Disturbed’s David Draiman Says 95 Percent of His Songs Were Written While High

Disturbed’s style of music is nowhere near stoner rock/metal, but frontman David Draiman says he’s often been high when writing almost all of his songs. He revealed his use of marijuana in the songwriting process during a new interview with Revolver.

One of the tracks on Disturbed’s upcoming album Immortalized is called “Fire It Up,” an ode to cannabis that opens with the sound of Draiman taking a bong hit. “You know what? Ninety-five percent of the songs I’ve written in my life, I’ve written them while high,” Draiman reveals. “That’s the God’s honest truth. I’ll have a very skeletal musical idea in my head, and then I’ll light one up, go in the shower and let the steam kind of build up … it helps me relax, and I can see the gaps.”

Draiman continues, “I can see the holes in the rhythm and the melody and I’ll know where I can go, and what the possibilities are. It helps me be able to perceive everything a little bit more clearly. So I figured, ‘What the hell, let’s write a song about it!’ And Danny (Donegan) had this riff that had a real funky bounce to it and that was so different. So it was, ‘Okay, let’s try this…’”

Disturbed songs are usually pretty serious, but “Fire It Up” is definitely more lighthearted. “Yeah, that’s me saying it: There’s a song on this Disturbed record that’s fun,” Draiman laughs. “And that’s all right. Metal can be fun. And God knows there’s certainly enough people out there that appreciate the enlightening aspects of smoking marijuana…”

Immortalized is set to be released Aug. 21, and last week the band unveiled the lyric video for the title track. Aug. 21 is also when Disturbed will play their first live show in quite a while. The album release show takes place at Chicago’s House of Blues.

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