Thursday, September 1, 2016

First Reaction: Disturbed 'Immortalized' - David Draiman - Sound of Silence

First Reaction: Disturbed 'Immortalized'

Tue, 11 Aug 2015 12:48:44

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First Reaction: Disturbed 'Immortalized' -

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Chicago hard rock juggernaut ready to land back at the top with sixth album.

It's been five years since Disturbed unleashed Asylum, their last full-length album before taking a hiatus. So, when the news came that the Chicago outfit—David Draiman [vocals], Dan Donegan [guitar], Mike Wengren [drums], and John Moyer [bass]—had readied a new body of work, it delighted the hard rock world exponentially. In their absence, nobody has taken that vacant spot at the genre's top, filling the shoes of the group whose last four albums all debuted at #1 on the Billboard Top 200. Of course, bands have vied for the crown, but none could claim the same arena-filling status.

Seemingly out of the blue, Disturbed announced album number six, Immortalized [Reprise Records], and now it's arriving on shelves Friday August 21. Immortalized stands out as 13 tracks of robust, raw, and real rock evocative of their breakthrough debut The Sickness but emblematic of the metallic precision and scope of Asylum. In that sense, these four musicians conjure the ultimate Disturbed album to date.

The clean guitar instrumental "The Eye of the Storm" tempers a bluesy lead with a stark hum, setting the stage for the drilling groove of the title track. Draiman's voice echoes with an orchestral prowess bolstered by Donegan's deft leads and jackhammer riffs. Each rhythm drives a near danceable bounce home that's perfect for the pit. It's an a propos opener for Immortalized.

Listen to "Immortalized" from Disbturbed:

image: http://images.artistdirect.com/Images/artd/uploads/news/disturbed_under_426.jpg

The single "The Vengeful One" builds with a big bombastic beat from Wengren that leaves an open canvas for Donegan to kick into one of the group's fiercest riffs. It's the kind of anthem that can sit proudly alongside the likes of "Stupify" and "Indestructible". At the same time, "Open Your Eyes" and "The Light" show a different side of the band. The integration of melody remains seamless in that it still hits just as hard, while hypnotizing. The same could be said for "You're Mine," which touts a new kind of energy altogether for Disturbed and successfully so.

One standout "Save Out Last Goodbye" begins with a voicemail message from one of Donegan's friends who passed away from cancer. The electronics wrap around the heavy swell of guitar and drums as Draiman's voice careens with palpable poignancy. However, all of the elements turn this into a haunting elegy that's among the band's most powerful work. "Fire It Up" brings a delightful fervor to the record, turning into a "Sweet Leaf" for the 21st century.

Watch the Music Video for "The Vengeful One" from Disturbed:

image: http://images.artistdirect.com/Images/artd/uploads/news/disturbed_hand412.jpg

Disturbed's cover of Simon & Garfunkel's "The Sound of Silence" remains a total left turn, but they manage it with aplomb and poise. They turn the track into a different kind of heavy altogether with stark production and strings contrasted with a cinematic vocal performance. It shows that they continue pushing the envelope. "Who Taught You How To Hate" ends the record with a fitting explosion of riffs, drums, bass, and that signature howl, yielding one last catharsis.

In the end, Disturbed are back and bigger and better than ever. That sleep allowed the beast to wake up even fiercer. Hard rock has its kings back and they've got their best record to rule with.

—Rick Florino
08.11.15

'Immortalized' from Disturbed is released August 21, 2015 on Reprise Records.
image: http://images.artistdirect.com/Images/artd/uploads/news/distrubed_immortalized_360.jpg

Read more at http://www.artistdirect.com/entertainment-news/article/first-reaction-disturbed-immortalized/11767373-all#ApsCp7XJE0eh8Vk2.99

PAUL SIMON IS A FAN OF DISTURBED’S ‘THE SOUND OF SILENCE’ COVER and David Draiman

PAUL SIMON IS A FAN OF DISTURBED’S ‘THE SOUND OF SILENCE’ COVER

Written by Sam Murphy on April 4, 2016

It’s very unlikely to see a song by US heavy metal band Distrubed surge up the mainstream charts but that’s exactly what’s happening right now with their cover of Simon & Garfunkel’s The Sound Of Silence sitting at number one on iTunes in the country.

Now, Paul Simon of Simon & Garfunkel has added himself to the lengthy list of fans calling the dark cover of the song “wonderful”.

Simon took to his Facebook to plug Disturbed’s performance of the track on US late night show Conan. He also let his 1.3 million strong Facebook fanbase know that it’s taken from Disturbed’s latest album Immortalized.

In addition to that he sent Disturbed frontman David Draiman an email calling the performance “really powerful”. According to the email it was the first time Simon had heard the band do it live.

“It’s not every day that one of the most prolific songwriters of all time sends you an email message,” Draiman said posting the email on social media.

Before hearing the cover, it would’ve been hard to imagine ever hearing Disturbed and Simon & Garfunkel in the same sentence but here we are.

Disturbed have announced a massive Australian tour for November and given that this song is currently one of the biggest songs in the country, no doubt they’ll be playing it live.

Check the tour date below.

Watch: Disturbed – The Sound Of Silence (Live On Conan)

Disturbed 2016 Australian Tour

Tickets on sale for Frontier members here from Wednesday, 6th April at 12 noon AEST to Thursday, 7th April at 12 noon AEST.
Tickets on sale to the general public from 12pm local time, Friday, 8th April.

Wednesday, 9th November
HBF Stadium, Perth
Tickets: Ticketmaster

Saturday, 12th November
Margaret Court Arena, Melbourne
Tickets: Ticketek

Sunday, 13th November
Hordern Pavilion, Sydney
Tickets: Ticketek

Tuesday, 15th November
Entertainment Centre, Brisbane
Tickets: Ticketek

Friday, 18th November
Vector Arena, Aukland
Tickets: Ticketmaster

Read more at http://musicfeeds.com.au/news/paul-simon-fan-disturbeds-sound-silence-cover/#Ir4rtOSZzucFoJuj.99

The Disturbed Sound of Silence Disturbed frontman David Draiman was trained as a hazan

The Disturbed Sound of Silence

Disturbed frontman David Draiman was trained as a hazan. Now he’s given the metal treatment to a Simon and Garfunkel classic.

By Jonathan Zalman

When I was a grungy teenager, music was fantastic. We’re talking Alice in Chains and Pearl Jam, Backstreet Boys, Busta Rhymes and Dru Hill. Then, in 1999, the metal band Disturbed dropped “Down With the Sickness.” Not 30 seconds into the song, lead singer David Draiman screams “ooh-wah-ah-ah-ah”—heavy metal’s version of a beat drop—and blows the roof off of everything. To a teenager, Draiman’s staccato vocals at the outset of the song provided a vicarious outlet for angst and, in my opinion, is one of the most memorable bits of vocal originality I’ve ever heard.

“I used to have, and I still do have, really bad acid reflux,” Draiman, who was raised Jewish, told MTV in 2012. “I had a surgical procedure done…that repaired a valve at the top of my stomach that had completely burned away.” This, said Draiman, increased his range and strengthened his vocals. “That noise,” he said, just kinda came one day. [The] beat is so tribal it made me feel like an animal.”

What I didn’t know then is that Draiman is a trained hazan who was born in Brooklyn, and grew up in the Midwest and Los Angeles. In a 2011 interview with The Jerusalem Post, Draiman talked about his childhood education during which he attended five Jewish schools, in part because he did not want to abide by the Yeshiva lifestyle:

My freshman year of high school was at WITS, the Wisconsin Institute for Torah Study in Milwaukee. And I got asked to leave after my first year there. It wasn’t because of my studies – they were always way past the norm, I graduated with a 3.75 GPA and scored just under 1400 on my SATS. Academics were never the issue. The issue was suppression of normalcy. I couldn’t really stomach the rigorous religious requirements of the life, I just wanted to be a normal teenage kid, and here I was being shipped of to a yeshiva.

In an environment where you’re not allowed to watch television, you can’t read magazines or go to the movies, you can’t fraternize with the opposite sex whatsoever, you have to wear the uniform every day of tzitzit, the button- down the shirts, the dress slacks, the shoes, you have to make sure you’re not even wearing a kippa sruga, it was just stifling. So what did that end up turning into? I’d set my friends up on dates with girls that I knew, in defiance of the school. So I became the “pimp” of the school even though no such thing was happening Or I’d smoke a little bit of weed here and there, I‘d get my buddies high, so I was the drug dealer on campus even though that’s not what I was doing. I just rebelled against the conformity – the gag reflex worked.

When I got sent to Los Angeles, it wasn’t any better – it was easier to get away with it because I wasn’t in a dorm and living at the rabbi’s house. Unfortunately, during Pessah cleaning, the rabbi was searching for hametz in the drawers and he found a half empty box of condoms and a half empty bag of weed, and that was the end of my living in the rabbi’s house. I actually ended up graduating high school from the Ida Crown Jewish Academy in Chicago, which was the school I wanted to go to in the beginning.

And yet, Draiman, though resentful of his schooling, said that he brought religious observance to his family, especially Shabbat. “So we started down the path, only my father went further than I did. And today [my parents are] still modern Orthodox.”

Draiman also said that he encounters fans “who espouse anti-Semitic or neo-Nazi sentiments.” And how does he deal with it?

I’m incredibly defiant against neo-Nazis and skinheads.

In fact, here’s a true story that occurred in the band’s infancy when we were playing Southside Chicago clubs.

One of the guys who would come to see us was a skinhead, he had a swastika tattoo, the whole nine yards.

After he became a die-hard fan, the band was sitting down having drinks after a show and he comes in and starts going on about niggers and Jews, and I interrupted him and said, “Dude, I don’t know if you realize this but I’m Jewish.”

He responded, “You’re Jewish! This completely changes my whole idea of what a Jew is supposed to be.” And soon after that, he had his swastika removed, and denounced the skinhead culture.

I’ve always been very proud of my heritage and where I come from, and I’ve defended it to the extent of being bloodied on many occasions. In fact, most of the fights I’ve been in my life – and there have been many – have been because I was defending my family or my faith. And I don’t apologize for it.

There’s still anti-Semitism everywhere, and unfortunately, what has happened with our people no longer being the underdogs in this region, peoples’ perception of Israel has changed dramatically. I find myself more and more having to defend us, and I will continue to do so.

I wrote a song on our latest album Asylum called “Never Again” about the Holocaust and the people who deny it, like Ahmadinejad, that piece of shit. And part of our live show includes a video presentation depicting him as the new Hitler. Believe you me, I’ve always been direct about hits, I never pull any punches and I will never apologize for who I am or where I come from.

Disturbed released their sixth studio album, Immortalized, in July 2015. Track 11 on the album is a cover of Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence,” and the band released a video of the tune last month. A decade and a half since Draiman screamed “ooh-wah-ah-ah-ah,” he’s still got it. Maybe he should consider leading high holiday services soon. Check out Disturbed’s cover below. As one YouTube user put it: “I came for the metal, I got feels.”

Previous: Hebrew School Songs Helped Art Garfunkel Realize His ‘Gift From God’

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Disturbed bringing heavy rock to Huntington - David Draiman

Staff photo by Kirsten Reneau

Left to right: John Moyer, Mike Wengren, David Draiman, and Dan Donegan have been together since 2003 as the band "Disturbed".

HUNTINGTON — The band “Disturbed” will be rocking the stage on Oct. 8 in Huntington at the Big Sandy Superstore Arena.

The band is touring in support of its newest album, “Immortalized,” which already has three top hits. The tour has no official name, said Ceri Roberts, the band’s press contact.

“Disturbed” consists of David Draiman (vocals), Dan Donegan (guitar), Mike Wengren (drums), and John Moyer (bass). While members have come and gone, this lineup has been together since 2003.

The album “Immortalized” includes the cover of the classic Simon and Garfunkel song, “The Sounds of Silence,” which was recently certified as platinum.

The album came out following the band’s four-year hiatus, during which the members worked on solo projects.

“We had basically been going nonstop since 1998,” said Wengren in a press release for the band. “We got to do our things. It didn’t take too long until the itch started coming back.”

The show will begin 7 p.m.

“Immortalized” is the first time the band collectively wrote together since 2001. Instead of emailing ideas, the band instead choose to fly back and forth to write together, hoping to capture the band’s original spirit.

“We wanted to go back to where it started before the technology existed where you could create from across the country,” Drainman stated “We were in the same space again, throwing ideas back and forth on the fly and allowing them to grow immediately. For this album, everything was written in the same room.”

Band members returned from their hiatus in order to tour again.

“Our return from hiatus was for one reason: We are dying for our fix of the live experience,” Draiman said. “We need to satisfy our addiction to the feeling you get when you play to the most dedicated and vibrant fan base in existence, the Disturbed ones. We know the arena shows will come, but we wanted to start out feeling like it did in the old days. Intimate, hot, and intense. We can’t wait. Prepare yourselves.”

Veronica Hordubay is the marking director at the Big Sandy Superstore Arena.

The tour also features the bands “Chevelle” and “Nothing More,” making it a “good rock show,” Hordubay stated.

“It’s an attractive lineup for the rock concert in the Tri-State area,” Hordubay said. “It’s a great show. They’re tremendous musicians and put on a really powerful show.”

Tickets range from $29 to $50, and can be purchased at www.ticketmaster.com.

The venue tries to offer a large variety of music, Hordubay explained.

“We do everything from rock country to pop to the symphony,” Hordubay stated.

Disturbed formed in 1996, and has sold over 15 million albums globally, Roberts said.

The band also has had 12 No. 1 singles on rock radio, Roberts stated.

“‘Immortalized’ became their fifth consecutive album to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard Top 200,” the press release states. “(This is a) rare feat achieved by only one other hard rock band in the history of the chart: Metallica.”

More information on the Big Sandy Superstore or the concert can be found at www.bigsandyarena.com.

Tuesday, August 16, 2016

Disturbed Frontman David Draiman and Jams Pantera Classic With Breaking Benjamin

(Metal Hammer) Disturbed frontman David Draiman joined Breaking Benjamin onstage at their Dallas show to cover Pantera song Walk. It was filmed at Texas' Gexa Energy Pavilion on their co-headlining North American tour, which features support from Alter Bridge and Saint Asonia.

Draiman also sang Simon & Garfunkel's The Sound Of Silence with Alter Bridge vocalist and guitarist Myles Kennedy at their Houston show last night - a cover which earned Disturbed chart success on both sides of the Atlantic after it was released earlier this year. Both videos can be viewed below.

When asked how he felt about seeing their version of The Sound Of Silence do well, Draiman said: "It feels great. Everyone and anyone is welcome to come on board. Music is meant to cross boundaries.

"I think that people have become genre snobs. Many people have eclectic tastes. Many people like to listen to all kinds of different music. I mean, I do - I'll listen to many different styles inside a day, a week, a month, a year. It doesn't matter. So why not?" Watch the video here.