Between a co-headlining spot at the largest metal festival in the country and releasing two albums in the span of a few months, this has been a record year for .
Reverb caught up with vocalist Ivan Moody talk about co-headlining Mayhem Festival, the evolution of 5FDP through “The Wrong Side of Heaven and the Righteous Side of Hell, Vol. 1” (out July 30) and coming home to Colorado.
Between Mayhem Festival and the dual album release, what are you thoughts leading into this summer?
Moody: Honestly, I don’t have any. Itap just an honor to share the stage with Rob , for one. For two, I mean, Mayhem was one of the first up-sides that we had. You know, starting on second stage when we were cycling, then doing an opener at noon, then we got to do main stage as an opening slot for Lamb of God, Zombie and Korn. Now here we are, three years later, co-headlining with Rob himself—itap f***ing mind-blowing.
With all the new material, how different is your set going to be for Mayhem this year?
Now here’s the hard part, because now we don’t have just one or two CDs, itap more of a catalog. So now we have to go through and pick and choose a few select songs—we only have an hour and fifteen minutes. The great part is that we get to iron out s*** from the past that people might be sick of hearing, ya know? We didn’t want this to be monotonous, so we changed things up as much as possible, and we put so much money into the production that I just can’t wait to see the looks on people’s faces when they see it.
Letap talk about this dual album release. Did you guys just have too much material you didn’t want to shelve?
Funny you mention it, because thatap exactly what happened. When we first started recording—or I should say when the guys first started recording—they went straight to the studio after the last tour. Me, myself, I went on a hiatus for a month. I mean, I had to get the rust off and I was sick and tired of the whole thing for a little bit. So when I came back, unfortunately for me , they had like thirteen songs already written, so I was playing catch-up for the first month.
I was just sitting in my studio grinding day and night over it. So when I went back in, I looked at Zoltan and was like, how many songs do we have at this point? And he was like, ‘Oh… 24, 25’. I was like, you’ve got to be f***ing kidding me. We’re done, thatap it. So usually what you do is you cut the set back to like ten or twelve songs that are great, and the rest you just throw to the wayside and use for videos or movies, or whatever. So we sat back and thought wow, there’s really not one song on here that we can’t stand behind. So we made the decision to release two CDs.
Sonically, whatap the vibe of this new material? Are you guys going back to the “Way of the Fist” sound or bringing out something completely new?
This is everything Death Punch has ever done and it pushes the bar up. Thatap the great part about doing two CDs—we got to experiment this time. We got to go back to the “Way of the Fist” tracks, and we got to really get into the grindcore, heavy metal s*** that we grew up on. But at the same time, we got to experiment with stuff that we didn’t get to do on the last CDs. I mean, you have to remember, especially with the world being the way it is, if you try to change your sound too much, you’re gonna get f***ing stoned. So we didn’t want to change our style—t he machine isn’t broken. So instead, what we did is encompass what we’ve done already and advance on it.
How was it working with Rob Halford?
I’ll tell you what, have you heard the guest vocalists on this CD? I mean, the Metal God himself. Who would have thunk? I’ve lived my whole life for this moment. Especially as an artist, I mean, you grow up on Judas Priest and bands like the Scorpions and Danzig. So, when Rob came back to us and said he was willing to do the track (“Life Me Up”), my jaw hit the floor. Then we’ve got Max Cavalera from Sepultura, Jamey Jasta from Hatebreed, Maria Brink from In This Moment, and of course, Tech N9ne. I’m almost overwhelmed by it myself—and thatap just the first CD.
Is it sentimental going back to Denver for you?
Every single time. I actually just put my house in Vegas on the market so I can move back. I’m a Coloradoan through and through. I’ve been all over the world twice over and every time I look around I’m always missing some element of Denver.
Five Finger Death Punch will co-headline Rockstar Energy Mayhem Festival at Comfort Dental Amphitheater Sunday July 7th.
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Paige Montgomery is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer. Check out more of her work on Ի.
