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Disturbed promoting 'Indestructible' album at Mayhem Festival
by Christina Fuoco-Karasinski | Contributing writer
Thursday August 07, 2008,



Disturbed frontman David Draiman didn't have to think twice about joining the inaugural Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Festival.

"It's a very, very strong bill. Monster-movie bill," Draiman said with a laugh. "It's a pretty amazing package. We've been looking forward to joining forces with Slipknot for some time. We're glad that the Rockstar Mayhem organization was able to put everything together to make it happen.

"The rest of the lineup is super strong, between Mastodon, Machine Head, Airbourne, Black Tide, Five Finger Death Punch. It's a pretty amazing bill. I'm very proud to be a part of it."

Disturbed, best known for its staccato-driven hit "The Sickness," also joined the tour to promote its latest album, "Indestructible," a title that Draiman said has two meanings.

"One is it's a record meant to inspire indestructibility, meant to inspire strength and to strip you of your fear. The other is that it's a statement of the fact that we're still around. We're one of the last leviathans from the dawn of nu metal that are still standing, that were never really part of the genre to begin with."

The album includes covers of its own songs "Perfect Insanity" and "Divide."

"The whole idea was that we had loved those songs," he said. "We had always talked about doing a modern version of both of them. What better way to do it than pull a couple songs out of the treasure trove that never actually got to see the light of day from before that era?"

It may be a "treasure trove," however, it's not Disturbed's career highlight. Heading to Kuwait to play for the troops was "very truly a career moment for us."

"It was very, very moving," Draiman said. "Very overwhelming in terms of the gratitude. Their willingness to give us their time. Story upon story about how they've used our music for strength and for courage and stories about them mounting loud speakers atop helicopter gun ships and blasting stuff like 'Apocalypse Now' before they clear out an area of weaponry or into any kind of battle.

"We basically ate where they ate, slept where they slept, went for a ride on one of the Blackhawks. It culminated with playing to 10,000 troops all holding fully automatic weapons in a mosh pit. Stage left is a Bradley Fighting Vehicle and it's bouncing up and down from all the troops that are on top of it trying to get a better view. It was a really surreal sort of sight."