Zoltan Bathory of Five Finger Death Punch Suggest Venue Staff Do Some Praying before their Summer Festival Shows!

By: Robert Cavuoto

Five Finger Death Punch are undoubtedly one of the most relevant and successful bands of our time due to their uncompromising musical intensity and razor sharp lyrics.

5FDP dominated 2013, by releasing their blockbuster project, a two-part masterwork, The Wrong Side of Heaven and the Righteous Side of Hell – Volume 1 and 2.

Both volumes debuted on the Billboard album chart at #2, featuring two #1 hit singles “Lift Me Up” and “Battle Born”.

In anticipation of their appearances at most North American rock festivals this summer, 5FDP has just release an epic new video for The Animal’s song, “House of the Rising Sun”. This gasoline-soaked cinematic video was filmed in the high deserts of Nevada, directed by the band’s guitarist, Zoltan Bathory.

I had the chance to speak with guitarist Zoltan Bathory about his humble beginnings living in a communist country, teaching himself guitar and music theory, with a guitar he built out of a coffee table.

We also dug into how 5FDP reworked the classic folk song, “House of the Rising Sun”, to give it a hard rock vibe, as well as performing at festivals this summer.

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Robert Cavuoto: You did a fantastic job covering “House of the Rising Sun” by The Animals. The original version is clearly not metal, why did you choose this song and was it difficult to make it sound like a 5FDP song?

Zoltan Bathory: There a couple of different reasons. The first one comes full circle for me. This was the very first song I ever learned to play on the guitar. It’s really difficult to find a song that you can cover, yet meets the band criteria. One of them is you can’t really make it your own, until you drastically change the sound of it.

There’s no reason for us to remake a Metallica song when they’re in the same genre. There’s not going to really be that much re-interpretation. You have to pick the song that’s really different from your own style so you can make it into your own, and you can really re-instrument it.

The other thing is for our vocalist, Ivan. The lyrics have to be very real. It’s always about our lives; it’s always something that actually happened and emotionally connected to him. When he sings, he relives the pain, and the audience can see it, feel it, and experience it. He sings every song like it just happened.

I see him torturing himself onstage. By the same token, he cannot sing a song about Viking warriors, because it has nothing to do with him. If he can’t emotionally connect to a song, he can’t do it.

If you look at the lyrics of “House of the Rising Sun,” it’s about drinking and gambling. We live in Las Vegas, drinking and gambling was a big part of his life. A lot of strife and hurt for him came out of those personal things. The image was totally perfect. It’s actually a folk song, so we can change the lyrics. We can do whatever with it because that’s how folk songs develop. It’s not somebody’s song where it’s a sacrilege to change it.

Robert: I was watching the video and thought the portrayal of the commandos looked very professional. Then I’m doing some reading and you’re a combat instructor so it made sense

Zoltan Bathory: I’m certified by the U.S. Army as a combat instructor.

I’ll tell you a funny story about that. The whistling in the beginning of the song was inspired by a painting of Clint Eastwood on the wall in our studio. Somehow that prompted Ivan to do some whistling and gave the song that Western movie vibe.

Naturally, the video treatment has a little bit of that vibe too, along with all the drinking and gambling.

Then we were thinking, 5FDP on horses and spurs really doesn’t work. It was just weird. You’ve never seen a cowboy with dreadlocks. [Laughter]

So that idea quickly got tossed and we said, “Let’s put it into a post-apocalyptic world. We have the resources to do it. My friends own the cars that we used. My other friends are pilots; I can get helicopters. Now we can make a big-budget video on a small budget.

The funny story is that the guys that you see, running around with the guns in the video are my friends, and they are actual special-forces. So when I was directing the video with my friend I actually had to ask the guys in the video to loosen up.

If you look at them, there’s a certain way you move, a certain way you hold the gun. You tuck in your elbows, and only trained operatives know how to do those things. I was looking at the first day of the video and I’m like, “Oh my God. It looks like military units are running around in here.” It was just too perfect.

“Guys, loosen up a little bit. Don’t tuck your elbows because it’s a bad giveaway.” Everybody was acting like a pro. [Laughter]

Robert: Everyone truly does look pro.

Zoltan Bathory: If you are wearing a military uniform you’re supporting the troops. We’ve been in Iraq and Kuwait; we were shot at – all kinds of shit. We’ve been supporting the troops since the beginning; not the politics, but the troops.

Generally, military personnel will be angry at you if didn’t do your time and you’re parading around in uniform. They’ve served and risked their lives for it. We’re a band and can kind of get away with it, because I’m actually a combat instructor. I can be in the uniform, because I’m in the uniform we have to train in. So, I was wearing one. Otherwise, I will get shit from soldiers.

Robert: In the video your female posse was pretty impressive too!

Zoltan Bathory: Yeah, there were 20 girls and most of them are friends, but some were provided by a company called Model Mutiny. There located in Las Vegas and use alternative models. These are not runway models; they’re the tattooed girls. The modeling agency is run by military veterans. Generally, we hire military vets all the time for security. That’s our way of supporting those guys.

Robert: The band has been through a couple of member changes over the years. How has that affected the band?

Zoltan Bathory: Each time it happens, it’s affected for the greater good. We are very loyal to each other, so if a band member has to be dismissed, that member had to do something fucking crazy or detrimental to the band’s career.

In the end, when you dig the trenches with people, these are not just your friends, but you’re comrades. You’ve bled together. So it would really have to come to a breaking point to dismiss a band member. When a situation is like that, you must know that you’re going to replace with somebody who is going to be an improvement. Every time when we change a band member, both musically and personally, it’s a huge improvement.

I’m not trying to say anything bad about past members, but, obviously, one way or another, they didn’t cut it or get along.

Robert: You’re an inspirational guitarist, are you trained in music theory?

Zoltan Bathory: I’m actually self-taught. It’s pretty much like most things in my life. My first guitar, I made it out of a coffee table. I grew up in a communist country. There’s no way I could afford a guitar.

I got a jigsaw and the coffee table to make it. I found an old, useless, and broken guitar somewhere and used the neck. Unplayable, but it was my guitar for a while.

I’m a very spiritual person, I started yoga and meditation and went the path of Buddhism when I was 10-years-old.  That’s the way I look at art, music, and expression. To me there is only one judge and that’s my ear and how I feel. It doesn’t matter what I play it has to make me “feel” in some way. That is my musical theory.

By the time I knew 10 or 15 chords, I immediately tried to figure out how things sounded and what it creates.

I’m really into movie soundtracks. If you study movie soundtracks, you really learn how certain chords, melodies, structures, and rhythms will go with the kind of picture it is. This is how you really grab somebody’s emotions. This is how you tap into human psychology, and this is how you really touch people to communicate complex feelings without saying a word. I approached it from a very spiritual angle, and my goal was always create a certain feeling.

Robert: That’s an amazing perspective, how did you progress to playing a seven-string proficiently.

Zoltan Bathory: To tell you the truth, I don’t play seven strings anymore.

This is what happened. I was playing regular 6-stringed guitar for a long, long time and I got hooked on Yngwie Malmsteen and all that crazy shredding stuff. At one point in my life, I actually learned all of that and could shred. Then one day I had an experience of playing a baritone guitar tuned to B. [a guitar with a longer scale length so it can be tuned to a lower pitch].  I was blown away by the power of this guitar, the tone and the ominous sound – heavy and dark, just brooding. When you hit a low B open fucking chord, it was a “Bam!”, and I was like, “Holy shit.” That’s when I switched.

I started to expand into seven-string guitars and baritone guitars. I ended up actually leaving the seven-string guitar.

Now I’m playing a regular 24-fret guitar, but using super-heavy strings. My string gauge is 13 to 66 and tuned to B. When I jump on a regular guitar it feels weird like, “Oh, my God; these strings are so small.

For the first two years, I was really impressed by the sound; I realized that vibratos are really difficult to do. Those skills you don’t practice go away. It’s not a bass guitar, but it’s almost. You don’t play lead on a bass guitar. The way you play will completely change. That’s what happened to me.

I started to get really rhythms. I started to develop a different style of playing, and I actually did have a rhythm pattern that is fairly unusual. I had to adjust, but I’m doing it for about 14 years now, so now this is very natural to me. It’s a fact of my style and my playing that I developed something else. I play differently than how I used to play regular guitars.

Robert:  5FDP are going to be hitting the road in a few weeks for a summer festival tour. Is this really considered a 5FDP tour?

Zoltan Bathory: This is a little bit of an experiment we’re going to do. We’re going to fly into these festivals for the weekend. So, instead of having the tour buses and the trucks, we’re going to stay home and then fly into a festival every Thursday or Friday, depending on the festival. We play a big festival, then fly home.

This is a different way of touring for us.  We’ve been on the road for so long, 250-300 days a year for seven or eight years. When we have a little downtime, we make records. We really never have any time off. This way I get to stay home for a couple of days every week.

Festivals range between 20,000 and 70,000 people. So you’re being exposed to a lot of people who may not have seen you before, or just the fact that you get to play these big festivals. So it’s a different way of touring and a lot of exposure.

It’s not a Five Finger Punch tour per se, but we are planning to do a big headlining or co-headlining tour in the fall that is going to be proper Five Finger Punch tour with huge production. It’s not announced yet, but we’re working on it.

Robert: Does the band have any pre-show rituals before hitting the stage?

Zoltan Bathory: We don’t have a band ritual, but we do have our individual things that we like to do. My drummer has the hardest job. He’s really physically taxed on the show, so for at least an hour he stretches. He religiously stretches, and I admire that. The idea that you can party all day, you’re just not going to survive with a band.

My vocalist is a very guttural singer. Ivan sings from the gut, so he can’t eat at least two hours before the show. If he has anything in his stomach, it may be disgusting, but he has to go make himself vomit. He can’t have anything in his stomach when he goes onstage. So, that’s his personal ritual.

Jason, my other guitarist, is addicted to Starbucks and energy drinks. He drinks about six of them before a show. He’s so hyper to the point that you can’t even talk to him. [Laughter] He’s running around and is totally out of his mind, jumping like a bouncing ball.  It’s like “Jason, just sit the fuck down.” [Laughter] “What the hell?”

Chris my bass player and I either do some kickboxing or jujitsu for about an hour. That’s our warm-up, because we are into martial arts. We use that for a warm-up and for training. It’s multitasking.

We leave 30 minutes before the show where nobody can bother us. That way, the excitement of the day is concentrated into that period of time.

There’s no synchronized swimming that we would do as a band [Laughing].

Robert: No band prayer before you hit the stage?

Zoltan Bathory: The prayer is usually done by the venue staff. They’re the ones doing the praying on show night!