Keeping ‘Bad Company’ with Five Finger Death Punch

August 17, 2010

Not to toot our own horn, but Live-Metal.net has covered and supported Five Finger Death Punch since before the band even signed with a label to release their debut album. Along with the rest of the music world, we’ve watched them quickly grow from MySpace favorites, to playing the second stage on festivals such as Family Values in 2007 and the inaugural Rockstar Mayhem Festival in 2008, to headlining their own tours, to playing the main stage at the 2010 Mayhem Festival. Now their biggest single to date, a cover of the classic “Bad Company,” is burning up rock radio airwaves, and it appears the fall will see them on the road with Godsmack. (Baltimore radio station 98 Rock, WIYY, has announced an Oct. 3 show at Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Md., featuring Godsmack, Five Finger Death Punch and Drowning Pool.) At the Mayhem Festival’s recent stop in Bristow, Va., Live-Metal.net’s Greg Maki sat down with Death Punch drummer Jeremy Spencer.

Live-Metal.net: This is your second time doing the Mayhem tour, so what has it been like jumping up from one of the second stages to the main stage?

Jeremy Spencer: It’s been great, man, because we get to have production this time, whereas before we were just out on the small stage in the sunlight, and we get to kind of be out of the sun this time, which is refreshing. Yeah, it’s going great, man. You get to play for thousands of people every day, and get to hang out and watch cool bands and hang out with your friends. It’s like summer camp. It’s cool.

I was at the show up in Camden, New Jersey, a couple weeks ago, so I saw your stage set. That’s a pretty impressive set you’re moving around.

Thank you, yeah, my drum kit, I’m pretty proud of that. It’s my new toy. I have the hydraulic-lifting drum riser, kind of like Peter Criss from the Love Gun tour, so it’s my moment, you know?

I heard about the incident with some of the guys in Germany. It’s probably good you didn’t have the full set with you then, right?

Yeah, that would’ve cost us a lot. It’s funny ‘cause we didn’t even realize that we had that stuff. There was a pair of brass knuckles attached to Ivan’s microphone, and I didn’t think about it. I just grabbed his bag for him and checked it. Sure enough, we get there and they pull us out of line. I’m thinking, “Man, did I have something by mistake that I wasn’t supposed to?” Obviously I did, but it wasn’t that bad. It’s a serious weapons charge there. We got off with a fine, I think. We’ll see if we can get back to Germany next time. It’ll be interesting to see if we get in or not. [laughs]

Ivan talks onstage about you guys getting fined for having too many crowd-surfers or something like that. Did that actually happen?

We’ve had the show stopped a few times. Especially at Download this last time, there were 90,000 people there, and there’s a song we do called “Dying Breed,” and he’s like, “I want you to crowd-surf up here and shake my hand!” And then like 2,000 people came over the barricade trying to come up onstage, and they had to shut the show down for a minute. I was like, “Wow, I think we’re in trouble and they’ll probably never have us back.” “If you can help us make an announcement to get it under control, you can finish the set.” So we did it, and it went off OK. But we just quit doing that because it’s become too much of a problem.

I was up at Rock on the Range when you did that, and that was probably the most crowd-surfers I’ve ever seen.

That was pretty cool. I saw the YouTube video of that, yeah.

After you guys play, who’s the band you go to for the barbecue or party? Who’s throwing the party?

They usually try throw a party every couple days out here with a different band hosting. It’s called the “metal mixer” or whatever. Everyone just gets together, socializes, parties, makes buffoons of themselves. It’s a good time, man. I love it. It’s like one big summer vacation out here. It’s a different band every day. You don’t go to one every day necessarily. It’s always changing.

I’m sure you probably knew most of these bands before this tour, but has there been anyone that you didn’t know that well or didn’t know at all who has really impressed you?

Certainly, Rob Zombie has been impressive. That production is a lot of fun to watch. He puts on a hell of a show. He’s a great showman. They’re all talented guys. They’re real cool guys, too.

Yeah, I was shooting in Camden and I couldn’t believe how hot it was down there with all the flames and pyro, and they’re in those big coats.

It’s brutal. Joey Jordison is filling in on drums, and he’s used to it because he used to do the Slipknot thing with those masks and all that pyro. So he’s conditioned to do it.

With all the production and everything you have now, have you had any kind of onstage mishaps or accidents?

Yeah, we have stuff that doesn’t work, something won’t rise one day or something, or something falls that’s not supposed to. But it just goes with the territory. It’s all trial and error. We kind of threw this thing together really fast, but it’s working out well. The crowd seems to be really digging it.

Do you see yourselves pushing that further in the future?

Absolutely. We want to turn it into Rammstein if we can. People only want to see a band that does the same thing so many times, unless it’s KISS where it’s eye candy. We want people to walk away going, “Man, you have to see this!” So that’s our goal, to just push it as far as we can.

You’ve got your mascot that’s been on your album covers and a lot of your merch. Might he ever make an appearance onstage?

You never know. It certainly worked for Iron Maiden, with the Eddie thing, and we wouldn’t want to copy that necessarily. But you never know, man. I never say never.

Another thing that Ivan always says onstage: He asks who has the new album, then he asks who downloaded it illegally, kind of making a joke about it. What are your thoughts on that whole thing?

It’s really unfortunate because lots of bands rely on selling records to stay alive. If people are stealing it all the time and there’s no way to really monitor it, it’s just gonna get worse. You can see it. Sales are declining rapidly all over the place, and it’s really a shame. I get it. It’s free, it’s easy, it’s one click, so why not? If there’s nobody around to punish you when you do it, you’re gonna do it. I just don’t think it’s very cool, and I don’t think it’s helpful to get promotion or anything like that. I think that’s all crap. I think it’s stealing. Stealing is stealing.

What do you think bands and labels can do in response to that?

What I personally would do would be hire about 10 of the best hackers in the world to go blow up every Torrent site and ruin them. Even if it takes them a while to put it back together and start another one, you’re still gonna knock them out and make it a little bit more inconvenient to steal for a while. That’s what I would constantly do, just blow up Torrent sites.

Right now, the “Bad Company” cover is a really big hit for you guys. I’ve talked to you before about why you chose to do that and all, but I thought the video was really cool, of you guys going over to the Middle East. What was that whole experience like?

That was really great. Nobody really knows what they go through over there. And they don’t get a lot of entertainment, so when we had a chance to go over there and play for them, they were so into it, man. They were some of the best crowds we really ever played for. They were really into it. We got to get military-escorted around everywhere. We rode in bulletproof vehicles and planes. We were in one of the planes that got shot at one time, so that was pretty interesting. We got to stay in Saddam’s palace, so I was sitting there eating cereal at Saddam’s table, man. That’s cool. That’s not something that a lot of people get to do, so I’m really proud of that.

Did you play “No One Gets Left Behind” for them?

Oh yeah, without question.

That must have gone over pretty well.

Oh yeah, they loved it, yeah.

I saw at the Metal Hammer awards, you guys won a couple there. That’s a pretty big thing.

It’s really cool, yeah. England , they’re taking to us really fast ‘cause our first record only came out in like January of ’09. So the rise over there has been really fast, and we’re proud of it. To get recognition of any kind is great. We don’t set out to win awards, but when you get noticed for something that you’re proud of and that’s your craft, it’s always an honor, man. It’s really cool.

For a while, you guys have been compiling footage for a DVD. How far along is that? When might we see something?

The plan is to have maybe two DVDs out before Christmas. One would be included—We’re rereleasing The Way of the Fist, a special collector’s edition. It’s got all kinds of cool stuff in it. But that’s gonna be like the early years DVD . And then we’re planning on doing one with the Jason (Hook) era, when Jason came onboard, the newer stuff. Our plan is to have two out. We may only have one, but I know one’s coming.

How big of a change has that been having Jason in the band?

It’s been awesome. It’s different chemistry, it’s different energy, but it’s working out real well. I knew what I was getting in Jason. He’s been a friend of mine for years, and we’ve been in many bands together and worked on a lot of different musical projects. So when it was time to bring a guy in, I knew I had the guy. The band gets along with him real well. He just fits right in. His personality’s great. He’s a real talent. He’s got a real ear for commercial music. He’s just really a great person to have in the band.

Yeah, it really seems like you guys took to each other right away because it seems like he’s playing the majority of the solos now.

Yeah, for sure.

What are the plans after Mayhem?

We go home and do the Jimmy Kimmel TV show, and we have a one-off in Alaska . Then we have about a month off. I think we’re supposed to go out on a tour which I’m really not supposed to talk about, which I got caught in the press already talking about before the papers were signed. So I won’t mention it now, but the announcement’s coming soon.

Can you say where it’s gonna be?

It’s in the States. It’s an arena tour. It’s with a really popular band, and it’s gonna be really cool if we get to do it, which I’m hoping we will. And then we’re gonna probably take another month off, then get together and start writing and recording the next album.

Have you been coming up with ideas?

There’s lots of riffs. There’s no full songs, but there’s lots of ideas and we’re all chomping at the bit to get going because we’ve been touring this record for almost a year now. I just want to get back into the lab, you know? Create the next thing.

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