Coal Chamber vocalist/lyricist Dez Fafara is a haunted man.

At the age of 10, he watched helplessly as his stepfather committed suicide by placing a shotgun in his mouth and pulling the trigger. In high school, he was verbally and physically punished by his peers for looking like an outsider.

His wife, a practitioner of Wicca and an ex-member of a coven, left him because he refused to give up his dream of becoming a musician. He spent several long, frustrating years playing music with heroin addicts that could never get anything done.

Yet, Fafara is a happy man.

His band, Coal Chamber, recently released a self-titled album that is selling faster than Popsicles in hell.

The group just finished up its well-deserved slot on last summer’s OzzFest tour (where the group picked up Ozzy Osbourne’s wife, Sharon, as its manager), which beat out Lollapalooza, HORDE and the Further Festival in terms of sales and popularity, and is currently touring with Megadeth. A tour with Pantera and Anthrax begins later this month.

So why won’t he smile?

He sits alone on the group’s tour bus, surveying his closed surroundings with a frown on his face. By most people’s standards, living on a bus would be hell.

But for Fafara, it’s better than home, which happens to be a one-bedroom apartment that he shares with fellow band mates Rayna Foss (bass), Mike “Bug” Cox (drums) and Miguel “Meegs” Rascon (guitar).

Coal Chamber’s tour bus has all the extras, including a satellite connection and a bar. According to Foss, the bar gets used, while the satellite is always on with nobody watching. When she isn’t doing interviews before concerts, she can usually be found rollerblading. Fafara is often seen drinking whiskey and smoking pot.

“I love good herb,” he explained. “That is my favorite thing – good herb. Oh, and whiskey. I love whiskey, too.”

Immediately following the statement, he tells his tour manager to send somebody out to buy him some whiskey.

He hands the manager a hundred dollar bill and mumbles something about hoping that will buy enough whiskey to get him through the night. He will later be seen after the concert being helped back onto the bus by two roadies.

A haunting beginning

The seeds for Fafara’s transformation from outcast to lyricist/vocalist occurred when he was in high school. He took a creative writing class and it changed his entire life.

“That affected me 100 percent,” he said. “My creative writing teacher was my hero in school. I sucked at math and I sucked at anything having to do with pushing buttons or anything like that. It was really weird. I cannot touch mathematics and I can’t do math, but creative writing is killer.

“I can just be sitting here right now,” he disclosed “and grab a little piece of paper and write down something that I thought, something that happened to me during the day or whatever. I’ve got almost 80 songs for the next album. But we’re not thinking about that right now.”

Coal Chamber was formed three years ago when Fafara met Rascon, who responded to an ad looking for musicians that Fafara had placed. The two immediately clicked and they started looking for other musicians.

The first person they recruited was Foss, who happened to be a friend of Fafara’s ex-wife. Foss, who had never even touched a bass until she got one for her 18th birthday, was a dance instructor teaching tap dance at the time. Cox joined the band shortly after.

The group’s first gig was eight days after the group was completed at the Roxy in Hollywood. Fafara and Foss both remember it as a complete flop. The group played three songs for six people and then left. But the groundwork was set for the future and, as Fafara pointed out, it was better than playing with junkies.

“[With junkies] nothing can get done,” he said. “No one can get to rehearsal or do anything. Any drug that takes over your body is wrong, any drug that you can’t perform your daily functions on is wrong. Some people smoke weed and then sleep all day. I can smoke weed and run a marathon. People’s chemistries are different.”

The group went on from the Roxy to tour for three years before finally releasing its debut CD, “Coal Chamber,” on Roadrunner Records. During those three years, the band became tighter but not necessarily richer. If it wasn’t for a kind-hearted porno star, the group probably wouldn’t have made it.

“It was great sex and good money,” Fafara said. “She kept us fed. If it wasn’t for this actress, this girl who did quite a bit of movies, we would have starved. The whole band was living in a one bedroom with my dogs, basically. Rayna was living in the kitchen and this girl came along and supported us all for a long time, which was really cool.

Fafara had previously supported himself as a construction worker in Hollywood, until he fell off of some scaffolding and hurt his back. He was then employed as a hair stylist, creating high profile images for people like Lisa Marie Presley and Sharon Stone.

Now the group doesn’t really have to worry about money. Its debut CD is still selling really well, partly powered by the hit single “Loco,” and the group tours almost every day of the year. “I was home four times last year,” Fafara said.

Finding peace

Fafara is obsessed with sex, drugs and the supernatural – “everything from God to Jesus to aliens,” he said, “spirits, ghosts, dimensional worlds, the folding of time and space. I believe in everything that is unseen.”

Does that include government conspiracies?

“Don’t I live in the United States of America?” he responded through a gale of laughter. “Of course I believe in government conspiracies.”

He is also obsessed with tattoos and he has a lot of them adorning his body. His band’s name is on his right arm, his best friend’s name (Plum) is on his forearm, and a roadrunner (in reference to his record company) is on his left arm.

He also has four little stars on his arm which represent the group’s members and a big red star on his forearm which symbolizes the members together as one entity.

“I’ve always liked the whole subculture of tattooing and piercing,” he explained. “I had my nose pierced and tattoos all over me when I was 15 and that was a big deal, you know? It provides some source for my inside to be shown on my outside to people.

“Oddly enough,” he continued, “I trust a roomful of bikers and people like that with all kinds of tattoos and piercings. I feel more comfortable with them than I would in a room full of suits. When they go home at night, they are the ones that are alcoholics and beat their wives and this and that. They don’t know how to show themselves on the outside.

“I think that’s a big problem for society,” he added. “I mean, every tribe throughout history has shown themselves in some way through outward appearance by tattooing or piercing or whatever. It’s a form of humanity that is not practiced now by our culture and I think that’s a shame.”

But Fafara must leave these comments to be pondered upon later. He has to get ready (which involves dying his hair and painting his face) to rock a crowd of several thousand people who are waiting inside of Des Moines’ Supertoad.

Before he leaves, he turns around and briefly looks lucid. “You know,” he said, “the only place that I fit in is the world I’m at right now and that’s because everyone is just like me. I’ve found my identity, I’ve found a home in my band and in being on the road. This is me. I’ve found myself.”

Fafara then smiles, turns around and disappears into the night.