Disturbed‘s Dan Donegan was asked by Loudwire about the band never fitting in with the rock/metal world. He steered the conversation to the band being initially being labeled nü-metal, explaining:
“We never really quite fit in. Nobody knew how to label us, because we came in at a time—not that I even care for labels personally—but we came in at a time where nü-metal being thrown around for any band that came out at that time. But it didn’t matter if you had a guy in the band that played a turntable or a seven-string guitar or a six-string guitar or a five-string bass, or you had a little bit of rap to your style vocally or you’re melodic or a screamer—it just seems like everyone was lumped into nü-metal at that time. And we just… I don’t shun that, we just rode the wave for what it was.
And I think we weren’t heavy enough to some people to be considered heavy metal and we were… There was just so many things that always was kind of blurry to where we fit in. And I’m like we don’t need to fit in, we’re just Disturbed, that’s who we are. This is what we do. There’s just something that comes between us, the chemistry that happens between us, that, this is our sound. So we don’t need to put a label on it, call it what you want.
We know what we grew up to, what we’re inspired by. When we write together, we just have this sound that I think it its own thing, it’s kind of become our signature thing. There’s something that happens when the four of us are in a room together. So, we just never quite fit… Love us or hate us, nobody knows what to label us as, but we clearly have a fan base that is okay without the label.”
