DEVILDRIVER Guitarist Talks About Illegal Music Downloading In New Interview

Jenna Williams (a.k.a. "The Scream Queen") of TheScreamQueen.com conducted an interview with guitarist Jeff Kendrick of California metallers DEVILDRIVER. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

TheScreamQueen.com: How would you say that as a band DEVILDRIVER has grown within metal? Because you guys definitely have made a pretty substantial mark.

Jeff: I think that... I agree, I think that the band's progressively gotten better. We've obviously stuck in the realm of what we were doing and we've also not done the same thing over and over and over. We've picked a pretty decent amount of ground to, you know, write our music and exist in, and we've covered that well. It's not too narrow, but it's not too broad that it starts to lose people like crazy.

TheScreamQueen.com: How would you say that your connection with your fans has progressed throughout the duration of being in DEVILDRIVER?

Jeff: Connection with the fans... I think we all pretty much stayed the same people that we were when we started, and we're all very friendly people, and we're all on the same level as everybody else as working a normal job, even though it skips nine-to-five. There's nothing there's no super-fame or super money. So, we're all pretty much normal people.

TheScreamQueen.com: Over the last few years, especially this year with the economy the way it has been, illegal downloading has been increasing, record sales have been decreasing... I've noticed many artists, very recently, have really been speaking out again on Facebook, Twitter, as well as in interviews, about this matter, too... What is your take on this?

Jeff: Yeah, it's bad. I mean, it affects an industry that affects musicians, because it's a record contract. There's a record deal, but there's a record business, and a band is a small part of the record business. You have the record company and you have their setup, then you have the band and there's a deal between that. So, when you steal the record, you essentially steal from the record company, which steals from the artist. But now, at this point, it's so far beyond it; I do think they will eventually come out with a platform that's going to work, where people get paid. I think there will be a period of time where there's going to be unrecoverable losses, but there will be a point where it gets figured out, and then they'll go from there. It'll be hopefully improved.

TheScreamQueen.com: Everyone goes through a musical journey, whether it be a guitarist, vocalist, drummer, bassist, etcetera... Would you say your musical journey of what you initially envisioned it to be, what it is now, or has that vision that you first had changed throughout the path you've taken?

Jeff: Hmmm... It's both... I envision it and then learn along the way. You can never really fully paint a picture about an experience until you experience it. But you can always visualize what you think it's going to be, but you never know until you walked in the shoes and walked in the experiences. It's definitely things that I thought and things that I didn't. But as I've gotten older, I've enjoyed it a lot more, I have a great time. I enjoyed a lot when I was younger, but just [is] a different place for me now.

Read the entire interview from TheScreamQueen.com.