Killswitch Engage
People associate Western Massachusetts with peace and quiet, which makes perfect sense given its mountains, bluffs and rolling hills and that Springfield was once known as “The City in a Forest.” But the region has a rich industrial heritage that includes Springfield Armory (1777-1968) and factories for Duryea Motor Wagon Company (1895-1900), Indian Motorcycle Company (1901-1953) and Rolls-Royce (1921-1931) and it produced some of the most famous industrial-strength bands of the 20th century, notably Dinosaur Jr., Sebadoh and Staind.
And Killswitch Engage has kept the noisier part of the area’s history alive in the 21st century on a global scale with a hardcore-and-death-metal cocktail called “metalcore,” though lead vocalist Jesse Leach says that term doesn’t describe the band’s true sound. “I never liked the term ‘metalcore.’ I don’t think it’s an accurate representation of the wide variety of bands that get lumped under that category,” he told Ultimate Guitar in 2018. “But I get it. People categorize it and put it into their own little category so they can describe stuff to somebody else. I like to say we’re more of a metal band. It is what it is. People are going to use that term whether I like it or not.”
Specific categorizations aside, Killswitch is considered to be a major part of the so-called “new wave of American heavy metal” that began in the ‘90s and grew rapidly through the early 2000s, and younger US metal acts like The Word Alive and Miss May and UK ones including Rise to Remain and Bring Me The Horizon have cited the band as a major influence. Since cutting their first demo in 1999, Killswitch has recorded nine studio LPs and three video albums, winning two Boston Music Awards and three Metal Hammer Golden Gods Awards in the process while being nominated for three Grammys and three Livewire Awards. Three of their albums have cracked the top 10 in the US and the UK, five have made the top 40 in the US, UK and multiple other countries and MTV included the band in its 2009 “Greatest Metal Bands of All Time” list.
FORMATON, NAME, INFLUENCES
Killswitch Engage formed in Westfield (about 15 miles from Springfield) in 1999 after the disbandment of two other groups, Overcast and Aftershock, the year before. The original lineup included former Nothing Stays Gold vocalist Jesse Leach; former Aftershock guitarist Joel Stroetzel; former Overcast bassist Mike D’Antonio; and former Aftershock guitarist and Berklee College of Music grad Adam Dutkiewicz on drums. Former Overcast guitarist Pete Cortese was in the band for a while in 2000 and 2001 and Howard Jones replaced Leach on vocals between 2002 and 2012, when Leach returned to the group. Following various other personnel changes, the current lineup is Leach, Stroetzel, Dutkiewicz, D’Antonio and former Blood Has Been Shed drummer Justin Foley.
The band’s name comes from the “Kill Switch” episode of The X-Files television series, which screenwriter William Gibson says he based on the name of the Seattle-based industrial band Kill Switch…Klick. In addition to his bass licks and songwriting contributions, D’Antonio designs all Killswitch’s album artwork and merchandise; he’s also designed art for other bands and for the New England Metal and Hardcore Fest. As for influences, members have cited Black Sabbath, Van Halen, Machine Head, Anthrax, Bad Brains, Megadeth, Suicidal Tendencies, Slayer and Faith No More, the last of which both Leach and Jones have said is their biggest. “I’d say that they probably influenced me more than any other band because I listened to them so much when they were active,” Jones told Terror Verlag in 2017. “I sing ‘The Last to Know’ in the shower all the time.”
EARLY APPEARANCES, DEBUT ALBUM, ALIVE OR JUST BREATHING
The band recorded a four-track demo in the fall of 1999 that included their first original song, “Soilborn,” and released it on November 18 that year at their first live show (opening for In Flames at The Palladium in Worcester). In July 2000, New Jersey-based Ferret Music issued their self-titled debut LP, which caught the ear of Roadrunner Records’ Carl Severson and Mike Gitter; the band signed with Roadrunner later that year and went on to cut six albums for the label. The first was Alive or Just Breathing, which Killswitch recorded at Zing Studios in Westfield and Roadrunner released in May 2002. The video for the song “My Last Serenade” saw heavy rotation on MTV’s Headbangers Ball, reached #37 in Billboard’s Top Heatseekers chart and #1 on the CMJ Loud Rock radio chart Reviews were unanimously strong, with Metal Review’s Erik Thomas calling it a “trendsetting, stellar must-own example of metalcore” and CMJ’s Kevin Boyce referring to it as “more addictive than crack cocaine that’s been smothered in caffeine and nicotine and drenched with chocolate.”
Two lineup changes came shortly after the release: first, the group became a quintet, with Dutkiewicz moving from drums to guitar and former Aftershock drummer Tom Gomes taking over kit duties; second, Howard Jones replaced Leach on lead vocals, remaining in that slot for over nine years. Interestingly, he wasn’t particularly interested in joining KIllswitch when he was invited to audition, he’s said. “I was like, ‘meh.’ I come from hardcore and dirtier metal, and Killswitch sounded so clean. But the more I listened to it, I realized there’s some really good songs,” he told Decibel magazine’s Andrew Parks in 2007. The band hit the road for the second half of 2002, crossing the US and making their debut appearances in the UK, Europe and Japan. In 2003, Gomes left and was replaced by current drummer Foley.
THE END OF HEARTACHE, (SET THIS) WORLD ABLAZE, AS DAYLIGHT DIES
Killswitch returned to Zing Studios to record their second Roadrunner release, The End of Heartache, which the label issued in May 2004 and fared far better than its predecessor commercially, critically and internationally. It hit #2 in the UK Rock & Metal Albums chart, #21 in the Billboard 200, #39 in the Australian Albums chart and Rock Hard magazine ranked it #401 in its 2005 list of “The 500 Greatest Rock & Metal Albums of All Time.” The title track was nominated for the Best Metal Performance Grammy in 2005 and in November that year the group recorded the live DVD (Set This) World Ablaze at The Palladium; the disc was certified gold in April 2006.
The band had become a major presence on the global scene by the time they cut their third Roadrunner album, As Daylight Dies, which the label released in November 2006 and peaked at #32 in the Billboard 200, #29 in Australia and #64 in the UK. The first single, “My Curse,” went to #21 in Billboard’s Hot Rock Songs chart and was included in the video games Guitar Hero, Sleeping Dogs, Legend of Rock, Burnout Dominator and Burnout Paradise.
OTHER ROADRUNNER ALBUMS, ATONEMENT, THIS CONSEQUENCE
Killswitch recorded three more albums for Roadrunner, the first being a self-titled disc issued in June 2009 that hit #1 in the UK Rock & Metal Albums chart, #7 in the Billboard 200 and #12 in Australia, making it their most commercially successful outing to date. Also in 2009, and their rendition of Dio’s “Holy Diver” (for the compilation High Voltage!: A Brief History of Rock) made it to #12 in the Billboard Hot Rock Songs chart. Jones left the band in early 2012, saying the touring lifestyle had made it hard to manage his type-2 diabetes, and original vocalist Leach returned after the group had auditioned several other options.
The band’s next album, 2013’s Disarm the Descent, sent them further into the rock-star stratosphere when it hit #1 in Billboard’s Top Rock Albums and Top Hard Rock Albums charts, #2 in the UK Rock & Metal Albums chart and #6 in Canada and Australia. Their final Roadrunner LP, Incarnate, cemented their place in metal’s upper echelon by sailing to #1 in Billboard’s Top Rock Albums and Top Hard Rock Albums chart, #1 in the UK Top Rock & Metal Albums chart, #4 in Canada and #5 in Australia.
In late 2018, the band signed with Metal Blade Records in the US and Music for Nations in the UK as part of a deal with Columbia/Sony. Their first album under the new arrangement was 2019’s Atonement, which went to #13 in the Billboard 200 and UK Albums charts but made it to #4 in Australia. Their latest album is This Consequence, issued in February 2025, which hit #1 In the UK Rock & Metal Albums chart, #2 in the UK Independent Albums charts, #25 in the Billboard Independent Albums chart and #41 in Billboard’s Top Rock & Alternative chart. The band’s 27-city tour of North America to support the disc ended with a sold-out show at the 9,500-capacity Cross Insurance Arena in Portland, Maine.
Vocalist Leach says the lyrical themes on The Consequence are a metaphor for how he tries to live his life. “Whatever you’re going through, just keep going through it. Walk through the fire,” he told Sean McLellan of New Noise magazine soon after the album’s release. “Once you do that, the wisdom that you gain, that knowledge that you gain, will give you a sense of hope and positivity that you could have never imagined, had you not gone through that. That’s really the journey of This Consequence: dealing with the darkness. Not running from it, not numbing it, not drinking it away, not drugging it away. Sit with that shit, and what do you have to learn from it? What are your demons teaching you?”
(by D.S. Monahan)
