In a new interview with The Break Down With Nath & Johnny, KILLSWITCH ENGAGE vocalist Jesse Leach spoke about the band’s upcoming upcoming album, “This Consequence”, due on February 21, 2025 via Metal Blade. “This Consequence” is KILLSWITCH ENGAGE‘s ninth album overall, and sixth with Leach, who rejoined the band in 2012. Asked if he and his bandmates felt any pressure to deliver the goods this time around, Jesse said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “The only pressure that I felt was pressure we put on ourselves, which is a lot. I would say it’s more so than any other pressure. And the quality control on this one was high — a lot of rewrites, a lot of hard thinking, a lot of course correcting. I think we just all felt like we have to deliver something that feels important, feels like it’s coming from a really genuine, heartfelt place. And part of that process was really digging deep into my, I think, suppressed anger and frustration of just the state of the world and coming out of the pandemic and all the things I saw and witnessed during the pandemic and the power struggle between rich and poor and continuing to fight endless wars and just all that. So I just brought it on my shoulders and digested it and sat with it and just put everything I had into this album.”
Asked whether he and his KILLSWITCH ENGAGE bandmates feel the need to please their fans every time they release a new album or if they just want to make the best music they can, regardless of what other people think about it, Jesse replied: “Yeah, I think it’s the latter, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t cross my mind that people are gonna hear it, and, of course, you hope they like what you’re doing, but I think if you are being genuine as an artist, the more important thing is how do you feel about it? And then secondary to that is how do my bandmates feel about it? Are they stoked on it? And if the internal unit is firing on all cylinders and we’re, like, ‘Yes, this is a great record,’ hopefully, chances are people are gonna react in a positive way towards it. So, yeah, I’m happy so far ’cause the reception has been great, but if people didn’t like it as much, I would almost in my head be, like, ‘Well, I still believe in it, man. I still feel great about it.'”
Leach also discussed KILLSWITCH ENGAGE‘s musical evolution and the fact that the fans have stuck by the band throughout the process. “I think it’s just generous of the fans to be along for this ride,” he said. “We are pushing to do things that are out of our comfort zone, pushing the genre of what we’re known as our signature sound, which I think we have done on this record — embracing a bit of the elements we’re all inspired by. There’s definitely more aggression on this one, but, to me, at the end of the day, it is because of the fans; the fans are the ones propelling us forward. We could put out music and love it, but if no one gives a shit about it, then it doesn’t matter. So the support we’re getting is incredible, and we’re super aware of it and grateful for it.”
In a recent interview with Joshua Toomey of the “Talk Toomey” podcast, Leach stated about the “dark”, “angry” and “aggressive” nature of “This Consequence”: “Yeah, I think angry, dark and aggressive, for better or for worse, is kind of what the world needs right now, I think, therapeutically speaking. I think a lot of us can relate to frustration, anger, betrayal, all those things, and that’s kind of what I highlighted lyrically with this album; I was really focusing on that stuff. But I will say this: if you really read into the lyrics, there’s a positivity through a righteous anger, anger that wants to sort of wake people up and have people choose their own path instead of just the blind leading the blind, which is what we see so much in society and our governments and organized religion and all these things that control us as people. It’s very much about breaking out of the matrix, if you will, and carving your own path. And there’s a righteous anger underneath all of it, and that’s where the positivity lies. But I think with metal music, the great thing about it is you can talk about dark stuff and it is therapeutic. That’s why a lot of us get into this kind of music.”
Jesse also talked about the lyrical inspiration for the first single from “This Consequence”, a song called “Forever Aligned”, which was made available in November. Speaking specifically about the line “now my tongue must confess”, Jesse said: “Yeah, I’m always weaving in and out… I was raised by a minister, I was raised in a Christian home, so even though I don’t subscribe to organized religion anymore, I like using biblical words here and there to sort of tie in the themes. I’m very much a believer in in God, if you will, in general. I know people roll their eyes when other people say that, but my journey has been such where I’ve just seen much deeper things that I don’t think can be defined by a particular human organized religion. And ‘Forever Aligned’ is about that. It’s about love. It’s about, first and foremost, the song was inspired by the love I have for my wife and the relationship we were able to have during the pandemic, especially, where it was just the two of us, nobody else, and really learning what love and sacrifice is, and then weaving that into what I believe God is. God is love, to keep it really general for people to understand. We can try to tap into that as humans, that word ‘love’, but it’s far beyond human comprehension. So that song is very much about being broken and in a dark place and finding salvation through love.”
Elsewhere in the chat, Leach touched upon his growth as a vocalist since the release of 2019’s “Atonement” LP, saying: “Truth be told, [‘This Consequence’] was very difficult for me to write and sort of find my inspiration again. And even vocally, learning new techniques, like the vocal fry, and trying to add that into my old technique and still sound like me, it was a long, hard process.
“Especially after my vocal surgery in 2018, I relearned how to speak differently — I speak differently than I did,” he explained. “I’m more measured; I make sure my voice is placed in the right place. And through that, it went into my vocals, my singing, especially. I was really focusing on my singing first and foremost to stay in key and not go flat or sharp. Then it was, like, my screams were — I was so paranoid. I was really worried about… We do three shows in a row. That fourth show, I’m, like, ‘It’s getting difficult. I can feel the swelling happening.’ So I was really studying vocal fry, ’cause you can do a lot of cool stuff with fry, but me with my voice, it has such a signature sound to it, I guess, according to Adam [Dutkiewicz, KILLSWITCH ENGAGE guitarist and producer], at least, that if I just went into that new technique completely, the lows were missing something, my yelling. It different. So I was going into these demos just doing fry, saving my voice, especially thinking that, once I get to the studio, it’s going to be fatiguing; we’re doing four- or five-hour sessions. But I kept falling flat and the voice just didn’t sound right. For some of the high stuff, it works, but for the lower, mid stuff and for the death metal growls, that’s all old school… It’s the old-school way, the way we all started doing it in the late ’80s and early ’90s. So I’ve learned, thankfully, through a lot of trial and error, and this album had a lot to do with it, to blend the styles. So I can do my old-school stuff, and then I can sort of blend in some of the vocal fry to hit those crazy, maniacal-sounding highs without it destroying my voice.”
“Atonement” was released in August 2019 via Metal Blade Records in the U.S. and Sony Music Entertainment in the rest of the world. The disc featured guest appearances by former KILLSWITCH ENGAGE singer Howard Jones and TESTAMENT frontman Chuck Billy. It marked the band’s third full-length release since the return of Leach.
KILLSWITCH ENGAGE will embark on a headline tour in March 2025. It’s their first tour of North America since late 2022. The trek will feature support from KUBLAI KHAN TX, FIT FOR A KING and FROZEN SOUL, and will kick off on March 5 in Nashville and runs through April 12 in Portland, Maine.