Type 3 Media: There's a lot going on in the world of Five Finger Death Punch. First it looks like you have a couple big tours coming up.

Darrell Roberts: Yeah, sure do man. As far as our genre of music goes I think it's about as big as you can ask for.

T3M: You're hitting the road with Disturbed first?

DR: We're starting everything on like the seventeenth of April doing a few shows with Drowning Pool and Nonpoint. And a few one-off headlining shows. Then we hook up with Disturbed around the first week of May. We do about a month worth of dates with them.

T3M: After that it looks like you'll be jumping onto the Rockstar Energy Mayhem tour.

DR: Yeah, we were fortunate enough to be a part of that new festival. After the tour with Disturbed we're going to hit some markets on our own, and then we get a short break, a couple weeks off. Then we're doing some more of our own shows at the end of June until we hook up with the Rockstar Energy Mayhem Tour in the first week of July. That's going to run about six or seven weeks. That's with Slipknot, Disturbed, Mastodon, DragonForce, Machine Head... just a slew of really cool bands that we're really looking forward to playing with.

T3M: Is there any band in particular on that tour you're really looking forward to seeing live or hanging out with?

DR: I'm really good friends with the guys in DragonForce. I used in be in the band W.A.S.P., and we toured Europe a few years ago. We went all over the place, eastern and western Europe, and DragonForce was our support band for the whole tour. I got to know those guys really well. They're really cool guys. They hooked Five Finger Death Punch up. The very first show that we ever played as a band was supporting DragonForce at the Wiltern here in L.A., and it was a sold-out show. It was a great way to kick things off for Five Finger Death Punch.

I'm definitely looking forward to seeing a lot of the bands on that tour. I can't wait to see Slipknot; I can't wait to see Disturbed. We're big fans of those guys. Slipknot just took the whole art of performing live to whole new level. It just kind of happens with time; bands just evolve and everything evolves musically. Those guys just set a new bar, and I can't wait to see them, and hopefully pick up some new ideas from them.

T3M: I recently read something about how good performers will study their contemporaries and learn what they should and should not do.

DR: Oh man, totally. It's really not any different than a sports team, like a football team, who watches tapes of another team, or a fighter who studies tapes of their opponent that they're getting ready to go up against. In a way, it's really almost like a boxing match. Right now we're preparing for this tour and we're training. I'm riding a bike everyday, and I'm going to the gym. It's not like I'm just going out partying, drinking beers and playing my guitar. We look at this thing like a fight. We're going out there and are about to get in the ring with people, and we want to knock some shit out.

T3M: Does it take you a couple shows to get your "stage legs" back after a break?

DR: Yeah, it honestly does. No matter how long you've been doing it, it'll take you a little while even if you start rehearsing. When I was in W.A.S.P. we would do full production rehearsals. We would run our rehearsals just like we were doing a show. We would pretend there was an audience there, and go full blast. You still get that adrenaline rush when you play in front of a real audience. That adrenaline kicks in and you start running around onstage and a minute into the set your legs start going 'hey man, we need some oxygen.' It takes your body a little while to get acclimated to it. But it's all good. It's kind of why we're doing some of our own shows before we start touring with Disturbed and Slipknot. Before we go out with those guys we're doing our own shows and using those as pre-fight preparation.

T3M: Recently Ivan had some issues with his voice. How is he doing?

DR: He's doing awesome. We just recently did some recording and he's never sounded better. He got some advice from a doctor, and took the advice. We toured last year for six or seven months straight. A lot of it was Family Values outside in the brutal heat and sun in the middle of summer. And that guy performs like no one you've ever seen before. He's drenched in sweat, throwing up a lot of times. He lays it all out there on the stage every single time he gets out there.

T3M: I was at one of those Family Values shows when it was hot as hell, and it looked like a different band walking off the stage than had walked on.

DR: Totally. A lot of sweaty and sun-burnt people. I wasn't kidding when I was talking about Ivan puking. Almost every day he would come off the stage and go behind the stage to find some kind of shade, lay down, throw up a couple times, and just lay there for about half an hour. And we were doing a short set. We were playing for twenty five to thirty minutes.

After six or seven months of doing that every night, eating shitty food and bouncing around on the bus while trying to sleep, it took its toll on him. When we got home he was a little beat up, so the doctor recommended that he take some time off to rest and get healthy. When we found out that we were doing these high profile tours we wanted to go out there guns blazing one hundred percent. It was a good time for him to take a little break and get well. He's in great shape right now and we're ready to destroy.

 
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| 04.22.2008 | Interview by J. Pierson |