Multi-platinum hard rock powerhouse Five Finger Death Punch are releasing their ninth album “Afterlife”, the follow-up release to their 2020 album, F8 which debuted at #1 on rock charts around the world and Top 10 on the Mainstream charts in the USA, Austria, Australia, Canada, Finland, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK and more.
We talk to newest member and guitarist Andy James about the new album and how he joined the band.
On dealing with the pandemic with the band:
Andy: I actually feel like having the gap and the time off has allowed me to sort of get to know everyone in the band and hang out rather than try and do that on the road. So looking back I think it’s been quite nice to have that quality time to get to know everybody outside of doing the whole rat race of the band thing.
On how Andy joined Five Finger Death Punch:
Andy: I got to know Zoltan…he hit me up once on Instagram just asking me if I knew any guitar players that were potentially interested in joining a band that he was helping looking after – it wasn’t anything to do with Five Finger Death Punch, it was just another band he was looking after – I wasn’t doing anything at that moment so I said to him [about] the criteria and asking me and he said, ‘Well yeah maybe’ and he put me in touch with those guys and we just started building a relationship outside of that anyway and then we finally met and went out for dinner and stuff and kinda hit it off. I suppose it wasn’t until maybe 3 months later and we hadn’t been in touch or anything like that and he suddenly texts me out of the blue and basically said to me, ‘What is my music retention like? Do you think you could learn a whole set in 24 hours?’ So yeah it was pretty quick and overwhelming but at the same time you just gotta step up and do it I suppose.
On his contributions to the new album “Afterlife”:
Andy: I didn’t really force myself on the process, I knew Zoltan had a bunch of ideas that he wanted to work through and sit down with Kevin (Churko, producer) and work through that stuff so I allowed myself to let that go before being asked if I had any ideas. And then that day happened and they were like, ‘Ok cool lets see what you got, have you got any cool ideas and stuff’ and I had quite a lot but they have a process of sitting down and listening to stuff, making some notes and just seeing if there’s anything that could be used or could be worked on and stuff like that. So luckily there was a few ideas that sparked the creative process, “IOU” was a little bit like that, the solo section was kind of crafted after all the other ideas were kind of put together.
Check out the full interview
Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/o0gkAciM0eU
Listen to Podcast version on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3KiSax1
Get Afterlife here: https://5fdp.ffm.to/afterlifealbum
