Warren Barris of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada’s 100.3 FM The Bear radio station recently conducted an interview with DISTURBED singer David Draiman. You can now listen to the chat using the audio player below. A couple of excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).
On DISTURBED’s new live show:
Draiman: “I don’t wanna give too much away, but there’s definitely plenty of eyewitness accounts already via YouTube all over the place online. People can take a look at some of the pyrotechnic elements that we’ve brought out and some of the acoustic elements that we’ve had during the set. We’ve had string players onstage with us during our acoustic set. We have a new never-done-before pyrotechnic where we have a curtain of chains that actually goes up in flames in the middle of the set during one of the songs. We have multidirectional, alcohol-based, burning pyro jets that can be arced in different directions and that can be turned 360 degrees. A lot of these elements are very, very new. We have brand new, newly developed laser lights. We have certain lighting facets and fixtures that have never been before used in live applications. A whole bunch of elements… And certainly with the set itself, we’re going very deep into the catalogue. We’re pulling out oldies but goodies and some rather obscure songs as long as still providing people with the hits that we know they wanna hear as well. So it is truly a DISTURBED live performance that is unlike anything people have seen from us up to this present day.”
On whether he finds it a little more difficult to leave the house and go out on tour nowadays considering that he became a father for the first time in 2013:
Draiman: “Absolutely. It’s killing me. Thank God for FaceTime and Skype and all that, because… The God’s honest truth is that, being the singer, my body’s my instrument. And it’s difficult enough in the relatively frigid environment that we’ve thrust ourselves into in the beginning of this cycle out here to stay healthy, but once you add a two-and-a-half-year-old boy and your wife to the equation, it’s like a rolling Petri dish on the bus. So I had to kind of make the hard decision not to bring them with on this run. They’ll still come out from time to time. I gave my wife a two-week statute of limitations here; it’s, like, ‘I can’t go two weeks without seeing you guys.’ And they’ll come out for a few days at a time. But to have them out on a consistent basis, it just runs too much of a risk of me potentially getting sick, and we just can’t risk that. So it’s just part of the sacrifice you make. But you know what? I mean, I was so fortunate enough during our hiatus to be able to see my son come into the world and to see him grow into the first two and a half years of his life. And I’m still gonna be a very present element in this next year, but at this particular point in time, he has to know, and I have to know, and she has to know that this is what I was born to do, and this is what I do for a living, and what I love just about as much [as], or more than, anything else in existence. So I am utilizing the strength of my road family and The Disturbed Ones [DISTURBED fans] as my support structure out here, and it’s been rewarding. But I won’t lie; I do miss them terribly, and they know it, and everybody else around me knows it, because I can’t stop mentioning it.”
On whether DISTURBED plans to continue making more albums after last year’s “Immortalized”:
Draiman: “Oh, absolutely! There’s no end to this. We’ll end when we’re no longer physically able to do this anymore, or when the desire for us peters out, and I hope that neither one ever happens. This is an addiction in the purest form possible, and once you’ve tasted what it’s like to play live to an audience that truly loves you and that gets empowerment and release and strength from what you do, it’s impossible to turn away — at least for me. And I know that I speak for the rest of my brothers in the band when it comes to that as well. We have a symbiotic relationship that makes all of us stronger — the fans and band. And you can’t walk away from the most addictive sensation in existence; it’s nearly impossible. And my family will have to forgive me for my one final vice that exists in my life.”
DISTURBED’s sixth studio album, “Immortalized”, was released in August 2015.
The album debuted at the top of the Billboard 200 chart, making it DISTURBED’s fifth effort in a row to enter the chart at Number One, a feat shared only with METALLICA and DAVE MATTHEWS BAND.
DISTURBED kicked off a North American tour — its first in more than four years — on February 10 in Fargo.
Interview (audio):
Source: Blabbermouth
