Five Finger Death Punch is on its way to “the wrong side of heaven and the righteous side of hell” as the group travels to Albuquerque in support of their ambitious double release by the same name.
Five Finger Death Punch also found controversy when the band’s bassist, Christ Kael, spoke out against photos of 30 Seconds to Mars band members wearing gloves at a meet-and-greet for their fans, according to noisecreep.com. Kael mentioned on a social network how disrespectful this gesture was to the band’s fans and received backlash from those fans.
The Daily Lobo sat down to talk with Kael about the release of the new album, his musical influences and wearing gloves at meet-and-greets.
DL: What was the inspiration to record a double album?
Kael: “The inspiration was basically having a ton of material. We brought a mobile recording studio with us on the road, so we were already kind of in a writing mode when we got into the studio. We had a lot of songs ready and just kept on going and ended up with like 26-27 songs. It got to a point where we were like, ‘Which songs do we pull off of here?’
“We all agreed there’s not one song on here that we want to pull, so what’ll we do: put out a double album. We presented it to the label and they were like, ‘Aaaah, you now, probably not a good idea to do a double album.’ We were like, ‘You tell us which songs we should pull.’ After they heard the material they were like, ‘OK, we get it.’ We decided to break up the songs into volume one and volume two because that many songs are hard for a fan to digest right off the bat.”
DL: The album concept seems inspired by Guns N’ Roses’ “Use Your Illusion I and II.” Was this your inspiration when designing the album?
Kael: “When we were presented with the artwork, that was the first thing I thought of, too. I thought, ‘that kind of harkens back to the big days of Guns N’ Roses.’”
DL: Can you give fans an estimated time of arrival on the album you are currently working on?
Kael: “Yeah, the stuff we are working on right now should be available in 2015. We are just plugging away and, again, we are just one of those bands that is always writing. We always have a wealth of material to pull from to get these great songs out. We have no plans on stopping any time soon, so we plug away and look forward to getting some new material out for the fans.”
DL: What was your inspiration for being a musician in the first place?
Kael: “Gene Simmons from KISS. As soon as I saw him — God, I was real young. There was a show called ‘321 Contact,’ and I remember sitting in front of the TV and they were doing a show on KISS and the lighting and all that stuff. I just thought, ‘Good lord, whatever Gene Simmons is doing, that’s what I want to do.’ Fast forward a few years when I actually started playing an instrument, the first time I had a bass in my hands, lightning struck and I pretty much knew that’s exactly what I wanted to do.”
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DL: What specific moment in your career signaled your knowing that you made it?
Kael: “Probably when I won the Revolver Golden God best bassist of the year award for 2014. Having been a bartender three years ago here in Vegas, and then flash forward three years and having the support of the fans on a fanbase to win best bassist of the year. I think at that point I thought to myself, ‘Things are really working for me.’”
DL: Tell me about the 30 Seconds to Mars meet-and-greet glove controversy. How did that come about?
Kael: “That whole thing got blown out of proportion, actually. That’s the power of social networking. I saw a picture of those guys wearing some sort of glove during a meet-and-greet. All I said was, ‘Nice message to send to your fans.’ Basically they didn’t want to touch their fans.
We all do this in Death Punch; we shake hundreds of hands every day. When we go to these military bases we’re shaking thousands of hands. Not once have we ever used gloves. It seems like a disrespectful smack in the face to the fans. So I was sticking up for the fans, like, ‘hey, this isn’t the way you do things,’ and their fans lit me up on the social network. The very people that I’m standing up for turned on me; you know, the pearls before swine.”
Stephen Montoya is the culture editor for the Daily Lobo. He can be reached at culture@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @StephenMontoya9.
