Disturbed

Disturbed's Lyrics Are Even Darker Than Normal

For the last month or so, Disturbed have been holed up in a Chicago recording studio, working on material for their upcoming fourth album, tentatively titled Indestructible and slated for a spring 2008 release. According to frontman David Draiman, the follow-up to 2005’s Ten Thousand Fists — which has sold close to 1.5 million copies in the U.S. alone — is “dark, very dark,” lyrically as well as musically. In fact, Draiman believes it’s much more complex and foreboding than anything they have done during their 10 years together.

When someone like Draiman tells you his lyrics are even darker than normal, you’ve got to ask the man what inspired his bleak prose.

“Dude, I’ve had a f—-ed-up couple of years,” he admits with a snicker. “All kinds of horrible stuff went on. Bad breakups; I’ve had my garage burn down with all of my vehicles in it; I had a bad motorcycle accident that took off a whole bunch of skin from my forearm — just bad luck. It’s been a fierce past couple of years, and all kinds of sh— has gone down. This is therapy, man — I need to get this sh— out of me.”

Just how dark are Draiman’s lyrics? “There are a couple of [songs] that people will probably take issue with,” he said. “One in particular I can see becoming a problem, but I hope not. I have a funny feeling that some of the Bible Belt people might not be too happy with this.”

Disturbed toured with 10 Years and Ill Niño in support of their third album Ten Thousand Fists, released worldwide on September 20, 2005, which also debuted at #1 in North America. Ten Thousand Fists had five B-side tracks that were not released on the album, but rather on various singles and other albums. Currently the track “Hell” can be found on the “Stricken” single (a second version of this single has the studio version of the track “Dehumanized”, which was originally featured as a live track on the “Music as a Weapon II” live album and DVD). The track can also be heard on the band’s Myspace page. The track “Monster” was originally released as part of an iTunes pre-order package for the first people who pre-ordered Ten Thousand Fists. Afterwards, the track was very hard to find. But, it can now be found on the “Tour Edition” of Ten Thousand Fists (along with the track “Two Worlds”). The track “Sickened” can be found on the “Land of Confusion” single, which is a cover of a Genesis song. The fifth and final track “Criminal” has currently not been released to the public, but is reported to be included as a B-side on the new single, Inside the Fire. A month after the release of Ten Thousand Fists, Disturbed headlined the Jägermeister tour along with the band Bloodsimple.

Disturbed supplied the song “Stricken” for WWE’s New Year’s Revolution 2006. In April 2006, the band completed an Australian tour supporting Korn and sharing the tour with 10 Years and Hatebreed. In mid 2006, a European tour was scheduled but had been moved twice due to the band’s frontman having troubles with his voice.

I had been taking Prevacid for about four years and my body built up a resistance to it, to the point where it wasn’t doing anything anymore…I had a night of drinking in London followed by a full day and night of drinking on a day off in Dublin, because what else is there to do in Ireland but drink? That, coupled with a show where I had monitor problems, and I pretty much trashed my voice.