Dan Donegan of Disturbed

Dan Donegan (born August 1, 1968) is an American musician and guitarist for heavy metal band Disturbed. Donegan began playing guitar as a teenager and eventually formed a band called Vandal, which was an '80s-style hair band.He also played with some of the members of Vandal in another band that was called Loudmouth. Donegan was added to the guitar show "Chop Shop's" list of "Top 100 Most Complete Guitar Players of All Time" at number 76. Donegan is currently pursuing a side project band, Fight or Flight in collaboration with Disturbed band member Mike Wengren.

Donegan had very long hair during the early days of Brawl and Disturbed.


According to Disturbed's DVD titled M.O.L., Donegan got a job with his father doing construction work. He was required to cut his hair for it, but instead opted to wear a wig to fool his dad and keep his long hair. It worked, and his dad eventually let him keep his long hair.

Donegan has a daughter named Maya and a son named Justin.

Donegan is a self-taught guitarist.

He uses one handed and two handed tapping in many of his solos, with pull-offs, legatos and hammer-ons, also sometimes using the "flick off" technique, as used in the solo for the song "Indestructible", and in others as well. His heavy riffs and sweep picking are seen in many music videos. He uses his DigiTech Dan Donegan, "The Weapon" for many effects in and out of his solo work. He also combines arpeggios with finger tapping and many other techniques. He is known for shredding in some songs and uses finger vibrato on occasion. He uses the whammy bar in many songs to give it a certain sound effect.

In the video "The Making of Indestructible", he mentions he prefers "tasteful" solos, as opposed to shredding solos that rely primarily on speed. Disturbed's frontman David Draiman mentions "he [Donegan] can rip with the best of them". David also mentions "He's [Donegan] in my opinion you know among the best in existence, and he doesn't give himself enough credit". In the 80's, he was in a hair metal band known as Vandal, where many of his solos were shred guitar solos, but he would incorporate other techniques, which many consider his own style of playing.