GEAR 23_COVER - JHS

F
ormed in Chicago in the midnineties
when singer David Draiman
met up with three musician friends
who were already a gigging outfit,
guitarist Dan Donegan, bassist Steve ‘Fuzz’
Kmack and drummer Mike Wengren,
Disturbed’s career took off around 2000
with the release of their debut album, The
Sickness. They then gained a slot on the
then-annual mega-metal high profile USA
‘Ozzfest’ tour in 2001, headlined by Ozzy
Osbourne and his band, before themselves
becoming one of the hardest-working
bands in the hard rock arena, Disturbed
have since gone on to be a multi-platinum
selling band with a huge and extremely
loyal following. With a new album out,
‘Indestructible’, Disturbed are well into
their current ‘Music As A Weapon’ tour.
Gear caught up with bassist John Moyer,
who replaced original bass player Kmack,
and who’s become quite a feature in the
band with his rock-solid, thundering bass
lines and charismatic stage presence.
“We’re a little over half way through the
‘Music Is A Weapon’ tour,” explains John.
“It’s Disturbed’s flagship tour, and we do
it with every album cycle. This is when
we get to bring out all of our toys, get
the best bands we can on the bill, and
go for it!”
As Disturbed go out for such extended
periods of time, does it get difficult to
maintain the level of intensity and
attitude that the band is known for
every night?
“We’ re coming up on a year out on the road
now, maybe a couple of months left to go
before we close the doors and start work on
a new album, but at the beginning of a tour,
yes, it’s all fresh and you’ve got all these
new songs that you can’t wait to go out and
play! On a long tour, maybe after a year we
have to sometimes figure out ways to keep
that freshness.”
Disturbed do some very big shows -
does the band have extensive pre-tour
rehearsals with the stage show ?
“We don’t do a whole lot of rehearsal.
We all know how the songs are meant to
sound. We play so much together in the studio
or onstage anyway, that we all
know what’s going on. We’ll sometimes
change the set list to shake it up a bit for
us, throw in new songs. Half an hour before
we go onstage, Dan, our guitar player might
say, hey, let’s put such and such a number
in the set as well!”
The band’s fan base seem to grow
significantly every year - does that
have an impact on how you pace
your shows?
“In Europe, we’re still building our fan
base and we feel that recently it’s gone to
another level for us there while we’ve been
playing festivals. We like the big arena
rock sound, that whole vibe. David is a
great frontman and he loves the big stage,
and makes sure everyone has a great time,
making everyone putting their fists in the
air, or pointing their devil horns in the sky,
just getting into it! The bigger the crowd,
the more intense performance you get from
us. We came to fruition doing the nu-metal
scene, and we got lumped in with that but
we don’t have DJ’s and a lot of that scene
doesn’t exist anymore - I think that’s
because our fans are across the board.
If you like hard rock and heavy metal,
you can get what we’re doing.”
Who inspired you to start playing?
“One of my main inspirations when I started
playing was Duff McKagan from Guns N’Roses
- I’m a huge Duff fan! Plus Billy Gould from
Faith No More, and then Metallica in general.
Plus a lot of Black Sabbath and Geezer
Butler! Geezer wrote some great stuff, and
he has that loose, fluid vibe when he plays,
which makes the band’s sound really big.”
John has recently been working with
Kustom to produce Signature
Series amplifiers, which
feature John’s personal
‘Skull & Flames’ graphics
on their grilles - very cool.
What was John looking for
from Kustom for his sound?
“I wanted a big, round, heavy
tone that was really tight
because a lot of what we play
in Disturbed is very fast and
I really need to hear the
articulation of the notes.
When I play Kustom amps I
get that - from note to note,
there’s no bleed or run-over
from the last note into the next
one. The notes are clean, tight
and defined. Low end frequencies can be
hard for some amps to handle, especially
when you’re moving quickly on the fretboard.
When I’m doing real fast runs, it’s still
punchy and still clean and the Kustom tone
is round and deep with that little bit of
colour in it that I really like. My Kustom
speaker cabinets also have great spread on
them, they’re not directional in projection
so you get an even spread of bass sound.
You can stand right in front of it and get
the sound but if you go off to the right or
left, it’s still there - most other cabs won’t
do that.”
Do you like to play with loud onstage
volume?
I have a medium sound level onstage, with
four 8 x 10” cabinets in use, powered by two
Kustom amp heads - and that’s a lot of bass
sound (laughs) - I don’t turn it up too loud,
I don’t have to! If you have too much low
end onstage, it’s difficult for the sound
engineer to do his job because your bass
sound is bleeding into all the drum mics
and vocal mics! We use in-ear monitors
onstage anyway so we can all hear each
other very well.”
It’s good that your signature bass range
also includes the John Moyer KBA
16XJM practice combo - many people
overlook the fact that that’s where most
people who want to learn will start!
(Laughs) yeah - good point! Not many
people start with an 8 x 10” cabinet! Even
guys who play in club bands aren’t using
8 x 10” cabinets - that’s a full concert rig
for sure. But my Kustom KBA16XJM practice
amp, I use it every single day. It doesn’t
matter if you’re a beginner or a professional,
you’ve got to have a practice amp. I got
mine in my dressing room, and every day
I’m jamming out or warming up on it. The
16 watt is a small unit but has a really good
tone in it, it’s quite powerful for its size. I’m
really pleased with how that turned out.”
• KBA16XJM £139.00rrp
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