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Perth MusicDisturbed Interview
Nearly a decade after the release of their groundbreaking debut, The Sickness, US hard rockers Disturbed have become one of the most passionate and well-respected bands in the hard-rock universe, a dependable source not only of pummeling riffs and jackhammer beats, but of personal and political insights into our troubled times. Yet success (in the form of three platinum-plus albums, with both Believe and Ten Thousand Fists topping Billboard’s album chart and over nine million albums sold) hasn’t dulled this Chicago-based foursome’s taste for adventure. If anything, Disturbed’s loyal fanbase has pushed the band to newer heights of self-expression. So it makes sense that their fourth album, Indestructible, debuted on the US, New Zealand and Australian charts at number 1. To mark the occasion, drummer Mike Wengren caught up with Justin Middleton for this exclusive interview.
Click here to download the podcast of the entire interview. (9:12 - 0.7Mb)
I asked Mike what the band went through in the creation of Indestructible. “We had a certain time frame in mind when we wrote and recorded this record and this was basically exactly when we wanted it to be out. So we put our noses to the grindstone and made sure we followed suit with the plan and it worked out great. Now finally the record is out and we can start touring with it and it’s great. The main difference with this one is that we produced it ourselves. We just decided that at this point in our careers we wanted to prove to ourselves and to everybody else that we could step it up a little bit. Johnny K, the guy who produced our first two records, is a great friend of ours and did an amazing job. We felt we learned a lot from him through the years and just wanted to show everyone.”
Without their friend Johnny K in the producers chair the band had a few hurdles to overcome in producing the album by themselves. “It was a bit more difficult because we didn’t have that unbiased opinion in the room, an outside party to bounce ideas off. When we would get stuck it was a little challenging but the thing that was great was that we have such a great friendship and great respect for each other as musicians and as people that it just made us dig deeper from each other. When one of us would get stuck with a certain part, the other one would help pull that one out so it was just a great way to pull in to each other and work off the friendship. We’ve known each other for so long. Danny, David and myself have been in the band together for 12 years and if we can’t trust each other at this point who can we trust?”
Asked what the process is for the band in creating songs Mike explained “It’s a very collaborative effort. The songs usually start out with Dan and he brings the guitar riffs to us and basically he and I will structure the song. I’ll start to run some drum beats down to his guitar riffs we just start building a song musically. When we have something that is close to a complete song we’ll give that to David and he’ll throw in his input as far as melody is concerned and it just builds from there.”
The new album has a dark feeling to it and a bit of a theme that relates to bad luck. Mike described “David had gone through a few moments of bad luck prior to the writing of it and that was definitely some of the fuel behind it and some of the inspiration behind the making of some of these songs and the lyrical content. We also, as a band, wanted to go back to a darker time and have a darker record, something a little more raw and a little bit more like our first record. We knew that we had sort of gotten away from that energy that the first record had. We wanted to be very conscious of that and bring some of that back if we could.”
I asked Mike how he feels about the passionate fans Disturbed have and whether any Australian tour is on the cards. “We are very excited, it’s been a long time coming for us. Our fans are amazing, they wait for us and are just very passionate and very ravid about the band. We really, really appreciate that, we wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for them…I believe we will be in Australia, I want to say the beginning of September. I don’t know if it has been confirmed 100% yet but I know they are working on it.”
Indestructable is out now through Warner Records. For more info on Disturbed visit www.disturbed1.com
