When Disturbed singer David Draiman fervently growls, "Madness is the gift that has been given to me," it's sung with such conviction that it's, well, disturbing. The Sickness, the band's debut disc on Giant Records, hit in 2000 with an impact befitting the Chicago-bred band's aggro, moody music. And The Sickness struck quickly, both surprising and thrilling humble guitarist Dan Donegan. "All these opportunities are coming so quickly, and we couldn't ask for anything more or better," the guitarist muses. "The most overwhelming thing is that Ozzy himself commented on the band on Howard Stern's show, [saying] he thought we were the future of heavy metal, so that's a lot of weight on our shoulders, coming from him!" Its weight the band-rounded out by bassist Fuzz and drummer Mike Wengren-can clearly carry, fortunately for music fans, who are eating up singles including "Voices," "Stupify," and "Down with the Sickness," rife with Donegan's heavy guitar (tuned a half-step lower than standard) and well-placed usage of samples and programming. While singer Draiman, the last to join the band, came from a conservative religious family, his upbringing is not evident in Disturbed's songs. "My whole life, people have set out a certain path they wanted me to follow," the singer observes. "It didn't quite work out that way! Our songs and image are about how the reverse has occurred." Proof positive that those songs are reaching people in all walks of life is the way Disturbed's music has been utilized. Strippers gyrate to their songs. The Chicago Blackhawks have used Disturbed tunes to skate out onto the ice, and several wrestlers have adopted the band's heavy songs as their intro-music. Yet if Disturbed is both raging and professional on stage, they're also still a relatively new band and quite a modest bunch when it comes to being compared to their now-peers. "Not that long ago we were just playing a couple shows a month in our home town. Now we get to tour with bands we love and have learned from, like Sevendust, Machinehead and Korn, bands who in our eyes are leading the way. We're just thrilled to have this experience of being on the road!"