Spencer, Jeremy

Jeremy Spencer was born January 8, 1973 in Auckland City , Indiana , in the family of composer and novelist Austin Gary and actress Glory Haid ^{[3] [4]} . His sister is Rachel Rockwell , theater director ^[5] . Spencer began playing drums at age six on a set donated by his grandmother for Christmas ^{[4] [6]} . Already in his childhood, he began to organize concerts in his area, performing covers for Kiss songs ^[4] . At age 17, Jeremy and his band Fotocopie of Death performed at the opening act of Pantera ^{[4] [7]} . After high school, he moved to Los Angeles ^[8] , where he met BulletBoys guitarist Mick Shved. There he made friends with future Five Finger Death Punch guitarist Jason Hook .

Prior to the Five Finger Death Punch, Jeremy was a drummer in the WASP group, but was fired from there by Blackie Lawless. ^[8]

In 2005, Spencer and former UPO bass player Zoltan Bathory, along with vocalist Ivan Moody , bass player Matt Snell and guitarist Caleb Binham, founded the groove metal band Five Finger Death Punch. The first album, The Way of the Fist , was released on July 31, 2007. Logan Mader, the former guitarist of Machine Head and Soulfly, was involved in mixing and mastering it. ^[9] The album was included in the Billboard 200 at 104 position. The next album, War Is the Answer , was released on September 22, 2009 . According to Jeremy, all drums on it were recorded in 4 days ^[8] . The album was praised by critics and became commercially successful, reaching number 7 on the Billboard 200 ^[10] . Both The Way of the Fist and War Is the Answer were certified as gold by the RIAA ^[11] , and later War Is the Answer was certified as platinum ^[12] .

The following Five Finger Death Punch albums were also commercially successful: the song “ Under and Over It ” from the American Capitalist album entered the Billboard Hot 100 , taking 77th position ^[13] , and The Wrong Side of Heaven and the Righteous Side of Hell, Volume 1 and Volume 2 reached the second line of the Billboard 200 ^[10] . The band’s sixth album, Got Your Six , also ranked second on the chart and broke the group’s net sales record in its first week, reaching 114,000 copies sold, up from 120,000 on Volume 2 ^[14] . The last album of the group, in which Jeremy Spencer took part, was called And Justice for None and was released on May 18, 2018 .

In the fall of 2018, Jeremy was forced to miss the Five FInger Death Punch and Breaking Benjamin tour due to spinal surgery ^[15] . He was temporarily replaced by Charlie Engen from the group Scale the Summit ^[16] . On December 18, 2018, Spencer officially announced his departure from the group due to health problems and the inability to play at the same level as before ^{[6] [17] [18]} .

Spencer took part in the films “The Second Coming”, which was released in 2018 ^[19] , and “Murder Hill”, which was due to be released in 2017 ^[20] , but is at the end of 2018 ^[21] .

Jeremy is the author of the book Death Punch'd: Surviving Five Finger Death Punch's Metal Mayhem - an autobiography about the musician's stay in Five Finger Death Punch. The book was released in September 2014 and entered the list of ten best-selling celebrity books compiled by the New York Times the same month ^{[22] [23]} .

On July 11, 2016, the musician married his girlfriend Sarah Lopez. The wedding was attended by Five FInger Death Punch guitarist Jason Hook ^[23] .