Dan Donegan, founding guitarist and primary songwriter for Disturbed, turns 58 today, Aug. 1. As the riff machine behind some of the heavy metal/nu metal band’s biggest hits—including “Down With the Sickness,” “Stricken,” and “Inside the Fire"—Donegan helped create the sonic blueprint for hard rock in the 2000s.
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Born Daniel Joseph Donegan in Oak Lawn, Illinois, the self-taught guitar master worked in construction before taking to the stage, wearing a short-hair wig to hide his long locks from his dad. In the ’80s, he played in Vandal, a glam metal outfit, before joining Loudmouth. His calling came in 1994, when he, Steve Kmak, Mike Wengren, and original singer Erich Awalt formed Brawl, which became Disturbed two years later with David Draiman on vocals.
View this post on InstagramIn 2000, Disturbed released its debut album, The Sickness. Featuring hits including “Voices,” “Stupify,” and, of course, the band’s biggest track, “Down With the Sickness,” the album shot the band to global rock stardom.
As the band’s sole guitarist and music architect, Donegan’s signature is all over their sick, monster track: He wrote the iconic driving drop-C guitar riff, synced with Wengren’s drums for the famous bounce-groove, and helped shape the album’s sound alongside producer Johnny K.
“[Writing’s] all I ever wanted to do,” Donegan recently told GHS Strings, per Metal Injection. “I was kind of a quiet kid; it was an escape for me, and it just allowed me to express myself. If I felt aggression or I felt like writing a heavier riff, or I felt just more somber and just moody and vibey.”
But his journey in music hasn’t been easy. Donegan has faced several personal and emotional obstacles throughout his life and career. He has spoken openly about supporting his brother through addiction. He recently said goodbye to his father, Joe Donegan, who died in 2024. And he even survived a severe car accidentback in January.
Totaling his car against a concrete barrier at 80 miles per hour, Donegan miraculously walked away without life-threatening injuries, but the trauma of the event still left its mark.
“We all go through tough times and struggles, whether it be depression or addiction or sadness or losing a loved one or going through a breakup or having a rough time at work or at school or whatever you’re going through,” he said in the same GHS Strings chat. “Just trying to have a positive outcome to be able to fight through those tough times [is huge].”
The accident occurred during one of the band’s rare breaks from touring, allowing Donegan plenty of time to rest and recover from the shock.
“As you may know, [we 're doing] just two shows. That’s all we’re doing this whole year. Obviously, last year was the big 25th-anniversary tour [in honor of 2000’s The Sickness], and we were in Europe. We finished up in Europe last fall, so we've been off this whole time. Everybody's taking some downtime, some family time, some personal things in our lives and finding our own ways to stay busy,” he said in an Instagram live video in June, per Loudwire.
View this post on InstagramThe two shows—a headline show at the Inkcarceration Festival in Ohio and a special performance at the Hard Rock Casino in Florida—went down last month. But the time off is well deserved.
Since their founding, Disturbed has released eight studio albums, along with two live albums, and one compilation album. Their last studio album, Divisive, arrived in 2022, but they have since put out new music, including “I Will Not Break” in 2025, which became the 13th No. 1 on the Mainstream Rock chart for the band.
On that same chart, Disturbed's other No. 1s include “Land of Confusion,” “Inside the Fire,” “No More,” “Hey You,” and their Simon & Garfunkel cover, “The Sound of Silence.” Not to mention, the band has five No. 1 albums on theBillboard 200, including Immortalized in 2015 and Ten Thousand Fists in 2005, both of which charted for nearly 100 weeks apiece. Their debut, The Sickness, peaked at No. 29 on the survey, with their latest release, Divisive, climbing to No. 13.
“Everything we write is always so personal,” Donegan told GHS Strings. “We’ve probably written close to a couple of hundred songs over our career.”
Donegan added that “The Light” is one of his favorites, saying, “A lot of times we like to take darker subject matter and spin a positive outcome on it, for encouragement and empowerment, and just a reminder that we all go through different things in our lives.”
He continued, “‘The Light’ always sends a positive message. The big catchphrase in that song is, ‘Sometimes darkness can show you the light.’ Sometimes you need those dark times in life to be able to dig deep, find that strength to find the light again, to be able to power through it and get through it.”
Behind the scenes, Donegan has confirmed that Disturbed has already completed their next full-length project. The release date is still to be determined, but frontman Draiman revealed in June that fans are in for a surprise with the new LP, calling the songs “diverse, fresh, and powerful,” on X.
Meanwhile, the band is promoting their recent segue into the beverage industry, with their Molten line of THC-infused sodas.
Three decades after chasing his dream in Chicago nightclubs, then exploding onto rock radio, Donegan remains one of modern metal’s most influential guitarists and shows no signs of slowing down. His riffs will continue to bridge crushing metal with mainstream accessibility. It’s a legacy built on refusing to color inside the lines, or as he once put it: “There are no boundaries in music.”
Related: 1980s Metal Legends Confirm First New Album in 4 Years Is on the Way
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