FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH's CHRIS KAEL: If You Put Out Garbage, No One's Gonna Buy Your Records

Nic and Big J of the Boise, Idaho radio station 100.3 The X Rocks spoke with FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH bassist Chris Kael at this year's Rock On The Range festival, which was held May 16-18 at the Columbus Crew Stadium in Columbus, Ohio. You can now watch the chat below. A couple of excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

On the commercial success of FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH's all four records thus far:

Kael: "People are always talking about, 'Oh, nobody's buying records anymore. Nobody's buying records.' If you put out garbage, no one's gonna buy it. You've gotta really focus on the craft. It's all about the songwriting, you know. At the end of the day, regardless of whatever else you've got going on, unless you've got a good song, no one's gonna buy anything. So we take pride in writing the best songs that we possibly can. We've been doing it for awhile, and we keep on plugging away."

On FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH's live show:

Kael: "As good as our songs are, we really thrive on the live environment. Just the way [FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH singer] Ivan [Moody] interacts with the crowd alone. No one's got that voice that he's got, no one has that ability to reach out and touch people as he does. I mean, tonight you'll see it. There'll be 40,000 people out there going out of their mind. We purvey that up on stage, and they give it back to us. It's a hell of a feeling."

On the importance of staying down to earth and treating fans and other bands with respect:

Kael: "We've seen it from both sides. We've done some festivals and seen people acting not the best, and we definitely don't wanna be that band. There's no reason to be that band. People are gonna forget you if you're that band. Or, more importantly, you're gonna get smacked in that face if you act like some of these people do. We're not into that. Be who you are. The one thing we have going for us is a little bit of luck. I don't know how many people out there in bands are playing along, trying to get it done. We just happened to get lucky, catch a break and we're running with it. We're taking advantage of the opoortunities given, for sure."

The second volume of FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH's two-record set, "The Wrong Side Of Heaven And The Righteous Side Of Hell", sold 77,000 copies in the U.S. during its first week of release to debut at No. 2 on the Billboard album chart. The first volume, which came out in July 2013, also debuted in the same position, although it sold a more substantial 113,000 copies.

"Volume 1" has sold more than 384,000 copies to date while "Volume 1" has shifted 248,000 units. FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH's three previous albums have all gone gold for sales of 500,000 copies or more.