Disturbing Musical Devices

Frontman Dave Draiman on new rock venture Device and the great Johnny Cash

For 19 years, Dave Draiman has been the face of Disturbed, one of the most successful hard rock bands of the past two decades. More important, however, Draiman has been the voice of the band.

Hit Parader magazine named him among its top 100 metal vocalists of all-time — for good reason. Draiman’s powerfully aggressive delivery is iconic among metal-heads around the world.

Instead of recording a follow-up to Disturbed’s last album, 2010’s Asylum, Draiman went in a different musical direction, effectively leaving Disturbed in the ominous state of “hiatus.” This new artistic direction in which chrome-domed Draiman has veered is very different, indeed.

“Johnny Cash was the musical rebel before there were musical rebels. Because he played country music, people underestimate his musical influence,” Draiman says.

Device, the project that sprung from Draiman’s lust for variety, spawned the recently self-titled full-length album featuring Disturbed-esque single “Vilify.” (See video above.) But don’t let a slight similarity between that song and his metal past fool you.

This album plays by no one’s rules of what hard rock should be. The record features guest contributions from such all-stars as Serj Tankian (System of a Down) and guitar wizard Tom Morello (Rage Against the Machine, Audioslave), among many other rock greats.

Device heads to Dallas April 23 for a show at Trees. We caught up with Draiman at home — on the date of the new record’s release, actually — and discussed Johnny Cash, expanding the horizons of metal and eating dinner with famous friends.

CultureMap: Let’s take a trip back in time. You showed off your house on MTV’s Cribs several years ago, and you displayed an autographed Johnny Cash picture of which you seemed to be really proud. What did Cash’s music mean to you?

Dave Draiman: Oh, wow [laughing]. Yes, I still have that picture. Johnny Cash was the musical rebel before there were musical rebels. The Man in Black was a badass. He’ll always be synonymous with the definition of badass for the duration of history.

He inspired so many artists. Because he played country music, people underestimate his musical influence, I think. He’s been a staple of mine since childhood. I love the timbre of his voice and the way he wore his heart on his sleeve, both lyrically and vocally. I still look at that picture from time to time, and when the world is beating me up a little, I remember I have that, and it lifts me back up most of the time.

CM: The new album from your new project, Device, is certainly different than your work with Disturbed. What difference do you hope Disturbed fans will catch onto the most?

DD: The differences in vocal tonality are radically different. The saturation of electronic music is radically different. The ambient and even danceable nature of these songs is radically different.

The closest song on this record to a Disturbed song is the single “Vilify,” mainly because of my identifiable, rhythmic, rapid-fire cadence and delivery. The adhering to rhythm is something I’ve loved even before my days in Disturbed. The projects before Disturbed had been more funk-influenced, and it’s just a part of who I am.

It was very fulfilling for me to sing so radically different on this album. I think people recognize my voice — thank God my voice is identifiable — but people, rightfully so, link my voice to Disturbed.

It’s similar to what Corey Taylor (Slipknot) goes through with his Stone Sour project, or what Maynard James Keenan (Tool) goes through with A Perfect Circle. Their voices are the same, but the musical directions are different.

CM: You mentioned this record has danceable elements. You don’t hear a lot of that in hard rock or metal.

DD: Hell, yeah. I wanted to bring more of the bounce.

CM: You also mentioned there are more ambient tones on the Device record than Disturbed records. You really seem to be exploring the boundaries of metal and hard rock on this record.

DD: I have all of the love in the world for metal and hard rock and heavy metal, but this project needed to be its own thing. I don’t know that you can call this record metal or hard rock, even. There are elements and aspects that fit in those realms, of course, but I wasn’t concerned about classifications for this record.

I was more concerned with writing strong songs with as much individuality as they could possibly have. I consciously wanted to go into directions I hadn’t gone into before, without a doubt.

CM: You were able to line up some really impressive collaborators for this record.

DD: I am very blessed to have a successful, talented and esteemed group of friends who have humbled me to no end with their amazing support and contributions. I’m overwhelmed with gratitude, when I think about it, and I can’t say enough about it.

CM: It’s a lot of rock royalty that we’re talking about here. How did it all come together?

DD: It was serendipity. The only guest performance we had planned was with Lizzy [Hale of Halestrom] for the remake of Lita Ford and Ozzy Osbourne’s “Close My Eyes Forever.” She and I have wanted to do that for years.

The record was already recorded and mixed before anyone else joined in. After spending a few days in LA and having dinner with a few friends, things began to happen, though.

Tom [Morello] and Serj [Tankian] and I have been friends for years. Often, when I make it to LA, we’ll make it a point to catch up. We’ve always talked about doing something together, whether it was for charity or a movie soundtrack or something like that.

With Device, there are no rules or preconceived notions of how things should be done, and the topic of having people join in [came up] over an amazing Lebanese-style dinner at Serj and his wife’s house. Tom came over, and we finalized what we would all do.

The next day, Glenn Hughes [Deep Purple, Black Sabbath], who is a good friend, invited me to his book-release party and performance. His abilities are staggering, and since I was now bringing in guests, I realized his voice would be perfect for “Through it All.” So he invited me to dinner too.

Geezer Butler [Black Sabbath] happened to be there too, and that night Geezer agreed and set aside time from the recording of the sessions for the new Black Sabbath record.

I was shocked and blown away. Within two days of catching up with friends, I suddenly had these legendary guests on the record. I’m just filled with gratitude for how this came together.

Along with frontman Dave Draiman (center), Device also features guitarist "Virus" (far left) and Drummer Will Hunt (far right).

Device Facebook

Along with frontman Dave Draiman (center), Device also features guitarist "Virus" (far left) and Drummer Will Hunt (far right).

Movie Review

Animated Disney film Elio is fun but falls short of Pixar top tier

Elio (Yonas Kibreab) and Glordon (Remy Edgerly) in Elio

Photo courtesy of Pixar

Elio (Yonas Kibreab) and Glordon (Remy Edgerly) in Elio.

Pixar has done a ton of different things in the 28 feature films they’ve released over the past 30 years, but the one they’d never done is deal with aliens (and, no, the alien toys in Toy Story don’t count). Now they’re going where many storytellers have gone before, but in their own unique way, in the new film Elio.

Elio (voiced by Yonas Kibreab) is a space fanatic who has recently lost both of his parents in an unnamed event. His Aunt Olga (Zoe Saldaña) is now his guardian, and because she happens to be a member of the U.S. Space Force, Elio finds himself tantalizingly close to communications from space. With a desire to be abducted by aliens for both curiosity and sentimental reasons, Elio sends a message into space, hoping for some kind of response.

He gets that and more when a ship full of multiple types of beings takes him into space, believing him to be a leader instead of a child. An encounter with a hostile force led by Lord Grigon (Brad Garrett) gives Elio both a new friend, Grigon’s son Glordon (Remy Edgerly), and responsibility for maintaining peace during an unexpected galactic crisis.

Pixar has not typically followed the route of many Disney movies of giving their child protagonist the trauma of dead parents, and doing so here is the first of a few minor missteps. Having Olga be his mom instead of his aunt would have altered their dynamic, but only slightly. While Elio is shown to miss his parents, his major focus is on making contact with aliens. Since the film only briefly deals with his grief, it would have been better served by excising it altogether.

For the most part, the film is goofy, with Elio’s enthusiasm for aliens matched by the oddness of the creatures he meets in space. The filmmakers - there are three credited directors and three credited writers - seem to have taken inspiration from sea creatures and Pixar’s own history, as the main bad guy emulates Mike and Sully’s boss from Monsters, Inc. Almost every character in the film is heightened to a degree that makes for funny situations, but not as much sentimentality as other Pixar offerings.

Surprisingly, especially since the film ends with a voiceover from notable astronomer Carl Sagan, the filmmakers play fast and loose with real-life science. Elio’s journeys to and from the alien spaceship are treated as close-to-instantaneous trips, even involving portals directly to Earth. The idea of the story doesn’t allow them to delve into things like relativistic time dilation, but there still could have been other scientific references to keep the story aboveboard.

There are very few stars to be found among the film’s voice cast other than Saldaña and Garrett, who are each fine if unmemorable. Kibreab and Edgerly are given many more scenes than anyone else, and they each do a great job of bringing out both the joy and naivete of their characters. Some lesser-known actors like Jameela Jamil, Atsuko Okatsuka, and Brendan Hunt show up in minor roles, but they don’t stand out in any way.

The story and characters in Elio are sweet and fun, but the film as a whole falls well short of the top tier Pixar movies. The filmmakers could have gone many different directions with a story about a boy who wants to be abducted by aliens, and the way they chose ended up being innocuous and less than compelling.

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Elio opens in theaters on June 20.

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