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Disturbed joins Sevendust and Skindred for a Thursday concert at the Horseshoe.
By Alan Sculley

Disturbed joins Sevendust and Skindred for a Thursday concert at the Horseshoe.

David Draiman, singer and lyricst for Disturbed had specific instructions for his bandmates when it came time to start writing music for the band’s recently released fourth CD, “Indestructible.”

He wanted the darkest, angriest and most gnarly music guitarist Dan Donegan, drummer Mike Wengren and bassist John Moyer could come up with. And Draiman said his bandmates were only too happy to oblige.

“They were like thank God,” Draiman said. “That’s exactly the mindset they had. They just wanted to know where my head was at as well. They fed me with exactly what I wanted to be fed with.”

For “Indestructible,” Draiman had plenty of real-life ammunition for his lyrics.

The previous three years had not been the best for the singer. There were some ugly romantic breakups, a motorcycle accident and then a garage fire that claimed a truck and the aforementioned newly repaired motorcycle.

The latter two events made for a bit of colorful story-telling from Draiman, who now seems to have a sense of humor about his misfortune.

“That (the motorcycle accident) was like insult to injury,” Draiman said. “I had to lay the bike down because this dude cut me off…I couldn’t slow down in time and I had to lay the bike down and scraped with it along the pavement for awhile with my arm. And then he took off, and I started to try and chase the guy down and a Mexican gentleman came by, rolled down the door and said ‘Jump in, let’s go get the guy.’ I jumped in with him, and chased him down. He pulled into this house. I took down his address and his license plate number, went back to the accident site where the police and the ambulance were waiting for me, gave me the info and they went and they got the guy.”

Draiman had the motorcycle repaired and one day was listening to some new music Donegan had demoed when a knock came on his door.

“It’s my neighbor saying, get out of your house. Your garage is going up,” Draiman said. “So the garage and the bike and my truck all end up in flames.”

From a strictly artistic standpoint, Draiman also felt it was time for Disturbed’s music to become darker, angrier and more sinister than it’s ever been. After releasing an agitated debut, “The Sickness,” in 2000, the band’s lyrics took a bit more hopefully stance on the 2002 follow-up, “Believe,” before an angrier tone re-emerged on the Chicago-based group’s third CD, the 2005 release, “Ten Thousand Fists.”

“It seemed to be the natural progression of things to go kind of back to darkness, if you will, and it was definitely where my mind and my heart were at,” he said.

Musically, Draiman said “Indestructible” has similarities to “The Sickness” (the debut that rocketed Disturbed to stardom, selling three million copies), only with greater musical sophistication and complexity.

“Musically, vibe-wise, the increased (vocal) syncopation, the increase in the poly-rhythmic nature of the drum and guitar playing, the increase of range, Danny’s soloing, everything seems to have intensified and taken this attitude to it that is a darker one, a more sinister one than I think we’ve seen from ourselves since the first record,” Draiman said.

Lyrically, Draiman has his share of agitated lyrics. But he also shows a topical side with two songs that relate to the Iraq war – “Enough” and the title track, the latter of which has reached number two on Billboard Magazine’s latest “Hot Mainstream Rock” singles chart.

“I support the troops with every fiber of my being. I don’t support them having their lives wasted,” Draiman said. “That’s why there’s a song like ‘Enough’ on the record, which speaks about the sadness of the proliferation of war. Then there’s also the title track, ‘Indestructible,’ which is in and of itself an anthem for the troops.”

The bond was only strengthened during a recent trip to Kuwait to perform for the troops. To say the least, it was a memorable event.

“Imagine playing to 10,000 fully armed soldiers with automatic weapons in a mosh pit, and to stage left is a Bradley fighting vehicle that about 50 of them are on jumping up and down,” Draiman said. “It was surreal, beyond surreal.”

Disturbed will play shows in more conventional venues in the months ahead, as the band begins a winter headlining tour.

Fans can expect to hear some of the songs from “Indestructible,” but with multiple hit songs from each of its three previous albums, Draiman said the group can no longer play every song it likes.

“We have so many staples that people want to here,” he said. “You can’t not give them certain obvious songs. So it’s a good problem to have, but it definitely gets challenging the further down the road you go with it.”