Interview With Five Finger Death Punch
In this day and age a lot of bands still get signed with inexperience and with that the band falls into the pit of unoticed talent. With FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH, the musicians in this unit are oozing experience, musicianship, almost like a pedigree in metal. Euro-Metal veteran and previous U.P.O. guitarist Zoltan Bathory is who started this whole band. First recruiting studio metal drummer, Jeremy Spencer, vocalist Ivan Moody who was in Motograter, guitarist Darrell Roberts who toured with W.A.S.P. and Matt Snell, the bassist who was in Anubis Rising and Deadsett. With all that said, how can you deny the music.
With their debut THE WAY OF THE FIST out and pretty much creating metal from the old and the new and ramming it with mighty force in your face. Bringing back guitar solos, song witting details and the cross of singing and screaming, the debut disc is an adventure to get into.
I had a chance to reunite with Ivan at the Family Values Tour when it hit the Tweeter Center in Mansfield, Ma. and got the run down on the formation of the band, the philosophy and saw how Mr. Ivan Moody has grown personally and as a musician.
HOW DID THIS WHOLE PROCESS OF THE DEATH PUNCH COME TOGETHER?
Well, after Motograter, I took some serious time off, I got really fed up with the music industry, decided to go home for a little bit to Colorado and revamp. Zoltan I had met through Nadia with Coal Chamber about a year earlier and I guess he had been kind of stalking me on Myspace to see what my tour dates were and since I didn’t have any coming up, he hit me up and asked if I’d take a listen to some of his music. I sat down for a good month and a half and really put myself in perspective of what I wanted to do, flew out to LA, auditioned and a week later I was in the studio with him and it’s been absolute heaven. It’s the tightest unit of musicians I’ve ever seen much less being incorporated with so:
WELL, YOU GUYS HAVE LIKE A……..EVERYONE IN THIS BAND HAS LIKE A BACKGROUND, IT’S NOT LIKE INEXPERIENCED COMING INTO THE GAME!
Yeah
WELL, THAT’S GOOD. WERE YOU ONE OF THE FIRST MEMBERS TO JOIN?
No, actually I was second to last. The drummer, the bass player, Matt and Jeremy and Zoltan started the band, we had another guitar player named Kalab whose in a band called Session now, he wanted to do some different stuff, so we replaced him with Darrell from W.A.S.P. and that was that. It was really like I said, it was cut and dry, there was really no reaching out and searching, it just really fell together, so it was a blessing.
WAS THERE ANYTHING HE WAS LOOKING FOR WHEN HE WAS PUTTING TOGETHER THE BAND THAT YOU THINK CAME ABOUT FOR EACH BAND MEMBER OR WAS IT JUST LIKE WHO COULD PLAY?
No, no, in all honesty, we all worked for one thing and I remember him coming to me, that was the first thing I told him, I was like dude, I don’t want to worry about what’s going to be the radio single, it people are going to like this. He wanted to do what he wanted to do, same thing with Jeremy, same thing with Matt, we wanted to be in a metal band. We didn’t want any gloss, gimmicks or images, nothing like that, just real fresh honest pure metal. At least I think that’s what he intended, he might have just thought I was attractive, but ya know, I thought he was pretty hot too so that worked out real well.
WAS JEREMY JUST A SESSION MUSCIAN OR DID HE TOUR?
Ya know, he was like the biggest hidden secret in LA for like four years, he was one of the hottest sessions players but then he did do auditions for W.A.S.P., he played in the band called Powder
HE WAS IN POWDER?
Yeah, he was the lead singer. So that’s what I’m saying, it was a real diverse group of guys, we had all been in certain angles of the industry before this.
DO YOU FEEL THIS BAND IS LIKE A BROTHERHOOD?
I think that’s the perfect term for it. Absolutely, a lot of people, ya know, we tell them we’ve got FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH from Kill Bill Vol. 2, but in all honesty, it’s more of a, each guy in our band is like a separate finger and we all point in different directions socially, ya know, we are different guys but when we come together it’s a fist and that’s more of a metaphor we use.
IS THAT LIKE THE PHILOSOPHY IN THE WHOLE DEALTH PUNCH THEME AND THE KNUCKLEHEAD?
Exactly, that’s exactly what it is. You come together, it’s just a big fist.
NO, IT SEEMS LIKE, JUST LISTENING TO YOU GUYS, IT SEEMS LIKE IT WAS VERY EASY TO PUT TOGETHER, JUST LIKE THE CD, YOU GUYS JUST FLOWED
It was natural
NOT SAYING THAT YOU GUYS HAD TENSION IN MOTORGRATER, BUT I REMEMBER MEETING YOU GUYS FOR THE FIRST TIME AND IT WAS KIND OF WEIRD
Chaos? Yeah
WELL, NOT CHAOS, JUST TENSION!
And you remember, Moto started out, we wanted to be a tribe, that’s the thing we wanted to be a family and through times with the politics and the bull shit and the money, it fell apart. It was like a wing that fell off here and then a wheel fell off, a window came out, this car that we had put together just piece by piece became a piece of shit. It was not what I had intended on being and I didn’t want to be involved in it, so
WHAT IS THE ONE BIGGEST THING YOU THINK YOU LEARNED FROM THAT BAND?
To be true to myself. Out of anything, above all I really got lost as well, I was quite the arrogant little prick, I would say for the first year or so, there were parts my daughter, my mother, my sister, my brother, my family was pointing it out to me, I lost my fiancee, there was a lot of stuff that fell in line, it’s not that I’m blaming Motograter, but Motograter was definitely my template of what not to do.
ALL RIGHT, SO PRETTY MUCH, I WOULDN’T SAY YOU GUYS HAVE A FAN CLUB, BUT THE KNUCKLEHEADS IS THAT KIND OF LIKE A FAN FORUM WHERE PEOPLE CAN UNITE AND BE ONE AND THE WHOLE PHILOSOPHY IS BE TRUE TO YOURSELF?
Absolutely. Yeah, we’ve got two kinds of fans, they call themselves The Knuckleheads and The Pit bulls and I like it both. The Pit bulls are like the big bullys who get down in the pits for us to control the crowds and The Knuckleheads are the militant kids, the street teamers. I had an eight year old kid come up to me and was just floored by the song THE BLEEDING, those are the moments, ya know, I look for. That means more than anything in the world, so
DO YOU SEE A DIVERSE CROWD, SEEING YOU ALL WERE IN DIFFERENT BANDS AND NOW YOUR TOGETHER?
Extremely diverse. I can’t believe it, I mean, you got kids coming up to talk to me about Motograter, then Darrell brings in the W.A.S.P. crowd, which is kind of weird to me because your talking to thirty-five forty year old kids
HEY, I’M CLOSE TO THIRTY-FIVE! (laughing)
Hey, me too but…..hey wait I take that back, I’m twenty-two, three, maybe four
THAT’S THE WAY IT’S SUPPOSED TO BE, I HAVEN’T AGED SINCE TWENTY-ONE!
Me either, ya know, it’s nice to see those different generations, the different genres of music coming together to see one band, so that means a lot to me.
THE ALBUM, OUT JULY 31, 2007?
Next Tuesday
DO YOU THINK IT REPRESENTS THE OLD SCHOOL OF METAL? IS THAT WHAT YOU GUYS WERE AIMING FOR?
I would say it represents metal period! It’s not necessarily old or new, there’s always that new school with Slipknot and Korn and all that and you got the old school with Exodus and Testament, Metallica. I’m a punk rock kid myself, I love The Misfits, Operation Ivy, Bad Religion, I love grunge.
THAT WOULD MAKE YOU A GOOD FRONT MAN BECAUSE PUNK BANDS HAVE THE BEST FRONTMEN EVER!
Don’t they? The most energetic singers I’ve ever seen in my life are in punk bands. I totally agree, I mean, I love The Offspring, I’m a huge Offspring fan
ALTHOUGH THEY’RE STUFF SOUNDS THE SAME AFTER AWHILE BUT HE IS AMAZING!
He’s a stallion and on stage they just come alive, so
WHAT WAS THE OVERALL FOCUS FOR WRITING THE RECORD? WAS THERE A MAIN FOCUS ON SONGS OR ANYTHING?
I would say for the musician’s side, I would be wrong to speak for them but I will say like I said earlier that they were looking to create something that they could be happy with, that every guy in this band can go to bed at night and be completely content with what they had created. I’d say for me vocally, a lot of it was getting out stuff that I had never been able to say before. Like, the song DEVIL’S OWN, the lyrics in DEVILS’ OWN was about my parents, I’d never written a song about how I feel about my parents. THE BLEEDING was about my ex-fiancee, MEET THE MONSTER is about Motograter. I had all these things that were building up inside of me, so
WAS IT HARD TO COME OUT?
There was a lot of nights of red wine and a lot of tears, for sure, absolutely.
DOES IT COME RUSHING BACK WHEN YOUR ON STAGE?
It does right now even. I don’t think I will ever be over it, there are parts of the project that are so close to my heart like Crispy still plays in Ghost Machine, I love JR, ya know what I mean, there are a couple of those guys that I would definitely kill for. There are a few others, I took off my Christmas list the day I left, so
I HAVE A QUESTION, IT WAS FOR THE GUITARIST BUT MAYBE YOU CAN GIVE YOUR IMPUT ON IT, GUITAR SOLOS, YOU GUYS HAVE THEM IN YOUR RECORD
Absolutely
DO YOU THINK IT’S LACKING IN THIS ERA RIGHT NOW, GUITAR SOLOS? DO YOU THINK WE SHOULD BRING THEM BACK?
Absolutely. Most definitely, all the heavy metal I grew on Metallica, Slyer all that shit, Pantera, look at DimeBag, the best solo, Jimmy Hendricks, I mean, it’s part of music, it would be wrong not to. The thing of it is different to go jerking off on a guitar than it is to have a tasteful solo that incorporates your emotions into a piece, so yeah, I think they are absolutely necessary.
DO YOU FEEL BANDS THESE DAYS STRAY AWAY FROM IT CAUSE THEY DONT HAVE THE EXPERIENCE TO GIVE A GOOD SOLO?
I’m gifted enough to play with two guitar players who know what they are doing and you are right. I think there is a lack of musicians who care enough about their craft to take it to that level, I’m lucky enough to….my guys know what they are doing. They know how to play their guitars, they see it before it hits their fingertips, so
DO YOU THINK THAT WHAT YOU SAID WAS A PERSON JERKING OFF A GUITAR, (laughing) DO YOU THINK A SOLO CAN BE TOO MUCH IN A SONG, IS THERE A LIMIT TO A GUITAR SOLO, WHEN YOUR GUYS WERE WRITING, DID YOU HEAR ANYTHING LIKE THAT WAS TOO MUCH?
Yeah, oh definitely and if there’s too much of anything, I think there’s singers out there that never shut the hell up, you’ll hear them front to back and they just go go go, they don’t let the music breathe. Yeah, I think you can overdo just about anything. Once you let your ego get ahead of your art, it’s forced to happen, so
THE SINGLE NOW, QUITE DIFFERENT FROM THE REST OF THE ALBUM?
A little bit.
A LOT MELLOWER!
To a degree
DO YOU THINK PEOPLE ARE GOING TO BE SURPRISED WHEN THEY PICK UP THE RECORD AND HEAR IT HEAVIER OR DO YOU THINK IT’S GOING TO BE LIKE A PLEASANT SURPRISE OR A KIND OF SHOCKER AT THE MOMENT?
Probably a little bit of both, but I mean, I think the single, THE BLEEDING, I think it’s powerful in it’s own way, it’s really painful
THE CHORUS!!!!
Absolutely, I think it’s really painful so I don’t think it sticks out on the album necessarily, but yeah I think there will be some people who will expect the album to be like that but then you get a good punch in the face when they listen to the rest of it, but I hope the ones that enjoy that stick with us, so that’s really what I’m after.
HOW DID YOU FEEL AFTER THE BLEEDING WAS COMPLETED?
I got to tell ya, no, your right. Jim Morrison said it once that every musician has a chance to write a masterpiece and you’ll know when that piece comes. I’ve got to tell you, when I finally heard the mixes of this, because it took me nearly two months to write the lyrics for it, the guys, I think it took like six months to write the song. When it was done, it was like making a victory lap. To look at all the other music that I’d ever been a part of and to actually hear that song, it’s heartwarming to say the least.
NOW PEOPLE ARE GOING TO BE SINGING IT!
I hope so, God, yell that shit
(laughing) YOU WORKED WITH A LOT OF GOOD PRODUCERS, DID THEY ALL WORK ON IT AT THE SAME TIME OR WAS IT DIFFERENT SONGS FOR DIFFERENT PRODUCERS?
Different songs for different producers.
OK, WAS THERE BUTTING HEADS CAUSE THERE IS A LOT OF EXPERIENCE IN ONE ROOM?
You would think so, but we never let the control factor get out of our hands. When we say producers, that’s more engineers, for people to sit there and help push the buttons, kind of give us different ideas, outside views, but like I said earlier, we were not going to let anybody else have the way with this. It was going to be the way we wanted it, like it or not, they could leave the room, so
YOU GUYS DID ALL PRE-PRODUCTION?
Absolutely
WHEN YOU WENT IN YOU PRETTY MUCH KNEW THIS IS WHAT’S HAPPENING?
Yeah, Zo gave me the music close to three months before I hit the studio and I had pro tools and all that shit at home so I was doing all the arrangements myself, changing it up how I wanted the choruses. It was cut and dry, it was almost done before I even touched it.
LIKE AN EASY HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT! (laughing)
It really was. Like I said, if it wouldn’t have been so tight, I don’t think I would have been involved.
IS IT BETTER FOR YOU TO HAVE THAT TIME TO WRITE LYRICS OR DO YOU LIKE THE PRESSURE OF HEY, WE’RE IN THE STUDIO, WE NEED AN EXTRA SONG, HERE WE GO?A little bit of both. ASHES, the title to the first track on that was written about me being in the studio and getting really fuckin wasted one night and I had the studio the next day and I didn’t make my session and Zoltan and Matt were like livid with me because we had already paid for the day and I was so frustrated with myself that whole song is about me yelling at Ivan, so yeah
YOU KNOW WHAT IS MY FAVORITE TRACK, I DON’T KNOW THE NAME OF IT, BUT IT’S THE LAST TRACK?
MEET THE MONSTER, I wrote that about Motograter. That’s one of my favorites too. We end the set with it.
THE ARTWORK, I KNOW ZOLTAN DID IT?
And our friend Scully
IS THERE A CONCEPT TO GO WITH THE SONGS?
Again, we wanted something….ya know, since Guns & Roses and Metallica and these bands they have these great merchandise, Iron Maiden had something that went along with the music, it didn’t separate the music from anything but it added to it, ya know.We wanted to be potent on all levels, especially a visual sense, so I think when Zo went into the artwork, he kind of threw a couple of ideas at me and I told him the skull thing was really fuckin cool and he went with that and like a month later he had the whole layout. I was like my God, your a genius, it was pretty easy for me.
SO, IS HE DOING ALL THE MERCH TOO?
We design our own merch, always
ALL RIGHT. OVERALL, WHAT IS YOUR GOAL FOR THE REST OF THE YEAR INTO 2008? DO YOU GUYS SET YOURSELVES UP FOR STUFF AND DO YOU JUST LET IT HAPPEN?
I used to set myself up. I have a vision of what I want this to be but I’ll not let myself be disappointed and wrapped up in the bull shit again, so if it takes longer or say it never picks up, I’m still going to be content. That’s the way I am, I would say my outlet for this whole thing is just to enjoy myself, be true to fuckin Ivan as I can and the rest will fall in place.
HOW’S THIS TOUR TREATING YOU GUYS?
It’s good
WHEN DID IT START?
Last week, the 20th
SO, IT’S KIND OF STILL NEW?
Yeah, we are still massaging
WORKING OUT THE KINKS? (laughing)
It’s a little different. I’ll be honest, it’s not like Ozzfest, the second stage is only five bands and I don’t know, it’s different. I’ve been in better situations but I’ve definitely been in worse. I love the bands on the first stage, some of the accommodations on the second stage would be ironed out still, so we go around once in a while, I’ll get through it.
IS THERE ANY BAND THAT SURPRISED YOU THAT YOUR INTO WATCHING EVERY DAY?
Hell Yeah, watching those guys live changes your idea about them. They are intense.
GUITAR HERO IS ON THIS TOUR, DO YOU GO PLAY IT?
Yeah, we’re on the new one, we’re one of the head tracks on the new one. Ya know what’s funny, I’m great at Guitar Hero and I can’t play a lick of guitars, which is pretty cool. My daughter actually got me into it
BEST ADVICE TO STAY COOL ON A SUMMER TOUR?
Oh my God, to stay cool on a summer tour, find yourself a big fat umbrella, a bucket of cold ice water and just stay the hell away from the concrete. That’s really all I can say.
DO YOU HAVE ANY FAMOUS LAST WORDS?
Famous last words….Power and Grace, use them both
Checkout their video for “The Bleeding” on UVTV Right Here!
[tags]Five Finger Death Punch, Family Values Tour, Motograter, U.P.O., W.A.S.P.[/tages]
August 3rd, 2007 at 8:34pm
Great interview! Looking forward the FV tour in Indy next week. Can’t wait to see 5FDP!!!
Yeah, Ivan’s right. Those of us that Darrell brings (well, some anyway) to the table are in the “mid-life” category. But that just goes to prove that if “it’s too loud, you’re too old!”
5FDP is surely a melting-pot of great talent and experience. Example - I (who will be 42 as of the Indy show) have been enjoying Darrell’s talent since the late 80’s and his days in the local bar band. Age before beauty…
August 3rd, 2007 at 10:10pm
‘GUITAR HERO IS ON THIS TOUR, DO YOU GO PLAY IT?
Yeah, we’re on the new one, we’re one of the head tracks on the new one.’
Is this something I’ve missed? if so that’s god damn awesome.
Can’t wait to hit it up
You rock Ivan,You rock
August 7th, 2007 at 10:54am
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August 19th, 2007 at 12:07pm
I went to the family values tour in Indiana and i have to say 5 finger death punch was by far the best band there, they rock!