Adam Dutkiewicz – Killswitch Engage – Uber Rock Interview Exclusive

Written by Rob Watkins
Saturday, 25 May 2013 03:30
Killswitch Engage guitarist Adam Dutkiewicz was sick when the band’s recent UK tour hit Cardiff – luckily, the gig was the hottest in known history meaning that he sweated his fever out before the night was through. Uber Rock’s Rob Watkins caught up with the guitarist and managed to grab a few answers to all-important questions about KSE’s latest album, ‘Disarm The Descent’, and the return of Jesse Leach…

 

How would you sum up Killswitch Engage’s career up to 2013 and how would you best describe your music?

 

Lucky and loud, yelling (Ha Ha Ha), yeah pretty much.

 

You’ve had a great career to be honest.

 

Yeah, we’re very, very lucky to be doing what we’re doing.

 

What have been your greatest achievements as a band and what is left for the band to achieve on a musical level?

 

To be honest with you, just the fact that we have just a dedicated fan base is the biggest achievement in my eyes, the people who stick by us and come to the shows and support us. It’s so great to do that and have that existing for 12-13 years is pretty crazy to me.

With album number six, ‘Disarm The Descent’, now on the shelves has the songwriting process changed over the years and what goes into that particular process?

 

No, the songwriting process is the exact same. We started writing the record before Jesse came back to the band and once he came in he, of course, wrote his lyrics and we tweaked them to fit the music and that was it – that’s usually how we do things, yeah.

 

Whilst on the subject of the ‘Disarm’ opus, has the return of Jesse Leach into the band’s ranks created an almost musical rebirth to your early days in terms of fresh approach and drive?

 

No, not necessarily. As I said we started writing the record before he came back to the band and I think in all of our minds we wanted to make a more aggressive record, you know, before he even came into the picture. Maybe once he heard the music it maybe changed the way he approached his writing style; you know Jesse’s the kind of guy who’s able to fit in with our style in a smooth sort of way and he and I work together really well in the studio.

 

That’s obviously so important, that chemistry in the studio.

 

Oh yeah, yeah of course.

 

What bands influenced and inspired the group originally and are there any bands currently out there that have influenced you in the last decade?

 

Well it’s always been the old school hardcore or old metal and stuff like that and, you know, bands like In Flames, and we grew up with a lot of punk and a lot of hardcore roots, a lot of the New York scene. It’s funny, we’re still kinda stuck in that mode, we’ll always have our favourites, you know.

 

So how has the tour been going so far?

 

Yeah, the tour’s been great, especially the UK dates – all sold out all five of them. Yeah, everybody seems excited for us and we’re really happy to be able to do it.

 

Having sold out the originally announced Solus venue here in Cardiff and then having it upgraded to the Great Hall and selling that out is a real achievement in the current musical climate.

 

Cool, awesome, that’s great.

 

So what does the future hold for Killswitch Engage?

 

Just lots of touring right now. Since we just put the record out the need to play shows is there and people wanna come out and see us and check the new material out, so we’re gonna do that of course for sure.

 

What are your views on the record business? Has it changed over the years for better or worse in terms of manufactured music, the digital age and so on?

 

I don’t know, maybe it’s me just getting old but, yeah, things have changed a lot. A lot of things are happening that I don’t necessarily care for musically, you know, but I come from an old school mentality that you need your instruments and you should be able to play them and record them without trickery and do your thing instead of relying on electronics and whatnot and blah blah blah, but I do like some electronic music a lot but, you know, I grew up on Rock and Roll man, dudes playing instruments.

 

And that’s what tonight is all about…

 

Yeah, exactly.

 

Picture this: KSE headlining a major open air festival with five other bands – alive, dead or dysfunctional: who would make up the rest of the bill?

 

Oh gee…if we were headlining and we had to choose, oh god….I’m too sick to think of this! Elvis, The Beatles, Decapitated (Ha Ha) just to throw everybody through a loop, Pink Floyd and Cannibal Corpse, and it would be really heavy then really mellow, that would be pretty cool.

 

What would you have on the rider?

 

All of the beer in whatever country we were in, I mean like all of it, and you’d have to go to that festival to drink beer!

 

A massive thank you to Adam Dutkiewicz from Killswitch Engage for doing the interview whilst feeling unwell but hopefully sitting out in the Cardiff bank holiday sunshine brought some remedy to him.

 

http://www.killswitchengage.com/