“We’re always pushing each other to experiment, keep things interesting, and move our sound forward,” says Donegan. “And, as a result, we got away from the syncopated vocals and rapid-fire delivery that David [Draiman, vocalist] used on The Sickness. The discussion actually started when we asked each other to identify the three things we really liked on our past three records. It wasn’t contrived—we were just looking for a direction. Ultimately, we decided to return to our ‘signature’ sound, but make things darker, ballsier, and harder. So to give David something more aggressive to sing over, I went back to the vault and revived some of the old riffs from the band’s early days.”

The mid-western band stayed close to home for the sessions, opting to record at Disturbed producer Johnny K’s Groovemaster Recording in Chicago. (“It’s nice to sleep in your own bed, and have a bit of a normal life for awhile,” says Donegan, who had his second child in June.) For his part of the “darker and ballsier” equation, Donegan did a ton of layering—often playing to an unprocessed, direct-guitar reference track to ensure the timing of each overdub was spot on.

“I used a blend of several different dynamic mics as a ‘secret recipe’ for the guitar sounds,” says long-time Disturbed engineer Tadpole. “I like that method, because you can fill in the sonic gaps of one microphone, or combine a mic’s personality with the other mics to produce a totally different sound. Of course, whatever you can do with engineering, it’s always the player who completes the picture. I can make a guitar sound great, but I can’t make it Dan Donegan.”

Dan, what are some of the main elements of your guitar sound?
I’ve never been a guy to use a lot of high gain. Because of the nature of our music—which relies on syncopation—I have to lock in tight with the rhythm, so it’s important that there’s a lot of clarity in my guitar tone. I like to hit a chord, and hear every note cut through and ring out. And I definitely want those tight stops I play to die quickly! If I tuned too low, and dialed in a lot of saturation, our sound would get pretty muddy.

Do you decide on a suitable sound fairly quickly, or do you tend to tweak tones obsessively?
It’s a little bit of both, I guess [laughs]. I think I’ve learned that if you don’t jones on it too much, those first initial ideas can sometimes end up being the best ideas. But I do have a habit of always wanting to explore options. I always think, “This is what I have now—let’s see if I can make it better. Let’s see if there’s not a better tone, a better sound, and a better performance.” I’m definitely a bit obsessive when it comes to that. I don’t like to leave any stone unturned.

How did you develop your solos?
I try to have some kind of melody or theme going, but, for the most part, my solos are based on what the music makes me feel like playing. I just try to play tastefully, and do whatever sounds good to me. However, on this record, I also incorporated things other guitarists have done that interest me—a couple of finger-tapping bits, some arpeggios, and a few Dimebag or Steve Vai influenced whammy bar riffs.

What about the sweetening parts for all the guitar layers?
For those, I’ll wait until the vocals and main instrumentation are done, and I’ll fill in any spots that feel empty. I’ll sometimes go into Pro Tools and loop a part, then noodle around and improvise until a note, a sound, or a melody develops that complements the section in question. It’s all done mostly by feel. This is where the experimentation comes into play for me. Some days, I have it, and, some days, I don’t. But that’s actually the nice thing about doing this stuff. I could have a dry day where I’m doing absolutely nothing creative at all, and then have 20 new ideas to throw in there when I return the next day. That’s always fun—although it’s pretty boring for everybody else who has to sit in the control room, and listen to me plugging in different stompboxes, or playing the same short section of music over and over again.

Speaking of stompboxes, what effects did you tend to use on the overdubs?
I have a big trunk full of stompboxes that we got out and experimented with. I mostly used a Morley Bad Horsie Wah, a Voodoo Lab Superfuzz for some raunch, a DigiTech Genesis for high-end tran-sitory effects, and my signature DigiTech The Weapon pedal—which made it easier for me to duplicate some of the tones I used on the first two Disturbed records. For solos, I went more of a vintage direction by using an Ibanez Tube Screamer and a Marshall. I doubled a lot of the solos, so I’d do one pass with the Marshall and Tube Screamer, and another using a Line 6 Pod XT Pro. I liked how the two tones blended together.

What about the rhythm parts?
They were recorded pretty much straight up with no effects. I used quite a few amps—depending on the part I was doing, I’d switch things out—but the main rhythm tracks were recorded with a Bogner Ecstasy and a Randall MTS Series amp loaded with my signature 1086 Dan Donegan preamp module. The Bogner head was plugged into a Bogner 4x12 cabinet loaded with Celestion Vintage 30s, and the Randall was going through a Mesa/Boogie 4x12 that was also loaded with Vintage 30s.

Did you use your signature guitars on the sessions?
Yes. The main guitars were my custom Washburn Maya Series models.

What about strings?
I use GHS Boomers, gauged .012 to .054. They’re a bit heavy to accommodate the fact we’ll tune down between D# and C. My picks are always very heavy gauge Dunlops.

How do you like your action set?
High enough for me to dig in when I’m doing solos and riffs. I don’t like an action to be too low.

Let’s touch a bit more on the creative process for Indestructible. Did your decision to revive the older Disturbed sound come from assessing the current music culture, pulling in various influences from the band members, and/or feeling nostalgic about the band’s early years?
Honestly, I don’t know if it was any of that, or all of that. We come up with ideas, and exploring our older style came out of those creative discussions. Some things just stick, you know. Suddenly, you have a song, or a direction, or a sonic theme. But we’re not a band that works out music based on what we feel might be successful. We just do what feels right when we pick up our instruments, and we let the label worry about selling it. We never tried to write a single, or develop a formula for airplay. We had no idea that The Sickness would sell a lot of records. We weren’t envisioning commercial success. We were a garage band in the suburbs of Chicago playing the bar scene! We were just very fortunate that our music has connected with people. Something magical happened.

Was it strange going back to your riff vault to find inspiration? After all, it has been a few years since you’ve probably approached the guitar the same way. Did you find yourself saying, “Man, how did I do that?” 
Oh, yeah—some of the song ideas and riffs we developed when we first got together are a good ten years old now. But I’ve always been the guy trying to sneak in old riffs to see if any of the guys remember where they came from. It has kind of become a band joke. This time, we really focused on using some of that older stuff to write songs, but it’s not like I haven’t messed with those riffs for a decade or something.

How did you decide which of your so-called “vintage” riffs would make the cut for the new album?
The ones that stood the test of time were pretty clear to everyone.

Was there any directive for improving or recasting the old riffs to make them fit into the overall sonic plan for Indestructible?
There was no plan other than trying to make things sound better. We tried to modernize a few licks—or, at least, make them more modern to our viewpoint. Some riffs were reworked a bit, some were actually played more straightforward than they were originally, and others were played against cooler grooves. Once again, it was all about feel. When something works great, you just know it.

Although the record isn’t out yet—so I don’t know the final credits—it seems that you decided to produce Indestructible yourselves. Was that a challenge?
To us, it was nothing new. We’ve always been the biggest critics of our performances, and of our music. As a producer, Johnny K has contributed a lot to the past few Disturbed records, but we’ve always gone into the studio with a very clear vision of what we’re trying to accomplish. There may be a couple of tracks where we experiment, and try to develop something on the spot, but, overall, we develop an album’s direction in pre-production. Of course, when a band decides to take on the production role, the label looks at you a bit closer, and, because of that, there’s more pressure. In addition, there’s no middleman if the band members are ever at odds. There’s no outside producer who can be the referee to settle things, so you have to deal with those issues yourselves. But the great thing about Disturbed is that each member recognizes his role in the band, and we all respect each other. We have strong opinions—and, every now and then, we may be on different pages for whatever reason—but we always work it out. Ultimately, we’re all looking for what’s best for the songs. I think it might be more of a concern for management and our label, as they’re worried that without a producer as a buffer we’ll constantly be having conflicts or something. That didn’t happen. Making this record has been a great experience.

Although I totally get the band’s one-for-all, Musketeer approach to its career, it’s still interesting that an act with Disturbed’s track record can jettison a production strategy calculated to aggressively seduce tastemakers and media outlets. 
In my opinion, we’re a very quiet band. We’ve sold nine million records, and you don’t hear a lot about us—which is fine with me. We’re not American’s favorite band. We’re not part of the “In Crowd.” We’ve never gotten the love from the media or the video channels, and I don’t think our fan base cares about that stuff. We’ve always relied on touring, and we created a fan base through hard work. We built a career by sticking to our guns, connecting with our fans, and doing what we do for us.