Tag Archives: Kevin Tall

Q&A

Dez Fafara Talks About DevilDriver & What Drives Him

DevilDriver frontman Dez Fafara is just as intense on the phone as he is onstage. Choose your words carefully.

And when the affable 25-year veteran of the hard rock and metal scenes — also the bane of purists everywhere — sets something in his sights, look out.

Exhibit A: DevilDriver’s forthcoming album, Outlaws ‘Til The End: Vol. 1, a collection of heavy metal takes on 12 outlaw country classics. You could call it “the DevilDriver’s Dozen.”

On the surface, sure, it’s a bit of a head-scratcher. Just… what?

That’ll change as soon as you give it an honest listen. Trust me.

With the energy of 100 men, Dez Fafara is game to talk about pretty much anything, from the Outlaws album and the importance of truly making a cover song your own, to the passing of legendary Pantera drummer Vincent “Vinnie” Paul Abbott and how it affects the metal community and the world as a whole. Mix in a little surf talk — and dispelling some misconceptions you may have about said hobby — a few family businesses, and what drives him to go hard everyday instead of resting on his laurels for even a moment, and you’ve got a full-contact conversation that would tax any other dude to the point of emotional exhaustion.

Dez had a full day ahead of him after our chat and likely didn’t bat an eye. Like a shark, he’s always moving forward, and if there’s blood in the water, he’s coming for you. And, at the same time, despite his openness, he can be guarded at times.

Don’t take my word for it; read his.

Q&A

Alice Eve Talks About Filming ‘Bees Make Honey’ With Her Family

Don’t be mean to Alice Eve. Even well-intended sarcasm can be problematic, because she’s all business when talking shop; if that joke doesn’t go off as intended, she’ll call you on it and you will feel bad. I mean, not that I speak from experience or anything.

Of course, if she’d been talking to someone showing a bit more professional decorum, the results may have been different. But that’s academic, at this point, because the fact of the matter is she was talking to me, and some deep-seated, pathological need for attention forces me to try to make people laugh when I do an interview.

Alice Eve, on the other hand, is a consummate professional, showing great patience with this idiot writer with whom she was generous enough to share her time. She also shows great passion for her craft and understands entertainment — in all its various forms — on a psychological level.She isn’t afraid to swim in deep waters, either, and seems to embrace the fact that life is a perpetual learning process.

Basically, she’s out of my league. Yours too, no doubt.

What we can hope for Alice Eve to be in, in the foreseeable future, is a lot more movies and other projects; movies like Bees Make Honey and Replicas, and other projects like Season 2 of Iron Fist.

All of which we talked about.

Q&A

Pop Evil Singer Leigh Kakaty Wants To Unite The World Of Rock ‘N’ Roll

Pop Evil is no longer Leigh Kakaty’s band.

Well, sure, he still sings for the hard-rocking, hit-making group out of North Muskegon. The point isn’t that it’s no longer his band; Pop Evil is no longer a band to its emotive, energetic frontman. Or, not just a band.

Pop Evil is a work ethic. Pop Evil is a mantra. Pop Evil is a way of life. Anyone who talks to the Canadian-born, Michigan-bred singer for longer than 23 seconds should be able to tell that much.

But some people — without naming names — who talk to Leigh Kakaty at length can push him too far.

About 30 percent of the way into transcribing my 25-minute conversation with him, it’s become increasingly clear I struck a nerve. Not that he, an absolute trouper, would have ever told me directly. But an unexpected benefit/curse of listening to a long-form interview at 70 percent speed on a digital recorder is that you pick up on the more subtle vocal cues that may not have been perceptible in the moment. Or, at least, not perceptible to a well-intentioned but unwittingly obtuse person such as myself.

To wit, I followed up on a line of questions that — in retrospect — clearly weighed heavily on his soul by making a dumb joke. And then I pushed even harder. ‘Oh, there’s a subtle cracking of the voice, and was that an erstwhile unnoticed sniffle?’ Either way, it’s now painfully clear that I put him in an emotional state he probably wasn’t quite prepared to be in when he called my cell phone for our scheduled interview.

But Leigh, to his credit, dug deep. I woke the lion and he roared, to crib a metaphor from the band’s recent No. 1 hit. He embraced his pain and channeled it into a touching, beautiful story I definitely wasn’t quite prepared to hear when I answered the phone.

Such is the Pop Evil way. Such is the way of Leigh Kakaty.

We chatted about the ever-changing state of rock ‘n’ roll, what he hopes fans take away from Pop Evil, and having nothing but a good time on tour.

Want to hear the rest?

Q&A

Nick Hexum Is A Rad Dad

Nick Hexum sure does have a lot of labels. Singer. Guitarist. Frontman. Trailblazer. Environmentalist. Entrepreneur. Midwesterner. Transplant. Los Angeleno (once removed). The list is long. But, perhaps, the most important thing you could call the 48-year-old Madison, Wisconsin, native is “family man.”

You see, when Hexum isn’t hard at work with his literal band of figurative brothers — brothers of band? — in the genre-blending rock mainstay 311, he’s at home with his lovely wife, Nikki, and three adorable daughters: Echo, Maxine and Harlow.

While the affable performer and musician can speak at length about many things with a great deal of earnest passion, there’s just something extra in his voice, a special lightheartedness — call it the vocal equivalent of a twinkle in his eye — when he’s talking about his little ones.

It’s sweet to hear Nick step outside the California-cool vibe one programmatically expects when talking to him. Unlike some of the band’s contemporaries, 311 has always been more about the feel-good flow than the angst of grunge or the aggro posturing of rap-rock, which is completely apparent when talking to its longtime vocalist.

Over the course of nearly three decades, Hexum — along with bassist Aaron “P-Nut” Wills, drummer Chad Sexton, guitarist Tim Mahoney and fellow mic-man and turntablist Doug “S.A.” Martinez — has been doing his thing with 311. The results? Fourteen studio albums (with one in the chamber), five EPs, a live album and a few dozen singles.

In the last 10 years or so, he’s added one spouse, three little girls and family that sounds pretty great to the catalog of his life (too cheesy? too bad, I’m leaving it).

But don’t take it from me; he’ll tell you all about it himself.

Q&A

Lea Thompson Looks Back & To The Future

Lea Thompson is three minutes late for our interview. She’s a bit frazzled after a long day of doing press, but she’s still the shining, brilliant actress you fell in love with so many times.

The reason she’s so busy today — and the reason she’s sitting down with me — is that her directorial debut is finally seeing its theatrical release and she’s covering all her bases when it comes to publicity. The Year of Spectacular Men — a project written and starring her daughter, Madelyn Deutch; also starring her daughter, Zoey Deutch; and produced by her husband, Howard Deutch — isn’t the first production Thompson’s helmed, but it is her first, full-length feature for the big screen. Perhaps the first of many.

When Alyssa Milano’s October 15, 2017, tweet entered the zeitgeist, Lea Thompson said “me too.” In doing so, she opened herself up to the proverbial slings and arrows. Perhaps in a parallel fashion, she was among the first; the first of many. But looking at a shifting Hollywood landscape, one in which boys may no longer be excused as “being boys,” is there hope that some young actress may be the last victim of such a culture?

Lea, bubbly and effusive in her exhaustion, brings a frantic, eager joy to our conversation, the same that she doubtless brings with her to every set onto which she steps. She opens up about watching her daughters grow up into strong women, coming out of a shell in which she allowed others to diminish her, and reclaiming her power. Oh, and Howard the Duck too.

Here’s what she had to say.

Movie Reviews

Grudge Match can’t go the distance

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Grudge Match is one of those movies that realizes it isn’t funny enough to just be a comedy and tries to fill the gaps with heart-thawing melodrama but ultimately fails in both ventures. If you’ve seen the trailer, you’ve laughed as much as you’re going to; it’s all an attempt to rope-a-dope you into the theater. The fact is you just can’t get two hours’ worth of solid comedy out of man-boob jokes and riffing on age vs. technology. There’s nothing wrong with shallow humor so long as it is as varied as it is plentiful.

Read more here.

Q&A

An interview with funny man Greg Behrendt

In advance of his shows at the Tampa Improv (Thursday, December 12-Sunday December 15), I got comedian Greg Behrendt on the horn to talk about life, love, laughter and weighing theoretical airplanes without a scale. It’s a task that may prove easier than a successful stand-up career spanning 20 years and a slew of best-selling relationship books (He’s Just Not That Into You, It’s Called

a Breakup Because it’s Broken).

Kevin Tall: Hello? Is this Greg? This is Kevin from Creative Loafing.
Greg Behrendt: How’s it going, man?

Doing great. So I was wondering, do you get the weekly edition?
Do I get the weekly edition of Creative Loafing?

Yeah, like the L.A. Times?
No… [laughing]

Fuck! I can’t sell shit!
[Laughing] Here’s the thing… You’re hilarious.

I try. I ask funny people serious questions and serious people funny questions, I dunno. Ask Dominic Monaghan.
I love it.

I feel sorry for anyone reading this not familiar with your material, not only because they’re missing out on a lot of laughs, but this interview is going to read like a bunch of inside jokes. But ya know what, fuck them if they don’t like chicken fingers.
I mean, fuck them if they don’t like chicken fingers! Here’s the thing, what we’re doing is we’re laying down the breadcrumbs for them to make their way back to real comedy.

Read more here.

Movie Reviews

Out of the Furnace burns out quickly

Out of the Furnace was adapted and written by director Scott Cooper (Crazy Heart, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me) on a spec script from first-time screenwriter Brad Ingelsby. It’s an ambitious, somewhat relatable tale of defying family legacy vs. playing the hand you’re dealt — not a bad start by any means.

However …

The lack of denouement is downright infuriating, although hardly that surprising considering the hands-off, deus ex machina fashion in which Russell’s legal issues are handled. Another frustration is the manner in which the film approaches deep and genuine social issues — the perpetual plight of the indentured working class and that of American combat veterans who get to come home — and then goes nowhere with them.

Read more here.

Movie Reviews

The Book Thief tries too hard

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The Book Thief is a study in contradictions: a personal account of life in German during WWII, but on a small enough scale that the cosmic relevance of such an existence gets lost. Viewers get to experience the dread inside the home when the SS is around, and the localization of such events does well to personalize the experience for viewers. But, at the same time, it mutes the overall horror and significance of WWII and the Holocaust on a global scale. One of the film’s strengths is also one of its greatest weakness; imagine someone wrote a somewhat-lighthearted screenplay from the Reader’s Digest version of Elie Wiesel’s Night and you’ll get the general idea.

Read more here.

Movie Reviews

A.C.O.D. is far from Grade-A

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A.C.O.D. is just as fractured, hesitant and insecure as a child of divorce. It’s not sure if it wants to be a comedy or tell a tale of self-reflection and growth in the face of stress. It’s not funny enough, nor is it plaintive enough to do well as either type of film.

Director and co-writer Stu Zicherman also penned Elektra … So there’s that; draw from it what you will. His partner in scribe, Ben Carlin, was a long-time writer — and former head writer — for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, explaining some of the sharper humor and irreverent approach to the dramatic subject matter. The pace is jerky and frenetic at times, not leaving the audience a chance to recover.

Read more here.