Five Finger Death Punch drummer Charlie Engen talks to RRBG Podcast about what it was like transitioning from playing in a proggy band in smaller venues to headlining arenas with 5FDP.
On making the transition to playing with an arena band:
“The transition was great. It was one of those things where I was known as the prog-techy metal guy, touring clubs and having a lot of internet followers and all of that stuff. So to then to jump into the arena thing, the beauty of it was that I had always dreamed of doing that.”
“It was one of those things where you fulfil a goal that you always knew you could accomplish but you just didn’t know how it would be accomplished. I didn’t expect Death Punch or anything but I knew like someday ‘I’m going to get get my shot someday at the big shows.’ because I’d just enjoy large production. I grew up growing to late eighties and early nineties shows and my parents are big hair metal junkies so they would bring me to Skid Row, Winger, KISS, whatever you name it, AC/DC, all that stuff… Motley Crue. Even though I’ve actually never seen Motley Crue live funnily enough but I’ve listed to the s**t out of them.”
“I’ve always pictured that as being my end goal and so to accomplish it was nice. Transition wise as a far as it being overwhelming or anything it felt great to go into the big shows. I enjoy that energy and that give and take from the crowd way more so great transition there.”
“They [Five Finger Death Punch] did a great job of making me feel like a band member out of the gate knowing that obviously from my angle coming into a freight train that’s moving a thousand miles an hour that’s already now established as a premiere arena rock band. They were really good about keeping it all cool and it never felt like “Alright man don’t screw this up.” or anything like that. It’s a great situation for me.”
On touring with Megadeth:
“I love reading the comments on Death Punch posts – they’re great. A lot of people said ‘Oh my god the arena’s going to be empty when Megadeth is over.’ Love, hate the band, whatever you want with Death Punch the fact of the matter is that we headline everything now and the crowds are ours.”
“Megadeth, oh they were amazing, that tour was amazing. Obviously we could go off on that. Just to get to watch them every night…’Is this real? Megadeth is opening for me? Alright!” It was so surreal.”
“Me and Chris [Kael] and a lot of the Bad Wolves guys would sit back there and just laugh. Not sit back there…meaning we’d sit on the side of stage and be like ‘How is this even real right now… we’re just on tour with those boys, alright, sounds good.’ And they were the nicest guys and the nicest crew and it was so smooth. We all talked at the end about it – not band to band – but just a mix of guys like ‘We gotta do this again. This was a beautiful tour.’ So that was a surreal moment.”
“But the funny thing we laughed about alot too – especially me and Chris [Kael] – when we would watch from the side is, you could tell a lot of the people watching… you could tell the Megadeth fans for sure… and then a lot of the other people you could tell were just jamming out to a Rock band. It was weird. You would think there would be more of a crossover of fans there. I’m sure there is a little bit but not nearly as many as I expected. And then Death Punch would hit the stage and you could see the difference in the roar of the crowd. It was amazing to me to really sit back and watch, objectively, and be like ‘I cannot believe that this many people would get this insane for us versus Megadeth playing right before us.’ You know what I mean?”
“But it was such a great tour. I think we sold out almost every show on that tour which was large crowds. Like to the end the tour, I think it was like 13,500 people in Sofia, Bulgaria. It was so much fun man and just to do it with Megadeth.”
On being a prog guy joining an arena rock band:
“It was odd for a lot of people to hear I joined the band coming as Tecchy-Prog guy when there are all these arena guys who are known that could hop on the bill and fit the gig perfectly.”
“I do a solo and I keep it arena rock-ish but I definitely go off the rails and make sure to empty the tank on that every night.”
“Anybody that knows my playing from before. Yeah it is really technical and kind of like a jazzy latin – you can tell I definitely studied alot of West African, Afro-Carribean and Brazilian stuff if you really pay attention to certain rhythms and what not. The one factor I think that really helped me out transition wise from the prog world into the arena rock stuff is that I’m such a hard hitter naturally. So I dig into everything and can do it in a way that looks smooth so it’s not like I’m stiff armed from the shoulder like a basher.”
“I think the guys especially, I know Zoltan [Bathory], has told me that ‘we don’t want a guy back there just struggling to keep up.’ Despite whether you like the music or you hate it, the drum gig is not as easy as it sounds. It’s really not. To do it tight and powerful every night is actually a lot harder than you would think.”
“You see a lot of guys who play heavy stuff and they have to be more reserved. And then there are guys like… a great one that comes to my mind is Ray from Korn. He’s a great drummer no matter what situation you’re going to throw him in. And so he makes that stuff look easy and he’s also still hitting super clean and hard. He’s not ever struggling to do anything.”
“That was a big aspect that they [Five Finger Death Punch] thought about too. ‘We want a young dude who is ready to smash, who can do it all but doesn’t have to do 25% of his capabilities.’ I think that shows when you watch especially if you saw me night to night or something.”
On Five Finger Death Punch Fans:
“Death Punch fans kind of transcend age ranges now. When they first hit those people are now parents. There are a lot of kids and teenager-ish ages too that just get into the band because their dad loves that type of stuff. Our fan base is almost like a sports team effect. You feel like part of the team.”