Can 5FDP’s Chris Kael really lift 500lbs? All is revealed in the latest episode of ‘Iron Never Lies.’
Brandan Schieppati of Bleeding Through invites Chris Kael of Five Finger Death Punch to Rise Above Fitness in the latest episode of Metal Injection’s ‘Iron Never Lies’ series.
In this episode, they train and talk about Chris’ career, his background working at restaurants, how he got into comedy, where and how he grew up, how he handles the fame of the band, the future of the band, and much more.
As the workout gets under way and the conversation deepens, Chris opens up about what life was like before joining Five Finger Death Punch – a journey that started far from stadium stages and sold-out shows. Chris explains, “I was a Corporate Trainer behind the bar at the Hard Rock Cafe. [I] did that for eight or nine years and then moved over to The Cosmopolitan when it first opened up [in Las Vegas].
[Back in Kentucky,] I was working for Red Lobster. Yeah, Chris Kael rocking “the fish shirt” back then, serving up Cheddar Bay Biscuits. I think I’ve lost 30Ibs since I haven’t worked at Red Lobster back in the day. I moved out to [Las] Vegas to pursue the whole music dream, meanwhile, bartending, I worked as an indoor sky diving instructor for a little while and yeah, just plugging away.
I was getting ready to give up [on the music dream] actually. I had been playing music since I was 15 and had some regional success, a small tour and what not. It was kind of like okay, I’ve done this. I was maybe 36 at the time and I was like, alright it’s getting a bit late in life for the big success, what are the chances of it actually happening? It turns out it was 100 per cent. I didn’t know at that point. I was working at The Cosmo, making good money and decided okay, I’m going to sell my equipment, I’m going to bust my ass for ten years at The Cosmo, take that and then open up like a small hotel/beach bar down in Belize or something and be able to manage that and do that.
I put my basses on Craig’s list, had my amps on Craig’s List, sold a couple of those things and then a friend of mine, a guy called Saul Inglehart, he was the Drum Tech for Jeremy [Spencer], and they lost their bass player. so I was like ‘Hey man, put my name in.’… ‘Just put my name in there./’
So [I] found out they were looking for bass player in December [2010], it got to be May [2011] and I still hadn’t heard anything and figured for sure they would have somebody by then. One night I went to see System Of A Down at The Psalms and I used to always do this thing where I would look at the band and look at the crowd and be like ‘Someday, that’s going to be mine.’
That was back when I was still drinking, so half liquored up on Crown Royal, the universe was like, “Dude, you haven’t gone after this. You’ve gone through friends, mutual acquaintances and what not, but you haven’t gone after this. Anything you’ve wanted that you’ve gone after, you’ve gotten it, but you haven’t done it here. So that night I went home and got on Facebook, best sliding into DMs ever, slid in to Jason Hook’s DMs, said ‘Hey I’m Chris Kael, I live here in Vegas, heard you’re looking for a bass player, look no further, I’m your guy, I’m just looking for an audition.’ He got back to me the next day.”