Guitarist Dan Donegan has led his group of Disturbed bandmates to the very heights of success. They are only one of six other bands who have reached Number One on three consecutive album releases (U2, Van Halen, Metallica, and three other huge names have also achieved this). The band combines an irresistible rock feel with some big and muscular vocals from singer David Draiman. These textures crawl all over the band’s last album titled Indestructible, their fourth and the first produced by the band themselves. This past March, they once hit the road for Music As A Weapon IV tour where they’d be sharing the bill with Lacuna Coil, Killswitch Engage, and Chimaira.
Donegan talks about the album, the tour, and life as a new father.
UG: You’ve used Johnny K as the producer on your last few albums. What made you decide to self-produce the latest album?
Dan Donegan: For us, we’ve learned a great deal from Johnny K over the years. I’ve known him forever. We kind of grew up in the neighborhood together. I’ve known him for 20 years. He was always this local guy doing demos. He was trying to get his opportunity to break as a producer while we were trying to break as a band. So we learned a lot over the years doing our demos. Before we were signed, we did three demos with him and the first three albums with him as well. We’ve always just been really focused. The band has been perfectionists when it comes to the studio and writing and recording. We’ve never entered the studio unless we felt like we were 90 percent of the way there. With a little bit of experimenting and maybe that last-minute magic that may happen in the studio, we’re always open to that as well. We don’t want to go in there wasting time. We go in there focused to work. We’re not screwing around. We want to make the best album we can make. This time around I guess the biggest challenge was eliminating that middle man, that referee in a producer that wasn’t present that time. Taking out that buffer, if we’re creatively having differences or if there are any arguments that heat up, we have to deal with that one on one, without anybody being in the middle to kind of control things. Ultimately it’s not like we sit there and butt heads the whole time. If we’re at odds, it’s all because we have strong feelings and strong opinions about the material. So it’s all for good reasons. It’s all for just trying to put out the best songs and the best material that we can do. We’re men here. We’re best friends and we respect each other. We knew that when we would face those challenges of being at odds that we would still have the respect for what the other person has to say, even if we don’t agree with it. If I could somehow convince them that my way is always the right way, then everything is good! I’m kind of a laid-back, quiet guy for the most part, but in the studio I’m very opinionated and very attached to what we’re doing in there. The band, we have a strong vision of what we’re trying to accomplish. The most vocal that I am is always in the studio because I have a strong opinion of what we record and what we put out. At the end of the day, as long as we’re all happy and like the direction of where it’s going, then we have great results. I think at first there is a little bit of concern because we’re taking on that extra weight on our shoulders to have to be able to deliver and get the blessing from Warner Brothers and our management without anybody interfering. They had respect for us, too. They know how we work, and they trusted us. They’ve never questioned it. I think by taking on that challenge for us, it kind of was a benefit. It really made us step up our game even more. Each guy came in knowing that we always continue to try and impress each other. We try to deliver the best thing we can. We don’t settle for less. There is always going to be one of us pushing the next guy to do the best they can do. Nobody wants to let each other down. I’m not one for just going, “Let me play the riff one time and throw it in Pro Tools and slide that track around.” We’re all about keeping it as human as possible. We go in there and just try and give the best performance without having to rely on technology to clean things up or make things machine-like. It was a great process. I loved it and I hope that we do it again. As long as the creative juices are still flowing and we feel that we’re evolving, I think we can continue doing that. At some point if the ideas are getting stale or if we’re rehashing stuff, then we might have a different approach at that point and might want to get an outside opinion and try to get a different producer at that time to keep things interesting. But up until now, we feel like we’ve always evolved enough on our own. We’ve tried to tap into territories and tried different things. We’ve fortunately been lucky that it’s been working for us.
"The band has been perfectionists when it comes to the studio and writing and recording."
After recording the three albums before this, we just kind of picked out the strong points that we really liked about them. Every album is us. It’s always going to sound like us. David’s vocals will always sound like David, or my riffs or Mikey’s drumming and the rhythm section. There is no signature thing that we do, but I think we wanted to really bring back a better mix, a better blend of David’s vocal delivery. He has the ability to sing very melodic, and he’s got the ability to sing very syncopated and rhythmic. We wanted to bring more of that than we were doing in the early stages of the band. We would bring his rapid-fire, machine gun delivery to the vocals. It’s very in the pocket and rhythmic. So we just wanted to bring a little bit more of that out again without sacrificing anything or losing anything. We love the melodic nature that he brings to the songs as well. I just think the overall attitude and the vibe of the record just has a little bit more of that attitude that the first album had. We got a little bit more melodic on the second album Believe. So we don’t want to lose those elements, either. We love that as well. It’s just trying to take that and trying to expand on it. Performance-wise, we’re trying to create things that we hadn’t done before. We were trying to do more guitar solos within the songs because it felt like it called for it in some of this material. We’re just trying to expand on those.
Is “Inside the Fire” the first single?
Uh-huh.
There is a guitar solo within that song that seems to bring out a lot of your influences, such as the Zakk Wylde pings. There’s a melodic, pulling-off-the-string that has a Blackmore “Highway Star” feel. There is also a harmony guitar at the end. Where did it all come from? It’s hard to believe that it was created off the cuff. Did you have a sense of where it would start and end?
I think with the majority of the solos that I do – once I record the basic tracks – I just kind of improvise over it. I’ve always been or tried to be more of a melodic player. I try to be as tasteful as I can. If I’m going to put a solo in the song, I want it to have meaning and I want it to go somewhere. I want it to build and not just be a moment of where I try to shine as a guitar player or try to play as many notes as I can in this amount of song and try to show off individually. This is a band effort. I’m a songwriter. I love doing what we do as a band. I’ve always been the type of guitar player that loved the ‘70’s guitar players, and even throughout the ‘80’s. Even though the ‘80’s get a bad rap on being the hair metal bands and stuff like that, there were a lot of great guitar players that I learned from in that era. They were very melodic players and shredders as well. I was a big George Lynch from Dokken and Warren DeMartini from Ratt fan. All these guys were unbelievable players and very tasteful. I learned a lot from them as well. I just try to do something melodic that is going to make a kid out in the crowd play air guitar to it. I love looking out in the crowd and seeing somebody act like they’re playing it with me. That’s how I was when I was a kid in the crowd, watching the dual guitars of Iron Maiden or Judas Priest. It was always cool for me because these guys had their shredding moments, but they had those melodic moments that went somewhere. I just kind of tried to take a little bit from everybody that I learned from throughout the years. I’ve tried to adapt that to my playing as well. Like I said, I start out that solo, which is kind of a simple, melodic thing, with the Zakk Wylde pinch harmonics. I wasn’t really quite sure at the end of the solo what I was going to do there. I knew musically the background, I had worked on the dynamics of just everything stopping and doing some kind of guitar run, like a Randy Rhoads “Over the Mountain” where the band starts and Randy just kind of shreds out. It was like that type of thing. It doesn’t sound like his solo, but it’s that type of thing. I thought I would do a little harmony run on there, and then it just kind of stuck. It was a nice build and a nice end to that solo. To me, it went somewhere.
In a song like “The Curse,” you jump into the solo while the rhythm track is still there. Are there ever any problems during a live show when you’re trying to recreate some of these solos?
It does get a little challenging for sure because you don’t want that bottom to drop out in the live aspect of it. One solution that we helped kind of build off that as well, too, was a lot of times John, our bass player, will kick on AB box. He’ll have a distorted channel as well. It will still carry his low end of the bass, but he’ll have a guitar rig that he’s running through as well, too, that will give it that distorted tone as well. It fills in the gaps a bit there as well as with some of the overdubs. There may be a keyboard line or something underneath some of the backing that we may do live. It will fill in that gap so it doesn’t totally drop out. We wanted the fullness and the thickness of it. I think our best solution so far was to have John kick on a guitar rig with it. So it’s kind of like the band Local H, where the singer would play guitar and running the bass rig at the same time because he didn’t have a bass player. It just kind of helps fill that up a little more.
You’ve gone through Les Pauls and Paul Reed Smiths, but now you’re playing a Washburn. What is it about the Washburn that works so well for you?
In the beginning, I wasn’t really looking to change. I had the guitars that I was happy with. I have all the gear that I need. I just like the fact that the guys from Washburn are really cool guys. They’re young guys, big music fans, big rock fans. They were really aggressive on approaching me. The thing that really got me in the beginning is their factory is only an hour from where I live. It was just good timing. I was between album cycles. They told me, “At least come up to see what we can come up with and see if you like it.” That’s really what it came down to. I could put in the time and I could have a little more input and be more hands-on of what they come up with, rather than them just making something and giving it to me and me endorsing a project that I have very little to do with. It was nice to kind of be able to take a couple of visits there. We went over some design ideas, just the weight and the feel of it. That involvement, I really got attached to. They turned out a great model for me, and I’ve been using them since. So it kind of just accidentally happened. It conveniently just worked out really well.
"If we’re at odds, it’s all because we have strong feelings and strong opinions about the material. So it’s all for good reasons."
For sure. Every album cycle we’ve been trying to brand our tour as Music as a Weapon. It’s our way of fighting against other genres that overpower the industry right now. There are obviously some great rock bands and great metal bands that exist. It’s our way of joining forces, going out there, and making a name for ourselves. This time around we wanted to come out with a little bit bigger production. With the tough economy right now, we wanted to give back to our fans a little bit more. We wanted to give them their money’s worth to give them a show for under $40 with the kind of lineup we have and the kind of production we have, us as the headliner and Killswitch Engage as main support, Lacuna Coil and Chimaira on the main stage as well. There is a second stage that has Spineshank. There is like five or six bands running around the second stage as well. There is the tattoo convention that we brought out there, so there are some high-profile artists that are traveling on the tour with us, as well as local artists that will come out, too. They can book these artists in advance on the website to be able to come in and incorporate other things that kind of go hand in hand with hard rock and heavy metal. We thought, “Let’s combine forces and give them a little bit more.” We’re only a couple of shows into the tour so far, but it’s working out good. It’s got these guys getting their work done and people coming for the tattoos. People are getting an opportunity to get tattooed by some high-profile guys. At certain cities they’ll have some of the motocross guys out there as well, doing their jumps and stuff. It’s really cool because these guys are pretty insane on the bikes. Certain markets, depending on the weather and that, it just really depends on if they’re able to pull that off. Last year when we were on the Mayhem Tour, John Reese was the promoter, who kind of combined forces with us here for Music as a Weapon. He put together the Mayhem Tour, so we built a great relationship with him. When he was planning out his tattoo tour and we were planning out Music as a Weapon, he contacted our agent and our manager. He said, “Well hey, what about me jumping on with you guys and combining forces. Let’s see if there’s a way we can keep this a low-enough ticket price for a bigger show.” Logistically, they were able to crunch the numbers and make it happen. Everybody wins. They get a bigger show for under 40 bucks.
Can you give a few words about the Official Digital Bootleg Series?
We were kind of talking about it for awhile on the last tour cycle. We’ve got like a mobile Pro Tools rig on the road with us that we’ve been taking out for years. We would record some of the shows, and if we’d have them in our back pocket if we ever wanted to release live tracks, we would have stuff there to do. We’ve released a few bonus tracks in the past. It’s just another way of giving people a taste of the show. Maybe we can put something out there for people might not get an opportunity to come out to the concert or maybe they live too far from the venue or whatever or they have work or whatever the case may be. It’s just another way to give them a taste of what’s going on in our world. This stuff ends up online anyway the second that you finish the show. Later that night that stuff will be up on YouTube or whatever from some kid’s cell phone. We thought it would be better to at least give them a better quality performance instead of hearing it or seeing it through a distorted cell phone. Maybe we could record these shows live anyway, put a decent mix to it, and give them a better live performance.
There have been comments saying that you’re not metal enough to fit in with the heaviest genres, while others state that you’re too metal for the more melodic rock listeners. Do you think about that at all?
Speaking from myself personally, I really don’t care. I don’t care about the negativity or even the positive comments. I don’t care what the critics or certain people are going to say about it. We do what we do. We don’t second-guess what we do. When we’re in a room writing songs, it’s how it moves the four of us. That’s the way our thinking was when we were a garage band before we were signed. That continues to be our way of thinking now. We can’t try to please everybody. It’s not going to happen. We can’t try to think that we know a secret formula of how to write songs that sell records and what’s going to get played on the radio and what the record label is expecting out of us. We just do what moves us, what feels good for us. That’s the way we’re always going to be. There is nothing that I need to feel like I have to change the way we do things because somebody wants to say we’re not metal enough. To me, I think that term has changed over the years. I think it got a little bit lost. Now we’re not metal enough because everything that is considered metal today is all this monotone, screaming, hardcore stuff, which I’m a fan of many bands that do that. When we were growing up, the path that we feel we’re going down, is the same path that all the great metal bands that were very melodic, that were very rhythmic were Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Queensryche. All these metal bands were guitar riff-driven, double-bass playing, powerful vocals that were melodic, and they weren’t all screamers. Bruce Dickinson had melody. Ozzy had melody. Geoff Tate had melody and down the line. That’s kind of what we were influenced by. Those were the bands that made us want to be musicians, and that’s kind of what we do. I just think there’s probably not enough melodic singers out there. So does that make us not as metal? I guess so. There’s maybe only a handful of guys that still sing with melody. To me, that’s an advantage. We don’t sound like everybody else. We have a distinct sound, which only a handful of bands have had over the years. That’s what I’m mostly into. When you have a band like Korn and Jonathan Davis, who has great melodies and he can have his screaming moments at times. To me, it’s musical. Even System of a Down, they have their own direction and their own sound. I like a band with an identity. I think we’ve created that without knowing we created it. It just happened naturally. Like I said, I’m not knocking all those bands that are straightforward. There are so many of them. There are a lot of great musicians in those bands, and I’m a fan of a lot of them. I’m just very thankful that we stick to our guns and we have an identity. I’m not looking to change that in any way at all. They can label us in any way they want. It doesn’t really matter to me. We just keep doing what we do, and I don’t need to have a certain label on it.
"We want to make the best album we can make."
I tell you right now, if you had the band in four different rooms and went in and asked each one of us that question, we would all say that the one place we want to play is Brazil. We’ve been to many countries and we’ve been all over the world, and we haven’t been to South America. We’ve been dying to go to Brazil. It’s the very top of our list of somewhere we want to go and play. We’re looking for the right opportunity. We can’t wait. We keep telling our agent and our manager. It has to make sense to us. For us to get over there, we want to at this point, financially, we have to get in a situation to where it’s worth the expense to get over there. So we need the right profile tour. It’s hard to start from the ground up on somewhere we’ve never been because it’s very expensive for us to travel that way, with our crew and everybody to take over there. At this point in our career, we’re really looking for an opportunity to get on a good tour and opportunity with Iron Maiden or Rage Against the Machine or Metallica or somebody that we can just get in on a support slot and have the opportunity to be put in front of an audience. We know we have fans there. We’ve met a few people over the years that say they’re from South America. Even online, there are a lot of fans who have contacted us. It’s definitely number one on our list. Like I said, if you ask each one of us individually, we would all say that without even batting an eye. That’s the one place that we’ve been dying to go after all these years. We still haven’t been able to make it happen yet, but if we can find the right opportunity where we can cover our expenses just to get there and do it and work it out in a certain time frame, we’re all over it. Hopefully we can make it sooner than later. It’s the top of our list.
What are your five favorite albums?
In no specific order I would say Black Sabbath’s We Sold Our Soul For Rock ‘n’ Roll, Soundgarden’s Badmotorfinger, that’s one of my favorites. I think I would say Pantera Vulgar Display of Power. Maybe Metallica Ride the Lightning. Then I would say maybe Faith No More’s Real Thing. If you ask me tomorrow I might have five different ones, but those are definitely my highest-priority albums.
I know you just had a baby girl.
I had a baby boy. I have a daughter, and my son will be two in June.
Has that changed your outlook on life and what is really important?
For sure. I’m fortunate that on the U.S. and Canada tour, I’m able to take them out here on the road with me. It’s challenging to balance band and family. It’s great. I like the challenge, and I don’t want to be away from my kids. I don’t want to return home and my kids not know who I am. I’m a family man and I’m a musician, so I have to figure out how to make it work. I’ve seen other people be able to do it. If anything, it’s been very encouraging for the other guys because they see that we’re able to do it and it kind of gives us hope that, for the rest of us, it can be done. We’re living our dream. This is a great opportunity to be where we’re at in the music business. You don’t want to just live this alone. You want somebody to share it with. You want family – or I do. I want family and I want kids, and that’s what I have now. It’s been a challenge, but a good balance. It’s what keeps me going, my music and my family.
Interview by Steven Rosen
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