For a band that has had many big moments throughout its career, 2026 will likely prove to have some of the biggest for Five Finger Death Punch. As they prepare for their 20th anniversary tour, they’re also planning to release their 10th studio album.

On Thursday (Jan. 22), Zoltan Bathory joined Loudwire Nights to dive into everything happening in Five Finger Death Punch’s world. Listen to the full conversation in the player near the end of this article.

“We are right now in the midst of recording a new album,” Bathory told Loudwire Nights host Chuck Armstrong.

“There’s going to be even numbers. America is 250 years old. This is our 20th anniversary of the band, which is pretty insane if you ask me, and it’s going to be the 10th record.”

Bathory explained there’s never a dry season for Five Finger Death Punch; they’re always working on something. In some ways, to be working on a new album while also preparing for a big tour is nothing out of the ordinary for him.

“In my life, there’s no such thing [like] I go to Hawaii for two weeks and I turn off my phone, this just does not happen,” he said.

“There’s always something going on. We recorded a bunch of pieces and we have about 25, 26 ideas that are pretty worked out musically. And then…what’s the 13, 14 songs that are going to make it, at least for this record, and the rest go back to the vault.”

Progress is clearly being made on the new album as he shared that Ivan Moody has started to work on his vocal parts.

“We always write the music first, so once we have that, once we have the body of work, then we give it to him … Within the next month, we [will] centralize and go to an actual studio and do it.”

Zoltan Bathory Discusses the Longevity of Five Finger Death Punch

As Bathory dove into the new album, he also reflected on the idea that his band has been around for two decades, something he already admitted was insane to think about.

“By the time Five Finger Death Punch started, we had a pretty good idea where the landmines are and what not to do,” he shared about the longevity of the band.

“We managed to keep it together, regardless of the adversities … It was built like a battleship. I knew that from day one, that this has to be seaworthy. This has to be a battleship and there are certain things that are important and certain things are not.”

One of the examples he gave was making sure that the band never wasted time arguing about seemingly small things, like whether a guitar solo should be shorter or longer in one song.

“Are we going to argue about this, are we going to hurl insults at each other,” he said.

“Now you listen to the song 10 years later and you can’t give two shits if this guitar solo is two bars too long, you know what I mean? You kind of have to be an adult about it and just put the emotions on the side.”

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Bathory said he thinks that’s where some bands screw up, trying to put music into a formula.

“There’s no universal scale — arguments become emotional because there is no practical argument,” he told the Loudwire Nights audience.

“It’s art. What’s good? What’s not? People get emotional and argue emotionally and then they start hurting each other and then eventually that thing falls apart. We never really did that … From day one, everybody’s agreeing, this is the deal. We’re not going to argue about these types of things. We’re focused on the music. We’re focused on making this thing happen.”

What Else Did Five Finger Death Punch’s Zoltan Bathory Discuss on Loudwire Nights?

• Thinking about the 20th anniversary tour: “The trajectory was always how big the show can be, how far can we push the production…how much are we going to piss off our accountants and everyone else because we’re going to spend all the money on production?”
• His hope for Five Finger Death Punch’s live show: “I want to make sure that this is a suspended illusion. I can remove you as the audience from your daily life and create something that you’re going to be in awe of and not for a second will I break the illusion.”
• What the early songs of the band mean to him today: “I started the band in ’05 and went through various line ups, but the songs that made it to the first record, I had to write those songs. If somebody asked me, ‘How do you sound as a guitar player, as a songwriter,’ well, the first two, three records [it’s] mainly me … To me, that’s personal because I remember that it took me years and years and years. The first record kind of contains your whole life. Some of those riffs are, for me, like 20 years old and then they made it to the first record.”

Listen to the Full Interview in the Podcast Player Below

Zoltan Bathory joined Loudwire Nights on Thursday, Jan. 22; the show replays online here, and you can tune in live every weeknight at 7PM ET or on the Loudwire app; you can also see if the show is available on your local radio station and listen to interviews on-demand.