During a recent interview with Billboard, Five Finger Death Punch’s Zoltan Bathory discussed the band’s new album “F8“ (out February 28). According to the guitarist, the record is a “rebirth.”
Bathory said the following:
“Here we are — everybody’s sober, everybody’s ready to work and focused. There’s a lot to say, a lot to prove. It’s like a new band, in a way. It’s progressing. It’s rebirth. It’s transcendent. When I listen to this album, it’s the same sound, the same band — but it isn’t. If you really listen to this, it’s not the same band — for the better, both musically and lyrically.”
He also added the following about the inspiration for the album:
“…There’s no political or social commentary. It’s not about what’s happening in the world. It’s about the band — what we went through and who we are as people now, at this moment, who we are as a band at this moment. It felt like we survived a tornado so to speak, a Category 5 with all the chaos around us. So it’s very much a personal record.”
He later continued:
“Ivan was in a very difficult situation. He went back many, many times to rehab. At moments he looked like he was not gonna make it, that he was gonna be another ‘rock star’ that didn’t make it. We lost Chester Bennington. We lost so many of these guys, some of them personal friends, and Ivan was almost one of them — a couple times he did die and has to be resuscitated. He literally said, ‘This album is everything that happened in my life leading up to this record.’ He calls it his absolution.”
Bathory also added:
“The last few years the main focus was saving the band, putting out the fires and the constant issues. There was always distractions. Now that the chaos has disappeared Jason and I can really concentrate on each other and each other’s playing and how we can complement each other. We can really now work even closer and focus more, and that relationship got better because the circumstantial noise and constant tornado went away.”
If you missed it, Five Finger Death Punch’s new song “Inside Out” can be found HERE.