As chart-topping American metal act Disturbed head here, frontman David Draiman talks to Scott Kara about exorcising demons and throat-clearing techniques
KEY POINTS:
It was a fine week for metal when Disturbed's latest album came out in New Zealand in June. Not only did Indestructible debut at No 1 - and the Chicago mainstream metallers have remained in the top 10 since - but metal veterans Judas Priest and Iron Maiden, and Sweden's Opeth, were simultaneously lurking in the album charts.
It's no surprise to Disturbed's lead howler, David Draiman, who's distinguishable by tusk-like piercings protruding from his bottom lip, that metal fans still buy the "real thing" in this age of digital downloads.
"There's a different level of devotion [in metal] that's less fleeting than in some of these other music genres. They're less likely to abandon you," he laughs, in his dark throaty chuckle down the the phone from Scranton, Pennsylvania, where the band is on tour before heading to New Zealand for two shows, including one at Vector Arena on Tuesday.
"They want to have a piece of the band. They wanna have the art work, the lyrics, the thank-yous, the whole story."
This tribe-like devotion and sense of community is why Draiman got into metal when he was growing up and it was bands like Iron Maiden who inspired him to join Disturbed in the mid-90s, instead of going to law school or getting a real job.
"We derive what we do from powerful influences that we are up front in giving credit to, like Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Metallica and Pantera.
"These are the bands that made us want to play. We haven't reinvented the wheel," he laughs again.
As modern metal bands go, Disturbed are among the biggest here and in the US.
During their last visit in 2006, they played a sold-out show at the Auckland Town Hall on the back of third album, Ten Thousand Fists. This time round, with the release of Indestructible, they're bigger and make the step up to Vector.
Since releasing their 2000 debut The Sickness in New Zealand, which sold about 7500 copies, they have been on an upward trajectory with second album Believe (2002) selling 15,000 copies, Ten Thousand Fists (2005) more than 20,000, and Indestructible looking like being their biggest yet.
Draiman says the band's formula for producing their polished and melodic brand of metal - something metal purists scoff at - isn't rocket science.
"We give our fans what they've come to expect from us - a rhythmic, powerful, and inspirational kind of music," he says.
"It's music that gets you home from work, enables you to get that extra in when working out, or the kind that gives you strength to take the battlefield, or to take the field if you're an athlete. That's what our music is geared for."
One bitter disappointment on Indestructible, I suggest to Draiman, is that it takes five songs before he breaks out his trademark guttural throat-clearing yowl, that goes something like "Ooh-wa-a-a-ah", on Perfect Insanity.
"It's a different version of it," he laughs, getting the joke. "The staccato, primal scream thing that I do some of the time just kind of fits with the tribal nature of the music and in particular the rhythm of that song just begged for it."
Elsewhere there are destructive demons and serious matters dealt with on Indestructible, the band's darkest album to date.
"It was time for us to revisit our roots," says Draiman. "To go back to the darkness that gave birth to us. To go back to that primal place that bore Disturbed."
On Inside the Fire Draiman revisits the suicide of one of his girlfriends. When he was younger he had nightmares about it and at the end of last year they returned.
"It's ironic that when your mind tends to be finally in a state of peace, and things in your life are going relatively well, that seems to be the most opportune times for the demons to come out and the things you kept locked up for quite sometime find their way out. So it was time to deal with it.
"These songs have always been our catharsis, and mine in particular, and I've always utilised the gift of this band to exorcise my own internal demons and to use it as therapy. So when the nightmares began again I approached the guys and said this is where I was thinking of taking the song. It is ... a taboo issue for any metal band to make any reference to suicide. But they said, 'Do what you do'. So I did," he says.
Which is all very well - but how do you ensure the songs don't come across woe-is-me and melodramatic?
"Our music is about overcoming," says Draiman. "It's different from other bands in the genre who simply write about being sad. We're writing about being angry and using our anger, focusing it and channelling the energy and make something of it and conquering our demons. The music and the songs are all about strength and power. This is what happened. This is how horrible it is. And this is how I kicked its arse."
LOWDOWN
Who: Disturbed
What: Mainstream metallers from Chicago
Playing: Vector Arena, Auckland, Tuesday; TSB Bank Arena, Wellington, Wednesday
New album: Indestructible, out now.
Past albums: The Sickness (2000); Believe (2002); Ten Thousand Fists (2005)
