KILLSWITCH ENGAGE
interview by Steve Walker

photos by Christine Natanael

LINKS:
killswitchengage.com

roadrunnerrecords.com

SW: Right, right.

JS: Once we finish this one we’ve got a few weeks off, then we’ll be heading out to do the Jager Tour, and that’ll take us through Christmas.

SW: What are you guys gonna do afterwards?

JS: No idea yet. Looking into that.

SW: I’m sure some downtime will most definitely be welcome.

JS: Yeah, it’ll be nice, man.

SW: So give me some back history here. Give me some Killswitch history.

JS: Killswitch history, like how the band formed?

SW: Yeah.

JS: I guess Killswitch formed when Overcast broke up. Actually it was Mike’s (D’Antonio), our bass players’ old band. He ended up getting in touch with Adam (Dutkiewicz). Adam and I were playing together in a band called Aftershock at the time. This was probably like, ’98 maybe.

SW: Ok.

JS: We were doing Aftershock, Adam was playing drums at the time so he and Mike started jamming, writing some songs, and then invited me to come play with them. So it was the three of us, and there were a couple of other guitar players that tried out, and singers that tried out. But it pretty much after a while just ended up being the three of us. And then we saw Jesse (Leach) from this band called Coryn, and that’s kind of how the original lineup came together. And obviously after some touring, we lost some members and gained some new ones. We actually added Tom (Gomes) from Aftershock as a drummer, right after we recorded Alive Or Just Breathing.

SW: Right.

JS: Adam moved over to guitar, so we became a five piece, and Jesse left after a tour. Howard (Jones) joined about 2 weeks after Jesse left, and probably about a year after that Tom left to go to school out in LA, so we got Justin (Foley) from Blood Has Been Shed, and that nailed the lineup.

SW: Yeah, I saw you guys at last year’s Ozzfest. I got to talk with Adam and Mike, and while I was waiting for them I spoke to Tom for a minute. Then a few weeks later I heard he left the band.

JS: Yeah, I think Ozzfest really did a number on Tom. I don’t think he was really feeling it, y’know?

SW: Yeah. I remember sitting on the bus waiting for Adam and Mike to show up, seeing all these PR people around, making plans for you guys and whatnot, and thinking that these guys must feel like their world has gone nuts. That everything has just gone completely insane. You guys have been working very hard, the past 2 years especially.

JS: Yeah, the past 2 years have been pretty crazy man.

SW: What about yourself? Are you liking it, not liking it so much? Enjoying playing but not liking the business end of it? What’s your level of involvement?

JS: I think it’s probably the best job in the world, y’know, getting to go out and play music, especially your own. So as far as that goes, it’s kind of a dream come true. I guess, like any other job there’s little things you get sick of----sometimes you get tired of riding around on the bus, not being able to see your friends and family for a long time----things like that wear on you. It’s not like a normal job where you can come at night after you’re done, y’know? Once you’re out, you’re out for a while. That’s really the only downside.

SW: Right, right.

JS: At the same time touring is a lot of fun. You meet a lot of cool people, and we’re usually out with bands that we become friends with.

SW: And you guys came up with a lot of good bands. Shadows Fall comes to mind right away.

JS: Absolutely, yeah. We’ve known those guys since way back, y’know. I think actually our first show that we played was with Shadows Fall and In Flames. Long, long time ago, like ’98 or ’99. Something like that.

SW: I read that you had gone to Berklee with Adam.

JS: Yeah, for a little while. I didn’t actually graduate from Berklee, I just went for a semester and checked it out. And as I was going there that was Adam’s last year. So he was finishing up when I was starting out. We kinda got to know each other there, hung out a little bit, played some guitar together. I played in Aftershock at the time, so it was kind of how I got to be good friends with Adam.

SW: I know that Adam does a lot for the band, that he produces the albums, and that Mike handles all the artwork. Do you guys sit down together to write songs, or is it done part by part?

JS: Yeah, we usually sit together and kind of just throw riffs out into the air. Usually someone will hear something or have an idea on their own and we’ll piece things together that way. Most of the writing we’ve always done as a group. And actually the only exception is this last record The End of Heartache, because Adam was off producing records and stuff like that, so a lot of the stuff that Adam wrote fro this record he kind of just did on his own. I think four or five of the songs on the new record Adam did himself, which is pretty impressive. Kind of just stepping up that way.

SW: Oh, yeah.

SW: And having Howard sing must have been a treat. He’s got an amazing vocal range, just for the fact that he seems to transition very easily between the screaming and the more melodic parts of the songs. It’s something that I always felt, that Jesse didn’t do as well.

JS: When Howard goes from screaming to singing it doesn’t seem like he loses any power at all, y’know? He’s always very consistent, very strong voiced.

SW: The guitar work on the album is a lot different than Alive or Just Breathing. Mostly because of what you had said about Adam doing a lot of the writing himself, but it’s more focused I would say in that you guys switch off parts more often and there is more soloing I’ve noticed between the two albums. Was it a conscious decision or something that just happened?

JS: Honestly, I think it was something that just happened. A lot of the songs on End of Heartache we wrote with two guitar players, with the idea that there were going to be two people playing it. Where as Alive or Just Breathing was written and recorded as a four piece. Adam was still playing drums and I was playing guitar on that record so we really didn’t have a lot of options in what we were writing to layer guitar parts, so some of the overdubs and little things like that were added on the spot in the studio. I think the duel guitar stuff was better planned out for The End of Heartache.