THE BEAST

FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH is still waiting to get a release date for its new album, nearly one year after the disc was completed.

The band delivered its follow-up to 2015's "Got Your Six" to Prospect Park several months ago, but a legal battle with the company has delayed the LP's arrival.

"We finished a record," FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH guitarist Jason Hook told Meltdown of the WRIF radio station at the first-ever Riff Fest, which was held September 29 at DTE Energy Music Theatre in Clarkston, Michigan. "Some people may or may not know, but we got into a legal tangle with our label. So we submitted this record in December [of 2016]. It's finished. They have it, and they're trying to decide what they wanna do with it, which is a drag. But we do have a finished record."

Saying that the the new FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH disc turned out "killer," Hook revealed that the effort will contain "sixteen new songs. Some of the stuff will be right in line with what people want and expect from the band, and then some of it, again, we took some chances, tried to branch out a little bit to see if it would work, and some of that stuff wound up on the record," he said.

Hook added that he loves making albums because "it's exciting to add to our catalog and to be creative.

"When you're done with a record, you sit back and listen to it and you go, 'Fuck! That's pretty cool. We did that. We made it. We made another one,'" he said. "So I like it. Plus I get to sleep in my own bed [while we are recording the album in Las Vegas], which is nice."

Hook also touched upon the issues surrounding FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH singer Ivan Moody, whose struggles with substance abuse had forced him to miss a number of shows last year and this past spring. The frontman also made headlines with a bizarre 2015 onstage meltdown in Memphis and a disastrous performance this past June in Tilburg.

"Look, it's never that bad," Hook said. "It's not that bad. I mean, basically, when you're in the public eye, you can't stumble without everybody knowing about it. That is part of it that you have to learn to deal with.

"Everybody has their Monday morning at work, and sometimes ours falls on Saturday night," he reasoned.

FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH filed a new lawsuit against Prospect Park in April, asking a judge to release them from their contract and order the company to pay over a million dollars in damages.

The label sued FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH in 2016 for breach of contract, alleging that the group wanted to rush the recording of a new album. The band signed a new North American recording deal with Rise Records last year. Via Blabbermouth