Five Finger Death Punch’s new album “AfterLife” has debuted at No. 10 on the Billboard 200 chart. The effort earned the ranking after moving 29,000 units including 22,000 from traditional album sales. Notably, the group also scored their seventh No. 1 on the Top Hard Rock Albums chart, making them tied with Pearl Jam for the most No. 1s in the history of that list.
During a recent interview with FaceCulture, Five Finger Death Punch’s Zoltan Bathory shared his thoughts on being called a sellout. The guitarist says he gets to play the music he enjoys for a living, so in a way that is “exactly the opposite of selling out.”
Bathory said the following:
“It just what it is. In the very beginning, [getting called a sellout] gets under your skin a little bit because you don’t understand… I worked my ass off to be here. You have no idea how much work this [career has been to get to this point]. It didn’t just pop out of nowhere. This is 30 years in the making. I was 12 years old making my first guitar out of a coffee table because I couldn’t afford one. It’s a lot of work and you just do what you love doing.
Ivan [Moody] pointed this out the other day. He goes, ‘Did you notice this that any other genre if somebody gets a number one hit, they’re celebrated. In heavy metal, you’re a sellout.’ How? Maybe they don’t understand what sellout means. Because I do exactly what I wanna do. I don’t sit in a job I hate. I do exactly what I wanna do. Nobody is pressuring me to do something I don’t want to. I play exactly the music I like. So that’s actually exactly the opposite of selling out.”
“So that’s one thing — people just view this as if this genre should be underground and somebody owns it. And, ‘No. This can’t be popular.’ So it’s a combination of that. A lot of misunderstanding, I guess. We came up pretty quick. I’m sure that has something to do with it. Sometimes I read, ‘Oh, a major label brought a bucket of money and…’ Clearly [those people] have no idea. You don’t know anything about the music industry if you think that’s how that works.
There’s no amount of money I can give you and you’re gonna like a band. You just like it or you don’t like it. That’s it. And how people invest in bands also doesn’t work that way. You have to achieve some kind of success, and then you get signed because the label would see that you’re achieving some success. They aren’t investing in something that they don’t know if people are gonna like it or not; that’s not how this works. And then plus, our story, the first record, it was completely homemade, produced by us. We made it my living room — literally. So we were exactly the opposite of that — we achieved and earned everything.”
“For a moment in the very beginning, I didn’t understand [the criticism]… Like, I’m just doing what I like doing. If you don’t like it, turn off the radio. Who gives a shit? Or listen to something else. It’s almost as stupid as saying, ‘I don’t like tomatoes, so all tomato farmers should die.’ … As if I’m in the way of your success or any other band’s success.
So it’s weird. For a second it got — maybe a little bit — under my skin because I didn’t understand 13 years ago. And then you just realize it comes with the territory. Anybody who pokes out their head from the crowd, immediately somebody’s there [to shoot them down]. So now it’s, like… In fact, if there’s no hate, then you start thinking, ‘I’m not doing something right. What happened?’ You have to piss off some people.”
[via Blabbermouth]
Five Finger Death Punch have premiered a new video for their song “Times Like These.” This track is from the band’s newly released album “AfterLife.”
Zoltan Bathory said the following about the new record:
“‘Afterlife‘ is my favorite Five Finger Death Punch record to date and it was also the most fun to make. If the previous album ‘F8‘ was dubbed as the ‘rebirth’ of the band, then this one is our ‘transcendence’ for sure. One of the most difficult achievements for a traditional ‘drums-guitars-bass-vocals’ rock band is to establish a recognizable signature sound.
The second most difficult thing is to keep evolving while holding on to that signature sound. I believe for us, ‘AfterLife‘ isn’t just an evolution but possibly even a paradigm shift in our career, because this record is so vastly different from all the previous ones, yet it still unmistakably sounds like us. Very proud of this one and can’t wait to share it, our fans are in for a few surprises.”
Five Finger Death Punch and Brantley Gilbert have announced a fall U.S. tour. Corey Marks will open.
Tour Dates:
11/09 Grand Rapids, MI – Van Andel Arena
11/10 Fort Wayne, IN – Allen County War Memorial Coliseum
11/12 Lexington, KY – Rupp Arena
11/14 Columbus, OH – Schottenstein Center
11/16 Nashville, TN – Bridgestone Arena
11/17 Knoxville, TN – Thompson-Boling Arena
11/19 Charleston, WV – Charleston Coliseum & Convention Center
11/20 Greenville, SC – Bon Secours Wellness Arena
11/22 Tampa, FL – Amalie Arena
11/25 Birmingham, AL – Legacy Arena at The BJCC
11/26 Little Rock, AR – Simmons Bank Arena
11/29 Kansas City, MO – T-Mobile Center
11/30 Omaha, NE – CHI Health Center Omaha
12/02 Madison, WI – Coliseum at Alliant Energy Center
12/03 Green Bay, WI – Resch Center
12/05 Minneapolis, MN – Target Center Wed
12/07 Des Moines, IA – Wells Fargo Arena
12/09 Grand Forks, ND – Alerus Center
12/10 Sioux Falls, SD – Denny Sanford PREMIER Center
12/13 Spokane, WA – Spokane Arena
12/15 Nampa, ID – Ford Idaho Center Arena Sat
12/17 Las Vegas, NV – Michelob ULTRA Arena
Five Finger Death Punch frontman Ivan Moody has officially commented on the band’s controversial music video for “Living The Dream.“ The clip, which was created by guitarist Zoltan Bathory, caused backlash in the fall of 2020 due to what many believed was an anti-mask message. Bathory ultimately denied those claims, but it appears Moody still isn’t happy about the direction of the video.
Moody told Metal Hammer the following:
“I showed up for two days and Zo told me to run across the grass, screaming and holding the American flag, so I was curious to see it. Then when he released it, I called him, like, ‘You implemented your own platform into Five Finger Death Punch, and now I’m gonna have to answer for it, because I’m the singer.’ And it ended up going down like a fart in church!”
He continued:
“There was the mask thing and the awkwardness of the whole thing. That’s what he visualized, but it’s not what I had in mind when I wrote it. For those who understood it, great. And for those who didn’t, I’m sorry, I didn’t agree with it either. I love Zoltan to death, that’s his opinion, but it won’t ever be done with my name on it again.”
Bathory also added:
“Obviously, that video created a lot of dust, and I really don’t want to kick up another shitstorm about it. But it was about the blatant hypocrisy of what was happening. You can do this, but the population can’t! As a band, we sort of withdrew from politics and that was the last political commentary, but it flew over people’s heads and we were accused of the craziest shit.
It’s crazy, because music was a cultural weapon. And now punk music and rock music is the soundtrack to the establishment all of a sudden? But it’s like, ‘OK, we’ll just play music and create concerts.’ People are educated by clickbait headlines, but there’s so much else to talk about.”
During a recent interview with Metal Hammer, Five Finger Death Punch singer Ivan Moody opened up a near-death experience he had while he was getting sober. The frontman claims that he actually passed away “for about three and a half minutes” due to alcohol withdrawals.
Moody said the following:
“I died! I’d been on a bender for about two years, and I’d gone four days without drinking in an entire year! Which is ridiculous. So, for four days I locked myself inside the house, and the fourth day my daughter came over and I went to hand her a glass of water, and that’s all I remember.”
He continued:
“If you quit drinking without the right medications and whatever else, you will die. That’s what happened. I was dead for about three and a half minutes, and I became part of something while I was there. I say ‘there’, because I was not in this shell. And for the first time in my existence, I felt peace.”
Moody went on to say he felt like he was “in a blue haze”:
“It was very quiet and peaceful, and I remember not worrying about anything. I didn’t have an unidirectional view. It was wide, and I could see and feel everything. There was no matter involved, I was pure energy, and I saw this incredibly blue light. It was the afterlife and I was on the edge.”
He also added:
“The next thing I know, I was laying there with two paddles on my chest, and my daughter was crying in my face. My daughter was the one saying, ‘Please, not now.’ Her voice pulled me back and that was the wake-up call for me.”
Iron Maiden have joined forces with Five Finger Death Punch for a new collaboration inside their “Legacy Of The Beast” game. Five Finger Death Punch’s mascot “Knucklehead” will appear in the mobile game as part of a special “Afterlife” dungeon event, which will officially launch today (July 12) at 5:00pm PDT / 8:00pm EDT.
A press release offered more details:
“The week-long event will take fans and players on a journey with Magma Beast Eddie and Knucklehead, a fierce warrior and a brutally efficient combatant who also guards the gate to Purgatory. As civil war wages in Hell, demons and devil-kin pour out to take advantage of the chaos. The gate to Purgatory, the most exposed entrance to Hell, is overrun. Even a powerful warrior such as Knucklehead has his limits, and as the demons escape through the gate, a mysterious new individual makes his presence known, offering assistance – but at what cost?”
Five Finger Death Punch’s Zoltan Bathory commented:
“You know, it’s an unexpected and impossible dream for me & my band that my childhood heroes – in this moment in life … are being let into the beautiful landscape of the game. To me Iron Maiden was the band that got me into heavy metal and slung me onto the path of my musical journey …Iron Maiden created a metal community when we were growing up – it was a brotherhood, and with this game, they’re doing it again because they’re bringing together all of these bands, and their mascots and it has this feeling of community. To me, that was very important about what got me interested in the genre in the first place.”
Five Finger Death Punch have premiered a new song titled “Times Like These.” This track is from the band’s new album “AfterLife,” which will be released on August 19.
Five Finger Death Punch have premiered a new song titled “Welcome To The Circus.” This track is from the band’s new album “AfterLife,” which will be released on August 19.
Five Finger Death Punch’s Ivan Moody recently damaged his right eye after getting hit with a laser beam onstage. The incident occurred during the band’s set at the 2022 Welcome To Rockville festival in Daytona Beach, FL.
Moody commented:
“During the set I got overheated, and I walked back and I passed out… I was grabbing towards Charlie’s kit. And the heat — it was exhausting. Charlie almost passed out too. And I reached for a cymbal and I felt myself going under. And so I ran back. And I was okay. My [guys] helped me out. And as I’m coming back onstage, one of the lasers kicked backwards, ’cause I tripped basically over it, and it shot me in the eye. And these things are like… they basically have the power of a minor supernova; they’re really bad. If you put your phone up to one of ’em, it’ll actually black out your screen.
So, anyway, I’ve gotta go back [home] to [Las] Vegas and I’ve gotta see a real eye doctor. And hopefully it’s okay. I can’t see out of it right now. It’s, like, have you ever stared at the sun or a lightbulb and you get that green light — it blackens it out. Imagine that times, like, a thousand. They thought my retina was separated; that’s how bad it was.
So when I go to Europe here in a couple of weeks, you all might be seeing me with a fucking patch on my eye. Go ahead. Make fun. Don’t care. But it is what it is. I had a blast. Like I said, I’m really sorry. I felt like I got exhausted [during the Welcome To Rockville set] — the weight of the humidity. 85 percent humidity in 90-degree weather, it takes a toll. And I saw a lot of you falling down. And when I went to the E.R., there were a lot of you out there.”
[via Blabbermouth]
Metal Anarchy 
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