Dez Gone By:

A Rare Peek Into Coal Chamber Singer Dez Fafara's Tortured Childhood

Circus Magazine Interview June 20, 2000                                                                      By:   Corey Levitan

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Dez's Words of Wisdom

      "After this interview, it's probably the last time I'm gonna talk about these things things, because you never know how they're gonna come out in the press."
       So decleares Dez Fafara, front-man for hard-rock warriors Coal Chamber, after opening up wide to Circus Magazine during an hour-long probe that blurred the lines between rock-star interview and therapy session.
       Few fans know this, but Fafara was seriously abused by his peers at school and stepfather at home. And his pain from those memories is the key to understanding the singer's prolific creativity.
       "I don't want to come off as whining about my life," Fafara says, phoning from a tour stop in San Antonio, Texas. "But you're asking me personally what my life is really about, and you told me to be honest, so I'm gonna do it. A lot of times people want to get real personal and I'll say, 'You know what? I don't feel like it.' But today I feel like it."
       Bradley Fafara grew up in a divorced home with a succession of stepfathers. (The nickname "Dez" was conferred in his teens, after he was thrown onstage during a Black Flag show, landing by guitarist Dez Cadena.)
       "My real father was gone by the time I was two and I didn't  meet him again until I was about 13," Fafara says. (Although young Dez didn't know his biological father, much of America did. Tiger Fafara, of Sicilian ancestory, was the actor who played Tooey on TV's "Leave It to Beaver" in the 1950's.)
       Dez says he and his mom were always closer, but he fought viciously with most of his stepfathers. One briefly kicked him out of the house at age 14.
      "I was smoking in his house and he didn't appreciate that," Fafara says. "Now that I look back, I was extremely rude for doing that. I could have just snuck it outside. I was just waiting for something to happen." Fafara expresses no such regret about his failed relations with an earlier stepfather, however.
       "Me and my mom left him because of his alcohol and other abuses," Fafara says, declinging to get into the gruesome specifics.
       "He ended up committing suicide," Fafara continues, Enough said.
      Fafara lived in a blue of Los Angeles suburbs because one of hisstepfathers built houses, living with his family in them until they were sold. Being the perpetual new kid in class did not bode well for our young hero, who seemed genetically engineered for popularity impairment to begin with.
       "I was tiny, TINY!" says the 5'7" musician. "And I was the kid who loved art class." Compounding his feelings of isolation and inadequancy, fafara was on Ritalin, the medication prescribed for kids with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD).
       His lowest years were spent at Nigel Junior High School in Laguna beach, Calif.
       "I was the kind of to myself really," Fafara recalls. "I only had a couple of friends -- one girl and one other guy, that was it." Fafara says his choice of cafeteria table during lunch period was based solely on "where I wouldn't get fucked with."
       The strategy wasn't always successful. One day, bullies slam-dunked Dez into a trash bin, then poured milk over his head.
      "I don't remember what it was about," Fafara says. "It could have been about anything -- standing in the lunch line with long hair, or who knows? I t was horrible." But Fafara says he believes that karma, the Eastern spiritual idea of reaping what you sow, paid his attackers a visit later in life.
       "I know these people who did that to me are probably working at 9-to-5s, hating thei rlives -- these non-artistic, living pieces of shit," he says.
       This was all a decade before "revenge of the nerds" posed a danger of becoming a military operation.
       "I was never a violent person, so I couldn't have done something like that," Fafara says, referring to the Columbine tragedy. "But maybe that woke up the counselors at school to really take a look at these kids that are wearing black, because tha was me. All I wanted was to be left alone to do art and let my mind grow. I was into literature. My best subject was English. That's why I write so much now."
       Music was a natural refuge for Fafara, who formed the band that became Coal Chamber in 1994 with his friend, guitarist Miguel "Meegs" Rascon. (Bassist Rayna Rose-Foss and drummer Mike "Bug" Cox were added later.)
       "Since my earliest childhood memory, I've always had a radio in my room, and I could sing any song on the radio," he says. "Then I got into my parents albums -- the Doors, Beatles, and Creedence Clearwater Revival."
       But Fafara's creativity was always too rampant to be contained by one artistic outlet. A former hairdresser, Dez is also a fashion designer -- with his own line of Goth clothes on the way -- an amateur painter, and an author of children's books.
       "It's just artistic nature," he says. "It's always driven me."
       He's also a father. Fafara is helping raise the two young children of his current girlfriend, Anahstasia. And a source of more recent pain is how he can't fully be there for Tyler, the nine-year-old son of a failed marriage.
       "I'm missing out on his life," Fafara says, an agony made worse by the fact that Tyler is currently up against the same peer-group abuse his father once faced. It's the subject of "Tyler's Song," from theband's second and most recent album, 1999's "Chamber Music."
       "Raise your guard again," Fafara sings his words of encouragement. "They don't give a damn. Go Son."
       Tyler, whom Fafara says has already expressed a serious interest in music, is currently enrolled in karate classes to defend himself in school.
      "For the artistic ones, for the intelligent ones, for the really passionate people in life, they are always condemned and persecuted for being that way -- because they're different," Fafara says, "The reason is that these people can move mountains, and they're persecuted in life only when they can be. But later on in lie, they become the people  everyone aspires to be -- the musicians, the artists, the writers. That's one of the things that made me want to succeed.
       "What about the kid who hit me in the face when I didn't see it coming? Maybe he's listening to Coal Chamber and he's going, 'Oh my God, where do I recognize this person from?
       "It's me, buddy."

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Words of Me - About Life, Feelings, and Why I am the Way I am

      Today I was asked by someone if I wanted to die....I had been having a bad day, with family, friends, whatever was going on....so I replied "Why not?" Now he had just the weirdest look on his face as I walked away from him. He asked me, "Why?, You have a lot to live for!" That threw me totally off guard thinking, do I know him from somewhere. He hadn't said much but between those few seconds, I swear I had met him before. His name was Chris. That last thing he said, which was his name, just was like a smack in the face. I totally have not been what everyone thinks I am.
       All I've ever wanted was to be different. And I showed that today when I yelled at my sister stating, "NO! You can't get that, that's my style. Now I'll have to burn my clothes." That I said with all I could without sounding like an ass. I am just so different from my friends, but in the same sense I am just like everyone else.
       I do believe that one day, everyone will get what they deserve, and I am waiting for my time. All I had ever wished for was my happiness, and I am still waiting. Maybe the wishing thing isn't true, but whatever passes the time.
       I would spend my time alone at school, watching out for everyone in the hall that was deemed "popular," thinking to myself, "Ohh I hope I never turn out like them, or become one of them!" Now with a lot of my life now changing, I am now starting to turn out like one of them. That isn't what I want, it's not what I need. I want my own scene and originality.
       There's people like me out there, who don't quite know where they belong at school, with what people or crowds to hang out with, and don't quite know what they want in life. I can't live my life to the fullest potential being the fact that how I am today and what my stats are. I know one day I will regret doing some of things I do, and will regret not have done some things. There are times I wish that I could just snap my fingers and either make me or everyone else disappear. But it doesn't work out your way all the time but you must live with what you are given,. and make the most out of that.
       All I wish for me to be later in life, is someone that has an affect on ONE person's life, enough to make a difference and know how to be when I am older. Even if I don't become a big rock star I'll settle with just a normal life. I may not want it now, for the sake of everyone else, but it gives me things to think about. I can't state I say this for everyone that I am like no one, but I just feel ashamed or hatred with some things people do or what I have done. There's a lot of things I wish I would and could still do differently, but that can't happen.
       I want to be original - my own self, with my own personality. And to have people like me for me, but if you're going to like me for some dumb reason, you're not my true friend. Not now anyways. I know a few of my friends, I wish they would understand me better but I'm not gonna tell them how they could. There's just too much to say to everyone. I keep quiet to myself, and write it all down when it needs to come out. I can't blow up to someone unless they really make me mad, and just can't stand them any longer.
       I am a very peaceful person, or so everyone thinks or claims whatever they may. But I am myself and if you wish not to accept tthat fact, then why am I talking to you? If people understood me more, then they'd know about me and the way I am. Or lately all I have wanted was for someone to be proud of me...if you are tell me, or don't bother and just screw the idea.
       I need to hear what you think, tell me. That's how I live. I am independant and dark in the sense of my life and personality and things I like. If I like something you don't, it shouldn't change our lives all together, we should grow brighter and seek new things. I don't really like trying new things unless I have heard of someone having an interest before me.
       Now reading that interview with Dez, makes me think about my life, and how similar it could be and it is. It's so wrong, but why do people do it? I still have yet to figure that out, but until then, think of what Dez said...he's right, and not just because he's famous. He is right.........
       Now I attend all these concerts to keep my sanity....
       I will hold it in until I need to let it all out. I'll get what I deserve, you will, and even you're best friend, but until then, know what you're living for and be who u want. I can't express it more, that when you cant accept yourself, than what's your purpose of being nothing to everyone. Don't live it for everyone else like me, you'll get screwed in the end. Learn from you're mistakes like I am trying. Don't try to be like me, I am not trying to come across as that. I'm not perfect nor will I ever, so don't tell me I am. I don't know what to say except for the fact that someday I will show you all, or even the littlest of people, I'll show you what I've been saving my feelings, life, and sadness for....It'll come out, I can't hold it in forever. Don't ask me what it is....it's not worth it. It's not worth telling...not yet anyways. When I get older and able to do more....I'll have it for myself, and will make my break.

A little piece of something for you to think about.......

"I can't take this anymore, and I'm almost pretty sure. That I've been there before. I can't take this any longer, I won't heal until I'm stronger...Strong enough to not be afraid. Of what anybody thinks of what anybody says, about the way, about the way I am. I'll wait until the day, when those feelings fade away, then I'll make my break!"                                                                                               ~I Walk Alone, Oleander