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Q&A: Disturbed singer David Draiman

You guys have done Ozzfest before. How does this compare?

It reminds me of the early Ozzfest days. It’s a much more laid back vibe. Very communal. Not quite as corporate feeling. The bands interact with each other on all sides of the spectrum. There isn’t a separation of the stages. They’re allowed to come see us play, we go to see them play. And there’s also a really nice, unspoken sense of competition. Because you go ahead and watch other bands throw down and it just makes you wanna throw down harder. It’s inspiring. Everybody who comes to see the show ends up getting to reap the benefits of it.

Can you tell me one crazy or hilarious thing that’s happened on the tour?

Crazy or hilarious… well, I can tell you crazy, unfortunately. Our crew got into a really bad accident. Their bus wrecked on the way to Virginia Beach, in South Carolina. Off the road. There are pictures of it on the Internet all over the place. Went into the forest, into trees and just decimated the bus. Our drum tech, Nate, was hospitalized. He had to have some reconstructive surgery on his leg, a plate and a bunch of pins put in. It’s a miracle that nobody actually got hurt worse than that. The rest of the crew, all they really suffered were some bumps and bruises, and actually showed up for the show the next day. Got on another bus and worked the damn show. That’s a real testimony to their dedication and their perseverance and their work ethic, and we’re just so, so grateful that no one died, that nothing extensively tragic happened. We’re very sorry about what happened to Nate, but he’ll eventually come back. He’ll rehabilitate, he will be alright, so it’s good that they all escaped what could have been a very untimely demise.


Disturbed bassist John Moyer flashes the metal sign. Disturbed played foosball deep in the bowels of Nassau Coliseum earlier in the day. No lie.

If there’s one band on this tour other than Disturbed that’s a must see, who is it and why?

I don’t know that I can only pick one. Y’know, Slipknot is Slipknot. It’s an extravaganza. It’s almost too much stimuli. It’s hard to take it all in sometimes—it batters you. Machine Head is just unbelievably powerful. The Five Finger Death Punch guys have come a long, long way since they opened for us on the warm-up run, and they’re really tearing up the side stage. Airbourne, bringing the straight-up rock, AC/DC-style, and just leaving it all out there onstage. There’s so many great, great bands. Underoath. The Dragonforce guys doing what they do—you gotta love a band with a keytar player. Those guys are just hysterical, and great guys, and unbelievably talented. So you have any number of heavyweights on this bill. Everyone has something very tangible to add and is worth checking out.

That guy on the cover of Indestructible and Ten Thousand Fists. He’s pretty badass. What’s up with that guy?

He originally just came from a two-dimensional, menacing, grinning face that I’m sure you’ve seen prior to the three-dimensional version of him. That came from way, way back in the day when we were unsigned and still touring the south suburbs of Chicago. We needed a logo, something to put on our t-shirts aside from our faces, which we never really wanted to do. Anyway, I sat down with a buddy of mine and said, “How about just a menacing, grinning face? Like’s he’s got something to hide, something coming.” And he kinda sketched it on his graphics program in almost stick figure fashion, and used some other piece of software to warp it, to kind of distort it, and that became the first image of The Guy. When Fists came along, we wanted to see if [Spawn creator and comic book artist Todd] McFarlane could make a three-dimensional version to make him more of an actual character as opposed to just a symbol. And then with this record, [comic book artist] David Finch took it even further. We wanted it more brutal, more dark and visceral. And we thought he definitely accomplished that with this one.