A couple of years ago, no one knew who Five Finger Death Punch were. That was soon to change.

The wayward supergroup gelled when former members of semi-popular Los Angeles bands -- Motograter's Ivan Moody (vocals), U.P.O.'s Zoltan Bathory (guitar), W.A.S.P.'s Darrell Roberts (guitar) and Jeremy Spencer (drums) and Anubis Rising's Matt Snell (bass) -- joined forces to write songs that were more contemporary, well-crafted and radio-ready than those of their former outfits.

Their efforts paid off. In 2006, Five Finger Death Punch went into the studio to record their debut The Way of the Fist on their own and in 2007 they signed a label deal with management company The Firm. The album entered the Billboard album chart its first week of release and has produced the radio singles "The Bleeding" and "Never Enough." To date, the record has sold over 200,000 copies.

Five Finger Death Punch cemented their reputation as an exciting live bands opening shows for Korn, Hellyeah, Trivium and Atreyu. Recently, FFDP played The Rockstar Energy Mayhem Festival and on October 3 the band will launch a headline tour in Sauget, Illinois with In This Moment, Bury Your Dead and Another Black Day. Dates run through December 4 in San Diego.

We recently hooked up with Moody and talked about the album's success, the band's history, FFDP's love for mixed martial arts fighting, and the emotional and physical scars that have impacted the band's churning, melodic metal.

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For the second time in HeadbangersBlog.com history, we've got a two way tie for Your Vote Counts. Instead of demanding a recount and spending the rest of the day counting hanging chads we've declared a tie between Five Finger Death Punch's "The Way of the Fist" and Children of Bodom's "Smile Pretty For the Devil." Both will return for the next edition of MTV2's "Headbangers Ball" on Saturday night at 11 p.m. EST. Read more...

We're sure you've all been waiting for this like school kids anticipating recess, so we won't waste your time with any personal asides or anecdotes. But before we give you Five Finger Death Punch's new video "The Way of the Fist," here's some interesting background on the clip and song from vocalist Ivan Moody.

We have had this video concept for a long time, but our title song "The Way Of The Fist" is not exactly a radio single. It's not even remotely radio friendly -- or for that matter people friendly. So, we were ecstatic when the record label gave us the green light to shoot a video for it anyway.

We teamed up with longtime friend -- visual mechanic -- writer/director Sxully Essex whose bread and butter is working on horror movies. Then, Alphadog Combat Gear and The Gladiator Challenge Fight Organization gave us some crazy fight footage... It's all real, and yes people were harmed making this video. In fact, some of it was so brutal and bloody that we couldn't use it because it would have never made it to television screens. All in all, I think it was the ultimate way to visually interpret this song. "The Way Of The Fist" is not quite a Shakespearian depiction of anger and revenge. This song was more my way of releasing all the pent up aggression I felt against some people who wronged me beyond the point of any kind of forgiveness or mercy.

Also, in a way it represents us as a species. At the core, humans are aggressive, infinitely vicious survival machines. In a confrontation, there's a breaking point where all the upheld social rules, the law, and the last 4,000 years of morality just go out the window, and there is nothing left but you, your fist and your primal survival instinct. There's no artistic way to sing about that. So, "The Way Of The Fist" is a fast, angry, riveting "F" bomb fight song riddled with animosity. I think a no holds barred cage fight was the perfect visual for this. They go hand in hand. In fact -- true story -- there are several professional cage fighters using this as their entrance song.

We are truly proud of this video, Sxully did a great job. He built this elaborate cage we were playing in, and we actually liked it so much that we decided to take it on the road with us. So, our headlining tour this fall will feature some of the set we used for the video shoot.

Now, "click more" to check out Five Finger Death Punch's "The Way of the Fist" and see it on the big screen Saturday night on "Headbangers Ball," which starts at its new time of 11 p.m. Read more...