"Fantastic man!" gushed Dez Fafara, vocalist for Devildriver when discussing the general vibe in the camp ahead of the release of one of the more unique and ambitious releases of the year, 'Outlaws 'Til the End, Volume 1'.

Taking a collection of outlaw country tunes and turning them metal was only a small part of the process, with Fafara admitting the project presented far more challenges than initially envisaged.

"It was a lot of hard work to get done," he affirmed. "Let me tell you how this thing came about first of all. There was gonna be a three-year gap between records, and I'm a big stickler for getting a record out every two years. I'm the guy that bags on bands that wait four, five or six years to put out records so I was like let's put out a covers record because people seem to like our covers. It'll be easy, we'll go in, do it, and then we can go and work on what we're working on now which is gonna be spectacular - it's a double record - but this thing ended up being insanity. The logistics were insane and the money ran out halfway through... I mean, it became a labor of love. It was like, let's take two genres with four genres of singers and let's combine them like two trucks hitting head on and let's see what we come up with. What I'm appreciative of and humbled by is the artists and the guests that came in and gave their all for this thing. They knew that it had never been done before and they knew it had to be done right and they were very pleased to be part of it."

In the audio interview Dez delves deeper into the making of the album, including why he felt it was an important album to make, where the initial idea came from, the process of converting outlaw country songs to metal and the role each guest played in their songs plus the correlation between the two genres of music. He also gives more details on the next Devildriver album plus the things he has learned from this album that he will translate to that release.
Outlaws 'Til the End is released July 6
Kris Peters