For Jesse Leach, frontman of Killswitch Engage, the band’s live show isn’t about perfection, but about presence, flaws and all.
In a new interview with Rock Feed, Leach offered an unfiltered perspective on what gives his band its edge when performing live. “It’s real. It’s dudes playing instruments. There are no computers,” he said. “We have a sample thing that does stuff from the record, but what you’re hearing on the record, we do our best to imitate that live without tracks. No offense to bands who run tracks, but for us, it’s a point of pride that we don’t do that.”
That commitment to raw authenticity comes with risk, especially when you’re not at your best. “If I’m a little tired, you’re gonna hear it. I had years where I was a raging drunk, and you could hear it in my voice, and I had the surgery in 2018,” Leach recalled. “So, for me, 2018 forward, I’ve been hyper-focused on getting better as a vocalist because live, you’re gonna hear my flaws. And that’s good. I like flaws, personally.”
His appreciation for imperfection is rooted in his love of punk, hardcore, and raw rock. “A lot of the music I like to listen to has got that edge to it, whether it’s punk rock or rock and roll or hardcore. I like when you can hear, this went a little sideways here, and people keep it on the record,” he said.
But Killswitch Engage isn’t a lo-fi band. Their albums are polished, their performances rehearsed. Still, that human element remains. “The record’s squeaky clean. The live performance is the best that we can get there, but it’s never gonna be perfect,” Leach said. “And most of the time, when we get off stage, it’s not immediately a good show. It’s like the list of grievances. And it’s brutal sometimes.”
There’s a process behind the performance — one that includes tough self-reflection. “We even have our sound guy record, and we have to listen to the recordings. And if I messed up, I’ve gotta listen to it. So, if I have a bad night, I hear about it. And the next day I’m, like, ‘Sorry, guys.’ But I know what I have to work on. So come the next night. I’m not screwing up that part. But I wouldn’t have it any other way. Again, it’s just that we care that much. The quality control stays high.”
The same raw, hands-on spirit carries over into Leach’s views on technology in music, particularly the rise of artificial intelligence. “It is wild. For me, there’s nothing better than, and some of the stuff I really like to listen to out on the road is a person with an acoustic guitar playing a song. And you can hear the finger scratches on the strings, you can hear the voice kind of go a little bit. Like a live recording of someone playing an acoustic guitar and singing, and that’s it, that’s some of my favorite stuff to listen to, because you’re getting the human element.”
Even though he sees potential for AI to serve as a creative tool, Leach doesn’t hide his unease. “A.I., even the videos I see on Instagram, if I’m scrolling and I see an A.I. video, I just get slightly uncomfortable. Some of it is cool, and I get that it’s a tool we can use, but I’m still uncomfortable with it. I’m a child of the ’80s. I mentioned 1984, I mentioned They Live and all those science-fiction movies, Matrix, trying to warn us, Terminator. We’re already there. We’re there already, which is wild to me.”
Leach isn’t rejecting the technology entirely, but he’s wary of what might be lost if art is reduced to an algorithm. “I’m not a curmudgeon, that’s, like, ‘No A.I.’ A.I. can be used as a tool to help with little things. But as far as creativity goes, I can’t ever see myself using it,” he explained. “I just love being an artist, whether that’s just writing lyrics or even drawing on a piece of paper, doodling, or coming up with a logo or whatever it is that makes me happy as an artist. I don’t want that taken away for the sake of convenience.”
And there’s a deeper concern — the erosion of truth. “That ChatGPT is wild… My thing, too, is because it’s digital and not in print, like, you can read a book, it can change. So the definition of things can change without us even realizing it. That’s, to me, where things get a little scary… How do you know what you’re getting is the truth? You don’t know… It’s a weird thing to navigate.”
At the core of his message is a belief in the enduring power of humanity — something no algorithm can truly replicate. “The human element will always be something that will come through, whether that’s music or film or writing or whatever. Even people who are using A.I. to write songs, that’s wild to me.”
Killswitch Engage released their latest album, This Consequence, on February 21 via Metal Blade. It marks their ninth full-length studio effort and the sixth with Leach since his return to the band in 2012. Fittingly, it arrives at a moment when the very nature of creativity is being questioned. Leach’s answer, though, is as clear as it is defiant: stay real, flaws and all.
