Zoltan Bathory caught up with Virgin Radio Italy ahead of the bands performance at I Days Milan.
Zoltan Bathory caught up with Virgin Radio Italy ahead of the bands performance at I Days Milan discussing his love for Italy (especially Rome), the bands Italian fans, touring with Metallica and finally what’s next for Five Finger Death Punch – including a new album.
Keep scrolling to read extracts from the broadcast transcribed by FFDP UK and hit the link below to watch the full interview with Zoltan on Virgin Radio Italy.
On the bands Italian Knuckleheads and relationship with audiences in Italy:
We have crazy fans here. We get a lot of fan mail from Italy. It’s really interesting because a lot of people play guitar in Italy on a high level, like there’s a lot of great Italian players. It was pretty funny when Andy James came to the band, he was the new guy and we would be walking around Milan and everybody would come running up to Andy because he was a well known guitar hero, like ‘Oh my God Andy James’. I started to feel a bit left out, like ‘Hey Man, what’s going on here!’ (laughs)
On how it feels to be opening for Metallica on the M72 World Tour:
We have been on the road for them [Metallica] for over… this is the second year. This is just huge. Technically we are moving a small city every day to a different place and they’re all stadiums so it’s just incredible.
We came across them, we played a show with them in the Czech Republic I think and that was the first time we met. So Lars Ulrich came over and said ‘Man, this is weird, we’re too pretty big bands and we’ve never actually crossed paths’. So he was kind of joking around like you know what lets not wait another 30 years to do something together and maybe six months later we got a phone call from Metallica. Like hey guys, let’s do this and then we created this two year schedule and we’ll see if there is more. I don’t know but maybe.
So since that we’ve been on the road with them. It’s just incredible. Such massive shows. As big as it can be.
On what’s next for Five Finger Death Punch:
We are doing this until I think July [On tour in Europe]. And then we have a couple of weeks off I mean we’re road dogs, we’re always on the road. In the States we’re starting a giant United States tour with Marilyn Manson [and Slaughter To Prevail] opening and it’s just another giant tour. After that we might jump back in the studio and do another record. We like to put out records pretty quickly.
On whether the band writes songs whilst on tour:
Yes of course we do. Life in the fast lane. When you’re in a band, I don’t even remember what happened a week ago. Sometimes I say to the guys ‘Remember back in the days when we played the Wembley Arena’ and they’re like ‘That was last week!’ and I’m like ‘Oh!’ It’s really fast. When you’re in the fast lane, when life happens so fast, you also change really fast. So your ideas of the world and who you are changing and every single record is kind of a snapshot of who you are and who you are as a band. So every two years I think it’s time to put out another record. If you wait too long, you change too much. Like if I waited five years, we are very different people five years from now.