David Draiman has once again shown that he’s become the thing he’s spent his whole career pretending to hate: a self-righteous, power-drunk mouthpiece for destruction. The Disturbed frontman, once the guy screaming about control and corruption, now finds himself in a spat with actor and longtime progressive pro-Palestinian rights advocate John Cusack.
Cusack called out Draiman as “psychotic” for signing an Israeli bomb casing after quote tweeting Mark Leahy, who initially stated while sharing Draiman’s now-infamous bomb-signing photo op, “If there was someone shot in the head tonight in Cork City and my signature was found on the bullet, would you give me a gig @mcd_productions ???? Ye will forever be a disgrace to this country if ye go ahead with this David Drainman gig next Wednesday in Dublin.” Cusack simply quoted this while stating, “Anyone who signs a bomb is pyycotic [psychotic]”
Anyone who signs a bomb is pyycotic https://t.co/WGtoWgm9ik
— John Cusack (@johncusack) October 21, 2025
Draiman, of course, lost his mind. He went on a tirade about Cusack supporting “a genocidal, Jew-hating death cult,” because that’s what he does now: turn every criticism into a screaming fit about persecution. He can’t just admit he did something vile; he has to make it a holy war. And just as a reminder for the reader, every single major human rights organization, including several in Israel and the ICC has called what Israel is doing to Palestinians a genocide. Their war crimes are considered the MOST documented acts of genocide in history.
Hello @johncusack , my old friend.
It isn’t psychotic to defend oneself from a genocidal death cult, hell bent on slaughtering you.
What’s psychotic, is you defending that genocidal, Jew hating death cult, the way you have for years.
You want psychotic? Look in the mirror.
— David Draiman 🟦🎗️🇺🇸🇮🇱✡️☮️ (@davidmdraiman) October 21, 2025
And really, that’s the whole problem. Draiman thinks he’s some enlightened warrior poet, but he’s just a guy who mistook his Twitter account for a pulpit. His entire “unity” act has become a sad joke. He stood on stage recently and told a crowd, “It doesn’t matter if you’re Chinese or Taiwanese, Israeli or Palestinian. In this building, there is no conflict.” Beautiful words, sure. Too bad they came out of the same mouth that proudly inked a bomb meant for people on one side of that sentence. You can’t scream about togetherness while playing pen pal with the military-industrial complex.
When Belgian officials pulled the plug on one of his shows after the bomb stunt, Draiman did what he always does: cried about censorship. Then came another teary-eyed sermon about how music brings us together and transcends politics. Spare us. You don’t get to play the unity card when your signature is literally on a weapon. At this point, Draiman’s idea of world peace looks a lot like a press photo with a warhead.
How I miss the days when the music was a weapon.
Disturbed used to mean something to people, albeit not for about two decades. There was a time when Draiman’s rage felt genuine, when his music had teeth. Now he’s just the embodiment of what happens when ego eats the message alive. The guy who once warned listeners about manipulation and abuse of power has become the propaganda machine himself.
He’s not raging against the system anymore. He’s its goddamn mascot.
Cusack’s comment landed because it stripped away the theater, accusing, “You’ve lost the plot, man.” And Draiman, incapable of reflection, did what insecure men always do when the mask slips: he screamed louder. He deflected. He threw out words like “antisemite” and “death cult” until they lost all meaning. The dude isn’t debating anymore; he’s flailing. Watching him argue online feels like watching someone punch a mirror until they convince themselves it’s fighting back. Some Lexapro and maybe a lobotomy might be a more useful solution.
It’s almost tragic, if it weren’t so pathetic. Nobody asked him to turn into a geopolitical mouthpiece. Nobody begged for another arena sermon form a washed, divorced dad caricature about “love and unity.” He could have coasted on nostalgia, let the band’s legacy ride the wave of early-2000s goodwill. Instead, he turned into a parody of himself. Now he’s the guy screaming about harmony while defending violence, demanding respect while embarrassing himself in real time.
And here’s the thing: signing a bomb isn’t metaphorical. It’s not a poetic statement. It’s not some precipice of moral dignity in the face of a delusional concept of evil. It’s an endorsement of killing. It’s the physical act of saying, “I’m proud of this.” There’s no moral gray area there. You can dress it up however you want, but it’s still adding your direct and psychotic fucking fucking support for death. For a guy who talks endlessly about compassion and unity, that’s not just hypocrisy—it’s sociopathic.
The funniest part is how badly he still wants to be seen as the hero. Every tweet, every rant, every shaky speech at a festival; it’s all the same tired play for validation. He wants to be the wise elder statesman of metal, but he comes off like the drunk uncle yelling about “truth” at Thanksgiving. You can almost see the insecurity vibrating off him every time he tries to sound profound. It’s exhausting.
The tragedy is that Draiman used to tap into something real. That sense of righteous fury against hypocrisy and abuse made Disturbed connect with people in the early days of his most prominent material in the heyday of the first iteration of the nu metal movement. But that guy’s long gone. What’s left is a man completely intoxicated by his own reflection. He thinks he’s saving the world one soundbite at a time, but really he’s just signing bombs and sucking himself off with one hand on the keyboard.
Maybe the cruelest part of all this is that he’ll never see it. He’ll keep standing under the stage lights, talking about love and acceptance, oblivious to how absurd he sounds. He’ll keep convincing himself that the boos are cheers and the criticism is persecution. Because that’s what narcissists do: they confuse attention for truth.
John Cusack didn’t slander Draiman’s image. He just said what everyone else has been saying since late 2023. Draiman ruined himself the second he took off the mask of edgy, alternative angst and rebellious spirit to show the biggest cliche, a pathetic piece of shit grasping at relevancy, puffing his chest out to pretend to be defiant and masculine while perpetually and chronically self victimizing. We’ve seen that in history, that’s the fascist playbook. And Draiman is another useful (read, useless) idiot.
And honestly? The world doesn’t need another guy screaming “we are all one” while sharpening knives behind the curtain. What it needs is fewer people like David Draiman: loud, self-absorbed, and utterly convinced that moral bankruptcy looks good under arena lights.