Five Finger Death Punch Vocalist Ivan Moody Opens Up About Rehab

Story by Cat Badra, photo by Anne Erickson

The Five Finger Death Punch crew has been through a lot together, and it’s only made them stronger. This past summer, vocalist Ivan Moody left the group’s European tour to get back into rehab. Now, he’s back in the fold, and Moody reveals in a recent interview with Metal Hammer that he “learned a lot about myself” along the way.

“I learned what it was like to not battle myself anymore, which is really difficult to admit, because at the end of the day — and I’m sure anyone can agree with this — you’re your own worst enemy,” Moody said in the interview.

“I just got to a point where I was lying to myself constantly, so I had to face up to that,” he added. “It was a lot of, I don’t want to use the words ‘self sacrifice,’ but that’s what it felt like. It was giving up who I thought I was and starting over from scratch and realizing the man that I am was good enough.”

Guitarist Zoltan Bathory chimed in during the interview, saying that Moody is back and better than ever now. It’s nothing, he says, like the days when Moody would tour while drinking.

“Ivan was a functioning alcoholic — this guy could probably fly the space shuttle drunk and you wouldn’t even know,” Bathory said. “Now we go out and the machine is absolutely precise, to the minute. He’s actually where he’s supposed to be, meaning that if we wanted to use pyro, now we can. Before, you couldn’t tell him, ‘Don’t stand there,’ because he will.”

Five Finger Death Punch is currently playing shows in Europe. The band dropped a new song, “Trouble,” last month and just unleashed a greatest hits set that features two new songs along with a bevy of the band’s top songs. A full-fledged studio album is slated to arrive next year.

Publication date: November 30, 2017

Anne Erickson
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