In a new interview with Summa Inferno, Five Finger Death Punch guitarist Zoltan Bathory discussed the gatekeeping issue among metalheads and blamed those fans for killing the music industry.
During the chat, he was asked about the ‘closed-mindedness’ of some fans of the genre. The guitarist replied by mentioning the money and payment issues gatekeeping causes:
“This is what I would say to these metalheads. It’s, like, man, for your band that you love, especially the more underground the band is, for them to create art that you like, they have to survive. And if you want them to survive, that means they have to sell records, and they have to be able to sell concert tickets. And because it’s such a subgenre, they’re not gonna be able to do that. So you see these great, great artists who are in bands but also have a job or two [on the side], and they can’t tour sometimes. So what you’re getting is, like, if you’re fan of those extreme bands, they’re not making the money, [and] they can’t survive from this.”
The guitarist also listed a few ways bands in different subgenres can survive:
“So the only way they can do that is if the audience broadens — that’s the only way. And so what has to happen, metal in general has to be bigger, has to have more fans and more attention. So that way it trickles down, so the subgenres also get bigger, so your favorite artists can survive. So bands like Disturbed, Avenged Sevenfold, Five Finger Death Punch, these are what you guys call the gatekeeper bands, they absolutely need to exist. Because without us, you’re not gonna be able to recruit people to the genre.”
Haters Are ‘Shooting Themselves In The Foot’
In the same interview, he also called his band one of the bands that attract non-metalheads and discussed the band’s collaboration with different artists:
“We are the kind of band where people are into metal listen to us, but people are not necessarily into metal, they might listen to us or we bring in a lot of people who are not [into metal]. And when we do these collaborations — this song is out there now in radio channels and in other Spotify listings and just other avenues where it wouldn’t be normally. So with this, we’re recruiting people to listen to hard rock, heavy metal, and that helps the entire genre. And if the genre is big and the subgenres are big…”
He added that the gatekeeping was doing nothing beneficial to them:
“So by hating on the bands that are stepping out and collaborating with other genres or hating on the bands that you guys consider gatekeepers, you’re actually shooting yourself in the foot.”
Are FFDP Sellouts?
Instead of trying to keep others out, calling a band ‘sellouts’ could also be a reason fans are hurting the industry.
In another chat with FaceCulture in 2022, the guitarist talked about criticism and being called sellouts long after they’ve achieved success in the industry. He explained:
“It just what it is. In the very beginning, [getting called a sellout] gets under your skin a little bit because you don’t understand… I worked my ass off to be here. You have no idea how much work this [career has been to get to this point]. It didn’t just pop out of nowhere. This is 30 years in the making. I was 12 years old making my first guitar out of a coffee table because I couldn’t afford one. It’s a lot of work and you just do what you love doing.”
He went on to add that there might be some people who don’t know the meaning of ‘sellout’:
“Ivan [Moody] pointed this out the other day. He goes, ‘Did you notice this that any other genre if somebody gets a number one hit, they’re celebrated. In heavy metal, you’re a sellout.’ How? Maybe they don’t understand what sellout means. Because I do exactly what I wanna do. I don’t sit in a job I hate. I do exactly what I wanna do. Nobody is pressuring me to do something I don’t want to. I play exactly the music I like. So that’s actually exactly the opposite of selling out.”
You can watch the interview below.