Angry Young Men Who Had to Vent

With a menacing demeanor that pervades the band’s entire debut album, “The Sickness,” Disturbed is one of the most compelling acts in the caustic cluster currently referred to as “nu-metal.”

While many of today’s heavier bands rely on sheer volume and speed to make an impact, the Chicago group is more about intelligent venting than mindless ranting. Incorporating pensive lyrics, thumping electronic effects, growling vocals and a dramatic stage atmosphere, Disturbed may be more serious than most of its peers, but it’s no less exciting.

How serious?

“The Sickness’ represents the philosophy of individuality, development of self, and finding those things in life that you can be passionate about and bring you meaning,” explains David Draiman, Disturbed’s frontman and lyricist.

“Unfortunately in today’s world, when you distinguish yourself as an individual-you don’t think like everyone else, you don’t act like everyone else, you don’t listen to the same music or look a certain way-people think that there’s something wrong with you.”

Continual touring-including breakout performances on the second stage of last year’s Ozzfest-has helped “The Sickness,” on Giant Records, sell more than 1 million copies, while tunes such as “Stupify” (which charted for a record 45 consecutive weeks on the Radio & Records magazine Active Rock chart), the current single “Voices” and the band’s unexpected version of Tears for Fears’ “Shout” incite mayhem in mosh pits wherever Disturbed plays.

‘They have a depth and an ethos that people can relate to,” says Larry Jacobson, general manager of Giant Records. “Like the best metal artists, they take a powerful lyrical message and put it to equally powerful and memorable music.”

With a shaved head and prominent facial piercings (including two sizable spikes that protrude from his chin), 28-year-old Draiman knows what it’s like to be judged for being different. But when it comes to the frustration that permeates his lyrics, the past seems to be an influence as much as the present. Draiman was raised in a strict Orthodox Jewish household, and while he wasn’t exactly an outcast, he always questioned things. He says his recent success has helped mend a rocky relationship with his parents, but when he was kid, his musical endeavors only widened the gap between them.

A love for noisy rebels such as the Sex Pistols, the Clash and the Ramones and a need to rebel against his restrictive upbringing led Draiman to form a punk band at 16. In the years that followed, he pursued his education (he holds bachelor’s degrees in political science, philosophy and business administration from Loyola University in Chicago) while making music on the side.

In August 1996, he met guitarist Dan Donegan, drummer Mike Wengren and bassist Fuzz after answering their ad for a singer in a Chicago music publication. Draiman says it was “pretty much dead on right away,” and they wrote their first song together at his audition.

Disturbed is a meld of their different musical backgrounds-Draiman inspired by punk and new wave, Donegan schooled on Black Sabbath, Wengren a fan of relentless, Pantera-style rhythms and Fuzz an old-school stadium rock follower-but at the time, their abrasive yet melodic sound was still too heavy for the club scene in a city known more for alternative rock such as the Smashing Pumpkins than for metal.

After three years of struggling to get gigs, the four took action with some aggressive street-marketing. They gave away thousands of cassette samplers at shows by like-minded bands, and their fan base tripled in a matter of months. Soon, Draiman says, “the clubs started to recognize that there was some economic viability in the band.” So did several record companies. At Draiman’s day job, where he worked as a health care administrator, he pirated office supplies and shipping materials to send out promotional packages to labels. All the biggies came to see them play at a Chicago music festival called Mobfest in the summer of ’99.

“They were all kind of salivating,” remembers Draiman. “It ended up into a bidding-war situation and we went with Giant because they were simply the most passionate.”

Giant’s Jacobson says the label wasn’t aware of the feeding frenzy at the time, but admits to being passionate-even “fanatical’-about the band after hearing its demo tape. “I offered them a deal without ever having seen them play live, seen their picture or shook their hands,” he says. “No other band has galvanized this company like Disturbed.”

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Bring the violence

It’s significant

To the life

If you’ve ever known anyone

Bring the violence it’s significant

To the life can you feel it

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-from “Violence Fetish”

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Songs from “The Sickness” such as “Violence Fetish” and “Conflict” pair grinding riffs and beats with some very dark, explicit and intense words. It’s a brutal combination, but it’s one that’s meant to be cathartic, not destructive.

“This music is therapy, it is a release and a healthy way of letting out aggression,” Draiman explains. “‘Violence Fetish’ in particular says that the place to do it is at the show. You come and engage yourself in the spectacle, and it’s an incredible, somewhat violent release.”

Just in case the young fans don’t get the message in the madness, the band adds a visual element to its live shows that not only injects a bit of theatricality -such as Draiman’s entrance on an electric chair-but also hammers home the band’s societal views. “When I break free from the chair, I’m saying that you can’t kill individuality or creativity,” he explains.

For Disturbed’s current headlining tour (including a Hollywood Palladium date on Wednesday), Draiman promises “a new intro, some elaborate staging and a full light show.” Fans will also get to experience some of the new set when the band headlines the second stage of this year’s Ozzfest, a slot it opted for even though it was offered an opening spot on the main stage.

“They relate to the crowd in a real hands-on way,” says David “Beno” Benveniste, head of Streetwise Concepts and Culture, which is charge of marketing Ozzfest and helping book the acts for the second stage. “That, and the fact that they write amazing songs, helped them go from a baby band last year to the godfathers of the second stage this year.” While the band members’ celebration of nonconformity and furious release might lead people to think that the band’s name is self-referential, it is actually the outside world that they find disturbing. Which raises the question: As they get more and more popular, will they still live up to their name? Draiman thinks so.

‘There’s still plenty to be angry about,” he says. “Success is nice, but it doesn’t change the world.”

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* Disturbed, with Mudvayne, Spineshank and Nothingface, Wednesday at the Hollywood Palladium, 6250 Sunset Blvd., L.A., 6:30 p.m. $22.50. (323) 962-7600. Also at Ozzfest, June 30 at Glen Helen Blockbuster Pavilion, 2575 Glen Helen Parkway, Devore. 11 a.m. $33.25-$136.75. (909) 886-8742.