{"id":502627,"date":"2026-06-30T11:36:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T11:36:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/502627\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T11:36:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T11:36:11","slug":"when-we-played-with-motley-crue-nikki-sixx-said-to-us-we-did-some-dumb-stuff-in-our-career-but-man-you-guys-need-to-step-on-the-brakes-so-you-can-imagine-the-insanity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/502627\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cWhen we played with M\u00f6tley Cr\u00fce, Nikki Sixx said to us, \u2018We did some dumb stuff in our career, but man, you guys need to step on the brakes!\u2019 So you can imagine the insanity\u201d: Zoltan Bathory on 20 years of Five Finger Death Punch"},"content":{"rendered":"

With 15 billion streams to his band\u2019s name, Zoltan Bathory is understandably in confident mood as he talks about the new Five Finger Death Punch album.<\/p>\n

Bathory, the group\u2019s guitarist and leader, tells MusicRadar: \u201cIt sounds so fake when bands hype a new record and go, \u2018This is the best thing we\u2019ve ever done.\u2019 All I\u2019m going to say is: this is a monster of a record.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The album, titled Legacy, arrives on 31 July (digital) and September 18 (CD, vinyl cassette). It is the tenth album of the band\u2019s career and marks the 20th anniversary of their formation.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s a massive milestone,\u201d Bathory says. \u201cThat\u2019s how we look at it. Even though people generally use the word \u2018legacy\u2019 after they\u2019re done with their career, we look at the past like, \u2018Okay, this is how far we\u2019ve come.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of crazy that we\u2019ve been here for 20 years. And in my opinion, this whole record is a snapshot of our 20-year history.<\/p>\n

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\u201cAs a musician and as a guitar player, I don\u2019t want to repeat what I have done before, but we have a sound and we wanted to really showcase what Five Finger Death Punch is. We wanted to create a record that says if you never heard us before, this is it right here. This is Five Finger Death Punch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Five Finger Death Punch – De Oppresso Liber (Official Audio) – YouTube
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Legacy is the second 5FDP album recorded by the line-up of Bathory, vocalist Ivan Moody, guitarist Andy James, bassist Chris Kael and drummer Charlie Engen.<\/p>\n

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The most notable change is in the choice of producer. Legacy is the band\u2019s first album without Kevin Churko in the producer\u2019s chair. In his place is Drew Fulk, whose previous clients include Motionless In White, Knocked Loose and Ice Nine Kills.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe made this record with Drew in California,\u201d Bathory says. \u201cWe had never worked with him before, but I personally did with other projects, so that\u2019s how we knew each other.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd for this record we actually had a little more time to write it. This is the first time when we had maybe two or three years to write the record, so we could really really think about what it is. The songs that you hear were picked out from almost 30 songs.\u201d<\/p>\n

What to read next<\/p>\n

He continues: \u201cThe riffs were always the core of this band. There\u2019s a specific style of playing that I have, and that was always the sound. And it\u2019s the same with Ivan\u2019s vocal, it\u2019s a very specific thing, his voice, his timbre. Those things together made the Five Finger Death Punch sound, and this record is the perfect showcase of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked to pick a couple of songs that best represent this album, Bathory says without hesitation: \u201cNails In The Coffin would be definitely a good one. Eye Of The Storm, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have some really heavy songs, like De Oppresso Liber. We have a couple of them that are slower. Nails In The Coffin and Eye Of The Storm are sort of in the middle \u2013 where there are massive riffs in there, but it\u2019s not a barn-burner.\u201d<\/p>\n

Five Finger Death Punch – Eye Of The Storm (Official Lyric Video) – YouTube
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Looking back on his band\u2019s two-decade history, he states proudly: \u201cWe did a lot of good. Not just the music, not just bringing the tribe together \u2013 we also raised a lot of money for various charities. I think we made a difference. We had a voice. We still have a voice, obviously. I\u2019m saying these things in past tense, but only because I\u2019m reflecting back on this.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s amazing that we\u2019ve managed to stay around for 20 years and actually build a legacy. You know, sometimes I\u2019m standing on stage in front of 50,000 people and I\u2019m just shaking my head. I\u2019m like, what is this? I\u2019m just making noise, right? I can\u2019t believe you get paid for this shit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bathory admits that his band might not have made it this far.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat was going on inside the band back in the day, we hid it from the world, we hid it from the press as long as we could,\u201d he says. \u201cThe band was getting bigger and bigger but inside it was an absolute tornado with flying cows and cars and debris!\u201d<\/p>\n

He recalls a conversation with M\u00f6tley Cr\u00fce bassist Nikki Sixx, who saw in Five Finger Death Punch the kind of self-destructive madness that the Cr\u00fce were famous for.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we played with M\u00f6tley Cr\u00fce, Nikki came to our dressing room and said to us, \u2018We did some dumb stuff in our career, but man, you guys need to step on the brakes!\u2019 So you can imagine the insanity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Bathory views his band as a force for good.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got this megaphone,\u201d he says, \u201cand we\u2019re using this megaphone for positive things.\u201d<\/p>\n

To illustrate his point, he tells a story about the song Coming Down, from the band\u2019s 2011 album American Capitalist.<\/p>\n

Five Finger Death Punch – Coming Down (Official Music Video 2012)(HD) – YouTube
\n\"Five<\/p>\n

Watch On <\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe were doing a meet and greet and this teenage kid came in, maybe 14, 15 years old. He gave me a red pen and said to me, \u2018I wanted to give you this because I wrote my suicide note with it. But after I wrote that note, a friend who knew I was in trouble sent me the video for Coming Down.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Bathory explains: \u201cThat song is about suicide, and the theme of the video is a friend can save a friend \u2013 you just need to pay attention. So this suicidal kid didn\u2019t go through with it because of that song. That\u2019s a heavy hitting thing. For us as a band, that\u2019s your existence justified.\u201d<\/p>\n

And the story doesn\u2019t end there.<\/p>\n

\u201cTen years after that kid spoke to us in the meet and greet, this guy comes up to me at another show and says, \u2018Hey, remember me?\u2019 I gave you a red pen that I wrote a suicide note with.\u2019 Ivan goes, \u2018Yes! Hold on for a second!\u2019 Ivan runs back to the dressing room and comes back with that pen. He kept it because of what it meant.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo when I talk about what makes me proud about this band, it\u2019s moments like this. You look back on that and think, okay, we made a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With 15 billion streams to his band\u2019s name, Zoltan Bathory is understandably in confident mood as he talks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":502628,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[156,157,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-502627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=502627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/502628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=502627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=502627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=502627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}