Interviews : “15 years is a long time to be doing the same job” – An Interview with Killswitch Engage

Massachusetts metalcore outfit Killswitch Engage are set to return to Australia this April to promote their brand new album, Disarm The Descent. Metal Obsession had the pleasure to speak with bassist Mike D, ahead of the band’s Australian tour. We discussed the band’s recent tour of South Africa and Russia, plus all things Killswitch.

Metal Obsession: Hey Mike how’s it going?

Mike D: Oh hey man, how are you?

MO: Yeah good, how is it being home for a few weeks after being on tour?

MD: It feels great, there’s just enough time to recuperate and then we’re back out again.

MO: Yeah well you were just in South Africa and Russia, have you got any crazy stories you can tell us today?

MD: When we were in Russia we were supposed to play Kiev, like when the traffic jam was happening so definitely we didn’t head over to that country, so that was pretty crazy. They’re still kind of dealing with it, so I feel kind of bad for those guys. South Africa was the first time we’d ever been there and we tried to experience as much as we could, we went to the beaches of Cape Town, we checked out all sort of landmark cliffs and stuff. We went to a lion park as well in Johannesburg; we got to hold baby lions and all that. It was sort of a life long dream of some of our guys to do something like that, it was pretty great.

MO: Did you guys have a big fan base in South Africa? Did it surprise you?

MD: It definitely did, I mean, I think they’re just stoked that anybody gets over there. I know they don’t have a ton of shows, and people just want to bug out and come and have fun and rock out. People definitely came, it was a lot of fun, and they were very appreciative. They obviously know that it’s tough to get over there.

MO: Are there any other places you haven’t been yet? You’ve been a band for about 15 years, is there anywhere you still have to go?

MD: We’d love to hit China at some point; I know they’re pretty strict with a lot of stuff over there. But I love the culture, and I’ve attempted to take vacations over there on my off time, but it’s just so expensive so I’d rather wait and do it for free!

MO: *laughs* That’s the best way to do it.

MD: I love that whole area, it’s very steeped in culture.

MO: Cool, I mentioned you being a band for 15 years; when you started Killswitch, did you anticipate that you’d be this beloved and relevant this many years later?

MD: I think there’s actually no way of telling that, for any band. When Killswitch started, Adam, Joel and myself had been in bands that hadn’t really done anything that anyone had understood. So we figured it would be the same with this band, so we didn’t put as much effort in with our demos as normal people would I guess. Mainly just cause you know you’re playing a BFW show for 20 kids, and “maybe we won’t play this many shows, just one or two here and there”. But you know, with the attention of the labels and stuff like that, and putting out the first record, things kind of steamrolled really quickly from there. When someone tells you, you can afford insurance in your band, you kind of think they’re out of their mind. It actually becomes a reality; the band becomes more of a thing than what you can just drop out of a hat. We’re just fortunate enough to be doing this as a full time job; otherwise we’d be sleeping in boxes.

MO: You said the band has become an actual thing, “Killswitch Engage”, are you guys still the same sort of friends you were a few years ago?

MD: Oh absolutely. Which is weird, after knowing them for 15 years, you’d think I’d make them not want to hang out with me, but everyone is rad. Now with Jesse back in the band, it’s more solidified than it’s ever been, everyone seems to be on the same page. I’m very excited, I’m not sure if it’s because of the ‘new old’ blood back in the mix, exciting people again? Jesse’s back, a lot of the touring he’s never done before, and he’s wild eyed and excited about everything and I think it’s rubbing off on everyone else. The natural progression from that is we’re just becoming closer friends, and hanging out when we don’t have to tour, which is awesome.

MO: Did you get to a certain point where you were a bit jaded with everything? And when Jesse came back it was sort of like a shot in the arm?

MD: It’s hard not to be. Like you said earlier, 15 years is a long time to be doing the same job; I know it doesn’t seem like a job, but it is when you spend that amount of time on the road. It definitely is a job, and once you’ve been to Japan 6 or 7 times, it doesn’t have the same awe as the first few times that you’ve been there. But like you said, Jesse is just crazy in love with travelling and every place that he goes, there’s something new that he’s exploring. It’s like every day he’s got a mission, he’s on a mission, and we’ve got to keep tabs on him. He’s climbing trees, jumping in brooks and getting weird. And that’s awesome, it makes us old jaded guys, as you said, want to relive everything.

MO: Well one of the things I was going to ask you was whether you’d gotten bored of playing your old songs yet, but I suppose with Jesse back it’s made it a bit more invigorating and put a different spin on it. Have you found that?

MD: Yeah it’s exactly like that, you got that right. He’s made some of the songs I wasn’t really into, fun again. But to tell you the truth, playing in front of people who want to hear a certain song, I don’t see how that would ever get boring. It’s bass man, it’s not like rocket science or anything *laughs*. You know, you’re making people happy by playing something you might have played a hundred times, three hundred times. But the charge is still there, the energy, the emotion of the first time you played it, is still there in the room. It’s an awesome experience.

MO: With ‘Disarm the Descent’, moving away from the older sort of stuff, it’s had such a positive response, like you said, especially with the return of Jesse. Were you anticipating anything like that, or were you a bit trepidatious about getting Jesse back for it?

MD: We just knew it would be the best thing for the band. The thing is, the big split with Howard happened, and we weren’t sure if we were going to continue which was really sad. People were thinking of different avenues of making a living and all that sort of stuff. Finally, we came to our senses and said “let’s try out a new vocalist and see what happens”, and Jesse really wanted to audition and show his all. It was his idea to audition with everybody else. You know, we played all day, and all of a sudden Jesse rolls in. We’re tired; we’re drinking beer, eating pizza. We just punched out like 16 songs in a row, due to the fact that Jesse was so excited to show us how much he loved doing it, how much he liked these songs. He injected his enthusiasm into them, I can’t say enough about how fucking awesome it is. I’m not even sure if that answered your question *laughs*

MO: *laughs* That’s alright. Has the band had much negative criticism from the departure of Howard, or has the love for Jesse outweighed that sort of negative stuff?

MD: Oh okay, back to my original idea, we just needed to do what was best for the band, and it was obvious that Jesse was the best guy for the band. There’s always going to be people who like David Lee Roth over Sammy Hager, not that we’re anywhere close to Van Halen, but it’s the same sort of scenario. Then you get a Gary Cherone, a third guy in there, and no one gives a shit. That kind of weighed on us a little bit, like “do we start completely fresh, start over again getting a new guy, or do we get Jesse, this guy who sings awesome that we love who can pull it off pretty amazing”, all arrows just pointed to ‘Jesse needs to be in this band cause he really wants to be in the band’. There’s always going to be a backlash, like if we get a new guitarist people are going to say “the leads aren’t as good” or if we get a new drummer “oh it’s not as mathematically correct anymore”. At least what they’re talking about, I suppose, is correct *laughs*.

MO: I was hoping I was going to get a quote from you guys saying that you’re better than Van Halen, but unfortunately I didn’t manage to squeeze that out of you.

MD: *laughs* ah nooo. We just lost to Black Sabbath at the Grammy’s, so we are not better than Van Halen.

MO: Still, losing to Black Sabbath, that’s not the worst title a metal band can have.

MD: No, it’s the greatest thing ever. I mean we obviously knew when we were going into it, “wow this is going to be the greatest thing”; we were going to get dressed up, hang out with our wives, drink a lot, and go lose to Black Sabbath! It wasn’t exactly an effort.

MO: *laughs* Moving onto your tour in Australia in a couple of weeks, are you stoked to come back here after only being here last year? You’ve come here a few times, so we must be doing something right.

MD: Well I just think that we did the Soundwave festival a bunch, and we haven’t done the proper club tour that we really wanted to do. Last time, we didn’t do any of the sidewaves, which I wish we did, and then we probably wouldn’t be talking about this tour. But I’m excited, I love your weather, it’s been non-stop snow here since I got back and I’m ready to get out and back to the tropical South African weather again over in Australia.

MO: Have you picked any favourite cities in Australia yet, or are you just going to be diplomatic and say you love them all?

MD: I like Perth a lot, it’s pretty amazing, and they have some great vegetarian restaurants. I like Melbourne a ton, obviously Sydney because there’s so many cool spots and it’s such a hub for everyone that goes there and vegetarian restaurants are abundant. You guys have some awesome restaurants, lots of great food. A little expensive, a little expensive, I gotta tell you that *laughs*. But other than that, it’s awesome. I definitely didn’t answer your question on that, but probably Melbourne and Perth are my favourite.

MO: That’s alright then, I’m from Melbourne so that’s an acceptable answer. Now, you create all the artworks for the album, what was your inspiration for the ‘Disarm the Descent’ one and how do you get into the mindset for your new artwork?

MD: It’s a tough mind to get into, I watch a lot of horror movies, I brace myself for doing as many different ideas as I possibly can to throw at a wall. With this one in particular, I’ve done all the records so far, but this one in particular, we had three or four designs I was working on to try and make something that everyone in the band wanted. We’ve always been ‘everyone loves one specific thing’, and it just so happened that my comp of the girl with the crazy veil over her head was the one that everyone was really liking, and it was one of the earlier images I showed the guys a long time ago. A friend had taken a photo that kind of looked like that, and I said that I’d love to use it for an album cover or a t-shirt design, it all rolls around 360 and it ended up being more of a comp for the cover we really liked it. It was just kind of a gamble *laughs*.

I like the imagery, it’s very Travis Smith, dark and scary ghost-ish ethereal. One of the cool things was that we had a photographer take a photo of the girl in all these various different poses, and Jesse actually took a photo of himself and said, “What if we took a photo and the hands were closed?” and made the exact hand gesture that is on the record. We had a shot made of that, and this time he got a little more input than he normally does for a record cover. Once he saw the image, he actually said, “Wow, this actually works with 5 or 6 songs that are already being written”. Cause you know at the time, it’s just like “go go go, get this record cover done” and we didn’t even have all the songs completed yet, so I didn’t know a lot of the lyrics. That happens a lot with record covers, not knowing the direction or having any lyrics to go by, but luckily Jesse said it works perfectly. And that was more than enough for everybody else to say “yay, this is the cover”.

MO: Oh cool, I suppose that just works in with Jesse being such a good input, it’s working out in all the avenues.

MD: It really is, it’s just this creative component put back in the band that maybe hasn’t been as brightly lit as it has been in a while. But he’s running on all cylinders man, like I said, he needs to do something every day.

MO: On the live aspect, which of the new songs from ‘Disarm’ have had the best response in a live setting?

MD: New awakening, which is also my favourite, ever since the local tracks of the demos I’d heard from Alex. I really think that gets a really big sing-along, and I would say it’s the funnest one to play.

MO: Cool, and just a final question, at what point did the band decide to release an artist series guitar?

MD: That was very recently, I think it’s out now. It looks pretty sweet, it’s got the cover of the record on it and it plays kind of awesome. I actually used that one when I’ve been doing a bunch of demos recently, and it sounds rad. How we got involved, I’m not sure, I think they contacted us? I don’t know, it looks cool though.

MO: You just go along with it *laughs*. Alright, well thanks for talking with Metal Obsession today, I’m coming to check you guys out in April, I’m definitely keen for it.

MD: Oh yeah, have a beer!

MO: Alright, I’ll come up to you after the show and I’ll get a beer off you.

MD: Sick. Alright, thank you very much.

www.facebook.com/killswitchengage
www.killswitchengage.com

Related Posts

• 

  El Colosso – Forgotten Ancestors
• 

  Depravity – Grand Malevolence
• 

  Pioneering Aussie metal drummer Matt ‘Skitz’ announces 2021 national tour.
• 

  Be’lakor tease new album studio updates.