Celebrity Health Profile: Disturbed’s David Draiman

While on vacation I went to a pretty big concert. Rockstar Energy Drink Mayhem Fest in Virginia Beach. The concert consisted of 14 bands and the dirt bike acrobatics of the Metal Mulitia Team. One of the bands on the bill was Disturbed. While I’m not really a fan of the band, I only like a handful of their songs and I don’t own any of their albums but they put on one hell of a performance.

Vocalist for Disturbed, David Draiman has struggled with many things in his life and one of them is a severe case of acid reflux which he has had to have surgery for in the past and has taken ungodly amount of Prevacid for. While he can’t really adjust his singing style, which is unique to the band, he does take precautions to prevent reflux problems while he’s on tour. I read an article in Revolver Magazine recently where he explained how he keeps healthy on the road and steps he takes during a working day to prevent his acid reflux problems from affecting the show.

“I wake up at six in the morning and take the dogs for a walk. Then I’ll head to a local gym and work out for 90 minutes to two hours. I have to be careful about my caffeine, dairy, juice and chocolate intake-anything that could help increase my acid levels. I don’t eat for at least for hours before I go on stage and I don’t have any food in my stomach while I’m performing. And I make sure not to eat anything two hours before going to sleep. Also, I hydrate the living shit out of myself all day. I drink Throat Coat tea and water by the gallons. I make sure to warm up my voice an hour before we go on and cool it down 10 minutes after the show. Before the show, I stretch out, and if there’s a masseuse at the venue, I’ll get a rubdown to try to release any tension I may have, because tension absorbs sound. Sex is good, too, because there’s nothing better to relieve tension than a good session. If my girlfriend had her way, it would definitely be part of the regimen every day, but sometimes time doesn’t permit. IN addition, my girlfriend’s got me on a pretty strict vitamin program. I don;t even know what most of them are. She just hands me a fistful of the stuff and I swallow them.”

The article also goes on to talk about keeping him in a healthy state of mind and spirit. Draiman has also had to have surgery to repair a deviated septum that was impairing his breathing.