Killswitch Engage‘s Jesse Leach guides us through the making of the band’s latest album ‘This Consequence’, out now via Metal Blade Records.
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“I feel changed. I feel like a man with more confidence and more compassion. And my confidence is in the fact that I believe in everything that I’ve written, you know, because I wrote it in a way where I’m not bashing anything over anybody’s head. I’m simply asking people to do better.”
Jesse Leach smiles, at ease as he discusses the statement and intention behind ‘This Consequence’, the first new studio release from Killswitch Engage for six years. Written and recorded as Leach assessed the post-pandemic world around him, it aims not to divide but to unify those with opposing beliefs under one truth – that every now and then, music has the power to change the world.
“To be able to have a message and a vehicle like Killswitch Engage to deliver that message to people is incredible. It gives me a sense of purpose that I feel like I haven’t had in a long time.”
Revitalised and renewed, Leach guides Rock Sound through the making of their ninth album as his band celebrates its milestone 25th anniversary.
THE SOUND
“Unfortunately, it was kind of a bit of a false start. I had this idea of wanting to put out something very positive, overtly positive, because I felt like that’s what the world needed to hear. That’s the message I wanted to bring.”
Yet for Leach, tapping into the passion and the anger before flipping it into something positive sounding was proving to be a difficult task, calling for some major rewrites in the studio.
“I had to sit with it and rediscover myself. I think I lost a bit of my artistic voice from the pandemic and the aftermath of that, and I had to really rethink and realize that there was some suppressed frustration and anger just beneath the surface, just based on my observations of what we all went through, how we treated each other, how the world continues to move towards war and division, and all the things that were fed through social media and mainstream media. I turned my attention towards that, and I walked towards my anger.”
The turning point came with the song ‘Broken Glass’, the first song written for the record, its punishing screams and marching rhythm lead a chugging, battlecharge of guitars. A call to arms that led the way for the remainder of the album’s writing and recording sessions.
“I think all of us in the band saw there was an energy that felt fresh, it felt real, it felt raw. So it took me a little while to get there, but once I got there, the flood gates opened and all of the anger and frustration was starting to filter through.”
Channeling the worldwide upheaval and seismic changes of the last few years into music was never going to be an easy task but through the cathartic release of the passionately delivered vocal lines on the likes of ‘I Believe’, Leach found a way to process these feelings within his songwriting.
“If I go through something traumatic, it takes me a long time to sift through it”, he reflects. “I’m not one of those people that just can verbally vomit on people and be over it. I ruminate, I sit with it and I’m careful on how I speak about it, because I want to consider people. I have compassion for humanity, so I don’t want the message to be misconstrued or hit someone in a way where they feel offended or not open to the message. So that takes time, that takes care, that takes energy, it takes consideration. I was able to do all that by the grace of my band, even when they were frustrated with me because I kept hitting a wall with my writing and things just weren’t coming out right. They gave me grace and allowed me to really process what I wanted to say. I’m so grateful I got to express these things and hopefully deliver a message that will help some people.”
“To me, music is therapy”, he continues. “It is writing music, listening to music. If I’m in a bad mood, I put a certain song on. I am either able to sift through that bad mood or it changes. My mood music has this incredible ability to do that, so I’m honored to be part of that in any way, shape or form, to help somebody in some way through what I’m saying and through how it sounds.”
THE LYRICS
“The majority of us have a lot more in common than we do differences and the conversation needs to be open”, Jesse says as he reflects on the overarching themes of the record. “The word conversation is very important here. I’m not talking about arguments. I’m talking about actual conversation.”
“That discourse, it doesn’t happen enough, but if it can happen, it allows you to gain wisdom, it allows you to gain compassion for somebody. You can disagree, but if you’re doing it from a place of kindness and a desire to understand them, then the discourse is positive and then you gain something from that. Then you have a chance to actually make your point heard. Because the moment you attack somebody, their guard is up. You’re not getting anywhere.”
Many artists have written about that incredibly volatile and strange time we all went through five years ago. On the one hand, this can allow the artist to reveal personal stories that everyone listening can still relate to and attach to their own experience. But the challenge as a songwriter in addressing those moments, and that time period, is in finding a way to make it feel evergreen rather than a musical time capsule.
“I think it was a natural process. You could take a song that I’ve written that might be specific, like ‘Abandon Us’ for example, which you could aim at the failures of the people that hold sway and power over us. But you could also apply that to a relationship. So I’m always trying to write something where you as a listener can bring your own interpretation.”
“I was dealing with the emotions and the feelings of that time, but not pointing anyone in a specific direction”, he continues. “I feel like division was weaponized during that time, and we allowed it to happen as a society. We allowed all that chaos to happen. We can do better, and hopefully there’s lessons learned. I feel like we’re starting to move through a bit of an age of reason where we can start to talk about these things. We can admit that maybe we were wrong when we were aggressive towards somebody for not thinking exactly the way we thought. And I think underneath all of that was fear. I think fear comes from pain comes from grief comes from hurt. And fear can either be something that you harness and move through, or it can spiral out of control and create panic and hatred and all of these things. So for me, it’s addressing these issues as an artist and trying to bring this general conversation to the table about humanity.”
“We also need to realize the power that we have as common people”, he concludes. “We far outnumber those people who are in power that are benefiting from our division. I’m doing my best to give an alternative perspective. You don’t have to fall in line in lockstep with the agenda. You don’t have to believe what they tell you to believe. Question it and do it for your sake, for your happiness, but also for all of us in our community, the world. You have a choice to make with your actions and your words. Do better.”
THE COLLABORATORS
Key to Leach’s ability to rework and rewrite his contributions to the album was the faith and trust his bandmates afforded him, a testament to their longstanding relationship and friendship.
“They’re able to tell me if I’m not doing good enough and I accept the criticism and change. All of us care enough to put in that kind of effort where people didn’t shy away when things weren’t clicking. Adam (Dutkiewicz, guitar) and I had many conversations about how we make this better and sound genuine. There was a moment where we were in the studio together. I had vocal issues as well, I was pushing a lot and I had to learn how to let technique take over and allow the voice to feel free. Adam and I will sit in a room to do vocals. He’ll be at the computer and I’ll be behind him, tracking. That’s how we’ve worked on every record. There was a moment where he spun his chair around and he looked at me, and he says ‘There you are. That’s what I’m talking about’ and he gave me a big hug. From that moment on, we knew the record was on the right path.”
Maintaining that relationship with your fellow musicians 25 years on is a rarity, a delightful and fortuitous conclusion to all the ups and downs and the odd, winding pathways that life in a group can lead you down.
“My admiration for those guys as not just musicians, but as people, hasn’t changed that much”, Leach reveals. “The guys that I met way back then were younger, we were dumber, more silly and more immature. But the heart and the soul of those guys, and I would even put Justin (Foley, drummer) in this too even though I didn’t really know him until a little bit later on, the character that those guys have is apparent when you see interviews with any of them or if you’ve ever met or spent any time with them. Even the way that we present ourselves on stage, there’s a genuineness there. They’re real people. We’re regular guys that care a lot about our craft. I’m happy to say that hasn’t changed. Not one of those guys, to me, is an asshole or a jackass. They’re my pals. The understanding of how to make a song and how to put out a record and how to tour and how to treat opening bands and how to treat fans, as much as it’s changed through the years, it’s very much the same as when we started. The heart and soul of this band is very much still intact and that, to me, is beautiful because I don’t know many bands that can say that.”
THE FUTURE
As fans begin to familiarize themselves with this latest full length offering from the band, Leach is understandably desperate to get these songs out on the road. With a series of headline dates beginning in March, they will then hit the newly announced Summer Of Loud tour alongside their contemporaries in Beartooth, I Prevail and Parkway Drive, delivering their particular brand of metal to new and hungry audiences across the US. With all that to come, which particular tracks are the ones he is most excited to finally play?
“All of them really, man”, he laughs. “I could pick any one of them. But I guess for me, the one that I have this feeling in my heart of hearts is going to do something is ‘I Believe’. Just from a standpoint of lyricism and intention, that song is about wanting to inject hope. I think hope and faith are such powerful things for us in a positive way. I cling to things like that during dark times. I have this inherent belief that things will get better. It’s served me well through times of survival, and that message to me is important. So my hope in my heart is that when we do play that song live, and I see people singing along, and I make that eye contact, and I see hope in somebody’s face, that connection, that power, that’s the stuff for me. That is what keeps me going and wanting to do this, leaving my home and going out on the road for months at a time. It’s because of that purpose, that fulfilment that I get when I see that I’ve instilled something positive in somebody else and it’s coming back at me in real time through the performance. Being able to jump off the stage, get into the crowd and put a microphone to somebody’s face and they know every word – they look at me, and they’re singing to me, and I’m singing to them. There’s nothing like that in the world. No drug, no relationship; that synergy, that feeling, that spirituality, if you will, is untouchable. I love that, and I know some of these songs are going to bring that out in people.”
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