DISTURBED's DAVID DRAIMAN On 'Rock Is Dead' Claim: 'Not If I Have Anything To Do With It'

Last September, KISS bassist/vocalist Gene Simmons made headlines when he declared in an Esquire article that rock was "finally dead." In the months that followed, many a musician has weighed in on the topic in a variety of interviews, with some digging a little deeper into Simmons's full comments and others just glossing over the headline.

Speaking with Music Choice, DISTURBED frontman David Draiman offered his opinion on the subject. He said (see video below): "There's everybody in the world who is always trying, time and time again, to proclaim the death of rock, or hard rock and heavy metal. Not if I have anything to do with it, not if we have anything to do with it. And certainly our colleagues in the genre are making us proud as well — the guys in KORN, the guys in FIVE FINGER [DEATH PUNCH], the guys in VOLBEAT, they're all doing an amazing job, and they're definitely carrying the torch. It's gonna be now up to us to kind of fan that flame a little bit."

DISTURBED's sixth studio album, "Immortalized", is headed for an August 21 release and Draiman gave The Pulse Of Radio his thoughts on the title: "'Immortalized' is hopefully what music does for everyone, in terms of emotions, in terms of experiences, in terms of being people who create it. There's nothing that can lock a memory in your mind more distinctly than with a piece of music. It's so easy to remember something so vividly and so perfectly when you score it to something."

The album ends a four-year hiatus for the band and features the current Top 10 rock single, "The Vengeful One".

"Immortalized" is available for pre-order everywhere and follows 2010's gold-certified "Asylum", DISTURBED's fourth consecutive No. 1 on The Billboard 200 album chart.

DISTURBED has yet to announce tour plans behind the new record. The band will play its first show in four years on August 21 at the House of Blues in the group's hometown of Chicago.