Nearly a decade after the release of their groundbreaking debut, The Sickness, Disturbed have become one of the most passionate and well-respected bands in the hard-rock universe, a dependable source not only of pummeling riffs and jackhammer beats, but of personal and political insights into our troubled times. Check out their website!
Chris- With the success of your first 3 albums (The Sickness, Believe, Ten Thousand Fists) Why did you guys decide to self produce Indestructible?
David- There comes a time for every bird to leave the nest. Johnny came as a great teacher. He taught us how to produce great records so we wanted to take the skills that we had learned over the years and see if we could apply them on our own. I think the results speak for themselves.
C- Congratulations on the continued success of Music as a Weapon tour. Do you guys pick the bands that are part of the tour?
D- Every time. Every time, we put a release through our agents. We put the word out to other agents to see who might be interested. They end up coming back to us with a list. After the list is compiled we look at the list. We pick bands that #1, we like, and #2 they have some heat to them, something to add to the tour. There are a number of factors involved. It’s always our decision and the primary factor in the decision making is and always will be our personal preference.
C- That’s great that you get to tour with bands that you like Killswitch Engage, Lacuna Coil.
D- Absolutely, we are fans of all those bands, and friends of all those bands. We are very excited about it.
C- How did the face on the cover of The Sickness album evolve into the character on Indestructible and Ten Thousand Fists?
D- Actually that’s a completely different guy. The face on the cover of The Sickness is that image is referred to as ‘The birth of the monster’. That’s what the piece is. That was done by a guy by the name of Paul Brown. He did all the artwork on the first record. He put it together great. It is actually his head poking through that thing. But how the guy himself has evolved over the past number of records is a very welcome evolution. We went with a two dimensional face initially, when it came to Ten Thousand Fists and we wanted to bring it to a more 3 dimensional life, we enlisted the services of Todd McFarlane, he did a great job of it. Than when we wanted to take it to the next level, a little more biting, we went to David Finch. He definitely raised the bar.
C- What was it like working with both Todd McFarlane and David Finch?
D- It was great. It was a great experience with both of them. They are fantastic artists. It was definitely worth it considering what the results were.
C- Do you guys bring your ideas to the table about what you want it to be? Or do you give them something and tell them to kind of roll with it?
D- We are pretty specific about it. We are always specific about what sort of imagery that we want to seek, what direction we want to go, always very particular about that.
C- Disturbed’s music started out being considered nu-metal; to me its sound has evolved. Was this on purpose?
D- It’s just really natural to be honest with you. It’s not a matter of anything intentional. It’s just how we have grown musically over the course of time, over the course of career. We really owe it to each other, and to be honest with you, I never really understood why we got lumped into that category. Other than the fact that we definitely benefited in the thrive in popularity at the time that our album came out. We never really had the stylistic qualities that are indiquitive of it. We don’t have the turntable, we don’t have the guy rapping, we don’t have all the things that stereotypically make up what nu-metal is.
D- Pardon me for a minute I have to get my dog up into the van.
C- What kind of dog do you have?
D- I have an akita dog.
C- I have a mutt. She is part yellow lab, part husky.
D- Oh, cool, I bet she is pretty.
C- Yeah, she has lab coloring, with husky shape to her.
D- sounds awesome
C- You guys have several songs on rock band, do you guys have more songs you plan on releasing on video games?
D- Yeah, as many as I can. I am all about it. I think we all feel rather strongly about taking part in every new wave of technology that comes out, and every vehicle that can appropriately carry the music. There are definitely certain things we won’t lend our music to, but guitar hero and rock band are certainly welcome. It’s amazing to think that a couple of video games did a good deal to bring rock back into the limelight a bit. It actually helped launch the career of a couple of bands. I think it is foolish to ignore such an opportunity.
C- What do you think the theme was when you put together Indestructible?
D- When we first sat down to have a discussion about what sort of vibe we wanted the record to have. The guys asked me where my head was at. I had just gone through two really difficult years, as far as life experiences go. Considering the kind of shit I’ve been through lately, just throw at me the most darkest, most brutal stuff that you can. They were only too eager to comply. Indestructible in of itself is pretty much the same purpose as every other record we have written. It’s definitely cathartic in nature, but first and foremost its meant to be empowering. It’s meant to be a soundtrack for strength.
C- Speaking of strength, I’ve heard that your music has been used for our troops to listen to before going out to war to help motivate them. What do you think of that?
D- I couldn’t be more proud. The music wasn’t meant to inspire destruction necessarily, but it was definitely meant to inspire fearlessness, and courage, and strength, and power. That is exactly what soldiers are looking for primarily when they are going into battle. They are sworn to their duty. They have taken an oath. They will follow it no matter what the orders are, and that’s worthy of tremendous honor. It’s never good when somebody has to take another human life, but it’s always good for people to strengthen themselves. It’s always good to have a vehicle to strip you of your fear. It’s an extreme duality of war. It’s ironic when we did the performance for Operation MySpace. It was very clear to see the dichotomy that existed, to see the marines who were there to be our guard while we were there, you have the most gung-ho guys on the planet sitting in the mess hall together eating, televisions turned up, to have CNN on a constant basis to see a report of casualties of war. The facial expressions changed immediately. You see the look of sorrow, the fear in the soldiers’ eyes. It than became very very clear to me that the most gung-ho soldier is inherently against war, and inherently against seeing their friend die, or giving up their life themselves. They risk that for the sake of their country. It’s a tremendously honorable thing.
C- The feeling you get from your songs, is probably why it is used for some wrestling themes as well.
D- All kinds of things, football games, it gets you pumped up. It’s the type of music people listen to when they are getting ready to workout, or when an athlete is about to take the field, or a soldier is about to take the field of battle, or when you are trying to drive home in traffic and the idiot in front of you won’t keep moving. It’s meant to get you through the difficult times.
C- When you go out on tour with different artists/bands do their styles influence your writing/performance?
D- They don’t really influence us stylistically but they certainly inspire us to step up our game. We always make sure to take bands out with us, to support us that are very very powerful in their own right. That is a force to be reckoned with. That are good enough, that make us feel challenged. We always look forward being among powerful company.
C- You guys have done music for several soundtracks, do you have future plans for soundtracks coming up?
D- It’s hard to say. Those opportunities don’t really exist much anymore. If you haven’t noticed people aren’t putting out as many soundtracks lately. It used to a fairly common thing. Nowadays its becoming less and less movies putting out soundtracks. I don’t know. I think should the right opportunity present itself. We try to record four or five extra tunes besides what ends up making the cut for the record. It’s always a battle when we have to try to choose. We write every song with the intention of it being a potential hit, to be that strong of a track, so ones that we actually end of leaving off the record for all intents and purposes can be contenders for radio singles in their own right. We want to keep a little bit of ammunition in our pocket in case the opportunity presents itself while we in the middle of touring. It’s always difficult to break away in the middle of a tour, or work in a studio, trying to record
C- Last time I saw you guys was at the Mayhem festival, you came out on stage like Hannibal Lector. Do you have any big entrances planned for this tour?
D- We certainly do. I’m not going to give it away. It’s definitely stepping up the drama considerably.
C- What do you guys do to prepare yourselves before you go up on stage?
D- There is a combination of things. We stretch out, massage, warm up in the room, and listen to some old school metal tunes. Me myself I need to make sure I’m all loose and limber, warm up vocally for an hour before the set, do a little bit of tai chi to center my energy
C- What are your influences?
D- Maiden, Priest, Metallica, Pantera, Queensryche,
C- I believe my time slot to talk to you is running out. I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me. I look forward to seeing you guys play when you come here to Baltimore.
D- I look forward to the show.
