Interview With David Draiman of Disturbed - 08/10/08
By: Cara Carriveau
Disturbed Bio
Disturbed is:
David Draiman - Vocals
Dan Donegan – Guitar / Electronics
Mike Wengren - Drums
John Moyer - Bass
Nearly a decade after the release of their groundbreaking
debut, The Sickness, Disturbed have become one of the
most passionate and well-respected bands in the hard-rock
universe, a dependable source not only of pummeling riffs
and jackhammer beats, but of personal and political insights
into our troubled times. Yet success (in the form of three
platinum-plus albums, with both Believe and Ten Thousand
Fists topping Billboard’s album chart and over ten million
albums sold) hasn’t dulled this Chicago-based foursome’s
taste for adventure. If anything, Disturbed’s loyal fanbase
has pushed the band to newer heights of self-expression.
So it makes sense that on the occasion of their fourth
album, Indestructible, that frontman David Draiman, guitarist
Dan Donegan and drummer Mike Wengren decided to take the
reins and produce themselves in the studio.
“Doing three records with Johnny K taught us a tremendous
amount,” Draiman says of the industry veteran who helmed
The Sickness, Believe and Ten Thousand Fists. “We’re always
trying to evolve and try new things and experiment,” adds
Donegan. “So this time we wanted to do things a little
bit differently.” Wengren says that Indestructible—which
the band tracked over three months in Fall 2007 at Chicago’s
Groovemaster Recording—afforded the band the “opportunity
to prove to ourselves and to everybody else that we could
do it.” The result of Disturbed’s experimentation in the
studio is the group’s darkest, angriest outing yet. Inspired
by two and a half years’ worth of challenging experiences,
Draiman told the rest of the band that he was in the mood
to purge. Fortunately, they were right there with him.
“We wanted to get back to some of the elements that were
maybe lacking on the last two records,” says Donegan.
“David’s got a great ability to sing really melodically,
but we wanted him to get back to the rhythmic, animalistic,
rapid-fire delivery he’s known for. He’s very hard to
touch when he does that, and we wanted to give him music
to provoke that.”
Indestructible reflects that intensity of emotion across
a broad spectrum of songs: “Deceiver” takes to task a
former girlfriend of Draiman’s whom he calls “a master
of deception.” “Divide” celebrates the will of the individual
against the conformity of the masses. In “Haunted,” which
Draiman calls a veiled critique of Los Angeles (where
he lived for a few years before recently moving back to
Chicago), a place of love becomes a nightmare landscape
populated by demons masquerading in human form. “Inside
The Fire” imagines the devil encouraging the singer to
take his own life as a way of rejoining his dead girlfriend.
(“Writing this record is the reason I don’t have therapy
bills,” Draiman notes.)
Two of the album’s most powerful tracks address the situation
in the Middle East, with “Enough” lamenting the causes
of war and the suffering it causes, and the title track
offering support for the troops “or anyone else looking
to strip themselves of fear,” as Draiman says.
Throughout Indestructible, Donegan, Wengren and Moyer
back up Draiman’s words with some of the most visceral,
sophisticated music they’ve ever created. Donegan says
his goal was to increase the dynamics—“to have the highs
be higher and the lows be lower”—and to make more cohesive
the relationship that exists between guitar, bass and
drums and the band’s signature electronics.
“I don’t wanna sound arrogant,” says Wengren with a laugh,
“but I think we’ve made the kind of record the industry
needs right now. There are not a lot of heavy bands delivering
these days. I think our fans—and fans of this genre—will
go absolutely nuts for this.” “People never lose their
desire for aggressive music,” adds Draiman. “And we’re
happy to keep giving it to them.”
2/08
For more information about Disturbed, please visit their official site at: http://www.disturbed1.com/