These days, it seems like every popular musician making waves on the Billboard charts is also a cannabis advocate. From weed-soaked rap stars Snoop and Wiz Khalifa to pot-friendly pop stars like Miley Cyrus and Rihanna, it often feels like the entire Billboard chart is ready to spark up. But what about last generation’s rock stars?
According to Disturbed lead singer David Draiman, the alt-rockers who owned the last era of guitar-fueled pop stardom are also fully on board with the green rush, even if their time atop the industry didn’t align with the current legalization avalanche.
“A lot of the stigmas are being dispelled,” Draiman said during an interview with SiriusXM DJ Jose Mangin. “It’s not being demonized in the ‘Reefer Madness’ sense that it had been portrayed for so many generations. And just the medicinal benefits that it has for so many people and the alternative it provides to people, as far as other medical treatments there that are far more harmful to the body and far more side effects associated with them.”
Instantly recognizable as the bald-headed frontman responsible for the iconic yell in the intro of the 2000 hit single, “Down With the Sickness,” Draiman told Mangin that he’s been a long-time cannabis user. Using cannabis played a massive roll in his music, too. Apparently he wrote “95 percent” of Disturbed’s songs while “higher than a giraffe’s ass,” he told Mangin, noting that the plant puts him in a “peaceful, calming” mindstate.
“I’m all about indica, to be honest,” Draiman said. “The heavier, the danker, the more potent, the better. And when you are improvising, there’s something beautiful about what cannabis just does for you in terms of that wonderful THC high.”
Disturbed hasn’t put out a hit single in almost two decades now. But with lasting celebrity status and a cannabis industry that embraces famous faces with arms wide open, don’t be surprised if you see Draiman join his rockstar peers with a pot brand in the near future. Just don’t expect any sativas.
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