Over the past 15 years, Five Finger Death Punch have secured their place among metal’s most successful and prolific bands, dropping nine full-length albums and scooping up multiple chart-toppers, awards and gold and platinum certifications along the way. Polarising at times for some of their outspoken views, they continue to fill stadiums across the globe and their songs and videos generate streams in the eight-figure range. 

With the band featuring on the cover of the brand new issue of Metal Hammer, we threw it out to their fans to vote for their favourite Five Finger Death Punch tracks. The people have spoken, and this is what they say…

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Faced with the enviable problem of having too much compelling new material for a single album, the band opted to drop two full-length albums, The Wrong Side Of Heaven And The Righteous Side Of Hell, Vols. 1 and 2 released a few months apart. Like the first instalment, Vol. 2 skyrocketed to No. 2 on the Billboard 200 on the strength of tracks like Battle Born — a rousing power ballad about life on the road.

One of two covers on And Justice For None (along with the Offspring’s Gone Away), 5FDP’s take on the Kenny Wayne Shepherd classic fused smouldering backwoods acoustics with hammering tempos. They released an updated version a year later, featuring Shepherd himself, along with Queen’s Brian May and country singer Brantley Gilbert, to raise money for first responders.

5FDP’s self-produced debut delivered some of their most iconic fare, not the least of which is the title track. Featuring original guitarist Darrell Roberts, it caught the attention of not just festival audiences, but bands like Korn and Disturbed, who offered the band critical support slots in their early days.

Slotted in the middle of their debut, White Knuckles emerged as a surprise hit with its surging cadence and wall-of-death climax. By the end of this song in their live show, the entire venue looks like a sprawling, windswept field of fists and horns.

Ivan Moody has never been shy about conveying his rawest emotions through his lyrics and on I Apologize (from 2015’s Got Your Six) he confronted his battles with substance abuse. 5FDP have cultivated an uncommonly intimate relationship with their fans and the cement that binds them is the unflinching honesty of tracks like this.

This unqualified banger from The Wrong Side Of Heaven And The Righteous Side Of Hell, Vol. 1  has installed itself as an instant pit-opener in their shows. Mixed and produced for maximum force, it sees vocalist Moody unleashing his cavernous roar above the dual-fretted chug of Bathory and former guitarist Jason Hook.

Name-checking a litany of American cultural signposts — brands, institutions and celebrities — The Pride showcases the band’s trademark fusion of bone-crushing heaviness with doggedly-affecting melodies and choruses big enough for landing fighter jets.

FFDP’s first US Mainstream Rock number one single is built on an onslaught  of pummeling riffs and the melodic latticework of Bathory and Hook. While some bands pull back the heaviness in their ballads, Coming Down establishes that even FFDP’s most fragile offerings pack an absolute wallop.

2009’s War Is The Answer established that their paint-peeling debut was only  a taste of things to come. It marked their first collaboration with producer Kevin Churko, who coaxed a new depth of heaviness out of the guys, masterfully captured on Hard To See, the album’s bruising second track.

Moody penned this while sidelined with throat issues that prevented him from performing and the track was partially inspired by fans sending him emails expressing anger at him for taking time off. He has also cited creative differences with their label at the time as pushing him to something of a creative brink, stating, “it just got to a point where I was like, you know, when does it become enough?”

Ivan Moody boasts an expansive range that allows him to easily shift from polished clean vocals to throat-shredding bellows on their heaviest cuts. On this semi-acoustic ballad from War Is The Answer, he showcases a compelling mastery of the softer end of his spectrum with equal measures of force and vulnerability majestically colliding in the song’s epic climax.

Remember Everything remains a massive crowd favourite due in no small part to its rousing, arms-around-your-mate chorus and its lush power ballad arrangement. It also offers a convincing showcase of the vibrant synergies between Bathory and Hook, with a stunning dual-fretted solo that all but dares you to not wave your lighter high into the night sky.

Guitarist Jason Hook’s final outing with Five Finger Death Punch, F8’s first two singles shoot to the top of the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart. Smokey acoustic strumming, digital beats and echo-drenched vocals cast the track among the band’s poppiest but it also establishes an open-minded ambition to grow the sound where opportunities arise.

What’s not to love about this full-throttle headbanger from The Wrong Side of Heaven... Vol. 1? It’s all there — the two guitarists’ bludgeoning low-end chug, the rubbery, Pantera-flavoured grooving, Moody’s vitriolic delivery and a mighty guest turn from Rob Halford in the second verse. While 5FDP’s catalogue boasts a raft of catchy ballads they made their bones with the heavy stuff and this is one of their best.

Over the years, the band have released a number of covers but none have connected with their fans as deeply as their take on Bad Company’s eponymous anthem. They augmented the original with crushing riffs and a sprawling melodic lead long enough for you to run out and grab a loaf of bread before getting home for the final chorus. There’s only one song they’ve played more often live (we’ll get to that soon).

The cornerstone of 5FDP’s sound is their pile driving rhythm section — bassist Chris Kael, whose sturdy, palm-muted low end is locked so tightly with the drums that you’d be hard-pressed to slide a sheet of paper between them. Along with former drummer Jeremy Spencer here — playing his kick drum over the snare with relentless force — the two inject tracks like this with a taut, syncopated aggression. Lyrically, Moody takes on all of the trolls, rumour-mongers and keyboard warriors with American Capitalist’s slamming first single.

The plan for 2015’s Got Your Six was simple — go straight for the jugular with double helpings of revved-up tempos and bone-powdering riffage. The origin of this track has embedded itself into Death Punch lore:  Hook found an old voicemail from Moody, containing a brief sketch of the lyrics. To that voicemail, Hook added some guitar beneath it, cut some of the lyrics into a chorus and sent it out to the guys. The first verse you hear on the album is the actual voicemail and the final result has emerged as one of their most memorable tracks..

Another crowd pleaser from Got Your Six, Moody counts this among one of his personal favourites on the record. The verses are pure filth, seething with sleazy riffs and Moody’s defiant swagger but the song’s chorus is straight pop — an ultra-catchy, upbeat showcase of 5FDP’s gift for generating doggedly heavy anthems with enough polish to appeal to both metal and mainstream fans.

This track confronts the mental and emotional challenges faced by military personnel coming home from war. Notably, the band stepped away from the approach used on their previous ballads and developed some unique drum patterns, grooves and samples. Beyond its evocative lyrical themes, the track catches the band in mid-evolution towards a more modern and at times, experimental, sound.

Five Finger Death Punch close nearly every show with this unapologetically sentimental, mid-tempo belter from their debut. This was the first song to really launch the band onto the radar of the metal world. It also galvanised the musicians around Bathory’s vision for what 5FDP could be. In an interview with the Pulse Of Radio, Bathory explained, “'The Bleeding was the fish hook of this band that I got all these guys with." Moody added, "When I first heard it, I sat back in my chair and almost cried. I mean, it came so naturally.”

Written in the wake of Moody’s split from his then-fiancée, the death of a friend and the dissolution of his old band, Motograter, The Bleeding presented the singer at his most raw and unguarded. Today, the track sounds as polished and mature as any of the band’s subsequent output, with its arena-sized chorus and a heart-ripping solo by Steelheart guitarist Uros Raskovski. It landed them on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Top Ten and to this day, Moody states that it is “probably the most personal song I’ve ever written.”