After 20 years of shredding, Five Finger Death Punch is just as ferocious as ever, proving so on the newly released single, “Eye Of The Storm”
LISTEN NOW: Audacy Check In with Five Finger Death Punch
Guitarist Zoltan Bathory linked back up with Abe Kanan recently for an Audacy Check In, discussing Five Finger Death Punch’s upcoming world tour, and the mission while making new music.
Bathory describes their new single, "Eye of the Storm," as a balance between the band's heavier and lighter styles, serving as a representative sample of their upcoming album. “We picked that song because that was one of the first ones that was ready from the batch,” Zoltan says of work on the new LP. “Ivan is actually in the studio right now, still recording vocals.”
“That was kind of the song that we thought that would represent the upcoming album the best,” he reveals. “This is kind of a song in the middle, right? We have heavier stuff and we have a little bit lighter stuff, so that was right in the middle and that's kind of like the idea there that ‘OK, let's pick this one because it is a pretty good indicator of what's coming,’ and it seems like everybody was super excited about it.”
“It's a little bit heavier, a little bit more guitar,” Bathory describes. “We're kind of dipping back into the beginnings, the 1st 2, 3 records, it has a similarity. Of course, you have to always progress, so we're not gonna go back and repeat that, but there is a little bit of that first, you know, 3 records aggression in this one.”
Zoltan also opened up about the band's songwriting process, which relies on a "vault" of riffs and songs accumulated over many years, such as "Wrong Side of Heaven" and "The Bleeding," which were written long before they became hits. Bathory explains that assembling an album is like a puzzle, requiring a balance between heavy tracks and ballads to avoid monotony.
“It has to kind of have the ups and downs,” he says. “It has to have the super heavy stuff and you it has to have a couple of ballads, so that's always been the thing, and sometimes it just simply, you know, ‘OK, we have already 2, 3 slow songs on this record, we have 5 more, but I can't put it on the same record because it's too much,’ right? So that's how it works.”
“Things are coming out of the vault, there are some new things, and then we look at what we have, and then assemble the record that we think is the right one for the times.”
For more from Zoltan Bathory including a tour of his castle, and the band's commitment to charity and helping the US Judo team, check out the full conversation above.
The new song, “Eye Of The Storm” is now available everywhere
The new song, “Eye Of The Storm” is now available everywhere
