Five Finger Death Punch drummer, Charlie Engen, talks F8, his impact since joining 5FDP, what future releases could look like as well as his drumming history with the Minnesota Drummer Podcast.
Charlie Engen recently made a guest appearance on the Minnesota Drummer Podcast – a podcast spotlighting amazing people that define the Minnesota Drumming community.
Covered in the interview is everything from F8 to discussing in detail the drum techniques and patterns used across the album – including This Is War, To Be Alone and Mother May I (Tic Toc). Fans will also find out which song is Charlie’s favourite from the release.
On how the writing for F8 took place:
“There were some ideas completed on the first [5FDP] tour I did in the fall of 2018, but most of it basically happened when that tour ended – in January [2019] – there were ideas rolling already. Me and Zoltan wrote a bunch of chunks of it together probably in April/May of 2019. And so yeah most of it just took place in the summer of last year (2019) when we weren’t really touring. We toured last summer for a month – but it was only like 11 shows, just the festival shows and stuff. So it was kind of before that and really heavy after that before the fall tour of last year.”
On writing with Zoltan Bathory:
“That was literally me and him sitting in a room together in his house where he has a nice studio set up. It’s still like a normal room though so you can relax in it. I had an electic kit and he just jammed out ideas that he had held onto maybe for a while. Some of them were riff ideas and some of them came from us just jamming and then we would maybe take a chunk of it and rework it or maybe add stuff to it.”
“Obviously he [Zoltan] and Kevin [Churko – 5FDP’s long time producer] would work together on their own and all of that but this was more pre-production stuff. Yeah, honestly, that. Just jamming in a room, taking ideas and messing with them but all in all pretty easy going. Obviously with me being in Minneapolis, well Saint Paul and him in Vegas it was just easier for me to stay there for two and half weeks. So we just got together every day and however much we jammed that day is how much we jammed that day. It would be two or three hours every day for two and half weeks. That was pretty much that for my part of it.
“I came in – I wouldn’t say late – but I came in on the back edge of the process. I’m in Minnesota they’re in Vegas. It’s not like I’m going to go down to the studio every day and just start tapping into ideas and concepts. We kind of just let the tunes write themselves. If you know me and Zoltan’s style, which is more rhythmic and heavy, you can hear what parts we wrote together.”
On matching bass drum patterns with guitar riffs on F8:
“That was definitely one thing you notice on this album versus the older ones. It is more rhythmic pattern stuff.”
“It’s more just deciding on a pattern. For me especially if it comes to catching patterns with my feet – if my hands are doing something easy over the top of it, I can pretty much throw any pattern I would need to on my feet if it’s normal in my hands and especially with my right hand.”
“If I start to get really intricate with my right hand I might have to figure something out. I’ll break it down to a couple of beats and be like ‘Ahh yeah that’s where it is.’ ’cause I’ll just feel my body sucked down or get weak. I’m not really doing anything crazy hand stuff with Death Punch where it’s an issue so I can pretty much throw any foot pattern I would need to.”
[This Is War] is pretty fast so that one for sure would be one that I enjoy playing – even if I don’t need to technically practice it – I enjoy playing it as much as I possibly can so when I jump into it, it’s nothing. Especially because if you notice on that riff – the triplet riff before it, or after it, depending on which part of the tune you’re in – that whole thing, going from one to the next just because you know we’re shifting from triplet feel to duple feel. The more control I have the better. Patterns to me are pretty much dictated based on my other limbs.”
Listen to the full podcast:
Fans can watch the full two-part podcast featuring Charlie via the videos below.
Part one mainly focuses on his time in Five Finger Death Punch whilst part two focuses more on drumming and his technique. Fans can also watch Charlie in action showcasing his double bass work for “This Is War”.