Interview with Killswitch Engage; Bassist Mike D’Antonio Talks ‘Disarm The Descent’ in MAD Detail

Metalcore giants Killswitch Engage are still roaring across the globe on their “Disarm The Descent” tour. I caught up with them at their hometown show, here in Boston, MA, at the end of last year. I got to talk at length with bassist Mike D’Antonio about the journey KsE has been through, his inside perspective on the band, and his role as a musician, designer and member of a ridiculously talented and fun band. Enjoy!

KsE has had a great year – congrats on the new album, first of all.
D’Antonio: Thanks!

As someone on the “inside”, who’s been there from the beginning, what has your perspective been on how the band has changed, if it has changed at all, in terms of communication, the way you do music etc.?
D’Antonio: I guess whenever you start a band, you never guess that it’s going to last at all, so you kinda scramble and get as many players as you can rely on together as possible. At that point, Jesse just wasn’t sure what he wanted to do, so it really felt like a solid band but we knew there were some problems here and there. Jesse left, we got Howard, and things seemed stronger than ever but it was kinda short-lived. We’ve been doing this for 14 years now, and it’s hard not to get jaded even though it’s the best job in the world! We won the band lottery but even the greatest job in the world can get to be tedious. But I gotta say now that Jesse’s back, it feels like a real band again. Everyone feels like they’re on the same page, it’s real solid, super happy to be out, everyone’s looking at touring through the “new guy’s” eyes, so it seems like it’s all brand new again.

Yeah, and from the last time we spoke with Jesse, he definitely has the “rebirth” perspective.
D’Antonio: Yeah, very positive, the whole sense of renewal.

I’m sure it’s contagious!
D’Antonio: It is! It definitely is.

Check out the song “Always “

That’s great! So the band really exploded with The End of Heartache. Was Jesse’s re-induction into the band really seamless or does the rest of the band still feel the magnitude of the 10 years when he was away from the scene?
D’Antonio: Well, we had been friends with him the entire time, and he’s sung backup here and there – just to show the fans that there’s no hard feelings and nothing’s happened. So when we were talking about getting another singer, or having Jesse back in the band, it was a big decision. Not many bands come back from a third singer, and we just weren’t 100% sure if Jesse could do the Howard stuff, because it’s really intricate as far as… you gotta be a really good singer to pull it off. And we knew Jesse was a good singer but we weren’t sure how it would go. So we held tryouts in New York, and Jesse was like, “I want to try out; I don’t want any special treatment.” And we played like 14 songs – ¾ of them were Howard tunes – and he nailed every single one of them. Our favorite part was that he didn’t sound like Howard – he sounded like Jesse; he gave it his own twist. That was very inspiring to us and we fell in love with it. We were like, that’s what we want to do, right there.

What’s the hardest thing about resolving matters like the departure of a core member where professionalism and personalism come head to head? On one hand, as a professional musician, you want what’s best for the band – to stay as a functioning unit – but on the other hand, on a personal level, you want what’s best for your friend.
D’Antonio: The fact is the band is a business, whether you want it to be or not; when all the cogs aren’t working properly, the thing isn’t gonna run. You have to make it so the company works correctly. We’ve rarely had to fire anybody – we’ve had crew who have been with us for years at this point. We just love whoever we’re around and something has to really go wrong in order to part ways with somebody. It’s got to be what’s best for the band. Personal issues aside, you can always remain friends with the person.

That’s absolutely true. In metal, bass is the foundation of the music, but often has a background role, unlike RnB, funk, and jazz – although that’s changing now, with a resurgence of 6-stringed bass and all that. In this band, you provide a lot of the structure and you also have your moments to shine – just before breakdowns for instance. What are your thoughts on the role of bass in metal, and how have you matured as a bassist over the years?
D’Antonio: Every band is different, every type of metal band is different. I can only really speak to this band in how it relates to bass. We have a heavy foundation, my guys don’t want me to go off the handle too much because muddies up the crunchy guitar – this is more of a guitar band, people hear the guitar more. A lot of the time when they write demos, they’d already have the bass parts down, and I don’t want to step on anything they wrote or make them feel bad. Sometimes it’s their vision, so I just play what they want me to play, and in the meantime, I’ll do little fills here and there when we’re recording. ‘Cause Adam really has the vision of what the song is gonna be. I try to throw in that stuff as much as possible, but the real power comes from “dumbing down” a lot of stuff, playing a lot of “root” stuff to really build up that foundation, stay with the drums. I’m not a soloist, man. I’m not the type of guy to be like “look at me!” (laughs) I’m pretty happy with what’s going on with the band.

Do you have any part in the lyrics, overarching themes of songs/albums?
D’Antonio: No, I like to stay out of that. I used to write lyrics for my old band, Overcast, and it used to take to some pretty dark places that I don’t wanna go anymore, and Jesse is such a positive singer; I don’t write like that at all. He’s got more than enough creativity to pull that off.

And I think it really does show in this latest album; I feel like a lot of the themes are coming from him – new beginnings, rebirth and returning in general….
D’Antonio: Yep! We had all the music written before he joined the band but he definitely put his stamp on it with some great, heartfelt lyrics. You can really feel the emotion in the timbre of his voice.

How do you guys decide on the combination of songs for your setlist? I can imagine some songs are staples, like “A New Awakening” for this tour.
D’Antonio: It’s a lot of “try and see what gets a reaction”. We almost played the entire new album in bits and pieces throughout this past year we’ve been touring, just to see which ones people are gonna gravitate towards and we still don’t have the clearest grasp on which songs work and which don’t. It’s way different in Europe than in the States. Singalongs in Europe are ridiculous, whereas people are still kinda learning the stuff here. So it has to be two different kinds of setlists. But it’s still trial-and-error. We have so many of the staple type songs that we know are gonna work for festivals and metal tours. Justin actually comes up with a lot of our setlist ins and outs – he’s done it so many times that we’re just like, “Hey Justin, what are we doing tonight?”

I’m sure there’s a certain kind of observance or vigilance he has to maintain, to notice the crowd’s response to each song.
D’Antonio: Yeah! He actually keeps a daily diary of every show we’ve ever been on – he’s got list of every setlist we’ve ever had, so he’s the best judge on what to do next. He does it every night.

That’s awesome. So artwork! This album – Disarm The Descent – you have the woman, you have the flames… what went through your mind as you were designing it?
D’Antonio: Well I have a good friend who took a photo of a girl in sort of a Day of the Dead makeup, with a veil blowing in the breeze. I really liked the look, I think it looked more like smoke, and ours now looks more like flames. I hired a photographer to do a bunch of shots. We also hired a bunch of different graphic designers to do a bunch of different covers, to see which one was gonna be the best. I like to give the guys as many options as possible, and I don’t force the fact that I do artwork on them, and that I have to do the cover. So we had a bunch of people doing stuff – it just so happened that the one I hired the photographer was the one that everyone agreed on. Jesse took one look at it and said right away, “That totally relates to this song, this song and that song, and here’s why,” and he ran down a list of all these lyrics that really worked with the cover, so luckily it worked out! But it’s very ethereal, kinda mystical, with the flames kinda representing rebirth. It actually came down to Jesse telling me exactly how he wanted the hands to look, and we had a bunch of different photos where some were different hand gestures. The one we used was the one he recommended.

Is there a difference in designing for your own band versus other bands?
D’Antonio: Yeah I guess I do prefer to keep all the better stuff… for my band…? (laughs) Which I guess is selfish in a way. It just depends on the project. Crowbar is my favourite band and I really wanted to do a bang-up job on their last record, so I put as much time and effort as I possibly could into that, and I really liked what I came up with. For major bands that I really love, I’m gonna go above and beyond and spend way more time than I need to because I want to show them that I love them or whatever. But I always try as hard as I possibly can for everybody. It really has to look like the band too – it has to really portray them.

Right, that was my next question – what’s your process? So you do consider the band as a whole, the album theme and all that, or do you just try to come up with something that looks really cool?
D’Antonio: I’ll start off and just do a bunch of t-shirts – tons of t-shirt designs – and then I’ll go into album artwork and maybe try to get at least a cover. And once you have the cover, then you can go back to the t-shirt designs and start putting them into the layout, and then you have a ton of artwork for all the pages. Then, you can shape the artwork to have the same color scheme or to work better with each other, and before you know it, you have an entire package that looks very similar and cohesive. I usually try to spend as much time doing as many t-shirt designs as possible, just like simple stuff that I can use later.

Check out the song “In Due Time”

If you had to describe your band members in one word, an adjective or noun or anything, what would it be?
D’Antonio: Jesse: Hmm… emotional. Adam: Obnoxious (laughs). Justin: Shy.

So he really is huh? From our perspective, it’s just well… he’s quiet… just chilling. (laughs)
D’Antonio: He is quiet, except if he’s watching baseball or some sort of sporting game, then he’s very outlandishly wild. Sportsrage!

And I guess he’s happy to be back (regarding his injury)?
D’Antonio: Yeah, he is! He’s still got a bit of soreness. He’s got a big plate about 6-7 inches wide and then like 40 screws, because I guess you grow bone back. He broke his collarbone and there’s a piece missing so they have to wait until it grows back. Pretty gnarly. And Joel would be… sloth. ‘Cause he sleeps all day long.

(Laughs) Do you have any guilty pleasures music-wise, or even collective ones as a band?
D’Antonio: (To his wife) Do I have any guilty pleasures music-wise? I like Lady Gaga! I don’t like Justin Timberlake.

Wife: You do like some songs!

I guess she would know. (laughs)
D’Antonio: I can’t think of any Justin Timberlake song I like. I dunno… “Dick In A Box”? (laughs)

Good choice! Anything else I missed or any shoutout to the fans?
D’Antonio: Yes! Well, I do want to say thank you to the fans for sticking by us. Like you said in the beginning of the interview, there’s been a lot of changes. I just appreciate that people still find us relevant and come to shows. It means a lot to us, it’s very heartwarming, so we’ll try to make the best music possible for our awesome fans!