Lighting The Way With ZOLTAN BATHORY From FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH

Interview by Kris Peters
Five Finger Death Punch have never been a band to shy away from
musical experimentation and collaborating with artists outside of
their comfort zone and chosen genre.
Over the years they have recorded songs with everyone from Rob
Halford to Brian May to Kenny Wayne Shepherd, each time taking
themselves out of their safety net and into the musical psyche of
bands and artists many would not even consider sharing space
with.
But perhaps the biggest collaboration of them all came when Five
Finger Death Punch recorded a song with rapper/hip hop artist DMX
called This Is The Way, which was originally meant to be included
on their 2022 album Afterlife.
Sadly, DMX was taken from the world before that could happen, with
Afterlife being released without that song in order to pay respects
and tie up any lingering issues and legalities.
But now, two years later, that album is being re-released in Deluxe
format with acoustic versions of album songs The End, Judgement
Day, and Thanks For Asking, plus the collaboration with DMX which
is already being hailed as a defining moment in metal/rap crossover
history.
HEAVY sat down for a rare chat with guitarist Zoltan Bathory to go
over Afterlife Deluxe.
"Great, man. This has been a long time in… we worked on it for a
long, long time," he measured. "This deluxe edition of the record
is coming out because at the time when we originally released this
album we had this track which is the collaboration with DMX
everybody is talking about and the song was meant to be on this
record. However, because DMX passed, and we had to have the
approval of every single person that was involved - the estate to
the producers and publishers - we realised that it might take
longer. And it did take a bit over a year to complete everything,
and we didn't wanna wait, so we released the album without this
track. But this track was always meant to be on this album. Every
record you assemble, every song has a reason to be there and every
song has a reason to be in that specific spot in the sequence. And
so, one of my favourite records we did - Afterlife - was still
missing this song and this song is important and was important to
be on this record. Basically now with the deluxe edition coming out
I feel like we completed the record."
In the full interview, Zoltan talks about his excitement about
getting the deluxe version of Afterlife out, how This Is The Way
completes the album musically, the three acoustic songs and how
they broke them down, the meaning behind Judgement Day, where
Afterlife stands in Five Finger Death Punch's musical evolution,
collaborating with DMX and the parallels between heavy metal and
hip hop, touring plans and more.
https://5fdp.ffm.to/afterlifedeluxe

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