post-gazette.com


Music Preview: Disturbed aims for metal liberation at Mayhem
Thursday, July 31, 2008
By Shay Quillen, San Jose Mercury News


Joey Lawrence.
There is no end in sight to the rage and frustration for Disturbed, despite the band's recent commercial success.

You wouldn't think the lead singer of Disturbed, David Draiman, would have anything left to scream about.

He recently moved in with a woman he calls his "darling, beautiful angel." His band's new CD, "Indestructible," debuted at No. 1 -- just as the previous two did. And now his quartet has been tapped to co-headline the Rockstar Mayhem Festival, the new summer metal extravaganza from Warped Tour creator Kevin Lyman, which hits the Post-Gazette Pavilion on Saturday.

But Draiman, 35, says there is no end in sight to the rage and frustration that fueled anthems like "Down With the Sickness" and the new album's "Inside the Fire."

"The world doesn't seem to be getting any more peaceful; it only gets more tumultuous," he says from his Chicago home. "Plus, truth be told, the more success you have and the further you climb up the ladder, the easier it is for people to hit you with the slings and arrows. So the challenge gets greater; it doesn't diminish."


Draiman was a rebellious yeshiva student who became inspired by the bands on Chicago's punk and indie scenes.

"That's really where I got my start," he says. "Just seeing the energy exchange between them and the crowd made me want to strive to be as good or better."

Draiman founded Disturbed in 1996, along with guitarist Dan Donegan and drummer Mike Wengren (current bassist John Moyer joined in 2004). The band got a break when it landed an opening slot on the Ozzfest tour in 2000, and it moved up to a headlining slot the following year.

"It was how we learned to do what we do," he says. "It's a training ground for metal bands, and we definitely learned a lot from bands like Pantera, and from Ozzy and Black Sabbath themselves, and numerous others who made us want to step up our game time and time again."

The band made its last appearance on the tour in 2006. "It became more corporate," he says. "They seemed to not be as respectful to the fans toward the end. It just lost its vibe."

With Ozzfest limited to one show in Texas this year and no Family Values Tour around, there was a gap in summer metal offerings, and Kevin Lyman swooped in.

Lyman says metal labels were swamping him with requests to get their acts on the Warped Tour, after seeing the bounce metalcore band As I Lay Dying got from performing on the tour, which mainly focuses on punk rock.

"It kind of dawned on me," Lyman says from the Warped Tour convoy in New Mexico: "Now I have punk bands, emo bands, screamo bands, post-hardcore, rap -- everyone wants to be on the Warped Tour, and I can't accommodate everyone."

Meanwhile, the agent for Disturbed and Slipknot was eager to see the two bands tour together, and Rockstar Energy Drink was amped to get its name out to hordes of sweaty kids. And so, the Rockstar Mayhem Festival was born.

Slipknot and Disturbed are the big draws, but Lyman is most excited about boosting up-and-coming bands such as DragonForce, Airbourne and Suicide Silence. It's an area where he feels other metal festivals have fallen short. "If we're going to survive," he says, "the metal world needs to try to develop a scene of cultivating new headliners."

No matter how the new tour goes, Disturbed has already had a memorable year for live performance. In March, it traveled to Kuwait, 15 miles from the Iraqi border, to perform for U.S. troops at the Operation MySpace show.

Draiman says countless soldiers shared stories about how the band's music had helped them through the trying conditions. "They mounted loudspeakers on helicopter gunships, 'Apocalypse Now'-style, and blasted our music while going into battle."

But nothing compared to taking the stage in front of 10,000 jacked-up soldiers wielding automatic weapons.

"Seeing the joy and strength that it brought everyone was really one of those experiences that I'm going to tell my grandchildren about," he says.

Metal has been linked to nihilism and suicide, but Draiman insists the music of Disturbed is meant to make listeners feel, well, indestructible.

"It is meant to be a record that strips you of your fear and makes you feel strong," he says of the new album. "It is meant to be something that is liberating. That's always been what metal has done for me.