Zolton Bathory - Five Finger Death Punch 'Curating a Best Of... 20 Years In The Making'

Whether you love them or hate them, there is no denying the true successful measure that Vegas rockers Five Finger Death Punch have reached in two decades. Nine albums, 15 #1 Active Rock Singles, 25 Top 10 Active Rock singles, over 3 Billion views on YouTube and over 7 Billion streams, it's safe to say they are one of the most successful and popular bands of the 2000’s. 

“Every band in the world thinks that they will succeed right? And they should, otherwise why are you even doing it?” - Zoltan Bathory

‍But with ultimate highs can come ultimate lows. Much like Pop superstar Taylor Swift, FFDP have fallen victim to having masters of their albums sold out from underneath them by their former label with no notice whatsoever. As we have seen what Swift has gone through curating ‘Taylors Version’ whilst re-recording her earlier albums, FFDP decided to follow suit announcing a 20th anniversary Greatest Hits Best Of - Vol 1. The album features 14 of their biggest singles re-recorded and reimagined with a handful of live tracks from their latest US tour.

“We would have loved to have a shot at reclaiming our masters, or at least to be involved in the transaction but we found out after the fact. Surprised, but not surprised. These kinds of behind closed doors deals have become far too common in the music industry.” - Zoltan Bathory

Releasing a re-imagined version of 'I Refuse' featuring Maria Brink of In This Moment, the album sees well-known hits 'The Bleeding', 'Wrong Side of Heaven', 'Under and Over It' as well as some of their covers take new life whilst remaining true to the sound that audiences have come to love over the last 20 years. But does a Volume 1 suggest a potential Volume 2 down the line?

Founding member Zoltan Bathory had a chat with Wall of Sound to discuss the decision to take back what is theirs as a “celebration and necessity”, the process of picking the 14 songs included, their long history with In This Moment, how Lars Ulrich gave them the opportunity of a lifetime and exactly why the band hasn’t been to Australia since 2014.

When asked about how the band has managed to continue delivering so much power even 20 years on, Zoltan spoke about how he knew they were something special from the moment the first album was recorded in his living room.

“When we recorded the first album, that was kind of a self made record basically, in my living room. I was working on this record for 2 years before I even started to recruit members. And so, once we had the band we went to the studio to record vocals, everything else was done in my living room. And I remember this moment where the first three songs were mixed kind of rough, and Ivan [Moody - vocals] and I had this Beavis and Butthead moment in my apartment. We were kicking over couches, crashing around like kids. Because we knew, like we’ve got something.”

When a band as successful as FFDP comes to choosing songs to give new life to, or pick for a compilation CD under these circumstances, the decision could naturally be difficult. But as Zoltan explains, it was a fairly simple process thanks to the longevity and loyalty of their fanbase. 

“For the 20th anniversary (of the band) we were thinking about doing something special anyway.

For this to work, we have to have an extremely loyal fanbase, which we just happen to have. If you have a super loyal fanbase, they understand our assignment and what happened and they will follow you.

We wouldn’t have done this, we would have done our 10th record but because the situation present in itself we were like 'alright, lets go and do this'. The selection was really simple. We simply looked at the most popular 30 songs, which is easy these days because we have data from the streaming services. Obviously those are the most important songs for the fans so let's do those 30. That’s how simple it was."

Initially, they wanted 'I Refuse' to be a single from 7th album And Justice For None, but it never surfaced with the label. When re-recording the material for the compilation the band could finally opt for this to be a lead single, but it needed something more to help it stand out. Insert Maria Brink in one of the best coincidences no one had planned for. 

“Because we’re going to put it out as a single and it’s already a known song we thought 'well this has to have something extra, so why don’t we put a feature on it?' And then we were thinking 'who could we put on this song?' It just made sense that, you know what, Maria would be perfect because of our common history, 20 years of Death Punch, it made all the sense in the world. And it just happened so, as we talked about it she was in Las Vegas recording. So we were like 'oh she’s here?' So this was the craziest coincidence like, let’s talk to Maria. And a couple of days later she recorded her parts, that’s how quick it all came together."

Five Finger Death Punch has also played a prominent part in supporting Metallica on their mammoth world tour over the last 2 years. Both groups had never truly crossed paths until one conversation with drummer Lars Ulrich quickly changed all of that.

“Obviously Metallica is, if somebody asked me 'What is heavy metal?' I would say 'Here, listen to Metallica.' That's the crystallisation of what the genre would be. The way that this came about was, we were playing various shows in Europe and some of the shows were with Metallica a year before the tour happened. And, so we were backstage and ran into the guys and we would talk to Lars.

Lars was saying 'man, this is the craziest thing. You guys are doing really great' and crazy it is that we’ve never crossed paths. Not once. And he was kind of joking like 'let's not wait another 40 years to do that'.

Very shortly after we got the call that said 'Hey, if you guys wanna jump on this 2-3 years excursion then we would love to have you.'" 

WoS: It's not something you can say no to.

"Right!? And so you know at this point in our career we’re not in a position to be opening for anyone. But, Metallica is Metallica so we were like 'Okay' [laughs]"

WoS: It’s like, you know what? Fair call.

"Yeah it's like twisting my arm “ah-ah-ah-ah yeah okay cool. [laughs]"

Speaking of touring, Five Finger Death Punch has yet to have a follow up tour of Australia since their appearance at Soundwave 2014. When asked about this, Zoltan explains that an incident on the flight from Brisbane to Sydney resulted in them being banned from touring of the country.

“We were banned from Australia. So, on the way to Australia, imagine we were in an airplane with all the bands to the festival. The plane wasn’t a charter plane, but there were only the bands on it. And it’s a party plane. Ivan is running back and forth being a clown, making fun of things as he always does.

He was kind of joking around with the flight attendant and then he would sneak into first class and they would kick him out. It was all fun and nothing serious. And, something happened where Ivan kissed the flight attendant on the cheek and she was laughing, everything was cool. The other flight attendant wasn’t laughing. So she ended up reporting this and he was arrested, and this became an issue.

And it became a misunderstood thing because the headlines said 'Ivan assaulted the flight attendant'. That’s not what happened.

If that was really the case then he would be in trouble. So let’s see if he can get a visa.”

Interview by Cody-James Henderson @cody_j_henderson

Five Finger Death Punch's re-recorded Best Of Volume 1 is out Friday July 18th via Better Noise Music. Get physical copies here

Five Finger Death Punch - Best Of Volume 1 tracklisting

1. Under and Over It (2025 Version)
2. Wash It All Away (2025 Version)
3. Battle Born (2025 Version)
4. I Refuse (feat. Maria Brink of In This Moment) (2025 Version)
5. Jekyll and Hyde (2025 Version)
6. Wrong Side of Heaven (2025 Version)
7. Lift Me Up (2025 Version)
8. Far From Home (2025 Version)
9. Bad Company (2025 Version)
10. House of the Rising Sun (2025 Version)
11. Gone Away (2025 Version)
12. Remember Everything (2025 Version)
13. Coming Down (2025 Version)
14. The Bleeding (2025 Version)
15. Trouble (Live)
16. Welcome To The Circus (Live)
17. The Bleeding (Live)