DISTURBED Singer Says METALLICA's 'Ride The Lightning' Gave Him 'A Very Rude Awakening To The Heavier Side Of Music'

In the latest episode of Kerrang! magazine's "The Album That Saved My Life", DISTURBED frontman David Draiman singled out METALLICA's 1984 full-length "Ride The Lightning" as one of the most important releases during his formative years.

"The power, the complexity, the aggression — there's so many things that would attract anyone to METALLICA," Draiman said (see video below). "I think that they are the prime example of a metal band.

"'Creeping Death', that was a special song for me as a kid, because that was the one that every single Jewish kid thought, 'Oh, METALLICA wrote a song for us. He wrote it about the exodus of the Jews from Egypt under slavery,'" he continued. "We all used to get into that. I remember just the glee we all used to experience when [we heard], 'Hebrews born to serve, to the pharaoh.' That line alone was just, like, 'Yes! Vindication!' We were recognized in a METALLICA song.

"That one, [and] 'Fade To Black', certainly — those have to be my top two favorites on the record," David added. "I love 'Trapped Under Ice' too. But 'Fade To Black', just this amazing construct — a song that defied the definition of what METALLICA was perceived to be at the time. [I] love it.

"Other music that 'Ride The Lightning' led me to discover was to start really kind of sinking my teeth into some of the thrash of the era that I literally had no exposure to — whether it was SLAYER, whether it was TESTAMENT, whether it was MEGADETH. It was the opening of a doorway, for me, to a whole new palette of music.

"When I hear the album now, it still makes me feel the same burst of excitement and energy and power that it did when I first heard it.

"The album changed my life [in that] it gave me a very rude awakening to the heavier side of music, and I'm very happy to be awake."

DISTURBED's latest album, "Evolution", was released on October 19.