Snipped of code to finally have capistrano run db:schema:load on cold deploys. Paste this in your capistrano recipe.

deploy.rb

namespace :deploy do 
 task :load_schema, :roles => :db, :only => { :primary => true } do
    rake = fetch(:rake, "rake")
    rails_env = fetch(:rails_env, "production")
    migrate_env = fetch(:migrate_env, "")
    migrate_target = fetch(:migrate_target, :latest)

    directory = case migrate_target.to_sym
      when :current then current_path
      when :latest  then latest_release
      else raise ArgumentError, "unknown migration target #{migrate_target.inspect}"
      end

    run "cd #{directory} && #{rake} RAILS_ENV=#{rails_env} #{migrate_env} db:schema:load"
  end

 task :cold do 
   update_code
   load_schema
 end
end