Songfacts®:

• Disturbed recorded "Bad Man" for their eighth studio album, Divisive, in Nashville. Los Angeles producer Drew Fulk manned the boards replacing Kevin Churko, who produced Disturbed's previous two records.
• The song originated with guitarist Dan Donegan's riff, then frontman David Draiman improvised the lyrics, which are heavily influenced by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. "I was so inspired being back in the room with a new producer Drew Fulk," Donegan recalled to Revolver. "I said, 'Throw a beat at me that's aggressive and straightforward, just driving.'"
  
  After Donegan wrote the riff to go with Fulk's beat, Draiman started scatting the melody, and the words "bad man" came out, which were "a bit inspired about world events that were happening and on his mind."
• According to Disturbed drummer Mike Wengren, Draiman wasn't directly pointing fingers at Russian president Vladimir Putin, but it's influenced by the situation in Ukraine. "Whether it's a personal list or it's a worldwide list, there's a long list of people that could fit that description right there," he told Reno's rock station Rock 104.5, "That could definitely be 'Bad Woman' too, but 'Bad Man' just fit the syllables of the song, the cadence."
• The Russians were invading Ukraine as Disturbed were writing the song, so Draiman felt it appropriate that they highlight innocents at the mercy of a bad man. "I feel for the people of Ukraine and everything that they've had to deal with and experience and are continuing to experience," he told HardDrive Radio. "It's horrific to watch the play-by-play of a full-scale war. And it's a shame that it's become just a matter of, like, 'Oh, this is what we do. We check in to see what happened.' As opposed to - I don't know - doing more as a world, other than just throwing tons of money at the situation and contributing to more death and violence. I wish there was more that we could do as a planet to just apply enough pressure in the right places from the right people to make the madman stop."