DISTURBED Guitarist: New Material Is 'A Lot Ballsier' Than Past Albums

DISTURBED guitarist Dan Donegan gave a brand new interview to "The Big Rock Show" about the progress of the songwriting sessions for the group's new album and the band's future plans. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow:

On what DISTURBED has been up to in the last few months:

"We've just been writing. We've been real busy. Our personal lives have been busy as well. Mike [Wengren], our drummer, just got married a couple of weeks ago, and I just had a baby boy a little over a month ago. We're all just kind of balancing family life and trying to get back in writing mode, which we've been kind of hitting it pretty hard. Before Mike's wedding and before the baby came, we wanted to get the majority of the material [for the next DISTURBED album] written, which we we seemed to be pretty successful at, so we're just kind of fine-tuning a lot of stuff right now."

On how the new DISTURBED material compares to previous albums:

"Definitely, as far as musically, it's a lot ballsier than we've written. There's gonna be those signature things that are us, just 'cause stylistically that's the way we perform, and David [Draiman], vocally, is always gonna sound like him, so… he's got some big melodic moments, but there's some still aggressive stuff — just a lot ballsier, I think. [We're] trying to get a good blend of the elements of the past three CDs to try to evolve into something fresh and new for us as well."

On the group's plans for the rest of the year and the possibility of live dates:

"Right now the gameplan is to hit the studio this fall. That's where our heads are at, that's where we feel… that we're ready for it, so as long as we get the green light from the record label to give us our budget and let us go in and make this record, then that's our main goal right now — just bang this out and get it ready. More than likely, we probably won't hit the road until after the first of the year, but I don't wanna rule that out — anything is possible in this business; things pop up all the time and opportunities pop up, but the main priority is, once we get into the stuio, it's highly unlikely that we're gonna leave until we're finished with the CD. I Once we get in that mode of recording, we like to just see it through and finish it."

To hear Dan Donegan's entire interview with "The Big Rock Show", download the podcast at this location (163 MB; the Donegan interview begins around the one-hour, 17-minute mark).

DISTURBED's latest album, "Ten Thousand Fists", has sold 1.45 million copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.