Rocksound recently caught up with 5FDP guitarist Zoltan Bathory to find out how the last few years have inspired their most cohesive work yet and what he hopes the legacy of the band will be when they are gone.
To look at our band now as a global arena headliner, I think it would give a lot of hope to other musicians to see just how far we’ve come.
Zoltan Bathory – Five Finger Death Punch
Extract from Rocksound.tv:
What do you feel like ‘F8’ represents both for Five Finger Death Punch but also for you as an individual?
“It seems as though the album is doing exactly what it’s supposed to be doing – people are actually understanding what this album is. For me, I feel like it’s a milestone. It’s the monolith that stands out in the middle of our career as probably the most important record, or what will be the most important record, we’ve ever made.”
“I think that’s because of a couple of things. This is our eighth record, and for any band to do eight records is huge. Especially considering this is our eighth in 13 years, that’s a lot of touring and recording and touring and recording. We work hard. This band didn’t get to where we are because we did things by half. We’ve worked our fucking asses off. It’s not some major label puppet bullshit. This is a real band with real problems that we hid from the world as much as we could. But we became an arena-headlining band even with all of the crazy shit happening around us.”
“So two years ago things escalated to a different level. We were on tour with Sixx:AM, Nicki Sixx’s side-project, and Nikki came over to us and said, ‘I don’t know what to say. I’ve done a bunch of dumb shit in my life, I’ve died twice, but you guys need to slow down’. From Jonathan Davis to Rob Halford, everybody had the same conversation with our band. So two years ago was when we hit the wall. Ivan had to stop and go to rehab. Everybody set about getting sober. So with that, this record is the first record where everybody is focused and completely sober and wanting to prove a point.”
Click here to check out the full interview over on Rocksound.
Five Finger Death Punch completed its 2020 European Tour in February 2020 alongside Megadeth and Bad Wolves. The band recently anounced that its Spring U.S Tour, which was scheduled to take place arenas across the United States in April and May 2020 with special guests Papa Roach, I Prevail and Ice Nine Kills, has now been rescheduled for later this year due to the Coronavirus outbreak.
The revised tour dates are as follows.
Fall/Winter U.S Tour Dates 2020
Sept 28, 2020 Sunrise, FL BB&T Center
Sept 30, 2020 Atlanta, GA Infinite Energy Arena
Oct 2, 2020 St. Louis, MO Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre
Oct 4, 2020 Birmingham, AL Oak Mountain Amphitheater
Oct 5, 2020 Nashville, TN Bridgestone Arena
Oct 8, 2020 San Antonio, TX AT&T Center
Oct 9, 2020 Houston, TX Toyota Center
Oct 11, 2020 Fort Worth, TX Dickies Arena
Oct 14, 2020 Denver, CO Red Rocks Amphitheater
Oct 16, 2020 Portland, OR Veterans Memorial Coliseum
Oct 18, 2020 Tacoma, WA Tacoma Dome
Oct 20, 2020 San Diego, CA Viejas Arena
Oct 22, 2020 Los Angeles, CA The Forum
Oct 23, 2020 Phoenix, AZ Talking Stick Resort Arena
Oct 25, 2020 Kansas City, MO Sprint Center
Oct 27, 2020 Baltimore, MD Royal Farms Arena
Oct 28, 2020 Newark, NJ Prudential Center
Oct 30, 2020 Pittsburgh, PA PPG Paints Arena
Nov 1, 2020 Camden, NJ BB&T Pavilion
Nov 2, 2020 Worchester, MA DCU Center
Nov 5, 2020 Chicago, IL Allstate Arena
Nov 6, 2020 St. Paul, MN Xcel Energy Arena
Nov 8, 2020 Detroit, MI Little Caesars Arena
Nov 9, 2020 Cincinnati, OH Heritage Bank Center
Banner image by Harry Reese Film & Photo