Ivan Moody says he’s ‘retiring from heavy metal’ after one more Five Finger Death Punch album

Five Finger Death Punch frontman Ivan Moody has announced that he is “retiring from heavy metal” after one more FFDP album.

The singer made his surprise proclamation onstage at a gig at the Ball Arena in Denver, Colorado on Friday, October 14. Sitting on the stage, flanked by two of his kids, he announced his plans to step back from the frontline.

He said to the crowd: “I wanted to tell you this. And nobody else in the world knows, Denver, so this is where it's going to start. And what you do with it is up to you.

“The last 15 years of my life I have toured the world, I have seen every country, every city on this planet at least twice. That's a fact. And through that time, as many of you parents know… I have missed a lot of time with my kiddos.

“So I made them a deal today, and I'm going to stick to it. After this year, I am going to make one more Five Finger Death Punch album and then I am retiring from heavy metal.

He added: “But I wanted to start that here and tell all of you, from day one when I decided to be a singer playing places like ... the Bluebird Theater, the Ogden, and we were supposed to play Red Rocks, we'll have to do that one more time. Can I play Red Rocks one more time? ... I owe you everything, Colorado, Five Finger Death Punch and every knucklehead on this planet, thank you.”

Moody didn’t put a specific date on his retirement, and, given that Five Finger Death Punch released their most recent album, AfteLife, earlier this year, it seems unlikely to be imminent.

It’s also not the first time Moody has told an audience that he was quitting. In June 2017, he informed a crowd at a FFDP gig in Holland that it would be his last show with the band, though he later admitted that he had “fallen off the wagon”.  

Inevitably, the reaction to Moody’s statement prompted a divided reaction. Many Five Finger Death Punch fans were shocked, though some pointed out that he didn’t say he was retiring from music – only “heavy metal”. Naturally, the haters had a field day at the prospect of Moody’s impending retirement, with one person simply tweeting: “Thank fucking god.”