FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH Drummer: We Wanted To Make Our Version Of 'Vulgar Display Of Power'

ARTISTdirect.com editor Rick Florino recently conducted an interview with FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH drummer Jeremy Spencer. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

ARTISTdirect.com: On "War is the Answer", it feels like everything has become far more intense. Would you say that's the case?

Jeremy: Yeah, that's what we were hoping would happen [Laughs]. We really didn't know how it would end up when we were making it. After it was finally completed, it was everything we wanted and more. We really achieved what we were hoping to achieve.

ARTISTdirect.com: And what were you hoping to achieve exactly?

Jeremy: Just growth! We didn't want to make the same record again, and we didn't want to make a record where every song sounded the same. We wanted to take the listeners on a journey up and down. I think we struck a great balance between melody and aggression. It just sounds like a more mature DEATH PUNCH record to all of us. We've been on the road for a few years, and we learned how to play together. We saw what worked live and what didn't. When we went back in to write songs, everything started flowing. It came out exactly the way we wanted it.

ARTISTdirect.com: Where did the "journey" for this album begin? These songs definitely didn't just happen overnight.

Jeremy: Yeah, you're right. Some of them did happen rather easily. A lot of the time, we were just writing and demoing in Zoltan's [Bathory, guitar] living room. We camped out at his house for a couple months. Some of the songs were more difficult than others, and we experienced a few computer problems recording along the way [Laughs]. That made the creative process a little more difficult, but we basically tried to stay out of the way and let the songs write themselves. I know that sounds a bit cheesy or whatever, but it's true. The more you try to mess with something, the more you interfere with it. That just stifles the process!

ARTISTdirect.com: The jump from "The Way of the Fist" to "War is the Answer" is massive. It's similar to PANTERA's transition from "Cowboys from Hell" to "Vulgar Display of Power".

Jeremy: That's great, man. It's kind of what we talked about. We thought it'd be really important for us to make FINGER DEATH PUNCH's "Vulgar" right now. I'm not comparing "War is the Answer" to "Vulgar" at all, but we wanted to make our version.

Read the entire interview from ARTISTdirect.com.