FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH's ZOLTAN BATHORY Interviewed By Italy's UnderRadioRock.com (Video)

UnderRadioRock.com conducted an interview with guitarist Zoltan Bathory of Las Vegas metallers FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH on March 16 in Milan, Italy. You can now watch the chat below.

The official video for FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH's surprising cover of the classic folk song "The House Of The Rising Sun" can be seen below. The song is the next single from the Las Vegas-based band's recently released album, "The Wrong Side Of Heaven And The Righteous Side Of Hell Volume 2". The disc came out on November 19, 2013 and is the second half of a two-record set, with "Volume 1" coming out in July 2013.

The gasoline-soaked cinematic video was filmed in the high deserts of Nevada, directed by FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH guitarist Zoltan Bathory in conjunction with Thought Pirates Films' Brian Neal, while Steve Darnell of the famous Welder Up Garage built the cars and handled the set design.

Zoltan explains: "This video was an experiment, the initial step toward something we always wanted to do, which is to make a full-length DEATH PUNCH movie somewhere down the line. We jumped into this knowing that we'd shoot more footage than we could possibly fit in one music video. We went out there with two helicopters, two gyrocopters, twenty-something crazy cars, a big cast and an arsenal of cameras. We ended up with so much amazing material, the hardest task was to compress it down into a three-minute video, so we made an extended version with a long intro and we are making an even longer 'director's cut' as we speak."

According to The Pulse Of Radio, the original author of "The House Of The Rising Sun" is unknown and the song's roots may date back to the 16th century.

The oldest known existing recording is by Appalachian artists Clarence "Tom" Ashley and Gwen Foster, who recorded it for Vocalion Records in 1934.

The most successful commercial version was recorded by the English rock group THE ANIMALS in 1964, which was a No. 1 hit in the U.K., the U.S., Sweden, Finland and Canada.

The members of FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH discussed in a recently released video clip how they changed up the classic song to give it a hard-rock vibe, most notably, by switching the song's time signature from 6/8 to 4/4.

"We had the idea to do this for a while," explained guitarist Zoltan Bathory. "The interesting thing about this song is that [it's] actually in a time signature of 6/8 which is a waltz… and rock music and waltz doesn't necessarily mix right."

He continued: "So basically the challenge was: 'How do we make this song work? How do we take away that goofy vibe and how do we make it into a rock structure?'"

"The Wrong Side Of Heaven And The Righteous Side Of Hell Volume 2" sold 77,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release to land at position No. 2 on The Billboard 200 chart.

The first half of "The Wrong Side Of Heaven And The Righteous Side Of Hell" debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard album chart, selling 113,000 copies in its first week of release.

Interview:

"The House Of The Rising Sun" video: