{"id":27906,"date":"2015-09-12T18:51:51","date_gmt":"2015-09-12T08:51:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/maytherockbewithyou.com\/mtrbwy\/?p=27906"},"modified":"2015-09-12T18:52:03","modified_gmt":"2015-09-12T08:52:03","slug":"dan-donegan-of-disturbed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maytherockbewithyou.com\/mtrbwy\/2015\/09\/dan-donegan-of-disturbed\/","title":{"rendered":"Dan Donegan of Disturbed"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n<\/a>\u201c\u2026all we know is we\u2019re only going to return when we\u2019re all ready to commit for the long haul, when we\u2019re ready to give it back to the fans the way they deserve it and we\u2019re not gonna half ass it, we\u2019re gonna come back stronger than ever and we have to make a statement and we have to make the best album we can make, and we\u2019ve gotta commit to that.\u201d<\/p>\n

From release: After a four year hiatus, Grammy Award-nominated, multiplatinum hard rock titans\u00a0Disturbed\u00a0have announced their return with their sixth studio album, entitled\u00a0‘<\/em>Immortalized’, released August 21 through Reprise Records. In January 2014, David Draiman, Dan Donegan, and Mike Wengren met for dinner in their hometown of Chicago. Shortly thereafter, without notifying friends, families, or their label, the three began to fly back and forth to each other\u2019s respective home studios for writing sessions, marking the beginnings of\u00a0Immortalized<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>and the first time they collectively wrote together since 2001\u2026<\/p>\n

At home in Chicago we caught up with Dan of Disturbed to talk about the band\u2019s return from hiatus and their new album \u2018Immortalized\u2019 as well as touring plans, Simon & Garfunkel, and much more\u2026<\/p>\n

For starters, welcome back!!<\/strong>
\nThank you so much, it\u2019s great to finally have something to put out there again, some more music and just can\u2019t wait to get back on stage and definitely get back to Australia.<\/p>\n

I have to lead off with how did you pull this return off without anyone knowing?<\/strong>
\nI\u2019ve already said it a number of times, we\u2019re definitely ninjas, we definitely pulled this off just under the radar, it was tricky, we didn\u2019t want to speak too soon, we didn\u2019t want to tell the fans we were together and we were talking or writing because we didn\u2019t know how long that would take. Once we started having those conversations we said there\u2019s no deadline, there\u2019s nothing that we\u2019re trying to do, it was just one step at a time, we weren\u2019t lining up tours or anything else, we said let\u2019s just start writing however long it takes we\u2019ll work with a few producers and see if we hit it off with anybody and see where we want to record this. Once we got in that process of it, if we just keep this under wraps and let\u2019s surprise the fans with something, we felt like we owed them more than just letting out the rumour of, ok the guys are back together and then they\u2019re asking a year later where\u2019s the album and where\u2019s the tour? Then it takes away from the excitement there, I think as we further discussed it we said if we can keep this between us, it\u2019ll be challenging, but if we do it would be nice to give the fans a gift here, let\u2019s surprise them with dropping a single out of the sky and then let them know that the album\u2019s already done and there\u2019s no longer a wait. The album\u2019s coming and we felt we owed them something big like that because they\u2019ve shown their loyalty to us, they\u2019ve waited five years between albums, it\u2019s been four years since our last tour together so we felt that this would be kind of a special way to return.<\/p>\n

I was one of the millions who watched that five minute video of the guy coming back to life, were you guys watching the buzz around that first video?<\/strong>
\n*laughs* Oh for sure, once we started talking about how we generate traffic and tease them back to the news of it we started talking with our record label and doing a little bit of a tease campaign of how do we get them talking about it without us telling them. So we thought it would be a good way to get the fans stirred up by putting up new artwork, having the guy just kind of twitching a bit and give them the impression that something is happening, so it was a very, very well strategy and thought out plan as we put all our minds together in hey what would be a cool way to kind of stir things up\u2026 let\u2019s wake the fans up, let them know that It\u2019s coming as the guy himself is waking up, so it was a nice couple step process to get them fired up and talking about it for those few days before we made the announcement.<\/p>\n

I did love that they got shorter too, as the first one was five minutes of him just laying there, I thought it was brilliant *laughs*<\/strong>
\n*laughs* Yeah we had to correct that problem too, once we saw it come back we were like oh you know what, we kinda made a mistake there, we drew that out too long, so we took the comments and we learned from that lesson of \u2018we just made them sit through five minutes of it just looping over and over\u2019 so we don\u2019t want to piss you guys off either, we want to get you excited but we don\u2019t want to piss you off *laughs* so we made it clear that the next one had to be shortened up a bit, they\u2019re gonna get the point and we don\u2019t have to give them five minutes of it, they\u2019ll get the point a lot sooner.<\/p>\n

\u2018Immortalized\u2019 in my opinion is your best work to date, did the hiatus help reshape some things within the band to get this great end result?<\/strong>
\nI think so, I mean five years it\u2019s a long time being away from each other,\u00a0 I mean the way I can describe it is maybe like being in a marriage and not saying that the marriage was ever in trouble, but maybe we took a break from the marriage, we got away from each other and when we got back together it was like a new life in us. So I suppose if you want to make that analogy of maybe a couple that gets divorced but then decides to reconcile after a few years and then maybe there\u2019s a new appreciation when you get back together, you realise what you had was great and sometimes it might inject new life into that marriage, and in our case I think it did. There was always a great deal of respect that we had for each other, I don\u2019t think that we ever lost that, but being in a band together since 1996, being around each other all the time, touring hard, it was nice to kind of step away for a minute, all of us do our own thing, we dabbled with a couple of side projects, we spent time with our families, David had gotten married and had his first kid, Mike had his second kid, I have two little kids, so we definitely spent a lot of family time as well. That kind of brought us together too, David being a husband and a father for the first time gave us a more reason to bond too, there\u2019s more things to talk about besides the music and that being said, when David\u2019s son was first born I took a trip out to Austin, Texas where he lives to go meet his son for the first time, and see David who I hadn\u2019t seen in the first couple of years. So it was nice to just reconnect and go see him and see him be a new dad and the excitement there, and that got us talking about plans for us in the future and I definitely wanted to make sure he had enough time at home with his newborn too. So there was never going to be any rush back to Disturbed, it was always like look, we\u2019ll do it when we feel like we\u2019re ready and we have something to offer and I want to make sure we all have time with our families and our kids, but I wanted to make sure we miss this so much that we couldn\u2019t take that anymore either, we had that void in our lives of not having Disturbed, there was that empty void of that we missed it so much that once we started talking about it, and just seeing the level of excitement we had with the idea of writing again, so that just basically evolved into our first writing session and that just kind of snowballed from there.<\/p>\n

A number 1 debut not only here in Australia but in the U.S. and Canada for \u2018Immortalized\u2019 must have been a great feeling when there may have been some concerns that the love would still be there for the band?<\/strong>
\nWell there\u2019s always that risk, we never knew how long the break would be, you know like I said, there\u2019s was never a deadline to it, ok, well all we know is we\u2019re only going to return when we\u2019re all ready to commit for the long haul, when we\u2019re ready to give it back to the fans the way they deserve it and we\u2019re not gonna half ass it, we\u2019re gonna come back stronger than ever and we have to make a statement and we have to make the best album we can make, and we\u2019ve gotta commit to that. We\u2019ve got to put our families on hold again and we\u2019ve got to dive into this and commit to writing, we have to commit to recording, we have to commit to the tours that are going to follow. So once we got to that point, it was a risky move to know however much time would be off but we felt confident that the fans have been so loyal to us, we felt that they would stay there with us, even during this hiatus our social media pages and the Disturbed facebook and everything has gotten millions and millions of views and we\u2019ve always had so much traffic when we were doing nothing *laughs* so we tried to keep them updated and we\u2019d post every now and then to let them know we appreciate them or try and give them updates or what\u2019s going on in our personal lives and stay connected with them. We felt confident that they were there for us, but it was definitely reassuring once we dropped the single and surprised them and just to see the level of excitement and response around, at least around here in the country if not the world we can only base it off what we read on social media, but the reaction we\u2019ve seen here in the United States too was just very overwhelming, so it was definitely reassuring to see that they haven\u2019t fallen away or moved on past us, they were just patiently waiting for the return\u2026<\/p>\n

So your live shows are always a spectacle, have you got plans for what the Immortalized tour will look like?<\/strong>
\nI\u2019m not sure just yet, we\u2019ve been talking with our production team and with management trying to assemble a game plan and a stage show and what we want to bring and carry with us, so the gears are turning, everybody\u2019s thinking of idea and collaborating, so those discussions are going to happen in our Fall months, these upcoming months we\u2019re going to have those discussions now and see what our plans are for 2016. It\u2019s going to be a busy year of touring, we can\u2019t wait to get out there, we\u2019ve only done one show it was the record release show here in Chicago on the day album came out on the 21st<\/sup> of August, so that was somewhat of a tease for us, it was one show and we were like \u2018oh man I wish we had more shows lined up right now *laughs*\u2019 but it\u2019s all in the works, we\u2019re coming back in full force, Australia is definitely a top priority to us it\u2019s just a matter of the powers that be can put it together and say we\u2019ve got something and we can go over there and do some dates.<\/p>\n

Well if you want to give me an exclusive on when that may be please feel free *laughs*<\/strong>
\nNothing confirmed yet\u2026 we\u2019re definitely talking\u2026 we definitely know we will be there and I\u2019ve said it numerous times that I will personally throw the guys in a rowboat and row them over there if that\u2019s what it takes to get over there and play in 2016. So it\u2019s just a matter of like I said, if our booking agent can get us over there, whether we\u2019re headlining, or whether we get on a festival whatever it may be, I don\u2019t care, set us up on the beach we\u2019ll play on the beach, it doesn\u2019t matter \u00a0where we go. We\u2019re very much looking forward to getting back over there and playing for all the Australian fans.<\/p>\n

In Disturbed style we get a cover on the album, this one the most left field yet, how did you decide on the Simon & Garfunkel classic?<\/strong>
\nYeah it\u2019s definitely the big question that everyone is having about this one and that\u2019s the thing, it\u2019s nice to have something that\u2019s going to push us and challenge us to do something that unpredictable and unexpected and once we decided on the song the first reaction was \u2018ok Dan, write a cool heavy riff to it and Mike will do some syncopated drums to it\u2019 and I just kind of put the brakes on it and said I don\u2019t want to really do that, I wanted to push ourselves musically and just try something different, let\u2019s evolve as song writers and as a band and see if we can go down a different path for once. I had this vision of David bringing his vocals somewhere he\u2019s never gone before that the fans have never seen him go before, I mean I hear him sing other stuff all the time so I know what he\u2019s capable of doing and this was something that was really going to put him out there vocally and really make him vulnerable and I\u2019m not sure if he\u2019s really dully had the confidence going into it because it was such a change of pace for him so it took a little bit of convincing. Once we talked with Kevin Churko our producer and I said let\u2019s try and go down this road with it and he helped kind of find the right key to do it in first of all which was really important to where it would take David vocally, but then just helping us kind of assemble a really good orchestra and string arrangement and some nice piano and I played some acoustic guitar through it, so we wanted to create a nice bed of music that was going to be complimentary to David\u2019s vocals and not something that was just going to be big and in the way. So I think we achieved that, we started off experimenting with it but it just started to evolve into this nice, slowly building orchestrated moment where David just kind of vocally put himself out there and really carried the song, and I think once we were done with it I think we were all kind of surprised how great it did, even when he was tracking vocals he\u2019s in the vocal booth and I don\u2019t think he even realised how it was turning out until he came into the control room and started hearing back for the first time and being like \u2018holy shit this is something different from us *laughs*\u2019 and totally unexpected, we even kind of shocked ourselves, so I\u2019m pretty overwhelmed and surprised at the early positive reaction right out the gate because it is such a different turn for us that I thought it may take the fans a little time to digest such a twist, and so I was surprised to see just how quick they were to respond with all the positive comments on how much they really respect the change and the dynamic of trying something that they never would have seen coming.<\/p>\n

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Essential Information<\/strong><\/h2>\n

From:<\/strong> Chicago, IL, USA<\/p>\n

Band members:<\/strong> David Draiman- Vocals, Dan Donegan- Guitar, Mike Wengren- Drums, John Moyer- Bass<\/p>\n

Latest release:<\/strong> Immortalized \u2013 (out now \u2013 Warner Music Australia \/ Reprise Records)<\/p>\n

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Website:<\/strong>\u00a0 http:\/\/www.disturbed1.com<\/a><\/p>\n