Maine Music News recently conducted an interview with bassist Chris Kael of Las Vegas metallers FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Maine Music News: Are you seeing any new trends with metal/hard rock music that you think are important or exciting?

Chris: As far as trends go, it seems to me things are going quite a bit heavier and focused on the metal side of things. For a while, radio was going in to more of a hard rock kind of thing, which I have nothing against. However, it is nice to see the change. Take the new STONE SOUR album; it has some heavier tracks on it. Back in 2002, those guys had the Spiderman song “Bother”, which is admittedly pretty light. The first couple of singles on the last two albums have been pretty hard. I hope that is a trend that is going to continue. I am a big fan of the really heavy stuff. Being able to interject some of the really heavy stuff into some sort of commercial viability is something that I am hoping is a new trend.

Maine Music News: What is your take on social media and it seemingly providing an opportunity for anyone to publish their opinion, the good, the bad, and even the hateful?

Chris: I joined the band two years ago, and of the important things for me when joining the band was to utilize social networking in a way that would positively affect lives. For me, back when I was growing up, to be able to reach out to Gene Simmons to say, “Hey, man, I really like that song. I would love to see you in Kentucky,” and for him to have a one-word response or to “like” that status, some sort of reaction, I cannot image the effect that would have had on me. Not that I am comparing myself to Gene, but there are people that are huge fans of the band, and it is great for us to be able to reach out directly to those people and positively affect lives in whatever way we possibly can. Even today, every single day Facebook has the birthday section on the side. Every day, if I have Internet access, I go through that list and wish everyone a happy birthday. It takes just a little bit to get my day started, I answer some questions, do the birthday section, and that goodwill goes a long way and spreads a bit of positivity throughout the world.

Maine Music News: FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH has a new album, “The Wrong Side Of Heaven And The Righteous Side Of Hell Vol. 1”, coming out on July 30th. Considering that we live in a digital music world where fans seem to gravitate to singles, can you talk a little bit about the decision-making process that went into deciding to do a double album and release it in two phases?

Chris: There really was no decision-making process. It just happened naturally. We got in the studio and initially cranked out 14 songs. Everything was flowing nicely, and we got to the 14 and thought, “Let’s keep on pushing and see what we can get.” Then we ended up getting up to 26-27 songs, all great songs. We tried to figure out, what do we do with these? Do we hold on to them? Do we cut some of them? The problem was we loved everything we had come up with. So, we figured that the fans are worth it, and they are going to enjoy this. Originally, we thought of just releasing two albums where they both came out on the same day. However, we decided to stagger it a bit so it is not all thrown in at one time. You get the first release on July 30th. You can actually pre-order that right now on FiveFingerDeathPunch.com. We have all kinds of different packages available. We have lunch boxes, bobble heads, all kinds of different stuff thrown in with these advance pre-orders. The second album will come out later during the year. When we released “American Capitalist”, as soon as it came out, like four days later, everyone was saying how great it was, but they wanted more. Rather than trying to force feed everybody all at once, we are giving them the first album on July 30th and the next one later in the year.

Maine Music News: What is up with all the haters out there? Can you talk a little about that?

Chris: In general, if you are doing something that inspires a reaction — whether it is love or hate — at least you are doing something that matters and gets a reaction. I would much rather do something that is polarizing than something that gets ignored. DEATH PUNCH is one of those bands that either you really love us, or you really hate us, and we will take both.

Read the entire interview from Maine Music News.