DISTURBED Frontman Is Happy To See Political Winds Shifting In Favor Of Marijuana Legalization

DISTURBED frontman David Draiman says that he is glad to see more and more U.S. states moving toward state-legalized recreational or medical marijuana. "A lot of the stigmas are being dispelled," he said during an appearance on an episode of "Dudes Talking S#*t In A Truck" with SiriusXM DJ Jose Mangin (see video below). "It's not being demonized in the 'reefer madness' sense that it had been portrayed for so many generations. And just the medicinal benefits that it has for so many people and the alternative it provides to people, as far as other medical treatments there that are far more harmful to the body and far more side effects associated with them. And even just from the perspective of, like, I would rather be hanging out with a bunch of stoned dudes than a bunch of drunk dudes any day of the week."

The singer, who has famously said that as much as 95 percent of the music he's written for DISTURBED has been created while he was high, continued: "It just is what it is. It's just a more peaceful, calming… And even beyond that, even beyond the partaking of the THC elements of it when you go to the CBD side of it, the anti-inflammatory qualities to it, the abilities to be a cancer-fighting agent, the ability for it to be something that is not only not a gateway drug but something that could end up stopping the rapid growth of the opiate crisis that we're facing in this country."

DISTURBED's song "Fire It Up", which appeared on the band's 2015 album "Immortalized", opens with the sound of a bong hit and was inspired by the singer's pot-smoking routine.

Draiman told Revolver in a 2015 interview that marijuana plays a huge part in his songwriting process. "I'll have a very skeletal musical idea in my head, and then I'll light one up, go in the shower and let the steam kind of build up," he said. "It helps me relax, and I can see the gaps. I can see the holes in the rhythm and the melody and I'll know where I can go, and what the possibilities are. It helps me be able to perceive everything a little bit more clearly."

Draiman told The Pulse Of Radio that "Fire It Up" was inspired by a recording session where he sang DISTURBED's cover of SIMON AND GARFUNKEL's "The Sound Of Silence" while high. "I was done with the day and I wanted to relax, so I went ahead and I smoked a bowl," he laughed. "[I] came back and was high out of my mind and no, no, by no means ready to track vocals by any stretch of the imagination. And they all encouraged me to go into the vocal booth, and I was pretty blown away. I hadn't heard my voice that vulnerable in a very, very long time."

Asked what his favorite strain of marijuana is, Draiman told Artisan News: "If I can find Kush of any kind anywhere I go, that's the preferable… I love it. If I go to Amsterdam, I'll hunt down the master Kush over at the greenhouse the minute I get there, I still love White Widow too, I still love Bubblegum, I still love a bunch of 'em, but there is no substitute for Kush. Kush is just, to me, the be-all, end-all. I'm much of an Indica guy than a Sativa guy anyway, so I like the more stony kind of thing, 'cause that's what puts me in the right zone for creativity anyway. I'm not looking to wake up from it."