Five Finger Death Punch set to knock out The Joint

They used to call him “Dad.”

His bandmates.

As in: “ ‘Daddy’s coming, hide the crack,’ ” Zoltan Bathory says with a chuckle.

He can laugh about it now.

No, the guitarist’s fellow group members in Las Vegas-based metallers Five Finger Death Punch never really got hooked on crack.

But they got plenty into most everything else you can snort or smoke.

Bathory, a professional martial artist who is certified by the U.S. Army for combat training, was the guy who had to make sure everything didn’t fall apart as the band steadily grew into an arena headliner, earning gold album after gold album.

The Hungary native is an intensely motivated adrenaline junkie who spends his downtime racing monster trucks and flying planes (“the only thing I’m drunk on is kerosene and gasoline,” he notes).

And so it was up to Bathory to keep Five Finger Death Punch from punching itself out of existence.

Take it away, Dad.

“At the very beginning, we did have a couple of years where it was extremely difficult because I was dealing with four guys who were drinking and partying to the point where I think Motley Crue would scratch their heads and go, ‘I think you guys found a new level,’ ” Bathory says from a tour stop in Mississippi. “It was absolutely out of control, and my job was to keep it together and also hide it from the world. It took all my energy. I probably aged 10 years.”

To get a better idea of the kind of excess that Bathory’s alluding to, peruse drummer Jeremy Spencer’s recently released autobiography, “Death Punch’d.” In it, Spencer recounts his struggles with addiction and the intensely debauched lifestyle of his past, his exploits ranging from almost dying from a cocaine overdose in a Mandalay Bay suite to a particularly gnarly passage where he talks about having sex in sweltering, feces-splattered Porta-Johns while on a summer festival tour.

“I read the book. Actually, he’s very modest,” Bathory says. “I mean, the things that happened, the things that I witnessed, I don’t think there’s a publisher that would put it out. That book is actually a castrated version of the truth. There are some crazy things that happen on tour, it’s like, ‘Oh my God.’ I don’t think you can actually print those things.”

Eventually, Spencer got clean, as did the rest of the band who had substance abuse issues.

These travails inform their music.

On Five Finger Death Punch’s most recent record, “The Wrong Side of Heaven and the Righteous Side of Hell, Volume 2,” the second of a two-album set that has sold more than 600,000 copies combined, the band covers folk traditional “House of the Rising Sun,” a tune about warring with personal demons.

The song was originally set in New Orleans, but they change the location to Las Vegas.

“That song is about gambling and drinking and Ivan (Moody, singer), had those problems,” Bathory says. “Living in Las Vegas, everything is accessible, and he had an issue with drinking and gambling. The song became very true to him.”

But the band’s adopted hometown — they originally formed in Los Angeles in 2005 — has provided the group with more than the obvious temptations to overcome.

“I think Las Vegas did add some sort of brightness to our music,” Bathory explains. “Las Vegas is much more liberal with everything — it’s much more liberal when it comes to firearms, it’s much more liberal when it comes to morality. So I feel like Las Vegas, by being free in all ways, gives you that mindset as well.”

The band has anchored itself in Las Vegas, recording its albums in town with producer Kevin Churko whose studio, The Hideout, has grown along with the success of Five Finger Death Punch, attracting acts such as Papa Roach, Hellyeah and Rob Zombie to work on their records locally.

Moreover, Bathory and his bandmates are active in the military community here and elsewhere, raising money for veteran’s causes and visiting Nellis Air Force Base.

Bathory is launching the Home Deployment Project, a Las Vegas-based nonprofit that aids homeless veterans.

His intent is to build a community center of some sort where vets have a place to hang out and help one another.

From the get-go, Five Finger Death Punch has been big with soldiers.

The band’s sound, while employing plenty of radio-ready melody, is often evocative of heavy combat: Bathory and fellow guitarist Jason Hook trade thrash riffs heavy as tank treads, Moody barks his lyrics like a drill sergeant addressing a squad of lazy recruits, Spencer’s double-bass drumming approximates the violent rumble of a carpet-bombing,

During the band’s concerts, Moody routinely asks the crowd who among them serves or has served in the armed forces.

“It’s more than 50 percent of the audience,” Bathory says of the usual response. “Those guys were there from the very beginning. From the first record, I was talking about being a martial artist and not taking a step back, how failure is not an option. A lot of soldiers relate to this and our mentality that we simply can’t fail. In war, second place is not an option.”

Same goes for heavy metal.

Contact reporter Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476. Follow on Twitter @JasonBracelin.