Five Finger Death Punch singer Ivan Moody has spoken out against the band’s 2020 music video for “Living The Dream,“ and he recently revealed the clip caused tension between him and band member Zoltan Bathory, who came up with the idea for the video. The "Living The Dream" video was perceived as anti-mask at the height of the pandemic, and after seeing the video for the first time, Moody told Metal Hammer, "I called him, like, ‘You implemented your own platform into Five Finger Death Punch, and now I’m gonna have to answer for it, because I’m the singer.’ And it ended up going down like a fart in church!”
Moody added, "That’s what he visualized, but it’s not what I had in mind when I wrote it. For those who understood it, great. And for those who didn’t, I’m sorry, I didn’t agree with it either. I love Zoltan to death, that’s his opinion, but it won’t ever be done with my name on it again.”
Bathory explained, “Obviously, that video created a lot of dust, and I really don’t want to kick up another sh**storm about it. But it was about the blatant hypocrisy of what was happening. You can do this, but the population can’t! As a band, we sort of withdrew from politics and that was the last political commentary, but it flew over people’s heads and we were accused of the craziest sh** . . ."
Five Finger Death Punch will release their new album, AfterLife, on August 19th. That night, they kick off a headlining tour with Megadeth, The HU & Fire From The Gods in Portland, OR.