How Rob Halford Ended Up on Five Finger Death Punch’s “Lift Me Up”

By the time Five Finger Death Punch started their fourth album, The Wrong Side Of Heaven And The Righteous Side Of Hell, Volume 1, the numbers told their own story: a No 107 debut, then No 7, then No 3 on the Billboard 200. The band had reach. What it didn’t have was a voice like Rob Halford’s.

Guitarist Zoltan Bathory traces the path in a recent interview with MusicRadar. The song “Lift Me Up” carried a nostalgic ’80s metal feel — former guitarist Jason Hook brought in the riff — and Bathory considered calling it “1986,” the year Metallica released Master of Puppets. That conversation turned to duets. Producer Kevin Churko had worked with Ozzy Osbourne, so Ozzy was the first name raised. Then Bathory suggests Halford, “The Metal God.” The other members called it a crazy dream.

Bathory had read an interview where Halford, decades into his career, still talked about current bands he genuinely liked. One of them was Five Finger Death Punch. That single detail was enough to make the call. Halford said yes on the first one.

The collaboration didn’t need inflated stakes. A younger metal band wanted a voice from the era they were already referencing, and the voice showed up without hesitation.