{"id":754541,"date":"2026-08-30T12:12:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-30T12:12:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/754541\/"},"modified":"2026-08-30T12:12:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-30T12:12:13","slug":"five-finger-death-punchs-zoltan-bathory-on-his-relationship-with-ivan-moody","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/754541\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Finger Death Punch\u2019s Zoltan Bathory on his relationship with Ivan Moody"},"content":{"rendered":"

Few modern metal bands are as volatile as Five Finger Death Punch<\/a>. The Las Vegas five-piece have had their share of ups and downs over the years, many of them revolving around combustible frontman Ivan Moody<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The singer, who is now sober after struggling with alcohol addiction over the years, has admitted that he performed drunk in the past. Moody had an infamous onstage meltdown<\/a> in 2015 in Memphis, Tennessee in 2015, prompting the rest of the band to walk offstage and abandon the show. Another incident the following year<\/a> saw a seemingly inebriated and emotional Moody apologising to the crowd for a sub-par performance at a show in Worcester, Massachusetts, blaming his issues on his mother\u2019s illness.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

More recently, the singer admitted to tensions with 5FDP guitarist and founder Zoltan Bathory over the controversial \u2018anti-mask\u2019 video for 2020\u2019s Covid-era single Living The Dream, directed by Bathory. \u201cI called [Zoltan], like, \u2018You implemented your own platform into Five Finger Death Punch, and now I\u2019m gonna have to answer for it, because I\u2019m the singer,\u2019\u201d Moody told Metal Hammer in 2022, adding: \u201cI love Zoltan to death, that\u2019s his opinion, but it won\u2019t ever be done with my name on it again.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an in-depth interview in the new issue of Metal Hammer<\/a>, Bathory addresses the relationship between the two men. Asked if the turbulence within 5FDP \u2013 who recently released their tenth studio album Legacy \u2013 has ever made him consider ending the band or firing Moody, the guitarist admits that he could sometimes \u201ckill\u201d his bandmate, but they remain \u201cbrothers\u201d despite it all.<\/p>\n

\u201cNever,\u201d says Zoltan, on the question of splitting the band. \u201cBecause I always respected that Ivan is the middle finger of this generation \u2013 a hand grenade with a loose spring. That\u2019s who he is. I always looked at that as amazing: he\u2019s uncorruptible. I could tell him, \u2018Ivan, you\u2019ll lose a million dollars if you don\u2019t feel like doing these shows\u2019, and he\u2019d say, \u2018Fuck off, I don\u2019t care. I don\u2019t give a shit.\u2019 So he\u2019s hard to manage, but I could, because I respected that he\u2019s as punk rock as punk rock can get.<\/p>\n

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\u201cSometimes I want to kill him,\u201d the guitarist continues. \u201cSometimes I\u2019m making plans, thinking about what supplies I need, where I hide the body. But then I\u2019m like, \u2018Man, then I don\u2019t have a singer who can do all these things.\u2019 So you stay with the fantasy. And I\u2019m pretty sure he\u2019s plotting, too \u2013 \u2018If I could just tie some dynamite to his backpack\u2026\u2019 We\u2019re brothers, but we understand who we are and how to work together, and what\u2019s worth fighting about and what isn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bathory talks about any regrets he may have had over the band\u2019s 20-plus year career. \u201cMaybe the stress of it. I always worked 150%,\u201d he tells Hammer. \u201cPeople imagine a rock band is stripper poles and disco balls and mountains of whatever drug is your choice. I like the business aspect, because it’s all strategy. But at the same time, it takes time. If I hadn’t stressed, maybe it would’ve worked out anyway. But then again, it’s a butterfly effect. Would I change anything? Absolutely not. I wouldn’t be me; I wouldn’t be here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sign up below to get the latest from Metal Hammer, plus exclusive special offers, direct to your inbox!<\/p>\n

Read the full interview with Zoltan in the new issue of Metal Hammer, on sale now. Order it here<\/a> and have it delivered straight to your door.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Motionless\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Future (Cover photo: Jonathan Weiner))<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Few modern metal bands are as volatile as Five Finger Death Punch. The Las Vegas five-piece have had…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":754542,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[96,128,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-754541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=754541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754541\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/754542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=754541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=754541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=754541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}