THE BEAST

DISTURBED singer David Draiman spoke to Mistress Carrie of the WAAF radio station about how he keeps his voice in shape while performing a two-hour set with his bandmates on their current "Evolution" U.S. tour.

"It's a constant tightrope that any singer who still actually sings live has to walk," he admitted (hear audio below). "And it's not perfect on any given night, but I find that it's more important to be human than for there to be some sort of backing track of some kind. I think that the slight differences, the nuances, the little elements of imperfection show emotion, they show variety, they show reality. It makes it a more tangible experience — the way it's meant to be.

"I started out last run very , very compromised," he continued. "I was just coming off of pneumonia. It took me the entire run to finally get better. I had two weeks at home. I started out this run super, super strong. The type of material that we play on a nightly basis is challenging for anyone , and especially for yours truly. So it's just a constant work in progress.

"I've been working really, really strongly and consistently with my vocal coach, Melissa Cross , this entire time," Draiman added. "She's been a tremendous asset and help. And having the understanding of the other bandmembers and actually giving me a little bit of space during the set while enabling Mike [ Wengren , drums] and John [ Moyer , bass] and Dan [ Donegan , guitar] to each have their own moments to shine during the set and do their own respective solos. Not only do I, on a selfish level, get into their respective solos, 'cause I like the parts musically and I enjoy it, but it gives me time to catch my breath and go through a little bit of a warm-up/cool-down type of thing to realign the cords. And so we've been able to find a really nice balance. But I'd be lying to you if I said that it wasn't still a tremendous challenge."

DISTURBED is currently on tour in support of its latest album, "Evolution" . The trek next stops in Montreal, Quebec, Canada on Friday (March 1).

"Evolution" , DISTURBED 's seventh studio LP, came out last October and contains the rock radio singles "Are You Ready" and "A Reason To Fight" .