 |
| Musician Interview With David Draiman of Disturbed |
|
June 1, 2006 - We got the chance to sit down with Disturbed frontman David Draiman before their show in St. Petersburg, FL and below is what David had to say to us.
FES: What was your goal with "Ten Thousand Fists" and do you feel you achieved it? DD: The Goal is never achieved (laughs). The Goal is to be able to expand beyond what you've ever already done and to be able to reach more people than you've ever been able to reach. So It's a limitless goal. FES: Where did find your lyrical inspiration for this album? DD: From life and from world events. The way that the growth of our career has impacted upon our individual lives and our relationships. The way that events political and otherwise around the world make us feel. FES: What are your personal favorites from Ten Thousand Fists and Why? DD: It's kind of hard to pick favorites out of a collection of songs like that; songs are kind of like children to us, it's really difficult picking a favorite child. They're special to us each one of them in their own way. FES: Do you have a personal favorite song to play? DD: I don't have personal favorites really. I have a special sort of love for each one of them. There are ones that more aggressive than others there are ones that are more mellow others. They suit the show where we place them. It's good to bring people through different levels of intensity. FES: Were there any reservations about covering Land Of Confusion? DD: Yeah there were. I was not necessarily and still am not necessarily a big Phil Collins fan, but Danny saw the video one morning; the old video with the puppets and what not. It struck a cord in his head with how much lyrically the song is contiguous with much of the message of the fists record and the basic keyboard line that runs through out the song is percussive, very staccato, very easily adaptable to a guitar riff. The more we worked with it the more compelling [a track] it became. FES: I think it's much better than the original. DD: Thank you. FES: How many songs did Disturbed have going into the studio and how did the band decide which songs would make it onto Ten Thousand Fists? DD: We had twenty. It was a very difficult process of deduction. Like I said each of them has a certain level of love in our hearts, It was difficult to chose. You chose based on what the record should feel like, you chose based on what the balance is between up-tempo to mid tempo to slower songs and just try to create a musical landscape for the record that seems appropriate. FES: How did Disturbed go about getting Spawn creator Todd McFarlane to do the artwork for Ten Thousand Fists album cover? DD: We sought him out. I'd been a fan of his work for years ever since he first started doing Spiderman when [the] Venom character was introduced. We wanted to have somebody who could bring to three dimensional life that two dimensional Icon, the menacing grinning face from the first record [The Sickness] that we call the guy, to turn him into a three dimensional character and we figured who's better at drawing big toothy frightening grins than Todd McFarlane, so sent him some material, he loved it and jumped on board. FES: How is Ten Thousand Fists different from Disturbed's first two albums? DD: I think it seems to combine a lot of the elements of the two records. The darkness sort of primal nature of 'The Sickness' and the more melodic and more complex nature of the 'Believe' record and kind of infuse them with steroids if you will. It’s just a representation of our heightened abilities through months and months of touring. FES: What are your thoughts on Ten Thousand fists going platinum? DD: Very happy with it. I hope that's not all it has to do. We're very pleased that it went platinum as quickly as it did a short four months' time. Somewhat surprised considering the environment that we're in which isn't necessarily as conducive as it use to be for a hard rock band. We're very proud of it. FES: Do you think it's possible we're coming to the end of hard rock as a genre of music? DD: No, not at all, not at all. Right now were stuck in the middle of a whole bunch of trend seekers. People who are so eager to jump on the bandwagon of the latest most fashionable trend musically and that is a lot of what has unfortunately has been killing rock in general is this commonality, two hundred bands that sound exactly the same as each other which have no real identity to any one of them. The genericism of it, the placidity of it. Unfortunately a lot of these hipster wannabe's have no idea how much damage they're actually doing. I think aggressive music will always be there, I think people will always have a need for it, I don't think its ever going to go away. There are plenty of bands who stand as a permanent statement of that whether it's us or Korn, System of a Down or Godsmack or anybody else, we're all still here and were not going anywhere anytime soon and when a tour like Ozzfest can still tour through the summertime and generate the kind of numbers it does I think it's testimony to the fact it's not going away anytime soon either. FES: Speaking of Ozzfest any chance Disturbed will be playing it this year? DD: There's always a chance we've been in talks with them but as of yet nothing has been confirmed. It’s going to be up to Sharon and company to decide (laughs) whether they're going to do that. {Editor's Note: Disturbed has been confirmed to play on the Ozzfest main stage}. FES: How difficult was it to integrate Bassist John Moyer into the band? DD: Not very. He's a great player he brings some other elements to the equation that we didn't have before in his style of playing, he's a pick player as apposed to a finger player it gives a different sort of resinous to the playing a different sort of ability for those notes to cut through, he's a lot steadier than our last guy was, he's a good guy and we jelled really well live with him on stage vibe wise he fits with the band it really hasn't been a difficult transition at all. FES: Disturbed has been around for 10 years, what are some of the hardships you've been through and how has the band grown since Disturbed was formed in 1996? DD: Probably the greatest hardship was emerging as a prominent band in a city that was not a breeding ground for hard rock bands. Chicago has always been more known to be an indie rock town. Bands like the Smashing Pumpkins, Local H they're the ones who really dominated the scene, when we came out we were an anomaly. It was very difficult for us to actually get gigs at inner city clubs. There was this little group, this click of people who we're either in these bands or had friends in these bands or friends of friends of these bands and they all booked each other and they all took care of one another and we were always outcasts but it ended up working to our benefit because we were forced to play in the fringes of the Chicago area in the outskirts in the south suburban clubs and we built up tremendous following that has been very, very loyal to this very day. It made us work harder for it, we had only played local inner city clubs like twice before we actually got signed. We're actually thankful for the way things ended up working out. FES: How has Dimebag Darrell's tragic death affected you personally? DD: It's affected the whole band very traumatically; we were very close with Dime. The Pantera guys in general kind of showed us the way from our very first Ozzfest, our after shows were always in the Pantera dressing room we would always kind of watch them with awe and learned as much as we could from their live performances and from the way they interacted. Dime was just such a charismatic guy and so much more than just a guitar player, he was definitely a major, major component of the success of Pantera and we miss him very much as a friend. We hope that wherever he is he's having a black tooth, kicking back and smiling looking down at us. FES: Disturbed have had songs, which were censored for radio station play. What are your overall thoughts on censorship and do you feel radio stations should or should not be required to censor music? DD: I think the record is what it is. We don't specifically seek to place profanity within the music it's only where it's appropriate and where it feels right. Sometimes profanity is very powerful when it's used appropriately. For instance on the Fists record there's really not much of it at all, it all depends on the vibe it's not formulaic by any means. You have to be responsible as a radio programmer to be sensitive to the fact there could be younger listeners. When your talking about something that is FCC regulated they don't really have much of a choice and I understand it. But a lot of the tracks for instance 'Down With The Sickness' is one of those tracks and that was a song that was actually never intended to be a single it became one sort of by a fluke so I understood the necessity for the editing, I thought because of the lyrical content and because of the darkness inherent within the song it would never get radio play so the fact they did find a way to play it that was acceptable I was somewhat thankful for. FES: What was the inspiration behind Down With The Sickness? DD: The idea behind it is the way society treats individuals that are different from the norm. That they depict individuality as if it is some sort of sickness as if it is a disease, that's the whole idea as it's kind of encouraging that train of thought, that rant which was removed from the radio edit portion of the song depicts an abuse sequence and that abuse sequence is meant to be an analogy it's not meant to be taken literally it's meant to depict the mother culture of society as this motheristic sort of figure that is trying to beat the child who is yearning for individuality into submission. That's really where the soul of the song comes from. FES: As you were recording Down With The Sickness did the band have any idea of the power the song would deliver? DD: I don't think any of us had any idea, they all gave me some very serious funny looks when I first tried making that noise it was just one of those things that happened very naturally and organically and certainly wasn't calculated or forced. FES: What are your thoughts on "Down With The Sickness" being used in a crucial scene of the remake of Dawn of The Dead? DD: I loved the version that was used. The Richard Cheese version I thought it was great very tongue in cheek and very appropriate for the scene in which it was cast. FES: How Important do you think online publications such as Florida Entertainment Scene are in helping to get the word out about bands such as Disturbed? DD: I think online publications and the Internet in general are integral to the promotion of any band and for that matter the promotion of anything. You can't shut out the future and can't shut out technology that moves faster than a lot of people are willing to go with and you have to embrace it and make the most of it. FES: Can we expect guitar solos from Dan tonight? DD: Oh yeah, several. We've been very, very proud of him and very happy that he's decided to unleash his fury upon the world. FES: Do you have anything to say to your fans that read this interview? DD: Just that we thank them very much for their support. They continue to keep on giving us gifts day after day and we're very, very happy they still believe in us and that we still have a chance to do what we love most. FES: David, I thank you your time and I wish you much success. DD: Thank you. Disturbed is: David Draiman - Vocals Dan Donegan - Guitarist Mike Wengren - Drummer John Moyer - Bassist Disturbed is from Chicago, IL and tour on a regular basis. For more band information log onto: The Disturbed Website. To sample music visit the Disturbed page at myspace.com. Musician Interview by Michael Montes - Copyright © 2006 Florida Entertainment Scene - All Rights Reserved. |
|
| Copy code below to add our banner to your website: |
 |