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Indestructible windy city rockers pick up the tempos and (self) produce a raging tempest
By Mikael Wood

When the members of Disturbed felt the time was right earlier this year to begin discussing plans for the follow-up to 2005’s Ten Thousand Fists, they did what any self-respecting metal band would do: They held a lunch meeting.

“But it was as metal as a lunch gets,” says singer David Draiman with a laugh. Draiman met with his bandmates—guitarist Dan Donegan, bassist Mike Wengren, and bassist John Moyer—at Chicago’s Fogo de Chão, a Brazilian-style steakhouse where “guys walk around with different cuts of meat on spits and they cut it for you at the table,” Draiman says. “It just keeps coming as long as you want. It’s like a Viking meal.”

Inspired by a rash of “back-to-back bullshit” including a motorcycle accident, a fire at his house that destroyed several vehicles, and “a whole bunch of bad relationships,” Draiman told the rest of the band that he “really wanted to get angry this time. I told them that that’s where my head was at and that I needed them to give me fast, furious, crazy shit. ‘Go nuts. I want it brutal and I want it dark. Give me stuff that I’m going to want to go into that direction with.’”

About a month and a half into making the album—tentatively titled Indestructible and due out this spring on Reprise Records—Draiman says the new material is living up to his ambition. “A couple of these songs do open up with the signature prayer-esque chorus,” he says. “We can’t avoid that; it just happens. But there’s a lot of them that don’t. A lot of them don’t get pretty at any given point.”

REVOLVER After recording your three previous albums with Johnny K, you guys are producing the new album yourselves. Why?
DAVID DRAIMAN Just the notion that if we don’t know what we’re doing by now, then we shouldn’t be doing it. You hopefully learn while working with anybody. And Johnny taught us a lot; he’s a great producer. But we wanted to give it a try on our own. We’d actually like to start doing a little more of it. Danny and I both have bands that we do production with occasionally on the side. It would be good for us to start off by saying, “Look, this is what we do for our own band, as well.”

Has producing yourselves changed the process in the studio?
Nah, it’s always done the same way. To be honest with you, no aspect of it, in terms of what is done as a producer, is missing on any level, because my two harshest critics are my guys. And so am I of them. We’re always giving each other completely different perspectives that we would never have seen to begin with. That’s exactly what a producer’s supposed to do: show you areas to go into that you wouldn’t originally have thought of yourself. We continue to do that with one another, so it works out that way anyway. We always have, really; the arrangements pretty much were what they were when we hit the studio. Johnny was great at helping us with the flavor, tightening parts and enhancing things. He’s got a great ear for stuff. So we learned, and now that I’ve been able to sit back and listen to stuff, I don’t have a single concern.

Describe the new music.
This material is darker than the previous two records. It’s got a lot more of the signature syncopated vocal style that I haven’t used as prevalently on the past two records. It was more so a signature part of the first record, and it’s much more present in this material. It’s just a darker, angrier record.

Believe and Ten Thousand Fists weren’t exactly jolly.
No, not at all. But this one’s very clearly pissed off. The vibe is meaner and more brutal, and the overall tonality of it is very different.

The approach you’ve used on the previous albums has helped Disturbed sell millions of CDs. Ten Thousand Fists debuted at No. 1. Is it a risk to change things at this point?
I don’t think so. I think it’s time; I think it’s been lacking. There’s enough people doing enough pretty stuff out there. I love the ladies, but I’ve said from the beginning that I’d rather be the band that scares all the girls than the band that gets all the girls. And I think we gotta get back to that—although I could definitely see several of these songs becoming strip-club anthems. They usually do.

Disturbed fans tend to be an extremely devoted bunch.
They’ve been waiting for this. They want this. You go to a band like us for what we are about to deliver; that’s why you listen to a band like Disturbed. This one does it more effectively than any record I can think of that we’ve done. Rhythmically, the variations are all over the place. Mikey’s playing is ridiculous. Danny is shredding all like crazy and being very intricate and cool with his solos—they’re like little songs in and of themselves. And I’m going to places I haven’t been before and going back to places I haven’t been to since the first record. It’s different, but not in any way that’s gonna estrange anyone. It’s gonna pull some of the people who’ve left the path since the first record back in a little bit. And who knows? Along the way it may end up getting some that never paid attention to us in the first place.

Is that of interest to you right now?
It’s always of interest to us. Always. I would love to be able to affect and to give what this music gives to as many people as possible. I’ll give you an example: A master sergeant in the Army came to one of our shows recently after his third or fourth tour in Iraq. He told his story to the security backstage, they let him through. He was carrying his bronze star and said he wanted to give it to us. First of all, I told him there was no way I could possibly accept that. And then he began to explain why. He said that before every incursion, before every village he went into, before every house they cleared, they’d play our music to get themselves pumped up, to get rid of their fear, to feel strong. That’s what I want to give to anyone who wants it: strength, power, the ability to feel like you can do things and be indestructible. If our music can bring that feeling to more people, then why the fuck not?

Is some of the anger on the record about the war?
Part of it, sure. But you know something? It’s really not focusing on that anymore, because it is what it is. I’ve already talked about it, and I try not to beat a dead horse. I still don’t like it. But there are songs on this record that are for the troops directly. The title track, “Indestructible,” is an anthem for the troops; they could march to it.

Is that a contradiction in your view?
Not at all. I don’t approve of the reason. But I approve of people who are ordered to do what they have to do doing what they have to do. They’re there protecting our country and way of life and fighting for everything they believe in. I have no issue with that whatsoever. My issue is with the president and with the people who make the decisions and with the continued justification of something that is unjustifiable.

Your music seems to connect with people who find themselves in the position of having to do dirty work on behalf of figures of authority.
I think that’s a very accurate assessment.

Why?
I don’t know—maybe because it’s written by one of them? This is music for and about people who are not satisfied with things, who think that something is fucked up and that something should be done about it. There’s nowhere else to scream—this is their place.