The interview dives into various aspects of the band’s journey, including their collaborations, upcoming tours, and the possibility of returning to Australia in 2025.
Australia’s Hear 2 Zen recently had the privilege of sitting down with Five Finger Death Punch’s Zoltan Bathory for an in-depth conversation ahead of the band’s recent release of ‘AfterLife Deluxe’.
Covered in the interview are all things DMX collaboration and past collaborations with the likes of Judas Priest’s Rob Halford. Zoltan also discusses the band’s upcoming US tour with Marilyn Manson and Slaughter To Prevail later this year, along with the potential for the band’s return to Australia for the first time since 2014.
Additionally, Zoltan sheds light on the band’s relationship with long-term producer Kevin Churko and the invaluable contributions he brings to the group.
On when Five Finger Death Punch will return to Australia:
“If we have an Asia/Australia excursion that would be probably be early next year, in the first quarter somewhere in there, we’ll see,.
These are the things that a lot of ducks have to fall in a row, there are booking agents, there are promoters, there are many, many factors to this, so for the Australian people, it’s not always up to the band, it’s not like we don’t want to come to Australia, it’s a lot of things have to happen, for this to happen. We definitely want to come! I had an amazing time in Australia. I’m really hoping this comes together soon!
We get ALOT of DM’s from and emails from Australia so I can tell we have a MASSIVE fanbase there.”
On the bands ‘Lift Me Up’ collaboration with Rob Halford of Judas Priest:
“The way that came together. We wrote this song and we were talking about like ‘Man this song has a kind of like an 80’s vibe a little bit. I mean we all grew up on that sort of music, that heavy metal of the 80s, and when that song was done, literally, we were like, ‘Man, we should maybe reach out to somebody, Ozzy, or you know Rob Halford, somebody from that era and how cool that would be.
I heard in interviews before that Rob Halford did say that he loves Five Finger Death Punch so I’m like you know what, lets try it, lets see, and we reached out and Rob was on the plane coming to Vegas. He was like ‘Hell yeah!’.
He’s a dear friend of ours to this day, we did some tours together, I know that Ivan [Moody] talks to him a lot actually. It’s really cool that somebody that was an icon and we grew up on his music and now it’s somebody who is a personal friend of ours.
On working with long term producer Kevin Churko and what he brings to Five Finger Death Punch:
“So a producer — a producer, sound engineer; especially he’s a producer-sound engineer combo, so he’s excellent on both. So there are a couple of things that you have to think about when you’re working with a producer. One of them is how much this producer is affecting your music.”
As a musician, this is your music, this is your creation. You wanna bring something that you meant to bring to the table. And so that means it has to pass to the producer, and the producer has to get the best performances out of you. Not to change the music, not to change who you are and what you and what you meant to say. So that’s one element that it has to be — the throughput has to be natural. And then also be the mitigator between bandmembers. So a producer is also somewhat of a psychologist who can deal with all the bandmembers. It’s a rock band; everybody’s crazy. And then if you have disagreements, he would be the deciding factor. If you disagree on the music, then you ask him, like, ‘So what do you think? What do you prefer?’ So that has to be there.”
“But, really, why we stay with Kevin, why we always work with him is because a producer intuitively has to know where would you go as a musician. So, to give you an actual physical example of that. For example, let’s say you drop a drum beat and I have to record a guitar riff to this drum beat. And what I’m gonna do, I’m gonna record this guitar riff a hundred times. And then from that, all the takes, we’re gonna see which one was the right one. And it’s various elements. It’s not just a precision, like how precise the riff was. Does it have that life? Does it have that star quality? Does it have that extra thing about this riff? And so let’s say you recorded a hundred riffs and from the hundred riffs, there would be, like, seven, eight, nine of them that had the magic. And I know which one that was, because I can listen back and say, ‘Okay, number seven, number 11 from the takes and number 24’ — I know which one was the one that’s magical. And he intuitively knows that. I don’t have to tell him. He will pick exactly the same one. So that means, to me, that he hears the magic. He knows exactly what I would pick, so that basically speeds up the process. And we’re just easily working together because he intuitively know which one to pick. Same with the vocal takes, same with everything. I think that’s the most important part where, okay, he’s a family member and he picks the right pieces. The flow is just perfect. It’s like another bandmember.”
What makes a good band and what makes a good bandmember is when you can play together and everybody naturally goes to where they should. It has to be the same in the producer, that he naturally should pick the things and favor the things that you would. And he’s that guy. So it makes no sense to us to go somewhere else. His mixes are loud and punchy. Why would you change something that enabled us to express ourselves the most efficient, proficient and professional way. It sounds great. His records, other producers, other artists try to recreate that stuff. I always like that stuff. And I read it in articles, and people talk about, like, ‘Man, the guitar sound or the vocal sound on the Five Finger Death Punch record,’ studio professionals talking about that. I was thinking, like, ‘Man, yeah, exactly. That’s why we work with him.'”
Watch the full interview with Zoltan Bathory and Hear2Zen: