EMP Interview Five Finger Death Punch guitarist Zoltan Bathory!

As Five Finger Death Punch prepare to unleash a new studio album and tour, we had the pleasure of chatting with guitarist and all round top bloke Zoltan Bathory about the recording process, touring with Judas Priest, life and everything else! Below is just some of what he had to say, read the full interview in our new FREE EMP Summer Magazine here

EMP: We were very excited to hear that the band are in the studio putting together a new album, we were wondering if you might be able to reveal the album title and tell us how the recording is going?

Zoltan: Well, so far we have about seven songs maybe seven and a half songs complete, so the musically all the songs are done. Usually how we work is first we write the music and then we come up with the vocals, we rarely change anything. When the band feels that the song is really standing on it's own, even with out vocals, that's when we give it to Ivan to write the lyrics.

Right now he is in the studio banging it out and trying to get everything done, hopefully for release in the Summer.

The (album) title is usually done last because we have to look at the body of work that we have created, what is the overall theme, so we don't actually have a title yet, we are still playing around with ideas. We don't have anything other than we might play around with the word 'Six' in the title!

EMP: Well, we are all looking forward to it! Can you tell us what the first single will be from the album?

Zoltan: That is probably going to be one of the most interesting songs! I can tell you how the idea for the song came about is that Ivan will usually leave us crazy phone messages at like 3 or 4 in the morning, if he has any ideas, if he is at a party, whenever, so we have a ton of these messages on answering machines and everywhere else. So one day we just took all these answer machine messages, these thousands and thousands of voice mails and recorded them into the computer and cut together words and lyrics and made a song out of these crazy messages! It's one of the most interesting songs because it just sounds so bizarre!

EMP: We can't wait to hear it!

Zoltan: And the title of that song is called 'Jekyl and Hyde', like Ivan's personality you never know which one you are going to get! If there is a theme to the album I would say it is about survival.

EMP: Your album covers usually have the iconic image of the band mascot 'Knucklehead', will we see him return for the album artwork?

Zoltan: Yes! One-hundred percent! I actually have the cover artwork up on my screen as we speak! Dave Wilkins is our cover artist, a well known comic book artist, we hired him to do the cover.

EMP: We have seen Knuclehead in many incarnations, ninja, devil priest etc. what will he be up to this time?

Zoltan: Well, this time we put Knucklehead on steroids! He's huge and he has major muscles and everything, we beefed him up a little bit so he looks like more of a tough guy! He's kind of a little like our 'Eddie' from Iron Maiden!

EMP: We can't wait to see the new artwork! Moving on to tour news, we hear that after your current tour in April you are heading over to Europe for the Summer festivals and maybe a few arenas along with Judas Priest. Do you think we might get to see Rob Halford join you on stage when you play 'Lift me up'?

Zoltan: That is possible! He has already joined us twice, one of which was in Birmingham, which is his home town. I think in Birmingham it actually took people a few minutes to be like 'Oh, oh yes that really is Rob Halford!' and that we didn't just get someone who looked a bit like him! The surprise and shock and realization, especially in the first row was great to see! This time it really depends, we hope so, but it really depends on the show and if they really want to do it, it's really up to them, that would be a great surprise element for Rob to come out for that song if he wants to.

We have a really good relationship with Rob you know? We text message each other from time to time. It's pretty amazing to have that relationship with one of your icons that you grew up with and to forge a friendship with them.

EMP: That was actually our next question, we were going to ask how cool it was to work with him and if you were a priest fan back in the day, but we guess you were!?

Zoltan: Oh yes, definitely! Screaming for Vengeance was my favourite record. Because, you see I grew up in Europe, so it was mandatory for everybody to have everything to do with heavy metal, so Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, you know those were the best.

And then to get to know Rob and find out that he's a really down to earth and really cool guy...and just the stories you know? He was touring and was already in a super famous band back when we first started and picked up guitars. It's amazing that he saw the whole (metal) thing from it's birth to what it is today. And he is completely aware of what is going on now. He is really a heavy metal fan, he listens to us, he knows about bands, what is happening, what is not happening, who has new records etc. It is pretty amazing he has a practical knowledge of what is going on......

Read the rest of this interview plus check out our awesome range of official Five Finger Death Punch merchandise in the new FREE EMP Summer 2015 Magazine here