DISTURBED's DAVID DRAIMAN Explains Why He Will Never Use His Platform To Push For One Political Candidate Or Another In Elections

DISTURBED frontman David Draiman was interviewed on the latest episode of the "Sarai Talk Show", hosted by Sarai Idan, an Iraqi-American activist, television host, musician, and beauty pageant titleholder who was crowned as Miss Universe Iraq 2017 and represented Iraq at the Miss Universe 2017 pageant. You can now watch the chat below.

Speaking about whether he and his bandmates ever voice their political views publicly in order to sway their fans one way or the other, Draiman said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "I think it's okay to stand for something. I don't think it's okay to push it on other people. That's the difference to me.

"You can have an opinion. All of our songs are infused with very, very strong opinions, but they try to appeal to both sides of the spectrum," he explained. "I like to attack everybody. I don't wanna go ahead and go to one side or the other, because everybody's guilty. And so it needs to be universal; it needs to be something that people from any walk of life can find a connection to. That is incredibly important to me.

"People who try to use their platforms to push for one political candidate or another in elections and stuff like that? You'll never see me do anything like that," Draiman added. "That, I think, is overstepping. That, I think, I am in the Alice Cooper school of thought, where we're there to entertain. You can write about poignant stuff, about subject matter that means something, and you can even inspire people to feel passionately about a cause or whatever it may be, but at the end of the day, people come to a concert for an escape and they come for a way to come to terms with powerful emotions, to transcend things, to overcome things. So when musicians or comedians start to become too politicized and they become too partisan, it's annoying, because then all of a sudden they're not funny to the other half of the people anymore. I don't think it needs to be that way. I think that there can be common ground 99 percent of the time."

Back in 2015, Draiman, the son of Israelis and the grandson of Holocaust survivors, threw his support behind then-Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, writing on his personal Facebook page: "Well... Since it seems like the majority of the Republican voting base has fallen for [Donald] Trump's fear mongering, bigoted, racist, lunacy, and since no other Republican candidate (including mildly delusional Ben Carson) seems to have a chance against him, whether he goes independent or not... and since Hillary [Clinton] is hellspawn incarnate (best friend of the ‪terrorist-supporting Qataris, and just basically Obama part II),I feel that I have no choice (even though I wish he were stronger on Israel, and has plans for a social welfare state that could very well bankrupt our country; I guess I'd rather be financially bankrupt, then morally bankrupt) but to throw my support behind the venerable Bernie Sanders (much to the chagrin of my conservative/Republican friends, I'm sure). I just hope he remembers who he is and where he comes from (a Jew) and that he does whatever he can to protect both the American people and the State of Israel. He'll need a miracle...but who knows? The world is crazy enough these days that he just might get one."

Draiman had been outspoken about politics before, describing himself as fiscally on the conservative side but socially and culturally liberal.

He told The Pulse Of Radio a while back that he had problems with the candidates on both sides. "I have issues with everybody," he said. "I'm liberal about everything that is issue-based as far as ideology, but I'm also of the opinion of a very small government. I don't agree with the fiscal policies of the Democrats, but I certainly don't agree with the right-wing craziness of the Republicans."

Draiman has in the past battled with Twitter trolls who have harassed him about his sometimes-controversial views regarding Israel and its ongoing conflict with the Palestinians.

Both of Draiman's maternal grandparents were survivors of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, while many others on his mother's side were wiped out by the Nazis.

DISTURBED performed in Israel for the first time in July 2019.

Although David had visited the country many times, this was the first DISTURBED concert in the Jewish state.

In the past, Draiman's DISTURBED bandmate, guitarist Dan Donegan, had frequently shared posts on his personal Facebook page that amplified Republican talking points and that were derogatory to Democrats.