DISTURBED Vocalist DAVID DRAIMAN: 'We Feel Very Comfortable Going In Any Direction We Choose'

DISTURBED vocalist David Draiman recently spoke with United Rock Nations. The full conversation can be streamed below. A few excerpts follow (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

On whether the title of the group's new album, "Evolution", applies to the band or the world itself:

David: "Interesting question. Primarily, the band, and the music we've created for this record, but the world does seem to continue to evolve in its level of chaos and insanity, doesn't it? Maybe that's part of why a lot of that is reflected on this new record... I think that even as musicians, during the creative process itself, just during the studio time, we evolved. I think that as you follow the journey that this album takes you, it shows our own personal evolution that occurred within the studio at that time as well."

On the themes he wanted to convey in his lyrics:

David: "It wasn't a matter of wanting to; it was a matter of where the music ended up leading us. I always — or I have for about two or three records now — been kind of reaching back out to Dan [Donegan, guitar] and Mike [Wengren, drums] to feed me themes, topics that I should cover in the songs from a lyrical perspective, and they've been really great with that. But there was no specific game plan for things we specifically wanted to cover — it was really all about each individual song and how initially the music made us feel, and whether or not a thematic suggestion was even appropriate depending on what the music felt like at that particular time. It's never a premeditated, scientific thing."

On other inspirations for his lyrics:

David: "If anything, they were inspired by how much death and loss we've suffered over the course of the past number of years from a thematic standpoint. From a stylistic standpoint, songs like 'Are You Ready', 'Hold On To Memories', 'Already Gone' came about because in a post-'Sound Of Silence' world, we feel very comfortable going in any direction we choose at any given point in time. There are no limitations; there's no specific definition to what we are; and it's given us the confidence to really spread our wings quite a bit. The results are on this record."

On his growth as a vocalist:

David: "It's much easier to learn how to sing classically than it is to learn how to learn sing rock, to be perfectly honest. Achieving the proper technique without having to inject the rasp, the grit into the vocal is far easier than still trying to achieve that and inject the rasp or the grit. It's a very, very delicate technique. When I first trained to sing at all, the stylistically different songs on this album were more of what I sang back in the day. It literally hadn't been until we recorded the cover of 'Sound Of Silence' that I had had my recorded voice played back to me like that. I had never recorded anything that sounded like that."

On the band's growth:

David: "It is natural. We're constantly pushing each other. Every time we start the creative process up again, it's pushing our boundaries, pushing our limitations, seeing what each of us as individuals can do and seeing what we can get the other individuals to do. It is quite natural, and quite comfortable to us. I think it's a natural progression of things. Your creative mind doesn't want to be stagnant, and you want to continue to have new challenges from a creative standpoint. We push each other, and this time, we probably pushed each other more stylistically than we ever have in our career. Who knows if we'll push even further in the future?"

DISTURBED's latest single, "Are You Ready", recently shot to No. 1 at active rock radio, becoming the band's 12th No. 1 single and the fastest chart-climber of their career. The song has nearly 5 million Spotify streams and its companion video has gotten more than 5 million YouTube views.

"Evolution" will be released on October 19 via Reprise Records. The disc was recorded in Las Vegas with Kevin Churko, who produced the band's previous release, 2015's "Immortalized". That album became the group's fifth consecutive #1 debut on the Billboard 200, earned a platinum certification, and yielded a triple-platinum crossover smash, a cover of SIMON & GARFUNKEL's "The Sound Of Silence". DISTURBED's version earned a Grammy nomination for "Best Rock Performance".