A historic moment in metalcore took place in 2019 when Killswitch Engage released “The Signal Fire,” a true fire-breathing track sung by lead singer Jesse Leach with a very special guest: Howard Jones.
Not the Howard Jones of “No One is to Blame,” this very different Howard Jones was the metal singer from Columbus, Ohio, who took the reins of Killswitch early in its run, after the breakout second album, when Leach was suffering from mental health issues.
Jones led the Massachusetts band for a decade, from 2002 to 2012, until Leach returned to the fold. Normally, there might be some rivalry or tension between two such frontmen, but in this situation, they are friends.
While Killswitch Engage is on its first headlining tour since the start of the pandemic, the band did get to flex its muscles last summer as part of Knotfest with Slipknot.
This week, we checked in with the 43-year-old Leach, who, in 2021, also launched the lifestyle and culture podcast “Stoke the Fire.”
Q: What was it like for you to get back out there last summer on Knotfest?
A: It was pretty surreal. Honestly, the first few shows didn't feel real until I was sitting on the bunk in the bus, with no one there. And that’s the time I usually do my deepest thinking, when I’m alone on that bunk, ’cause it's the only private time you get when you're on the road. So there were moments where I just sat there and I kind of had tears in the corner of my eye, just like, “Wow, here we are. We're actually doing this again,” ’cause there was a point during all this where I truly wondered, “Are we done for a while? How long is this going to last? Are we still going to be able to do this?” You know, trying to figure out my life.
So, it really was a boost and a reassurance that, a) we could still do it physically, ’cause I do have a lot of self-doubts, but also just the fact that we somehow made it work with all the restrictions and the testing and all the things, all the loopholes we had to jump through. Hopefully, moving forward with this next tour it’s still making sure that people are comfortable in a fairly small space and wanting people to have a good time but also still having to adhere to certain restrictions. So, I think that tour paved the way to let us know what we can carry on doing this, despite the state of the world.
Q: Yeah, I mean there's a lot of stuff canceling even now, but you guys are pushing through.
A: Yep. I know. It's nerve-wracking and we did discuss whether or not we should wait, but with all the bands’ schedules, with the venues — we’ve already put this off for two years — we don’t think that if we weren't to do it now that we could actually pull it off somewhere down the road any time soon.
We got through the Slipknot one and hopefully people are going to the show with the mindset of, “You’ve got to be a little careful with yourself.” It’s self-responsibility, really. At the end of the day, it’s up to people to choose whether or not they go, and then how they act when they’re there. I’m not going to be jumping down in the crowd, throwing the mic in people’s faces or anything like that, which I used to do. So, it’s changed a bit. But at the same time, I think people just want to go and have a good time, and I’m sure people respect each other’s spaces and stuff like that. We’ll see.
Q: In my generation, we had a completely different Howard Jones…
A: Oh, I was into that Howard Jones, man. I like the ’80s. I’m an ’80s kid.
Q: What’s the relationship between you two guys? It hasn’t always been as congenial in situations like this.
A: Initially, it was just a civil relationship ’cause we didn’t really know each other. I knew him in passing through the hardcore scene of the ’90s, but I didn't really know the guy very well. But when I left the band and came back in, there was a lot of growing pains between those guys having to depart with him. When you tour with someone and you’re that close to somebody, [stuff] happens. So, he was like the divorced wife for a while and I just kept him at a distance. I didn’t try to reach out. I think I might have written him an email once, just telling them that I admired him and his abilities and what he’s done for the band and I'll do my best to carry the torch, something like that, ’cause I’m a sentimental kind of guy.
But our relationship didn’t really happen until probably four or five years ago, when he was coming back around and starting to feel himself out, because he was going through a rough patch as well when he left the band. So, once he started getting healthier and started playing with his other band before Light the Torch, which was called Devil You Know, he started to show his face a little bit and the moment he did, I immediately was like “I got to get to know this dude. If he’s going to be around, if he’s going to be that person, I don’t want to live in his shadow. I want to know who this person is.” And we became very fast friends after that, because I realized we had a lot in common and a lot of mutual respect. These days, I really haven’t had much contact with them, but I consider him a friend. I like the guy, he’s a good person, so I’m looking forward to having a good conversation with him on this tour.
Q: How did you get into this genre of music?
A: So, initially, for me, it was punk. You know, I grew up in Providence, Rhode Island. I first started going to shows around 1992 and that was when you had the early, early grunge stuff. In Providence, especially, you had a lot of art-rock, a lot of indie rock and a lot of dark, weird, punk, grindcore stuff. I grew up with bands like Drop Dead, who are legendary grindcore, political vegan, sort of activist kind of bands that really stood for something. So that’s kind of where I cut my teeth was on that sort of more extreme punk and crust. I fell into the straight-edge scene for a little while there as a kid. It was such a contrast to the nihilism of punk, the fact that there were people who cared about something, that had a cause, and you tried to live clean and care for the environment, go vegetarian, all these things. I loved that, thought that was great.
That sort of just morphed into metal. Metal really started to to rear its head, I’d say, in ‘95, ’96 and that Northeastern sort-of hardcore scene just happened. We were influenced by Metallica, Slayer, bands like that, as well as Minor Threat and The Misfits. So it was a really interesting clash of genres and I was just in the middle of it, you know, a young kid singing for, um, I don't even what you call it at the time, I guess metallic hardcore before it was coined metalcore. It was, for us, just taking these styles of music that we liked and smashing them together and you never knew what was going to come out and that's kind of what I was part of. I was in the middle of it in my teen years.
Q: Do you remember who you were seeing that was mashing those styles?
A: Absolutely. Yeah. For me, I would have to pinpoint European melodic metal, the band called Edge of Sanity. Even before that, Paradise Lost, My Dying Bride, sort of the Gothic melodic metal. They were mixing death metal growls with really pretty singing, female vocals, and male, sort of Peter Murphy gothy-style vocals. And I love that. I thought that was great. I was really into this blending of the quiet and angelic versus the growling and death-y. So I’m standing on the shoulders of giants as far as that style is concerned, and it really wasn’t a big style here in the States, you know. People were more focused on death metal and American hardcore, and Europe was the first scene to do that. A lot of Swedish influence, as well. It was equal parts that and, honestly, the band Faith No More. The album “Angel Dust” is probably the one that really turned my head as a young kid. Like, wow, this guy’s doing all kinds of vocals. When the part’s heavy, he doesn’t get heavy, he sings melodically; when the part’s mellow, he's going crazy. And to me, it was the contrast of what Mike Patton did, coupled with my love for European Gothic metal. I said, “How can we do this in our scene, our hardcore scene? How do I mix these styles?” That's kind of what I did. I just blended all of it like a huge smash of styles. What came out was what we did with Killswitch.
Q: Yeah, I saw Henry Rollins sort of goof on that style and I still can't get that out of my head.
A: [laughs] Yeah, I’m a big Henry Rollins guy and I know exactly what you’re talking about. And you know, he’s not wrong. Look, I even make fun of it myself, you know, like, it’s a signature sound and for some reason it caught on and it’s like the big choruses. I just think the style sort of got bastardized and became a little whiny, you know, where that wasn’t my intention. When we started doing it, it wasn't about whining about broken hearts and stuff like that. At least my era of it wasn’t. For me, it was more about, like, existentialism and spirituality and positive thinking and overcoming and sort of motivational hardcore kind of stuff, but it just morphed in with that sort of Hot Topic generation of music, you know, and I don’t fault it. People found themselves to that kind of music. I watched my younger sister really jump into that scene and there’s a lot of merit to that ’cause people were wearing their heart on their sleeves. So, it is what it is as far as the term metalcore is concerned, but it definitely has its roots in metal and hardcore, first and foremost.
Q: How has music been an outlet for you, with the mental health struggles that you’ve been through in your life?
A: Yeah, and continue to go through. Yeah, just for me, I’ve always just seen it as a way of therapy. When you sit down to write a song, what do you have to say? And I tend to lean more on that sense like you’re reading somebody’s journal entry, but being a little more poetic about it, so it's not so obvious. And I think for me there was a turning point when we were writing “Alive or Just Breathing” — the track “Just Barely Breathing” on that record is, again, a word I love to use ’cause it's so true, existential, sort of like, “Why are we here? What is this life about? What purpose do we have?” Sort of looking to the heavens like “God, do you exist?”
That whole idea for me has helped me so much and become my therapy, where I know, I’m not the only one who thinks that kind of stuff. I know I’m not the only one who deals with depression and anxiety and, when I was younger, suicidal thoughts. So for me, putting that out there for people to see, they relate to that. And I think that’s why some of the lyrics have just stuck, because everybody goes through that anguish. Everybody knows what it’s like to lose a loved one, to look at death and wonder, “Is that the end, or is that just a chapter in the next thing?”
Those deep things stay with me on a daily basis. So, to me, music is a byproduct of that. It’s very much my therapy for, you know, pondering those deeper questions and then sort of dealing with my mentally ill brain, which I think is a blessing and a curse as a creative person. It inspires me, it’s my muse, as well as a super pain in my ass when I try to get normal [stuff] done. But I think it’s all part of the package and I think it’s about relatability. I think people can relate to that [stuff]. I don’t mind being part grim and part hopeful all the time. Again, I think it’s a blessing and a curse.
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