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Q&A: John Moyer of Disturbed on No. 1 albums, the Uproar fest and hanging with a hero Fri 24 Sep 2010, 05:37
CrowX
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Disturbed has emerged as one of rock's most bankable acts over the last decade. The band -- which is currently heading the Rockstar Energy Drink Uproar Festival -- just scored its fourth consecutive No. 1 album in the U.S. with its fifth album, "Asylum."
In a recent interview, bassist John Moyer told SoundSpike that the band's recipe for success isn't complicated.
"When we write songs and we put these songs together, the people we're trying to impress first and foremost is each other," he said via telephone. "We want to make sure that we don't let each other down as artists, as brothers in this band. Whatever we bring to the table is the best that we can bring. If we have any ideas, they should be ideas we're fully ready to pursue to the end."
The band also seems to have an innate sense of what its audience wants.
"We put everything we have into every one of our songs, Moyer said. "It's only after our record's done that the singles start to pop out. I think the respect we have for each other kind of transcends into the respect we have for our fans, [who] give us life, that allow us to do this. We're not going to turn something in unless we think it's good. We're not going to put out crap. When we feel the record's done and it's right, no matter how long that is, whether that's less than a year, two years, we want to make sure that whatever it is we put out there is something we're proud to put our name on."
Moyer spoke to SoundSpike about the Rockstar Energy Drink Uproar Festival, Disturbed's success and the joy of hanging out with Hellyeah drummer Vinnie Paul nightly.
SoundSpike: How's the tour going?
The tour is going well. We're doing great numbers all over the U.S . The record was No. 1 in the country. Things are going very well in the Disturbed world.
This is your fourth consecutive No. 1 album. To what do you attribute that success?
The No. 1 thing I attribute it to is fans of this kind of music, of hard rock and heavy metal, and our fans -- the Disturbed fans -- who have grown to trust us. They know we're going to hopefully put out something they're going to like -- something different, not a carbon copy of what we've done before, but give them the music and the sound they've grown to crave from us. I think it's just that consistency along with the power of the hard rock and heavy metal fans that allowed this wonderful feat to happen.
Describe your recording process. Did you record "Asylum" any differently than you did your last couple records?
The recording process on every record's the same. We don't really change it up. We don't feel it's broken. The songs get written in demo formats in our home studios and we send MP3s back and forth, kind of solidifying parts, putting songs together. Once we feel we have a good body of work, 15-16 songs, then we book studio time and the songs are really well blueprinted before we even go in the studio. The studio time is at a minimum. I think we spent seven weeks in the studio and we tracked 17 songs. Every day is breakneck pace, getting the parts done. As musicians, we all have enough respect for each other, where we come in and we know what it is we're going to play that day, what it is we're going to try and work on and make happen. Like I said, a lot of that is because we demo the songs to the point where we already know what they're going to sound like going in.
So there's no major messing around in the studio.
No. But we don't want to make it so tight that we close the door on allowing studio magic to happen, and those moments capturing performances. It's not squeezed down that tight. But we definitely know what we're going for when we go in there.
How did you come up with the name "Asylum"?
Those were the lyrics that were penned for the first song on the record. David [Draiman, singer] was thinking to himself, "Not only is this a cool song, but this would be a great concept for the record." Right off the bat, the first song in, he was already working on the concept, thinking we were going to call the record "Asylum." So we came up with ideas and what to do about the imagery associated with that.
There are political undertones -- and overtones -- on this album.
I think a lot of times David says the things that people want to say but don't know quite how to say it, whether it's about the environment or whatnot. I think you're referring to "Another Way To Die." That has a little bit of that political undertones/overtones, however you'd like to describe it. He delves in to a lot of different areas. "Asylum" is about the loss of a loved one. "Infection" is about being hurt so bad that you can't move on until you can expunge these feelings from you. He really digs deep in his lyrics. They all mean something. There's a central point of what a song's about. There's not a chorus that's about one thing, and a verse that's about another. He always loves to tie it in. I think our fans appreciate that as well. The songs come from a place of meaning, and they know that. It gives them something to dig into. I think this record, as opposed to previous records, he's being less cryptic. Previously, I think the songs could be interpreted in more ways than one. I think on this record, he's been a little more specific about what he's talking about -- which isn't a bad thing. It's just more of the direction he went on on this record.
Did you ever think you'd be as successful as you are? You had four consecutive No. 1 albums. You're playing major venues and your songs, specifically "Down With the Sickness," pump up fans at athletic events.
We hoped so. Of course that was what we grew up on. We went to the stadium shows and big concerts and watched Pantera and Iron Maiden and Megadeth, Metallica, Testament. We were hoping. That's why we got into this. We had our idols that we wanted to be like. It is an achievement for us. This is a place we did want to be. Thankfully it happened. Did we expect it? No. I don't think anyone can expect this kind of success. It comes or it doesn't--but you hope. When it happens and you realize how bad you hoped for it, you want to make sure you take care of it. That's something we work on it.
Because you're such fans of Pantera, it must be fun to tour with Hellyeah.
Pantera and Hellyeah, well Pantera was a huge influence on us. Especially on Mikey's [Wengren, Disturbed drummer] drumming with Vinnie Paul. Hellyeah's headlining the second stage on this tour. They're tearing it up. Pretty much every other night, Vinnie comes to our dressing room right before we go on stage and has a talk with us. He loves to hang out. He sits on my side of the stage and watches us play almost every night. It's very cool.
Disturbed has emerged as one of rock's most bankable acts over the last decade. The band -- which is currently heading the Rockstar Energy Drink Uproar Festival -- just scored its fourth consecutive No. 1 album in the U.S. with its fifth album, "Asylum."
In a recent interview, bassist John Moyer told SoundSpike that the band's recipe for success isn't complicated.
"When we write songs and we put these songs together, the people we're trying to impress first and foremost is each other," he said via telephone. "We want to make sure that we don't let each other down as artists, as brothers in this band. Whatever we bring to the table is the best that we can bring. If we have any ideas, they should be ideas we're fully ready to pursue to the end."
The band also seems to have an innate sense of what its audience wants.
"We put everything we have into every one of our songs, Moyer said. "It's only after our record's done that the singles start to pop out. I think the respect we have for each other kind of transcends into the respect we have for our fans, [who] give us life, that allow us to do this. We're not going to turn something in unless we think it's good. We're not going to put out crap. When we feel the record's done and it's right, no matter how long that is, whether that's less than a year, two years, we want to make sure that whatever it is we put out there is something we're proud to put our name on."
Moyer spoke to SoundSpike about the Rockstar Energy Drink Uproar Festival, Disturbed's success and the joy of hanging out with Hellyeah drummer Vinnie Paul nightly.
SoundSpike: How's the tour going?
The tour is going well. We're doing great numbers all over the U.S . The record was No. 1 in the country. Things are going very well in the Disturbed world.
This is your fourth consecutive No. 1 album. To what do you attribute that success?
The No. 1 thing I attribute it to is fans of this kind of music, of hard rock and heavy metal, and our fans -- the Disturbed fans -- who have grown to trust us. They know we're going to hopefully put out something they're going to like -- something different, not a carbon copy of what we've done before, but give them the music and the sound they've grown to crave from us. I think it's just that consistency along with the power of the hard rock and heavy metal fans that allowed this wonderful feat to happen.
Describe your recording process. Did you record "Asylum" any differently than you did your last couple records?
The recording process on every record's the same. We don't really change it up. We don't feel it's broken. The songs get written in demo formats in our home studios and we send MP3s back and forth, kind of solidifying parts, putting songs together. Once we feel we have a good body of work, 15-16 songs, then we book studio time and the songs are really well blueprinted before we even go in the studio. The studio time is at a minimum. I think we spent seven weeks in the studio and we tracked 17 songs. Every day is breakneck pace, getting the parts done. As musicians, we all have enough respect for each other, where we come in and we know what it is we're going to play that day, what it is we're going to try and work on and make happen. Like I said, a lot of that is because we demo the songs to the point where we already know what they're going to sound like going in.
So there's no major messing around in the studio.
No. But we don't want to make it so tight that we close the door on allowing studio magic to happen, and those moments capturing performances. It's not squeezed down that tight. But we definitely know what we're going for when we go in there.
How did you come up with the name "Asylum"?
Those were the lyrics that were penned for the first song on the record. David [Draiman, singer] was thinking to himself, "Not only is this a cool song, but this would be a great concept for the record." Right off the bat, the first song in, he was already working on the concept, thinking we were going to call the record "Asylum." So we came up with ideas and what to do about the imagery associated with that.
There are political undertones -- and overtones -- on this album.
I think a lot of times David says the things that people want to say but don't know quite how to say it, whether it's about the environment or whatnot. I think you're referring to "Another Way To Die." That has a little bit of that political undertones/overtones, however you'd like to describe it. He delves in to a lot of different areas. "Asylum" is about the loss of a loved one. "Infection" is about being hurt so bad that you can't move on until you can expunge these feelings from you. He really digs deep in his lyrics. They all mean something. There's a central point of what a song's about. There's not a chorus that's about one thing, and a verse that's about another. He always loves to tie it in. I think our fans appreciate that as well. The songs come from a place of meaning, and they know that. It gives them something to dig into. I think this record, as opposed to previous records, he's being less cryptic. Previously, I think the songs could be interpreted in more ways than one. I think on this record, he's been a little more specific about what he's talking about -- which isn't a bad thing. It's just more of the direction he went on on this record.
Did you ever think you'd be as successful as you are? You had four consecutive No. 1 albums. You're playing major venues and your songs, specifically "Down With the Sickness," pump up fans at athletic events.
We hoped so. Of course that was what we grew up on. We went to the stadium shows and big concerts and watched Pantera and Iron Maiden and Megadeth, Metallica, Testament. We were hoping. That's why we got into this. We had our idols that we wanted to be like. It is an achievement for us. This is a place we did want to be. Thankfully it happened. Did we expect it? No. I don't think anyone can expect this kind of success. It comes or it doesn't--but you hope. When it happens and you realize how bad you hoped for it, you want to make sure you take care of it. That's something we work on it.
Because you're such fans of Pantera, it must be fun to tour with Hellyeah.
Pantera and Hellyeah, well Pantera was a huge influence on us. Especially on Mikey's [Wengren, Disturbed drummer] drumming with Vinnie Paul. Hellyeah's headlining the second stage on this tour. They're tearing it up. Pretty much every other night, Vinnie comes to our dressing room right before we go on stage and has a talk with us. He loves to hang out. He sits on my side of the stage and watches us play almost every night. It's very cool.
