dez and rayna on coal chamber-from circus (feb. '00)

Bassist Rayna Foss Rose from Coal Chamber grins when she talks about the band and how they got started in LA, but now seem to be spread all over the continent. "It all started in Los Angeles, we all met in LA. That's where we werel iving at the time and that's where the band is based. Right now, our drummer Mikey lives in New York with his girlfriend. I'm living in Atlanta with my husband, Dez lives in Santa Barbara, a two hour drive away from LA, and Meegs is the only one who still lives in Los Angeles. It's pretty good, it gives us more breathing space and we still see each other a lot. We're really good friends, but still, we all have lives outside of the band. "We're together for over five years now, that's a lot. Five years with the same people in a band, you really need a good relationship or else the whole thing would just explode! Can you imagine it? I couldn't be in a band with people I don't like, let alone five years. Agony, five years would belike 100 years of purgatory!"

Dez agrees and confirms that they really needed a little break from each other, but that doesn't mean that they're not friends anymore, he hastens to dispell any rumors on that front. "We were on the road for something like 18 months with our first album Coal Chamber, before that we shared a little house together, sometimes you just need privacy. I think it's better that we take the privacy while we can instead of waiting until we really get fed up with each other. Coal Chamber is a great band and we want to keep it this way, so a little break from each other was in order. After being together for so long, we needed a bit of a cut." But the break wasn't for too long.

After the release of their second album Chamber Music, the band once again packed their bags and headed outwith label-mates Slipknot, Machine Head and Amen on the "Livin' La Vida Loco" tour. The only difference this time was their bassist, Nadja Puelen, who covered Rayna's position while she enjoyed the first few months of motherhood. But touring seems part of the course to Dez and the gang who contribute their success to their nomadic lifestyle for the past few years. "We definitely made it through playing live, you know, I think our restless touring and playing got us a very solid fan base, and I know we wouldn't have sold as many albums as we did without playing like we did. But being on tour for so long is definitely a strain, God, we really did feel homeless." Rayna married Morgan Rose, the drummer from Sevendust, last year, but laughs off all expectations and rumors that they might form a band together.

Rayna and Morgan had a baby girl on October 4, 1999, and named her Kayla Morray Rose. Rayna, a former fitness instructor and former Miss Foss now Mrs. Rose seems to be very happy with her husband and spills the beans on how they met and how it is to have a relationship with someone who basically works in the same business you do. "We met touring, that's how it always seems to be, that's how musician sstart relationships." She giggles, "He's in a band too. So we're in the same boat." Rayna confesses that a musician dating another musician has a lot of advantages but also some disadvantages. "You know where the other person comes from, what kind of stress he has to put up with, what it's like to be under pressure or what's it like to be on tour. There's a lot of common ground and that's really great. I can imagine that somebody form outside the biz would have a hard time understanding what's going on, but since we both make the same experiences,we have plenty of common ground."

Rayna plans to return to Coal Chamber this year, but the rest of the gang swung through Europe on a 15 show stint in December with Type O Negative and Static X which finished off in Paris on the 22nd. After a string of bad luck, finally all the Coal Chamber members seem to live in happy relationships. Dez, who is remarkably quiet, pipes up and confesses that his girlfriend was the reason why he moved from LA to Santa Barbara. Quite a surprise, because songs like "Untrue" and "Burgundy" give the impression that Dez is still suffering from his tragic last relationship that also resulted in him dropping out of Coal Chamber for a while. "No, not really. I'm in a very happy relationship with a very sweet girl and we live together in Santa Barbara. What can I say? I'm really happy with her."

Coal Chamber is signed with Roadrunner and Rayna confesses that she likes being with an indie label because it gives her and the band more freedom and a better support than a major label would. "They're great. I like them a lot. Personally, I think being on an indie label is more personal. A little more freedom. A little bit more in touchwith you. They give you more personal attention where as with a conglomerate you can't even get a phone call in there to get anything accomplished.They're just big firms who see you as a product while small labels just seem to care a bit more, they give you more support. "A big label, a lot of the times (will) take seven bands and throw them up against a wall, and whichever one hits, you know, the other six get dropped. I've heard it all before and I don't really want to mention names,but I'm sure everybody knows what I'm talking about and which labels are famous for their practices. If you're on a small label and you only sell 300,000 or 100,000 copies of your first record, the small label is going to give you another record, another chance to get back out there. A big label is going to drop you and not going to give you anything else. Or they're going to pull you off the road and make you make your second record and are not going to push that first record as much as an indie label would."

Dez agrees and confesses that the band really feels at home with Roadrunner. "It's almost like a family there, they believed in us and didn't drop us when it didn't work out at first. That gave us the courage to go on a tour and it definitely paid out in the end, it paid out for all of us, the band and the label." "But even with the happy relationships in the band, there always seems tobe a stroke of bad luck following Coal Chamber. During their tour for their self-titled debut, their bus driver died of a sudden heart attack one morning while he was about to take a shower. The whole band waited in the bus for him to show up, just to be informed by the police what happened, and it was a pretty tragic experience for the band. With their new album, Chamber Music, Chad Fridiricci died in a car accident a couple of days before they were supposed to start mixing. But overall, the new album has been a success for the band, debuting at #22 on the Billboard chart and selling 48,000 copies inits first week of sales. In addition, their first release "Shock the Monkey" hit the Top 20 and received heavy rotation on America's rock radio stations.The video for their next single "Tyler's Song" is shooting in January and with Rayna back on board, things can only get better.



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Email: MeegsIsMyMercy@aol.com