Zoltan Bathory gives a glimpse into what it was like to tour with Metal giants Metallica and Megadeth.
Did you know that Zoltan Bathory had the riff for ‘The Bleeding’ already written about 15 years before the song was realised!? Well now you do!
In this interview with El Planeta Del Rock, Zoltan talks about how surreal it was to have Megadeth as a support band on their 2020 tour, what it’s like to tour with Metallica and play ‘in the round’, why ‘AfterLife’ is one of his favourite Death Punch records and more.
On whether there’s anything he would change about 5FDP’s ‘AfterLife’ album:
“When you release an album, it’s a time capsule and the time capsule is a snapshot of who you are at the time. The things that you were thinking. The things that you believed in so you know you can’t really go back in time and change that. That was true at the time. That was true and that was the purpose and everything we said at the time was a snapshot of us.”
“A lot of artists think that way like ‘Oh if I could go back I would change this and that’, I’m a big believer of the butterfly effect, like we are here today because of the things that led up to this and if you change the smallest things, the world would change and I believe that, so I wouldn’t go back and change anything on principle alone but it’s [AfterLife] one of my favourite records and still to this day is one of my favourite records [two years on from release]. The way it was made. There’s certain songs on it. The way that it developed is still some of my favourite [creative] process.”
“Some of those songs, you know, some of the riffs on that record are pretty old, meaning there were some things I wrote a long time ago. It’s one of those things when you write something and you bring it to the process, like ‘How about this song?’ and it’s ‘not yet, not yet, it’s just not right yet.’ Like for example, ‘The Bleeding’ on the very first record [‘The Way of the Fist], I had the song for probably 15 years before that record. It just was never time. And then on this one ‘Thanks For Asking’, that particular song, I had the riff for I don’t know two decades and it was just never the right time to drop that. I have all these things in the vault, ideas and musical pieces that it’s not time for yet.’
On what it was like to tour with Megadeth in 2020:
“It’s kind of surreal, obviously. I had Megadeth posters on my wall when I was growing up. That’s a surreal thing for me, being a kid in Budapest, Hungary, a communist country at the time, and dreaming about one day going to America and being in a rock band and touring the world.
“And this is one of my favorite bands. It’s super surreal for me, Dave and I sitting in the back around the campfire between shows, just talking about stuff, about life and history and all kinds of things; we had a lot of interesting conversations. So, it’s very surreal, I tell you that.”
“But at the same time, it’s one of those things where there’s a cycle of things. And Megadeth was an influence, a big one, actually. So, it’s just the cycle of the world. I’m pretty sure there will be a time when I will be sitting in a backstage with some kid that grew up on Five Finger Death Punch, and now their band is huge. It’s just what it is.”
“But, look, it’s one of those things, too, that Megadeth would never tour with us if they did not get the reverence and the respect from us. It just happened so that today we are this popular, but it doesn’t mean that they’re not an absolute giant, super-influential band, and they get all the respect. And everything that can be done is done for them to feel that way while we are touring together.”