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Interview Date: November 5, 2005

I would like to thank Devon of Deadsoul Tribe for taking time out on a Saturday to chat with us at Bacstagepass.com.

Barbara: For our readers that have never heard of Deadsoul Tribe, tell me about the band’s members and how you all got together.

Devon: We’ve been together for about 5 years now. I was making records kind of on my own and the first thing; I wanted a very good drummer. I play all the instruments myself on the albums but the only thing I can’t really play is drums so when I first was making this band it was really just I needed to find a drummer. Then I found Adel, just him and I are the ones that make these records and I have Rollz and Roland, the bass player and the guitar player so that we can play live. So basically when I picked these guys, Rollz and Roland I just went around looking for guys that looked like they would be in my band, asking them if they played an instrument *laughs* that’s how I ended up getting my band, I go up to some guy with dreads and say, hey do you play an instrument? Rollz says, yeah I play bass. I said, oh, step this way!

Barbara: *laughs* That’s cool. Tell me about the name Deadsoul Tribe, how did you come up with that?

Devon: It’s really all the same thing when I pick the members for this band when I made the band name I’m just creating kind of an image, kind of a feeling. So when I made the name of the band it wasn’t to have a meaning, the name Deadsoul Tribe doesn’t really have a meaning. It just has a kind of vibration; it gives you an image in your mind. Maybe not a specific image but it gives you a kind of vibration feeling. When I picked the members of this band like I was telling you, these were members that also carried this vibration with them. So it’s kind of like a project, this really was something I invented first in my imagination and then built it out of people that I had found, that kind of fit this imagination. The records are basically my songs and the band is kind of like a way to present these songs live. So the name of the band is kind of fictitious.

Barbara: That’s an interesting concept. You’re releasing your 4th album, The Dead Word, on November 11. Tell me about the concept behind this album.

Devon: It’s not really like a concept album; it’s not one way of thinking behind it. It’s just a collection of songs and a title that’s just a way of summing these songs up under one roof. All the albums I’ve done in the past start with the title; the title of the album is the first thing I think of. When I think of this title I don’t even know what it really means *laughs* It’s the same as the band name, it comes to me and it just sounds good for some reason. It gives me the feeling that I’m trying to create because when I’m creating this music, the words come last. First comes the music, I make this music and I even hear the melodies in my head and I even hear how it will be produced. What it’s getting across is a kind of feeling, a kind of emotion. It’s not an intellectual thing so it’s really hard to put lyrics to it, it’s an emotional thing. It’s the expression of some sort of longing or something. It’s almost something beyond words, when I think of a title like the January Tree or the Dead Word or a Murder of Crows, I remember every time when these ideas came to me. I didn’t really know what it meant right away but as I started writing songs for this album and the songs aren’t really intentionally connected together, but as it starts to take form, this meaning starts to come more and more clear to me. It’s something that kind of almost creates itself. So I couldn’t really tell you intellectually why I chose these things, it’s almost like they chose me.

Barbara: How is this album different from any of your previous albums?

Devon: Well, it’s really just the same way a tree is different one year to the next. It’s the same tree, but it’s maybe bigger and the branches reach out further and maybe more flowers, leaves, more fruit. That’s the same thing with musical groups because I don’t really change my style from one album to the next. I try to invent a style throughout the albums but at the same time explore a lot of areas. There’s a lot of music that’s, well some of its really electric and heavy and then there’s some acoustic stuff or just a piano piece. So it gets really diverse in the instrumentation or in the tempos of the songs but there’s still some sort of common thread that runs between all of them, as I said before a sense of longing or sort of sorrowful sounding melodies.

Barbara: Okay, what was the production time for the Dead Word?

Devon: It was really fast, it took me just a little over a month. Now that’s only production time, I was writing this material over the whole year. When I’m writing I’m recording then, but usually everything I record will end up being replaced. I put down guitar lines and then I tap in a drumbeat into the drum computer and I kind of make the arrangement and when I decide, okay this is the arrangement then I have Adel come over and he studies the part then he’ll replace my drum machine with his playing. From there, that’s when I say we’re officially into production because from then I start to over-dub the original tracks I had made with final takes and stuff like that. Adel was really fast this time and so we were a little ahead of schedule and it ended up taking 5 or 6 weeks to do this thing.

Barbara: That’s really good. Who or what influences you musically?

Devon: Mostly just the classic rock bands from the late 60s and early 70s. Like Hendrix, Zeppelin, and Black Sabbath, mostly anybody from that time period is really what I’m coming from for the most part. There’s some modern influences too, I really like the group Tool. There’s not a lot of modern bands that I like, but the bands I do like, I like them really very much. I like Tori Amos a lot.

Barbara: Where do you feel Dead Soul Tribe fits in, in the whole progressive rock/metal genre?

Devon: It’s hard to say, I don’t think we really fit in that genre really. But I don’t know of a genre that we really would fit in. When I just explained to you my influences, I’m like a student of that time of music and in that time every band, you couldn’t really categorize any band. There weren’t metal, and this metal, and speed metal and thrash metal, there wasn’t all that. It was just called rock. And when it was rock you had David Bowie, Jethro Tull, Alice Cooper, and Black Sabbath. All those were rock bands but they were nothing like each other. So there were no categories other than rock and then when it came time for me, I could have identified with that and just been another band, another sound, another style out there but since then it’s all become so categorized and you have to kind of fit into one of these categories.

Barbara: I think that’s what is wrong with music today; they try to put you in a category. There’s so much of the same kind of music.

Devon: That’s the thing, there’s a lot of bands out there, I don’t know, when one band comes out and becomes famous then it seems like that becomes a style of music and the industry starts to only sign other bands that sound like that. It’s really weird, all of those bands just come and go, there’s like a big craze and then they’re gone. It kind of trivializes something that the original band has created. But what I notice, the original band is usually the one that ends up remaining when all the others have come and gone.

Barbara: Exactly. That’s very true.

Devon: Metallica is a good example. Could you recall all of the bands that have risen and fallen in their wake, good bands, but any bands that followed them were no longer pioneers.

Barbara: I agree. You are on Inside Out Records, how is that all working out?  They are a more prominent label for this type of music. Are they treating you well?

Devon: Sometimes they hit and yell *laughs* No, they’re really great. I have been on their label since the first Deadsoul Tribe album. I had never heard of them before I had this deal. I was kind of looking around for labels and sending demos out and a guy, Wolfgang Schäfer from Rock Hard Magazine said send it to these people and he gave me their address and he said it would be no mistake. So I sent it and they had a really nice, positive response and I looked at their website and although I hadn’t heard of them before I just really liked the way it all felt. It looked like a good thing to get involved with; it looked like a good label. It just felt right. Once I already had a positive response then I really didn’t even look any further. I just kept writing songs and kept sending it to them because I knew that we were going to do something. When you don’t know what to do, your heart has the answers. Something is going to feel more right than other things. So when you don’t know just trust the feeling. That’s kind of what I did with this label and it has been really nice.

Barbara: Good. Describe each of your band members, including yourself in one word.

Devon: In one word, I’d say Roland, the bass player is dependable. The drummer Adel, predictable *laughs*, and Rollz, friendly. And me, arrogant *laughs*

Barbara: *laughs* Okay, describe your music in one word.

Devon: I have 2 words for it, it’s begrudgingly because what I was telling you about labels. But since I always end up on the metal shelf anyway, I’ve decided to embrace it. I call it tribal metal.

Barbara: Okay, that’s cool. Are you going to be touring in support of the Dead Word?

Devon: Yeah, in January we’re going around Europe and we’re touring with a group called Sieges Even. They’ve also been around for kind of a long time and they’re also on Inside Out. We’ve got that tour coming up and then I think just a bunch of single, isolated gigs.

Barbara: So will you ever come out this way?

Devon: I would really like to but I don’t think we have such a big audience in the states. I think if you took all of the people in the United States that know about Deadsoul Tribe that we could have one show and put them all in one auditorium but I don’t think it would sell enough tickets to fly us out there. I just never hear stuff from the states. I was in another band years ago, we were pretty big in our hometown, San Diego and then every now and then you would hear somebody in New York, oh you have a lot of fans. I’ve never been there, I’ve never been further than LA or Phoenix with the old band. Now with Deadsoul Tribe I’ve never been to the US so I don’t know what the climate is like out there as far as the fans are concerned. I don’t imagine it’s a whole bunch because otherwise I think we would have had some offers.

Barbara: Well let’s fix that! We’ll put this up and see what happens.

Devon: Put it up and all the fans will start to love me! Then they’ll fly me out and have a big parade for me. Then they’ll maybe even bounce me up and down on a blanket like they did with Mickey Mouse on the beginning of the Mickey Mouse club *laughs* That’s what I’m waiting for.

Barbara: *laughs* What was the first concert you ever attended?

Devon: Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow, Pat Travers opened.

Barbara: Oh wow, okay.

Devon: Yeah I remember that, that was a really good night. I was 14 years old, with a really good friend of mine and Ritchie Blackmore was my idol, Idol I say *laughs*

Barbara: Alright, a message for your fans.

Devon: I don’t really have a message for you, I don’t want to disappoint you but there’s a lot in the songs. If you want a message, listen to a song.

Barbara: Alright, it was a pleasure talking to you!

Best of luck to Devon and Deadsoul Tribe. What a multi talented guy!! We will be watching out for these guys!!