Ivan Moody: FFDP's Last Two Albums Were Too 'Norm,' 'F8' Isn't

Five Finger Death Punch's new album F8 is out as of today (Feb. 28), and it has been wracking up the positive reviews. Ivan Moody spoke with Loudwire Nights on release day about what makes this new release special compared to its predecessors, which the frontman considered to be "norm."

"I'm gonna say it. The last two records for me were very... I don't know, norm," the vocalist admitted. "We were under time constraints, we were touring all the time, I was going through personal hell."

"We needed to mutate. I didn't want to commit artistical suicide, which is really how I felt we were going," he continued, though he acknowledged that there are definitely some "brilliant" songs on the last few records that he is very proud of. "But in their entirety, I just felt like there was something missing, and I didn't feel like we were doing anything special."

Ultimately, he feels that F8 took the band out of that artistic rut and is in the realm of creativity that music should be.

Moody later explained that when he and guitarist Zoltan Bathory sat down to make an album out of a clean slate, they started with the artwork and the title first. "'Fate' is what [Bathory] and I designed this around. It really just comes to a point where it seems like there were no coincidences," the frontman said. "All of this happened for reasons and it just really was suiting."

To hear more about the process behind writing the album and FFDP's recent tour with Megadeth, listen to the full interview above. Also, check out our review of F8 here.

Five Finger Death Punch have an upcoming tour beginning in April that will span across the U.S. Joining them on the run are Papa Roach, I Prevail and Ice Nine Kills. See the dates here.

2020's Most Anticipated Rock + Metal Albums