“IOU” by Five Finger Death Punch 

This song (“IOU”) is based on, most simply put, the vocalist depicting himself as a bad man, and he utilizes a lot of religious terminology to point to that idea. But as further implied in the second verse, he isn’t necessarily bad just for bad’s sake. Instead it’s as if there is a substantial amount of “pain” and “rage” built up within. So reading in between the lines, it’s like pick a fight with Ivan at your own risk.

And concerning the religious terminology, what the vocalist seems to be getting at is being caught up in the conflict of whether to “serve in heaven” in “reign in hell”. As such phrases are generally understood, that means that, under his belief system, he could play the nice guy and get nowhere in the world, or he can be a badass and achieve a higher standing. And these are the kinds of things that people tend to say when they are tempted – for whatever reason – to embrace the dark side, so to speak.

All lyrics of “IOU” considered, said reason would be something like other people trying to take advantage of the vocalist. And in that regard, this piece reads a lot as if what Moody is actually doing is defending himself and is deeply frustrated. Or at least that’s the impression you get when, at the end, he goes about asserting that he ‘owes absolutely nothing’ to the unspecified addressee(s).

When was “IOU” released?

“IOU” came out on 13 May 2022, complete with a lyric video that reportedly serves as a preview of a project Five Finger Death Punch is creating in the recently-launched metaverse.

This is the second single from the band’s 2022 album “AfterLife”, which is a product of Better Noise Music. The album’s first single, which is also titled “AfterLife“, came out about a month before IOU‘s release.

Credits

The writing of this song is collectively credited to the Five Finger Death Punch crew. At the time of the song’s release, the band is made up of these musicians:

• Zoltan Bathory
• Ivan Moody
• Chris Kael
• Charlie Engen
• Andy James

The aforementioned names also, as a group, produced the track with Kevin Churko.