Wengren: How ya doin?

Wengren: Oh man, they were both awesome - they were great. We strategically planned the tour to route around the NAMM Convention and it was a great call.

Wengren: Yeah, we had lots of musician friends and peers of ours come out, and other reps from our endorsement companies. It was really cool... good time.

Wengren: It was crazy - just about anybody you could think of... you either ran into them at the show or you knew they were going to be there later on.

Wengren: Oh yeah! My buddy Jason Bittner from Shadows Fall was filling in on the drums (for Anthrax drummer Charlie Benante).

Wengren: No, he’s my boy. I called him a couple days beforehand just to catch up with him and see if he was going to be down at NAMM - he’s like “Dude, I can’t really talk right now. I’m in my room, brushing up on my Anthrax songs. Charlie’s wife just went in to labor –they asked me to come fill-in!” He came out to our show in Anaheim on Sunday and he looked like a little kid with this big smile on his face. I was really happy for him.

Wengren: I didn’t know they were playing… that’s cool. Wow, great show… damn.

Wengren: We get all types, actually. We don’t have one specific age group - we get a lot of the young kids and we get a lot of the older crowd, too. We’ve been really fortunate with our fan base.

Wengren: (laughs) Oh my God, that’s so funny that you pick out of all the demographics… you totally nailed it on the head (laughs).

Wengren: Oh, exactly! That’s exactly the case. Like you said - all the thirty-something housewives… a lot of the thirty-somethings that are divorced and seem to be bitter about it (laughs). They definitely flock to him.

Wengren: I know which one you’re talking about - that’s embarrassing (laughs).

Wengren: Yes, he is.

Wengren: You know, Fuzz and us... we were together for a long time. We were friends and played in different bands way before Disturbed, and we were really sorry to see him go... but, without getting too hairy with anything - it was just like a marriage; no matter how much you love somebody it just doesn’t work out anymore. The years of being on the road together - we just started to grow apart, and there were some personal differences that kind of came to a head, and we just couldn’t work with him anymore, so unfortunately we had to move on.

Wengren: Well, I know it’s a little unorthodox and people, of course, are concerned and have been questioning our reasoning for doing that. Fuzz was with us for so long... I wanna say I knew Fuzz for a good fifteen years. When were trying to replace him –I mean, obviously we wanted to continue on—it was a tough move for us... we just weren’t sure how to go about it. We didn’t want to just get anybody and have them come in and say “Oh, yeah, he’s the guy”, and then a year later say “Well, I don’t know if he’s the guy.” It’s tough to replace the chemistry and everything we had with Fuzz, and we were just trying to be cautious. Although, John’s awesome... he’s a great guy, he’s an amazing player, and he’s complementing the band really well. We’re getting along with him great on the road here. And we hope that he can be the guy to stay with us for the remainder of our career. We just wanted to move into it slowly, kinda like... I know this is a hokey cliché to say, but after along marriage, and having it end like a bitter divorce, we’re just trying to be really cautious about putting a ring on anyone else’s finger.

Wengren: Absolutely... it’s key.

Wengren: He is. You know, we were a little nervous during auditions. We weren’t sure... Fuzz was a finger player and John is a pick player, and we were concerned about that affecting the tone of the band and the attack and everything you’re describing with the rhythm section. As far as I’m concerned, I think it’s actually helped increase the tightness of the band. A lot of John’s playing is more even, a little more consistent, and there’s a lot more staccato in a lot of parts, especially when we have some of the syncopation with the rhythm guitar and the kick drums. I think it really fits in well.

Wengren: Oh, absolutely. Man, we’ve been on Danny’s case for years, trying to get him to play some solos and just show the rest of the world that he can throw down with everybody else. He’s a real modest, real quiet guy, doesn’t like to show off, so to speak, and he said he didn’t really feel that the songs warranted that, back in the day. It just kind of felt right; I guess... it was time. Time to bring some solos back.

Wengren: Yeah, he was another big influence on this one.

Wengren: We toured with both Pantera and Damageplan. When we were really green, on our very first Ozzfest - the first year of us being out on tour, we obviously worshipped the guys in Pantera and looked up to them. When we met them, they were just amazing guys... they took us under their wing and kind of showed us how touring life was - how to be able to kick ass onstage and still have some fun... and just be really cool. We just hit it off right way. When Pantera went away for a while, or when they went away - when Phil [Anselmo] was doing his solo projects we used to see Vinnie [Paul] and Dime all the time - they’d come out to our shows when we’d pass through Dallas or whatever, and we’d invite them up onstage and we’d play a couple Pantera songs with them. We’d play “Walk”, and it was just really cool. And then when they started getting Damageplan off the ground it was extremely surreal for us to have those guys come out and play with us. It was amazing... I mean, to have those guys be playing before us was unbelievable, but throughout the years, just knowing them and hanging out with them - just like anyone else you’ve talked to about Dime - we’ve had so many crazy and amazing stories. It was crushing when he went.

Wengren: He touched so many. Not just his fans, but so many of the bands that he toured with. I don’t know anyone that’s ever had a bad word to say about Dime. He was such a sweet, genuine guy. And he was also one of the best guitar players - as far as I’m concerned - that has ever lived. I just can’t believe he’s gone. They came out with us about a year and a half before Dime passed away. Damageplan was out on the road... they only came out for like five dates, and it was really weird that... we were playing some place in New Jersey - the Starland Ballroom. It was the last date we played with those guys and the last time that we saw Dime alive. Ironically, the first year of the anniversary of his death, we wound up... not on purpose, playing the same exact venue again. We showed up that day and it was like “Whoa, this is really weird.” A year ago he was alive, and a year and a half ago we played here with him. When the show was over we came out and encored and we tried playing “Walk” again - in honor of him, and it just wasn’t the same. We had played it so many times with those guys it just kind of lost something. I don’t know... it was a tough night.

Wengren: That’s another possibility for us right now... I’m pretty sure that our management and their people are in talks. Nothing’s been confirmed yet, but that would be something we would love to do, and we’d jump at it if we had the chance. Sharon and the rest of the Osbourne camp have been just nothing but amazing to us. Again, back to our first year of touring, Ozzfest was one of the things that really helped us break, along with the radio success of our first single “Stupify”, and we owe a lot to the Ozzfest camp - they’ve been great to us. We’ve done three years with them so far and we’d love to do it again.

Wengren: Yeah, we’ll see if we can keep the eggs in the chicken coop (laughs).

Wengren: Oh, wow... I didn’t even know that. Cool.

Wengren: David is definitely the front runner when it comes to vocalizing his thoughts, but we’re a family and he’s our brother, and we back him up - he just says it with words and we say it with music. “Deify” isn’t necessarily meant to be an anti-Bush song, but if people want to take it that way - it absolutely fits. It’s more an anti-policy maker song, and obviously Bush is one of the best examples of that.

Wengren: Oh, absolutely - it could be anyone from Bush, who is a perfect example, to anyone like... say, Ted Turner. Anyone that happens to be in a power position... it’s about people treating them like they’re some kind of god. That’s obviously ridiculous to us.

Wengren: Actually that was Danny [Donegan] who picked that. It’s kind of a funny little story; we were ready to hit the studio and start recording. We were waiting for a producer to finish up a project he was already working on. So, we had another month or two to kill, and we were over at Dave’s place working on the material, just tweaking it out, and he was sitting there one day and he was flipping stations, and he came across, like one of those VH-1 80’s shows and the Genesis video came on with the puppets. After hearing the song Danny thought that it was a Disturbed song begging to happen. The original synth lines just sound like they could obviously be syncopated - rhythm and chunky, heavy guitar that we’re known for. Also, lyrically... it just really seemed to fit with the modern day war in Iraq and Osama Bin Laden - just the way the world is right now. He brought it up at rehearsal and I’m like, “I don’t know, man. It could be cool, let’s give it a shot.” So we started monkeying around with it and we turned it into one of our tunes. The thing that was cool about it is that after we were pretty happy with what he had come up with, we knew people were going to wonder what Disturbed was up to doing a Genesis song. That’s kind of the fun of it, too, is that you’re taking a song that someone wouldn’t necessarily expect us to do and putting our own twist on it. It would be a lot simpler to just come up with any other rock song and play it, but when you take something that’s so obscure and turn it into a hard rock song, or whatever, and put our stamp on it - that was fun.

Wengren: I would hope to think that I’m improving. I’d like to think so. I’d like to think that the biggest influence on that, especially my playing, has just been the years of touring, playing night after night with my boys in the band. I’m not a schooled musician, by any means. I’ve never had any lessons - I’m self taught. I can’t read music, I can’t write music. I just play from my heart... I play what I feel. Dan and David, especially over the years, have been my biggest influence. I guess throughout the years the natural progression is just to improve.

Wengren: Oh man... it’s so hard to put it down to one guy. Jason Bittner is one of the top guys right now; I mean... he’s just amazing. He’s an awesome guy, too - I love hanging out with him. He and I have had many a shot (laughs). I love watching Matt [McDonough] from Mudvayne. I’m kind of a one-track minded guy - I like sticking to my genre. As far as the new guys, I’d definitely say Bittner is one of the top guys... I like Morgan [Rose] from Sevendust, he’s great to watch, and of course - Vinnie Paul, even though he’s not out there doing anything right now, he’s always been a number one guy. And another monster that doesn’t seem to get as much recognition is Scott Travis, the drummer from Judas Priest.

Wengren: He’s ridiculous. I love that guy.

Wengren: He used to play back in the 80’s in a band with Paul Gilbert [Mr. Big] called Racer X. Not a lot of people are familiar with it, but he was a monster back then and when he joined Priest in ’92 with Painkiller - I was just blown away. He did the Fight records as well with Rob Halford, and he’s just a monster.

Wengren: Of our songs I’d have to say “Ten Thousand Fists” is one of my favorites along with, maybe... ”Just Stop.” If I’d have to pick one between the two it would be “Ten Thousand Fists.” It’s one of the more challenging songs and it’s just fun as hell to play.

Wengren: The set is about an hour and thirty minutes - give or take.

Wengren: Yeah, we’re really happy with this set list that we’ve come up. It’s nice to be in a position to have three records to choose from and be able to mix it up between the two. We have two set lists that we switch up, especially when we’re doing back to back nights. We don’t people who come out to both shows to get the same show every night, so we switch it up. We also have been known to throw in a different song here or there - not to keep it... you know, so sterile.

Wengren: No, we haven’t been doing many cover songs these days. Playing the smaller venues has been really cool to have a nice, intimate vibe and be able to see everyone’s face in the crowd. But, as far as accommodations back stage, we don’t have a lot of room back there. On some of the bigger tours we like to bring out a Pro Tools rig and a Roland and V-Drums kit and we like to have a little practice/studio room set up during the day. We don’t get a lot of time to work on newer material or older songs, or even just mess around with covers when we’re playing a smaller tour like this. Sometimes during sound check we’ve been known to pull out an old 80’s riff here or there... matter of fact at the first NAMM show on Friday, George Lynch from Dokken played a song with us.

Wengren: Dude, it was the coolest thing ever, I swear to God. I was like a little kid, it was so cool.

Wengren: We took one of our songs - the song called “The Game” off The Sickness and we removed the bridge in the center of it and we added a couple extra bars of the Dokken song, “In My Dreams” - we spliced in George’s signature riff and then we let him solo over it.

Wengren: Exactly, and then when the solo was over we just kicked back in to end of “The Game” and let him just rip from the outro out. It was unbelievable...

Wengren: Oh, yeah. And he was so cool, too... he’s like “Hey man, I don’t want to step on anybody’s toes, I don’t want to step over the vocals... ” We’re like “Dude, are you kidding me? You’re George Lynch... step over everything. Just rip, shred.”

Wengren: It was just cool. I gotta say one of the coolest things about the success that we’ve been able to achieve is being able to go out to a NAMM show and play a show around NAMM and a lot of the older school guys, like Scott Travis and George Lynch... being able to meet these guys and have them respect us. I mean, these are guys we looked up to when we were growing up and to have them become fans of the band is just amazing to me - it really blows me away.

Wengren: Just to have any kind of acknowledgement from those guys - I gotta pinch myself you know?

Wengren: Absolutely. I’m not saying, by any means we’re in the same category with those guys, because we so are not... we’d love to be someday. We got a long, long way to go, but just to have those guys give us their respect is unbelievable.

Wengren: Oh, jeez... that’s an easy one. That’s easily a Vinnie and Dime moment. I mean, if you got a quick second - it was actually a three-day long excursion. I’ll try and keep it quick ...

Wengren: Okay, cool. It was basically David, my singer and I... we were kidnapped by them for like, three days. We played at Ozzfest down in Dallas - this was Ozzfest of ’03 - they were in town, we played the show, they came up onstage, we played “Walk”, it was a great night, blah, blah, blah... when the show was over, I swear to God, I walk out of the shower, holding on to my towel, I open the door and I walk into a shot from Dime - “Come on, getcha pull!” From that moment on it was just craziness for three days. We’re partying with the guys at the venue bar, got annihilated... I guess at one point I had thrown a beer bottle at a security guy - I don’t remember it. They called the cops on me, when the cops showed up Vinnie grabbed me, snuck me out the back door and threw me in his car. I woke up later at the Clubhouse, their strip bar that they own, back in the corner. I woke up to do more shots with Vinnie and Dime, craziness ensued at the strip bar... I remember later on being in Dimes’ car, driving to Vinnie’s house - crazy night, partying, naked women, alcohol... the next morning waking up on his bathroom floor and Vinnie’s wearing boxers over at the stove, cooking up fish tacos for breakfast at 9 o’clock in the morning (laughs). By noon Vinnie, David and myself, had met Dime and the rest of the Damageplan guys over at some Mexican restaurant for lunch, where we ate rattlesnake. I don’t know how many more shots of Crown we did. I think by 3 o’clock in the afternoon we were at some other strip bar - some really nasty looking chicks - just hanging out, laughing, and getting drunk again. I think we had drank so much that we had past the point of drunkenness, like we could no longer get any more drunk. We were just maintaining this crazy level. I think then we went back to Vinnie’s house, we hung out in his pool for the rest of the afternoon, which is shaped like a Crown Royal bottle. That night Vinnie, Dime, David and I went to some bar where they picked us out to be celebrity judges for a bikini contest. The next day...

Wengren: ...we went back to Vinnie’s house for another party. We had to get into town the next day afterwards to go do Ozzfest in Phoenix. Vinnie found out we were going to Phoenix - he grabs his golf clubs, hops on the plane with us... me, Vinnie, and our security guy played golf that morning, wasted off of our ass. And then that afternoon we
did Ozzfest and partied with him again, and finally said goodbye to him that night. Then he went off to Vegas to do some gambling or something.

Wengren: Hey, these are things that the kids dream of, you know? You got to take advantage of it. There was just never a dull moment with those guys. And Dime always wanted to make sure that everybody who was around him was having a good time. He’s known obviously for his partying and obviously for his good times, but his guitar playing... I don’t even need to talk about it, it’s just unbelievable.

Wengren: Oh, it is - trust me (laughs). That’s definitely one of the top.

Wengren: Sure, man. I had a good time talking to you.