It’s been two decades since drummer Mike Wengren and guitarist Dan Donegan held auditions to find a much-needed frontman for their new band (then known as Brawl).
After seeing dozens of singers, both Wengren and Donegan started to lose hope – until in walked David Draiman, a 23-year-old Jewish guy who had previously worked as a healthcare administrator. He had an air of confidence that impressed them, and a catalogue of original songs, but it wasn’t until he opened his mouth and sang that the two aspiring musician buddies knew they’d found someone special. “From the very beginning, we knew that together we had something,” Wengren says over the roar of a crowd.
“I apologise for the noise!” he yells. “I’m at an ice hockey game. It’s the Detroit Red Wings against the Philadelphia Flyers – they’re both fighting for a play-off position, so this game has a lot of weight behind it. I try to go to as many games as I can when we have days off. It’s definitely a passion of mine.”
Content to be just one of the thousands of fans in the crowd, Wengren is anonymous for a night while he cheers and claps the rock stars of his favourite sport. It’s funny to think that while he lines up for a beer and a hot dog alongside other hockey fanatics, he is actually a member of one of the most talked-about rock bands of 2016.
Disturbed’s cover of Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘The Sound Of Silence’ has become a worldwide sensation. Appearing on Conan O’Brien’s talk show, Paul Simon gave Disturbed his blessing and congratulated them on their arrangement – and at last count the official music video for the cover has been viewed over 37 million times on YouTube. “It’s pretty amazing!” Wengren says. “We’re still pinching ourselves on a daily basis.”
Disturbed released their first LP, The Sickness,in 2000, and spent the first decade of the new millennium touring the world while steadily producing a new album every two or three years up until 2010’s Asylum. After touring that record, they announced the band would be going on hiatus. “We all just needed time to do our own thing,” says Wengren, who along with founding member Donegan, pursued other projects and formed the alt-rock act Fight Or Flight.
Bassist John Moyer also found interests elsewhere, becoming the bass player for Adrenaline Mob and Art Of Anarchy, while Draiman lent his vocals to industrial metal band Device. “We’d all been going non-stop for 20 years,” Wengren explains. “It was healthy to take a breather.”
Fast-forward to 2014, and while back in his hometown of Chicago to visit family and friends (and catch a couple of ice hockey games), Wengren met Donegan for dinner. Over a few courses and a few drinks, the seed that would become Immortalized was planted. Disturbed’s sixth studio LP, released last year, debuted at number one on the ARIA chart.
“Over the years the writing process had changed because we all moved to different cities. For Immortalized I really wanted us to be working and writing music in the same room like we used to,” says Wengren. “It’s great to see that once we came back from hiatus, not only have people not forgotten about us, but new people have been discovering us.”
Currently on a tour of the US, the multi-platinum, Grammy-nominated group will tour the UK, Europe and Canada before returning to our shores in November. “We’re just enjoying the ride right now – it’s been amazing,” says Wengren. “It’s always exciting to hear the audience’s reaction to new material. We’re up there onstage giving it our all, and having everybody sing every word – it doesn’t get much better.”
Immortalized shows off the signature Disturbed sound and Draiman’s lyrical style, from the aptly titled opener ‘The Eye Of The Storm’ to lead single ‘The Vengeful One’, which is Disturbed at their old-school best with robust, aggressive guitar distortion and a big, powerful backbeat. ‘The Sound Of Silence’ features on the record, as does the thought-provoking ‘Who Taught You How To Hate’.
“Kevin Churko was the producer – he’s worked with Ozzy Osbourne, Papa Roach, In This Moment and Five Finger Death Punch,” Wengren says. “We knew he was the man for the job because the chemistry was there from the beginning.”
While Wengren says they love playing their most recent recordings onstage, he promises the older ones will also be on the setlist Down Under this year. “Every tour cycle is a bit of the best of both worlds. We get to play all the favourite hits, the older songs that the fans wanna hear, and we also get to play some of the new stuff that we’ve created on each record – we play it all. We just can’t wait to get back to Australia.
“When the Soundwave Festival got cancelled, we were crushed, so it became a major priority for us to try to put something together to make sure we could come here this year. It’s such a beautiful country – we love the scenery and the sightseeing. The people are wonderful, the food is great, the culture is amazing.”
Disturbed’sImmortalized is out now through Reprise/Warner. Hear them at the Hordern Pavilion,Sunday November 13, withTwelve Foot Ninja supporting.
