Killswitch Engage - Interview - 2006

Killing Memphis

Of all the things you might expect to see on a tour bus, this is not one of them: Howard Jones is holding a bottle of Cif-like cleaning product, wearing a buttoned blazer, smart black boots and an awkward smile. Killswitch Engage’s frontman has just finished cleaning the bus. It’s spotless. At 1:15pm the day after a show, you might expect a metal band’s bus to resemble Sodom and Gomorrah. But no.

This New England quintet is far from home. More than a thousand miles. We are in Memphis, Tennessee: the Birthplace Of The Blues, up the land-locked Mississippi delta in America’s legendary South. In eight hours Killswitch Engage will headline the fourth sold-out date of their pre-release tour. Their new album, ‘When Daylight Dies’ will be released in a matter of days; it just remains to be seen whether it can inspire the hoards of fans who found that their last album, 2004’s ‘End Of Heartache’ struck such a chord.

Singer Howard Jones, guitarists Adam Dutkiewicz and Joel Stroetzel, bassist Mike D'Antonio and drummer Justin Foley may not be close to home, but over a southern-fried and hickory-smoked weekend we find out some truths that are.

“I wanted to kill myself,” says the usually Mercurial Adam as he pulls the paper label from another bottle of Blue Moon beer. “I was thinking: ‘If I’m going to live the rest of my life like this, then I’d rather just die’.” KsE’s axe-toting court jester is invariably instigating some form of hi-jinx or just bellowing with laughter; but right now he is sombre, almost funereal. In 2005, Adam underwent a month of surgery for a chronic back condition that threatened to cripple him.

“I was in constant agony, 24/7,” explains the 6’5” guitarist, sitting, as we are, in one of the million barbeque joints that line Beale Street. “I was popping painkillers, mixing them with bottles of wine and only sleeping 45 minutes a night.”

Howard looks at his band mate with a quiet yet sympathetic expression.

“It’s hard to explain,” he continues, not looking up from his plate of gnawed ribs. “I just couldn’t find a way to make it go away no matter what I did. It’s always there and it’s always nagging at you and you just can’t escape it.”

So what exactly was wrong with your back?

“I had a herniated disc,” he explains, chirping up a little at the prospect of dishing some gory details into our previously solemn conversation. “The nerves in my spine were completely crushed.” Adam’s deep voice spices up like a nine year old picking a scab to see what’s underneath. “I actually lost feeling in some of my toes because of it. I was fucking terrified.”

You can hear relief in his voice - gratitude for his recovery. But he’s still pissed that he had to sit out a whole tour.

“Until I had surgery there was nothing I could do to make the pain go away,” he says, picking up the thread of our conversation.

Didn’t the idea of surgery terrify you?

“I was actually excited about the surgery,” he gushes. “What was more terrifying than the idea of back surgery, was the state of my life before the surgery.”

Adam and Howard are sitting in the back of their now pristine bus that smells eerily unlike five sweaty men on tour. Outside, the crowd gathers under the fresh cloudless sky. The stalkers are amongst them like Invasion Of The Body Snatchers. We are under siege.  

One thing that strikes you about Howard, is that while he cuts the shape of the ultimate metal frontman on stage, he is a gentle – if somewhat timid – character off stage. You get a sense of nervous tension when fans approach him. Often you’ll turn around and Howard has whisked himself away.

Do fans annoy you?

“It’s not an annoyance,” says Howard dripping in unease. “It just makes me physically uncomfortable. When we were doing those photos earlier today, I just started sweating because kids just started following us.”

We sensed that.

“I guess it comes with the territory.”

Has this feeling got worse?

“It’s definitely progressed in recent years,” he says looking sideways attempting nonchalance. “I try to enjoy the job as much as possible and all that, but erm, I definitely…” Howard need say no more – drift caught.

Elsewhere in the bus Mike is building himself a giant spliff and Justin and his girlfriend, Jessie, are fussing over their three-legged dog called Dogdogdog.

Having not said anything for over two minutes, Adam chimes in. “I don’t mind at all,” he says with rare earnestness. “Friendly kids make my day. Yesterday I met the nicest couple in the world. They came to the show before doors with a plate of cookies.”

Like some dichotomous comedy duo, these two utterly different characters sit in adjacent seats dressed identically in black blazers, smart dark jeans and slender black boots. Howard: the quiet, sensitive, muscular black man; Adam: the lanky, white-boy extrovert - a pile driver of humour.

“Sure,” Howard agrees. “The nice ones are great, but some kids just come up to you and start yelling your lyrics at you: shove you and just shout ‘KILL-SWITCH!’ in your face.”

It must be flattering though.

Howard smiles and acquiesces silently.

“Yesterday,” Adam starts, “me and a couple of the All That Remains guys were at the bar before the show, and this local couple paid our whole bar tab for us.”

Through a crack in the door comes a cheer and we can see Justin unwrapping some Homer Simpson Xmas lights.

“All I know is that I am forever in debt to that couple in Cincinnati Ohio, for buying me beer and meat.” 

New York isn’t America. Even Los Angeles isn’t really that American. This is America: Tennessee, home of Jack Daniel’s. The spit and sawdust, Bush-voting, small-town minded, working community United States. There is a church on every corner: Messianic, Nazarene, Seventh Day Adventist, or the Burden For Souls Holiness Church. There are more bad food chains to choose from than country music radio stations: Wendy’s, Cracker Barrel, Denny’s, Taco Bell; the list goes. The accent screams the American stereotype – the kind of people who think with their neck.

Dr Martin Luther King Jnr, leader of the civil rights movement was assassinated here in 1968. Despite a history of racial disharmony dating back to the American Civil War and before, Memphis birthed the African American music known as The Blues. Elvis Presley, the son of a preacher, put the genre to good use here popularising and proliferating the music, and inadvertently helped invent rock n’ roll.

Even before Elvis put Memphis on the global map, the city had become synonymous with music: BB King, Johnny Cash, Muddy Waters and Jerry Lee Lewis were all drawn to the city of Blues.

Even with this cultural and historical backdrop there is little seriousness where Adam is involved. On the subject of ethnicity, Howard is brief as he explains that he has never suffered racism in either the metal scene or in the South.

“There are some redneck motherfuckers outside,” Adam says before putting on a caricature Southern accent. “Keee-yerl-sweee-yertch In-gay-yerge, aaa luuurve yrrrr sheee-yert.”

All hopes of serious answers to serious questions are over, as Adam free associates his way through the rest of the interview.

Why did Shadowsfall leave the tour?

“There was a big exposé with Jason Bittner the drummer,” he says donning a hammy frown. “He was found with an under-age Asian kid in the back seat of his car in the Denny’s Car Park. The police busted him, so Shadowsfall have a little legal situation to sort before they tour again. He has to straighten out his taste for Asian boys. He had a trunk full of candy.”

Why did you choose All That Remains to replace them?

“They work for cheap,” snaps Adam in a pseudo-officious manner. “We throw them some bones. Gave ‘em five dollars and a large pizza.”

What’s the new album about?

“Basically,” he pauses and smiles. “The theme of the record is that some genetically modified hybrid sheep/goat animals come from outer space and take over our world in the year 2039. They’ll be made of an aluminium-based alloy, and they’ll shoot lasers out of their asses. Baaaaah, you all die.”

The lights dim. The crowd roars. The low rumble of a down-tuned guitar chord washes through the speakers. “MEMPHIS, ARE YOU FUCKING READY!” bellows Howard from lungs like power stations. Before he can utter another word the remaining four hurtle onto the stage with all previous daytime calm traded for metal thrashing madness: feet, hair, fists and sweat. The charge begins and the pummelling riffs see the crowd surge instinctively forward, horned-fists held high.  

Predictably unpredictable, Adam is a picture of eccentric energy: clothed as he is in his trademark shorts, and for one night only an orange Mastodon vest an orange Jagermeister cape (butchered from a banner by Joel’s wife, Melissa), a white sweat band and a plastic crown.

The song finishes and the John Cleese of metal steps up to the mic: “This next song,” he snarls says in his death growl, “is about Howard. He went to a bar to watch his favourite team. But Howard got into a fight with a supporter of the other team. This song is called ‘When Darkness Brawls’” The band ignite the track and Howard bursts out laughing. Falling to his knees he wipes the tears from his eyes - almost unable to sing.

The crowd are going berserk. Fans stripped to the waist, excited and drunk flail around and crowd surf like 14 rhinos scrambling for a penny in a lift. Adam and Joel play ‘strum tag’: running around the stage trying to play each other’s guitars. A girl at the front reveals herself to Adam as he introduces another song. In comedic style he double takes, “Er, thank you miss. My, you have a fantastic chest… So do you guys want to hear some new music?”

The response is inevitably riotous, and the main riff from the band’s current single, ‘My Curse’ hammers and squeals over the PA. In the middle of the song, Adam spies Mark Castillo from support band Bury Your Dead, wearing a towel and swigging from a bottle at the side of the stage. The lengthy guitarist attacks him, grabbing the pants under his towel and rips them completely off him, leaving the drunken drummer naked in front of a thousand crazed Southerners.

Into another raging metal anthem Adam decides to solo through a verse, leaving Howard staring on in bewilderment, smiling from ear to ear. Eat your heart out Synyster Gates.

At times the gig feels like Tonight With Adam Dutkiewicz, with reluctant compere, Howard Jones. But Adam is only able to play the court jester because Joel, Justin and Mike have – pardon the pun - his back.  Killswitch Engage batter your senses with heavy music that’s full of song, emotional lyrics punctuated by comic relief, and a show that’s grounded in metal tradition but as surreal and unpredictable as a dirty weekend in a loony bin. You never see the same set twice.

But you need more than a strong live set to survive in this world. Luckily these guys have the songs and the drive to persevere. While there have been mixed reviews of ‘The Daylight Dies’ in the press, the feeling at the shows is unanimous: 2007 certainly won’t see the sun set on Killswitch Engage.

Rock-o-meter:

• Groupies on bus – 0

• Bottles of Cif belonging to Howard – 1

• Xbox 360 – 1 (brand new)

• Gifts from drunk middle-aged woman stalking lead singers – 1 (two boxes of cookies)

• Inebriated support band members – 1 (Phil Labonte could barely stand)

• Terrifying drunk southern kids stalking the band – 1

• CDs aboard – 1 (Coheed’s singer Claudio Sanchez’ side project Prize Fighter Inferno)

• Girlfriends/wives present - 2

• Weed smoked – 2

• Bottles of Jim Beam – 3

• Depth of Adam’s death growl – 3Hz

• Girls at the front - 4

• Beers consumed and time started - Adam started at 2pm, drank more than 11 bottled and was still going when we left at 2:47am.

• Number of support band members who were stripped naked onstage – 1

• Ribs eaten - 39

• Crowd surfers - 74

• Times Howard laughs uncontrollably at Adam – 281 (145 of which are during the set).

• Laps of the stage by Adam during the set – 7,911

• Amount of time Adam says ‘y’know’ and ‘awesome’ – 2,870,913