Sunday, June 30, 2019

המטאליסט היהודי דיוויד דריימן פותח פה על כולם

ה-BDS: "אנטישמים בחליפות" • היהדות: "חלק בלתי נפרד ממני" • על הקול שירש: "סבא-רבא שלי היה חזן גדול" • על רוג'ר ווטרס: "פסיכוטי" • סולן להקת "דיסטרבד" דיוויד דריימן עושה מצוות ולהיטים • ריאיון מיוחד עם מטאליסט יהודי מוטרד

סולן להקת "דיסטרבד" דיוויד דריימן

צילום:

AP

רבים בישראל לא שמעו על להקת "דיסטרבד" עד 2015 אז שחררה הלהקה גרסת כיסוי לשיר "The Sound of Silence" של הצמד סיימון וגרפונקל, שזכתה לאינספור השמעות ברדיו. אך קהל הרוק והמטאל בישראל מכיר את ההרכב הזה כבר משנת 2000, אז יצא אלבומם הראשון "The Sickness".

ביום שלישי הקרוב תגיע הלהקה להופעה ראשונה בישראל, בלייב פארק ראשל"צ. סולן הלהקה, דיוויד דריימן, הוא יהודי-אמריקני בעל קשר חזק מאוד לישראל. "רציתי להגיע להופעה בישראל כל חיי", הוא מספר, "אבל זה עניין מאוד יקר מבחינתנו להגיע לישראל. צריך לתכנן סיבוב הופעות מיוחד בארצות שמסביב כדי שזה יהיה הגיוני כלכלית. לאחרונה, כנראה בעקבות 'The Sound of Silence' הדרישה להביא את הלהקה לישראל הרקיעה שחקים, והתחלנו לקבל לראשונה הצעות ממפיקים שיש בהן היגיון כלכלי עבורנו".

לדברי דריימן, הוא ביקר פעמים רבות בישראל ואף למד בישיבה פה. "מאז שהייתי ילד קטן הגעתי לביקורים בישראל, עוד לפני שלמדתי בישיבה. זה חלק בלתי נפרד מהחיים שלי. יש לי אלפי קרובים בארץ, למשפחה שלי יש שורשים בארץ ישראל עוד מלפני קום המדינה. סבא וסבתא שלי היו ב'הגנה'. סבא שלי היה העורך הראשי של העיתון 'המודיע'.

"מהצד של המשפחה של אבא שלי, אנחנו מגיעים מרקע מאוד דתי. סבא-רבא שלי היה חזן גדול, ממנו קיבלתי את הקול שלי".

מה הקשר שלך כיום לדת היהודית?

"כשהייתי קטן הייתי לומד בבית ספר יהודי וחברי לכיתה שמרו שבת, ואנחנו לא היינו עושים את זה אז. כשחזרתי הביתה ואמרתי למשפחתי שאני רוצה שננסה לשמור שבת, ניסינו, ומפה לשם המשפחה שלי הפכה להרבה יותר דתייה ממה שקיוויתי. מהצד של המשפחה של אבא שלי אנחנו מגיעים מרקע מאוד דתי.

"היה לי את הכבוד להיות בחמש ישיבות שונות במהלך חיי, נאלצתי תמיד לעזוב מסיבה זו או אחרת, לא בהכרח שמרתי על כל החוקים... רציתי להיות מתבגר רגיל, לדבר עם בנות, לצאת לראות סרטים, לקרוא מגזינים ועיתונים נורמליים, ולא הייתי מוכן לקבל תמיד את סגנון החיים השמרני והנוקשה שהחיים בתור נער ישיבה הכתיבו.

"אני לא אדם דתי, אבל אני אדם רוחני. אני כן מאמין באלוהים, אני מאמין בכוח עליון, אבל אני מקפיד על דברים מסוימים מנקודת המבט שלי. אני מאמין שערכים, אתיקה ולהיות בן אדם טוב זה יותר חשוב מלשמור כל מיני חוקים שאולי כבר לא רלוונטיים בימינו".

"תהיתי אם השיר "Believe" מהאלבום השני של הלהקה שנושא את אותו השם, מתקשר ליחס האמביוולנטי של דריימן לדת. "השיר עצמו נכתב מנקודת מבט של איך דתות יכולות להיות מעין 'אופיום להמונים' בכל הנוגע לקונספט הכפרה, שמתחבר ליהדות אבל גם לנצרות", הסביר הסולן. "אם אתה עושה 'כפרה' אז החטא שלך נסלח. לי זה תמיד נשמע יותר מדי קל. יש חטאים שהם גדולים מדי, ויש כפרות שהן כל כך לא משמעותיות. זה מצריך יותר מלקבל חוקים של תיאולוגיה מסוימת ולאכוף אותם מכדי להיות זכאי למחילה מהחטא".

"אני לא היהודי הכי טוב כיום", מסכם דריימן. "אני מדליק נרות בחנוכה, ועושה סדר פסח מדי פעם וגם צם ביום כיפור מדי פעם. מצד שני, אני גם מופיע לפעמים ביום כיפור".

מה דעתך על תנועת ה-BDS?

"הם כמו סרטן שמתפשט ברחבי העולם. בסופו של דבר, הם אנטישמים בחליפות. הם מחפשים תירוץ לעשות דמוניזציה לישראל. אל תבינו אותי לא נכון, אני חושב שלכל אחד יש את הזכות להביע דעה, אבל הדעה הזו צריכה להיות מלומדת. לא ניתן להאשים אומה שלמה בדברים שנעשו על ידי הממשלה שלה. ישראלים, כמו רוב האנשים על הפלנטה הזו, פשוט רוצים לחיות את החיים שלהם בשלום. אם באמת היתה הזדמנות כזאת - כולנו היינו קופצים עליה, אבל צריך פרטנר.

"עניין מאוד יקר מבחינתנו להגיע לישראל". להקת "דיסטרבד" // צילום: Disturbed Productions

"מה אתה מרוויח בלהחרים אנשים? האם זו דרך לייצר שינוי אמיתי? אינספור מדינות מבצעות פשעים נגד האנושות, ודווקא המדינה היחידה בכל האזור שהיא דמוקרטיה ושיש בה הכרה בזכויות להט"ב - היא זו שעל הכוונת".

למה לדעתך זה קורה בעצם?

"הם לא צריכים תירוץ. אנשים שונאים יהודים כי הם יהודים. לא כי הם עשו שום דבר למישהו. זה בלתי ניתן להסברה, כי אין לזה שום הגיון. היינו השעיר לעזאזל תמיד, לאורך כל ההיסטוריה. אני חושב שיש אנשים מסוימים שיש להם צורך להאשים את הרעות החולות של העולם הזה במישהו אחר, הם רוצים למצוא סיבה לתלות את הסיבה לכך שחסר להם משהו שהם רוצים או שהוא לא הגיעו אליו בחייהם במישהו. ובמקום להסתכל על עצמם, כדי להטיב לעצמם את החיים, הם בוחרים להאשים בזה את ה'בוגימן היהודי'".

הסבים והסבתות שלך הם ניצולי שואה?

"לאחרונה גילית שמהצד של אבא שלי יש ניצולים שהיו חלק ממרד גטו וורשה. אבל עיקר מהצד של המשפחה של אמא שלי, סבא שלי היה בברגן בלזן, סבתא שלי הייתה באושוויץ. האירועים האלו השפיעו גם על הכתיבה שלי כמוזיקאי. זה הופך להיות חלק אינטגרלי מהקיום שלך, כשאתה מבין כמה מהמשפחה שלך הושמדו".

האם ה-BDS פנו אליכם לאחר ההכרזה על הופעה בישראל? קיבלתם מכתב מרוג'ר ווטרס?

"אין סיכוי. הם יודעים טוב מאוד מי אני ומה אני מייצג, הם לא יעזו לפנות אלי. רוג'ר ווטרס כל כך הזוי, עטוף בפסיכוזה של עצמו, בשנאה שמחופשת לקמפיין. אני לא יודע איזה סמים הוא לקח בחייו, אבל הם בהחלט שרפו לו חלק גדול מהמוח".

"עטוף בפסיכוזה של עצמו, בשנאה שמחופשת לקמפיין". רוג'ר ווטרס // צילום: AFP

אתם מגיעים לראשונה לישראל אחרי 19 שנות פעילות. מאלבום הכורה ועד החדש, מה השתנה?

"התבגרנו והפכנו למוזיקאים יותר טובים. החיים שלנו השתנו. הפכנו להיות הורים. כשאתה מתחיל ויש לך כל כך הרבה להוכיח, ואתה מלא בכל כך הרבה אנרגיה, לפעמים זה מכפר על החוסר בדיוק ובמקצועיות בכלים השונים. אנחנו בורכנו בלהפוך ליותר טובים כמוזיקאים וגם במה שאנחנו עושים על הבמה. כתיבה מראה הרבה יותר בגרות והתפתחות עד לרמה שבאמת, האלבום האחרון שהוצאנו, הוא באמת היצירה הכי אהובה עלינו".

אמנים תמיד מחוייבים לקדם את האלבום האחרון שלהם, אתה באמת ובתמים יכול להגיד שהאלבום האחרון ששחררתם הוא יותר טוב מאלבום הפריצה שלכם?

"לדעתי כן. כשאני מקשיב היום לאלבום הראשון, אני תופס את עצמי אומר לעצמי 'באמת שרתי את זה?', או 'באמת נשמעתי ככה?'... שלא תבינו אותי לא נכון, זה היה האלבום הנכון בזמן הנכון והיתה לזה עוצמה שאנשים התחברו אליה. אבל אני באמת חושב שהתפתחנו והשתפרנו המון מאז".

אנחנו מקיימים את הריאיון הזה באנגלית, אבל אנחנו לא חייבים לעשות את זה, אתה יודע עברית לא?

(בעברית): "אני יכול לדבר עברית אני מבין עברית, אבל העברית שלי לא כל כך טוב כל הזמן. יוצא לי לדבר עברית רק עם אבא שלי. אם היה לי כמה זמן בארץ, אחרי שבוע-שבועותיים זה יהיה יותר טוב. לא הייתי בארץ מזמן כבר אז קצת חלש".

חווית אי פעם את הקהל הישראלי? היית בהופעות בארץ אולי? למה אתה מצפה?

"אני לא יודע למה לצפות. הפעם היחידה שהייתי בהופעה בישראל הייתה כשראיתי את ג'ת'רו טאל בפארק הירקון, בזמן שהייתי עוד בישיבה. אני לא בטוח שזה אותו דבר בדיוק כי הם קצת להקה יותר 'רגועה'... אני כן מצפה להמון אנרגיה. שמעתי סיפורים מהמון קולגות שלי שכן הופיעו בישראל, שזה אחד משלושת הקהלים המובילים בעולם. תמיד אומרים לי שהקהל הישראלי מדהים, מטורף. אני מצפה לזה".

הריאיון נערך ע"י ליאור פלג וניב פלג במסגרת תוכנית הרדיו "מת על מטאל" - להאזנה לראיון המלא.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bk7RVw3I8eg
Sound of Silence

The Jewish metalist David Draiman opens the mouth to everyone

The BDS: "Anti-Semites in suits" • Judaism: "An inseparable part of me" • The voice he inherited: "My great-grandfather was a great cantor" • Roger Waters: "Psychotic" • David Draiman Mitzvot and hits • A special interview with a troubled Jewish metalist

Directed by David Dryman

Photo:

AP

Many in Israel did not hear about the band "Disturbed" until 2015, when the band released a cover version of the Simon and Garfunkel's "The Sound of Silence", which won countless hits on the radio. But the rock and metal audience in Israel has known this band since 2000, when their first album, The Sickness, was released.

"I wanted to be in Israel for the rest of my life," he says, "but it's a very expensive thing for us," he says. Reach Israel. You have to plan a special tour in the surrounding countries to make it economically logical. Recently, apparently due to 'The Sound of Silence' the demand to bring the band to Israel skyrocketed, and we began to receive for the first time proposals from producers that have economic logic for us.

According to Draiman, he has visited Israel many times and studied at a yeshiva here. "Since I was a little boy, I have been to Israel, even before I studied in the yeshiva, which is an inseparable part of my life, I have thousands of relatives in Israel, my family has roots in the Land of Israel since before the establishment of the state. Editor-in-chief of Hamodia.

"From the side of my father's family, we come from a very religious background, and my great-grandfather was a great cantor, from whom I received my voice."

What is your connection to the Jewish religion today?

"When I was little, I would go to a Jewish school and my classmates would observe Shabbat, and we would not do it back then, when I came home and told my family that I wanted to try to keep Shabbat, we tried, and from there my family name became much more religious than I had hoped. We come from a very religious background.

"I had the honor of being at five different meetings during my life. I always had to leave for one reason or another. I did not necessarily keep all the rules ... I wanted to be a regular teenager, talk to girls, go out to see movies, read magazines and newspapers. Always accept the conservative and rigid lifestyle that life as a yeshiva boy dictated.

"I am not a religious person, but I am a spiritual person, I do believe in God, I believe in a higher power, but I take care of certain things from my perspective ... I believe that values, ethics and being a good person are more important than keeping all kinds of laws Relevant today. "

"I was wondering if the song" Believe "from the band's second album, which bears the same name, is related to Draiman's ambivalent attitude towards religion." The song itself was written from the perspective of how religions can be a kind of opium for the masses, , Explained the soloist. "If you do 'Atonement' then your sin is forgiven. To me it always sounds too easy. There are sins that are too great, and there are sins that are so insignificant. This requires more than accepting the laws of a certain theology and enforcing them too much to be absolved of sin. "

"I'm not the best Jew today," says Draiman. "I light candles on Hanukkah, and I do the Passover Seder every so often, and I also fast on Yom Kippur every so often.

What do you think of the BDS movement?

"They are like a cancer that spreads all over the world, they are anti-Semites in suits, they are looking for an excuse to demonize Israel, do not get me wrong, I think everyone has the right to express an opinion, but this opinion should be scholarly. Israelis, like most people on this planet, just want to live their lives in peace, and if there was such an opportunity, we would all jump on it, but we need a partner.

"It's very expensive for us to come to Israel." "Disturbed" / Photo: Disturbed Productions

"What do you gain by boycotting people, is this a way to create real change?" "Countless states commit crimes against humanity, and the only country in any region that is democratic and has recognition of LGBT rights is the target."

Why do you think this actually happens?

"They do not need an excuse, people hate Jews because they are Jews, not because they did anything to anyone, it's inexplicable because it makes no sense, we've been the scapegoat all along history ... I think there are some people who have a need to blame. They want to find a reason to blame the world for their misfortunes because they lack something they want or did not get to in their lives, and instead of looking at themselves to benefit themselves, they choose to blame the Jewish bogeyman '".

Your grandparents are Holocaust survivors?

"Recently you discovered that my father had some survivors who were part of the Warsaw ghetto uprising, but most of my mother's family, my grandfather was in Bergen-Belsen, my grandmother was in Auschwitz, and these events also influenced my writing as a musician. Of yours, when you realize how much of your family has been destroyed. "

Did the BDS contact you after the announcement of an appearance in Israel? You got a letter from Roger Waters?

Roger Waters is so delusional, wrapped up in his own psychosis, with the hatred of the campaign I do not know what drugs he took in his life, but they certainly burned He has a large part of the brain. "

"Wrapped up in his own psychosis, with the hatred that is set aside for the campaign." Roger Waters // Photo: AFP

You first arrive in Israel after 19 years of activity. From the miner to the new album, what changed?

When you start and you have so much to prove, and you're so full of energy, sometimes it's atoning for the lack of precision and professionalism in the various instruments. Writing shows a lot more maturity and development to the level that really, the last album we published, is really the most beloved piece of us. "

Artists are always committed to promoting their latest album, can you really say that the last album you released is better than your breakthrough album?

When I listen to the first album today, I catch myself telling myself, 'Did I really sing it?' Or 'Did I really sound like that?' ... Do not get me wrong, it was the right album at the right time and it had the power that people But I really think we've developed and improved a lot since then. "

We hold this interview in English, but we do not have to do it, do you know Hebrew?

(Hebrew): "I can speak Hebrew I understand Hebrew, but my Hebrew is not so good all the time, I only speak Hebrew with my father, if I had some time in Israel, after a week or two it would be better. In Israel he is already a little weak then. "

Have you ever experienced the Israeli audience? Have you ever been to Israel? What do you expect?

"I do not know what to expect, the only time I was in Israel was when I saw Jethro Tal in Hayarkon Park while I was still in the yeshiva ... I'm not sure it's exactly the same because they're a bit more relaxed. I have heard stories from many of my colleagues who have appeared in Israel, which is one of the three leading audiences in the world, and I am always told that the Israeli audience is amazing, crazy.

The interview was conducted by Lior Peleg and Niv Peleg as part of the "Dead Metal" radio program - for listening to the full interview

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bk7RVw3I8eg
Sound of Silence

Death on Metal Little Pentagram 29/06/2019 David Draiman

Death on Metal

29/06/2019 David Draiman

DISTURBED is known to many of you as a band that revolutionized the metal world in the early 2000s and is still an important and leading band in New Metal.

Perhaps you also knew that the band's soloist David Draiman was a Jew who lived in Israel for a while and studied at the yeshiva.

What many of you do not know is his background, his opinions about Israeli politics, and Israel's situation in relation to the world.

Even if you have heard his views in the past, you probably do not know his full opinion about the BDS.

You may not yet know what he thinks about the Israeli audience and about his expected arrival of Disturbed to Israel.

But you know what ?? You're going to know all this, because David Draiman, the lead singer of Disturbed, gave this week an interesting interview on metal, and you're going to love him more than ever, and despite the lack of cash, weather,

!!traffic jams and other excuses, !!

Pleasant listening 🙂

Listen now with Podbean

Download chapter (right button + Save file)

»The songs played during the interview»

Voices
Are You Ready?
Believe
Never Again
Voilence Fetish
The Vengeful One
Stupify

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bk7RVw3I8eg

Sound of Silence - Conan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9Dg-g7t2l4

Disturbed - The Sound Of Silence [Official Music Video]

537,150,501 views

Tuesday, June 18, 2019

Disturbed’s Singer David Draiman Slams Roger Waters and ‘His Nazi Comrades’ for Boycotting Israel

'Boycotting an entire society, an entire people, based on the actions of its government is absolutely ridiculous,' the Jewish singer says in an interview

JTA

and

Gabe Friedman

Jun 06, 2019 4:14 PM

File photo: David Draiman of the band Disturbed performs at the Allstate Arena, in Rosemont, Illinois, March 8, 2019. — Rob Grabowski / AP

David Draiman, the Jewish singer of the chart-topping hard rock band Disturbed, called Roger Waters “ridiculous” for promoting a cultural boycott of Israel.

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Disturbed, which has sold millions of albums, is set to play in Israel for the first time on July 2.

>> Opinion: Roger Waters can continue to growl, but Eurovision has a more serious problem

“Boycotting an entire society, an entire people, based on the actions of its government is absolutely ridiculous,” he said in a video interview with the Bring Disturbed to Israel Facebook page. “I don’t see boycotts happening of Russia … I don’t see people boycotting China for what they’re doing to their Muslim population. It’s just Israel that gets this treatment, and I think we all know the reason behind that.”

Draiman added that Waters, the former Pink Floyd frontman and poster child for artists who boycott Israel, and his “Nazi comrades” are pushing an ideology based on “hatred.”

Draiman, known for his guttural yells, grew up attending Orthodox yeshivas in Chicago — he was expelled from three of them. At one point he trained to be a cantor.

These days he observes some holidays but also sits on the advisory board of the Creative Community for Peace, a nonprofit that aims to counter Waters’ Israel boycott narrative.

“I’ve been planning this literally my entire life,” he said of the upcoming Israel concert. “The BDS crew know well enough to not even try to contact me.”

Disturbed's David Draiman: Still Angry After All These Years

Jon Wiederhorn

Writer

Before David Draiman, the vocalist for heavy metal band Disturbed, got married and had a child, many of his lyrics stemmed from personal pain and frustration. He vented about the psychological turmoil caused by a number of dysfunctional relationship, the suicide of a close friend, and being taken advantage of by opportunists who posed as friends. Now he’s found sanctuary at home and the kind of love he was missing for so long. Even so, he’s more fueled by angst than ever.

“My new impetus for making heavy music is being scared to death of the world that my child has been born into,” he says on a sweltering summer day from his air-conditioned New York hotel room. “If anything, it’s increased my aggression because I now have this little being to defend and the odds of the world are against everyone. You read any of the stuff that drives any of us nuts on any given day, and it puts more and more doubt into your head in terms of what this world is turning into.”

Draiman doesn’t want to go into any detail about what political leaders he’s particularly incensed about or what policies or activities are most galling to him. He has learned from experienced that sometimes it’s best to keep his mouth shut. During the four years Disturbed were away, Draiman maintained a strong profile in the metal community by regularly sharing his thoughts about the world via Twitter and Facebook. In addition to posting casual thoughts and personal anecdotes, he wrote about the ongoing conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians, fervently defending Israel and calling out anti-Semitism wherever it reared its ugly head. In late June, he deleted his Twitter and Facebook accounts after being baited and harassed by Internet trolls who disagreed with his views or were simply looking for a target to lash out at.

“I’m pretty much done with political commentary,” he asserts. “I’ve said everything I could possibly say. I’ve been a big mouth for long enough. And honestly, people don’t want me to be a politician, they want me to be the frontman for Disturbed. They want me to be the guy who sets them free from all the bulls— for a while, not the one who injects it into them. I accept that role and embrace it.”

The return of Disturbed with Immortalized, their first album in five years, might have happened sooner, except for the past two years Draiman and his wife have been consumed with raising their son, Samuel Bear Isamu, who was born Sept. 12, 2013. As much of a blessing as the child has been, the demands of being a parent have sometimes been overwhelming. “This kid has aged me five years in two,” Draiman says, only half-joking. “He still doesn’t sleep through the night. He’s got allergies. He’s prone to fever seizures if he goes over 102 degrees. He just had tubes put in his ears because he was getting chronic ear infections. It’s one thing after another. He’s a beautiful, gorgeous, smart, amazing little boy, but he’s extremely labor-intensive.”

Difficult as he has been to raise, Samuel Bear Isamu played a crucial role in the band getting back together. The singer had been in touch with Disturbed guitarist Dan Donegan, bassist John Moyer, and drummer Mike Wengren on and off throughout the past four years, but it wasn’t until January 2014 that Donegan visited Draiman at his home in Austin to see the baby that the two old friends started seriously talking about reuniting Disturbed. Two months later, Draiman flew to Chicago for a group dinner and everyone agreed it was time to reignite “the sickness.”

While new single “The Vengeful One” (which has spent eight weeks in the top 25 of the Hot Rock Songs chart) and much of Immortalized should be instantly familiar to anyone that has ever headbanged along with hits like “Indestructible,” “Stupify,” and “Inside the Fire,” the new album also features a variety of musical surprises. The electronic-enhanced, melodic rocker “The Light” is the band’s most toned-down, radio-friendly number to date; “Fire It Up,” which begins with the gurgling sound of a bong hit, is a euphoric ode to recreational marijuana use; “You’re Mine” is a heartfelt love song Draiman wrote for his wife, ex-WWE wrestler Lena Yada; and “The Sound of Silence” is an acoustic take on Simon & Garfunkel’s classic, revamped with a new piano line piano, weeping strings, and spare guitar.

Unlike some of his peers, who close their blinders to music outside of the hard rock or metal genres, Draiman listens to a wide variety of songwriters, including Josh Grobin, Andrea Bocelli, Bob Marley, and Dr. Dre. “I’m a fan of good music, period,” he says. “What makes something pop? It’s really just the bed it’s placed in. If I grab melodies by Black Sabbath or Metallica and take them out of their musical bed and put them into a pop context, it’s not like they wouldn’t translate. If you come up with a great hook, no matter where you plant it, it’s going to bear fruit.”

Draiman has every reason to feel confident about his band new album. Not only is Immortalized an eclectic, contemporary metal album that brims with infectious rage, it marks the band’s re-emergence following a four-year hiatus that began when Disturbed was at the top of the hard rock hierarchy. As it turned out, to endure in the long run they had to vacate the mothership for a while.

“When you record and tour year after year without a break, it starts to feel like you’re on an assembly line,” Draiman explains. “That can be counterproductive not only to a band’s development but also to the fanbase, who get into a mode where they think, ‘Oh, well, they’re going to have another record or tour next year. If I don’t see them this time they’ll be coming back around.’ Well, we’ve learned from experience that absence definitely makes the heart grow fonder for both band and fans.”

“It all came down to questioning: Did we want to do it yet?” Draiman says. “Did we have enough symptoms of withdrawal from not playing live to pull us away from our beautiful families and back into the fray? And the answer was yes. We all had our fix of peace and being a human being for a while and stepping away from it enough to the point where we were really missing it and fiending for it. We felt ready, reinvigorated, and re-inspired to come back.”

A couple weeks later, Donegan emailed Draiman some song ideas, and the vocalist started combining the guitarist’s riffs with new vocals melodies. Then he hit a wall. The more he tried to write parts that complemented the tunes, the more he questioned the quality of the material he was coming up with.

“I’m very, very judgmental of myself,” Draiman reveals. “It’s not that I wasn’t coming up with ideas, I just wasn’t trusting them. Sometimes I need someone to validate what I’m doing and confirm to me that I’m heading in the right direction.”

Instead of working separately from his bandmates, as he had done for the better part of Disturbed career, Draiman returned to the group’s stomping grounds of Chicago to directly work with Donegan, Moyer, and Wengren. Right away, Disturbed started coming up with new ideas for songs and each musician provided input on everything they wrote. “When you’re overly reliant on technology to make an album [from different locations], you really sacrifice something,” Draiman says. “That same electricity and chemistry is not there. From the start, the chemistry this time was so dramatic, obvious, and powerful that we thought, ‘God, why didn’t we do this sooner?’ I guarantee you we’re never gonna go back to being removed from one another from here on out when it comes to writing.”

David Draiman was born in Brooklyn, New York, on March 13, 1973, the son of Miriam and YJ Draiman. His father, a candidate in the 2017 race for mayor of Los Angeles,^[5] is a former real estate developer, medical administrator, small-business owner, and elected member of the Northridge East Neighborhood Council, among other roles.
Draiman's brother Benjamin^[8] is an ambient/folk rock musician who lives in Israel and performs in Jerusalem.^[9]^[10] Draiman's grandmother also lives in Israel.^[9]^[11]^[12] Draiman's maternal grandparents are both Holocaust survivors; his grandfather transported bodies to the crematorium at Bergen-Belsen, while his grandmother avoided the gas chamber at Auschwitz by crawling to the end of the line.^[13]