heraldnet


January 23, 2009

It's all emotion for Disturbed singer
David Draiman is almost jovial when he's not on stage, and that's the point.
By Andy Rathbun
Herald Writer



David Draiman remembers the first time he barked like an irritated jungle animal.

He was rehearsing "Down With the Sickness" with his bandmates in Disturbed. There was a pause early in the song. It felt like a void to Draiman, so he blurted out, "Oh-wha-ah-ah-ah!"

"Everybody looked at me funny, asked me what the hell I was doing," Draiman, 35, said. "I told them to humor me."

They did. Good call. The song ended up becoming one of the Chicago group's biggest hits. It inspired the title for Disturbed's 2000 debut, "The Sickness," which has sold 4 million copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Now one of the most successful acts operating in hard rock -- after "The Sickness," Disturbed's next three albums debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 -- the group plans to bring its bristling sound to Everett tonight for a show at Comcast Arena.

"Touring is our whole world," Draiman said during a phone interview from Milwaukee. "Everything is a means to that end."

Draiman's vocals -- rumbling verses broken up by the crack of his angry yelp -- have helped define the group, which also includes guitarist Dan Donegan, bassist John Moyer and drummer Mike Wengren. When Draiman auditioned for the band in 1996, however, he was hardly overconfident. He had been singing funk rock, like the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

"I had the worry that my vocalizations would not be appropriate for that kind of music, or that I wouldn't be able to match its power," he said of metal.

Truth be told, Draiman doesn't always sound like a hard rock frontman. That has little do with vocal power. He just sounds too happy. He laughed during one interview. A lot.

"I lead a relatively charmed existence," he said. "Part of the reason I'm able to have a normal, sane conversation with you is because of the music. It's cathartic."

Draiman has dealt with angst. When he was growing up, he was formally expelled from one boarding school and asked to leave four others, he said. The rigorous schedules and restrictive rules, which in some cases forbade interaction with the opposite sex, rankled him.

"I wasn't really so terrible," he said. "It was just the environment was incredibly oppressive."

Draiman eventually em-braced heavy metal, that misfit genre. With Disturbed, he helped cast the music as a gathering place for social rejects.

The cover for the group's third album, "Ten Thousand Fists," depicts a huge crowd of loners, united. And Draiman recalled one lasting image from a concert the group played in Europe: 80,000 raised fists.

Of course, Disturbed's music isn't about peace and love. It's about aggression. Take the group's recent single, "Indestructible," from the 2008 album of the same name. The lyrics act as a taunt against a person's enemies: "Take a last look around while you're alive."

Draiman said that song was meant as an anthem for "warriors," particularly the United States military. The band enjoys a large fan base among U.S. troops, and played a military base in Kuwait in spring 2008.

"They've utilized our music for strength and courage," Draiman said. "Over the years it's been more and more evident to us. We decided to write them something."

"Indestructible" is meant to supercharge a person before battle, but Draiman sees a different purpose for metal in general.

"I think that metal is always unfortunately the bastard child," he said. "It's meant to scare people."