this up and we’ve got to be back here in another year. We’ve got to do this, we’ve got to do that. We don’t, we just go tour by tour, does everybody want to do it? Yeah. Are we going to have a good time? Yeah. Okay. Let’s book it. That’s really how we’re working at the moment. I think learning to live in the moment, just in life in general, not just in the music business is essential to having a proper mindset in this life. That’s how we are right now. We’re just living in the moment, getting ready to come down to Australia, do some great shows, and then we’ll see what comes in the future.

How much did the events of the last couple of years including Covid change that thinking for the band?
COVID almost killed me. I was literally on my death bed saying goodbye, it left me with heart problems. I had live downstairs in my living room for like eight, nine months. I couldn’t make it up my stairs. It almost took me out. Does it change my way of thinking? It’s like, no, not really. I mean, what am I not going to get on an airplane? I was actually told not to do long flights and I’m still kind of under that restrictive thing right now, not to do long flights, but I’m doing it and I’m doing it in such a way where it’s manageable. No, it doesn’t change your mindset. We’re going to do meet and greets. We just launched meet and greets this morning for a very charitable cause sending kids with cancer to camp. We’re looking forward to hoping that does well so we can give something back when we come down. I think you just come down and you do your best, right? I think you know that you have a chance of getting sick when you shake a hand or give somebody a hug, but what are you going to do, not do that for the rest of your life? I tend to not live my life in fear even though that virus almost, almost took my life.

Does the friendship with Mudvayne go back a long way?
Yeah, we’ve known them for a long time. Oh, of course, great guys to tour with. We love their crew. We love them. I’m looking forward to doing more with them in the future too because the package just seems to be working right. That’s why we’re coming down is because the package worked well in the United States. We all got along, there was no problems between bands. Alot of times you go on tour and there’s problems with one of the bands or this or that, that there was none of that this summer. So, we’re looking forward to coming down and having a good one.

Is it a bit of a challenge working out the tour set list and trying to fit everything in?
It’s hard. It’s hard. I’m not really a banter guy! I’m not going to sit up there and talk for longer than fifteen seconds really. It’s just song after song after song and it becomes like this bludgeoning thing. That’s what Coal Chamber has been known for. Out of all the bands within the new metal genre, we are always kind of like the most volatile, violent kind of, had that vibe. We’ve come from a punk rock background as well as a real deep goth background. When you add that with heavy metal, you just kind of get this hammer feel. That’s what we are, is get on stage, grab the sledge hammers, let’s break through the walls, we’ve got some unique stuff and planned as well, some stuff that we haven’t played live over the summer we’re adding, and I think that’s going to be fun in itself.

Are you enjoying playing any particular songs live more so now than ever before?
No, we’re just going back over the catalogue as a band and saying, what would go well here? What do you feel you have to play? We all have our individuals, no one’s saying like, oh, we have to play Loco, but of course we do! So, we are going to like songs that we haven’t played in a long time or we wish we would’ve played. I think there’s going to be some surprises in this set, so people are going to have a good time.

What’s next for Coal Chamber? Are there plans for new music?
There’s a lot going on around the band right now. I just I cannot speak about it. There’s a lot going on and if you’re a Coal Chamber fan, keep your ear to the ground over the next one to three months and you’re going to be excited.

Interview By Rob Lyon

Catch Coal Chamber on tour with Mudvayne on the following dates, tickets from The Phoenix…