5finger - patrick f. albertson

From left: Zoltan
Bathory, Matt Snell,
Ivan Moody, Darrell
Roberts, and Jeremy
Spencer
Revolver joins aggro agitators
Five Finger Death Punch
for a gnarly day of paint, pain,
and punishing hard rock
By Patrick F. Albertson
Photos by Chris Casella
062
REVOLVER [January 2009]
s
omewhere south of Columbus, Ohio,
very near Land Paintball, there’s
a vandalized Arby’s sign. Revolver
knows because we saw—or heard, rather—
Five Finger Death Punch frontman Ivan
Moody deface it. It was a distinct sound;
his juiced gun was firing at more than
400 feet per second (well over the
course maximum of 280 fps) creating
a suspiciously tight "pop" followed
by the rapid, crushing click-splat of
exploding casing and the release of
orange goo.
As it happens, the band’s tour manager is less than amused by the
singer’s exploit, and lets him know it.
“I’m trying to re-spell the combo…” Moody explains as he continues
to fire rapid bursts, steely blue eyes fixed on his target.
“Ivan!” the tour manager finally screams.
“What?” he asks, coolly, only slightly betraying the smoldering hatred
of authority that always seems to lie just below his jocular mien.
“What? You really have to say ‘what?’ You don’t already know? You’re
lighting up the fucking Arby’s sign.”
For an instant Moody’s impish face hints that he just might blast the
tour manager, too, just to see what would happen, but with a hoarse
laugh he diffuses the situation.
It’s going to be a busy day for Five Finger Death Punch. Even with
their full touring schedule (they're currently on a national headlining
trek with openers In This Moment and Bury Your Dead), these road
warriors set aside time to take on radio contest winners and fans
across the country in a favorite pastime of theirs: paintball. Always
up for a challenge, they've decided that they want to leave their mark
not only on the Arby’s sign, but on Revolver, too—in the form of
splattered paint and painful welts.
The first clue that we may be in over our heads comes when the
boys take out their gear. Each member of the band unloads their own
roller-suitcase filled with every imaginable piece of armor and padding, not to mention their sleek matte-finish guns and custom 5FDP
Paintball Jerseys, complete with logo and compliments of their JT
USA Paintball sponsorship. Do they really use all this stuff?
“It was free, so I do,” says bassist Matt Snell, laughing.
“It’s just preventative; you can’t play paintball and get shot in
the neck or bust your fingers up or something stupid and not be
able to be play the show that night.”
At that moment, Revolver’s “body armor” arrives. One of the
Land Paintball employees offers a grim smile along with his black
Led Zeppelin hoodie, two sizes too large.
We’re already feeling uneasy, and just to add to that
sense, Zoltan Bathory, the dreadlocked guitar czar and ruthless
paintball assassin, chimes in with a chuckle, “You’re going
to be hating life, dude.” It's a prediction seconded by the handwritten epithet on his gun: “NO MERCY: It’s the way of the
Fist.” Perfect.
Five Finger Death Punch take their paintball almost as seriously as they take their band. None of the five members are new
recruits to the music scene, and most are veterans of foreign
tours. Moody fronted Motograter, guitarist Darrell Roberts and
drummer Jeremy Spencer both played in W.A.S.P., Snell played
bass in Anubis Rising, and Bathory played in U.P.O. They’re
familiar with the struggles of the working-class band and they’ve
used their past lessons to take FFDP from the underground to
the world stage in under two years. To put it simply, they come
to play. And having sold, as of press time, nearly a quarter of a
million copies of their 2007 debut full-length—from whose title,
The Way of the Fist, Bathory takes the slogan on his gun—FFDP appear to be winning.
The primary speedball field
at Land Paintball measures about
60 yards long by 25 yards wide.
Along with the combatants, the
field contains an assortment of red
and blue inflatable obstacles and
ribbed plastic tubes used as cover.
The rules are simple: each team of up
to six people repairs to one side of the
field and lines up. When the signal is
given, both teams work their way up
the field, trying to eliminate the other
by peppering them with paint. Any
paintball that hits you and breaks
Matt Snell gears
up for a "preemptive strike"
064
000
REVOLVER [January 2009]
results in your leaving the game and victory goes to the
group that has the last player standing.
“You’re fucked if you’re over here,” says Bathory, his
general’s eye evaluating the terrain as he watches a young
duo, one in black baggy jeans and stainless steal studs
and the other in skate gear, pin down and methodically
eradicate their opponents. “There’s too much ground to
cover to get to the second set of obstacles.”
With the staccato cracks of the guns now hushed,
Moody breaks the silence to share some advice: “If you
feel like someone’s about to get you, like, really get you,
stand up and fucking make sure you get them first.”
With that, Bathory flips down his mask and
ushers his team into battle: “All right, kids,
load up. We’re next…”
We take the field for a three-
on-three match-up; Snell, Roberts, and
Spencer line up on the far side of the
field while Moody, Bathory, and
this Revolver writer convene for
a huddle. The occasionally cantankerous duo devises a simple
strategy: The frontman will head
up the left flank while the rest of the
team hangs back providing cover.
The game begins in a torrent
of paint and everyone runs for a
hiding place. Even though it’s paint,
your suspension of disbelief kicks in, your
adrenaline spikes, and you can’t help but think
that this is kill or be killed. Time slows and
your ears go deaf to the shots and screams
that tear through the air.
Moody sets an aggressive tone and pops
Roberts and Snell early. But in his aggressive
drive forward, a patient Spencer snipes him
as he leaves his cover in a scramble to gain
000
066
20082009
January
] ]
REVOLVER [JULY
loud
fast
rules
Obey these safety
prescripts and you just
might leave the
paintball course alive
1. 'Til Someone Loses an Eye
Paintballs and eyeballs should never
meet, so even if it’s getting steamy in
there, keep your mask on.
2. Your Gun Is Always Loaded
No, seriously it is. Even if you think
it isn’t. Even if you just know it isn’t.
Just do everyone a favor; act like it is,
and keep that barrel pointed down and
away from anyone you’re not trying to
shoot during play.
3. Speed Kills
Yes, it’s fun to permanently scar other
people, but if you get much over 285
feet per second, you’re talking shattered
masks and drawn blood. While course
rules may vary, this muzzle velocity for
a paintball is an important benchmark.
4. Stay Down
You’re going to regret standing up in a
hail of paintballs to let everyone know
you’re out. And by regret, we mean
look like you were attacked by an
octopus, because paintballs leave little
ring-shaped suction cup welts on you.
Call yourself out and wait for the air to
clear. If you’re not sure if you’ve been
hit, call over a referee for a paint check.
a more advanced position.
Now with two-on-one, and our point man gone, our defense
turns to offense as Bathory looks for an angle on the kill shot—
one he delivers seconds later with a rapid spasm of his index and
middle fingers. The entire match has
taken less than three minutes.
,
Five Finger Death Punch are an elite
metal strike force, formed to take on the
world and rock it to death. “I wanted
the best singer, the best guitarists,
the best guys from all over,” says
Bathory. “And we got them.”
That’s not to say that some
tensions haven’t manifested
between band members, so
as a precaution, pressurized
and ready paintball guns
are not allowed on the tour
bus. Moody recalls the first
time they all took the field together;
he had a little something special for
Bathory. “I just unloaded on him, dude. Right
from behind, Buh-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d! Right up his ass, and he was just
like, ‘Fuuuck!’ He stands up, turns around, and blasts me; it was great.”
Which seems healthy, until he reveals that it wasn’t part of the game.
“He was on my team, but I’d been waiting so long for that…”
Nevertheless, Bathory acknowledges that they’ve come together to
form something bigger than just a supergroup of sorts. “When we’re
onstage I can just look at these guys and know exactly what they’re
thinking, know what they’re going to do, and it’s the same out there
[on the paintball field]. This is just us all working together, it’s the
same thing.”
That solidarity is on display as game two takes on a slight twist. FFDP
offer to take on a group of kids who were ushered off the field when we
arrived. The call goes out, commencing play, and the opening volley of
paint tears through the afternoon. Roberts breaks to the right, leaving
Moody and Snell on the left and Spencer and Bathory
holding the center. As Bathory had predicted, the distance to the second
set of obstacles proves to be too
great, and we
find ourselves
pinned down
To hear them talk of it
deep in our end. Soon, Snell, Spencer, and Roberts have been lost.
Bathory provides steady cover fire that allows Moody to move up the
left flank and go nose to nose with one of the other team's forward men.
Soon they are engaged in a heavy firefight, and though Moody pays
the price for his aggression and walks off the
field tagged on the hand and forearm,
FFDP's offense ultimately proves to be a
winning strategy, and they are able to
claim the last men unpainted.
“I just
unloaded
on him.
In our rematch, the
Ohioans clearly come out with
something to prove, and Team
Death Punch, unable to make any
forward progress, is quickly choked
out in torrents of paint. Post-massacre, Moody vents in the staging
area, “Everybody else tacked
back and that one fucking kid just
burrowed right here [pointing to
a long low inflatable obstacle on
the near side of the field] and just
started taking you guys out left and right.
They just had us pinned down.”
“There were, like, five of them left at the end...” Roberts adds
in disbelief.
Bathory, frustrated and out of ammo, sums it up simply: “That
was weak.” He demands a lot from his team, but in paintball, as in
life, he learns from his mistakes.
“It’s strategy, but you have the undo button. The first time you play,
you get put in your place. Because the first time everybody rushes the
field and gets tagged like a motherfucker and you’re like, Holy shit, if this
was real, I was stupid. Then you start to realize, OK, if there’s any gunfight
ever, this kind of gets you prepared without the penalty of being shot.”
He was on my
team, but I'd
been waiting so
long for that.”
-Ivan Moody
068
REVOLVER [January 2009]
That night, after a raucous show in Columbus, Moody chats
with fans outside the band’s tour bus. He has the same glow that
he had after paintball and a keg cup in his hand. Revolver asks
him if the Death Punch crew consider
themselves to be warriors.
“We’re a fucking tribe. This
is the best crew I’ve had out here.
They’re closer than my family.
You saw it today.”