Killswitch Engage frontman Jesse Leach has laid out the philosophy he carries onto the stage every night, arguing that the real threat facing ordinary people is not each other but the forces that profit from turning them against one another.
Speaking to “Loud & Clear With Belgian Jasper“, Leach made the case that political division is manufactured, a tool used by the powerful to hold power, and that meeting it with compassion rather than anger is, in his words, a form of resistance.
Regarding polarization and how it gets used to mobilize voters, Leach said (as transcribed by Blabbermouth):
“I’ve made a point to say it every night on stage: the biggest weapon that the powers that be, the nameless powers that be — not the people we see on social media and television; those are the puppets — I’m talking about the real Dr. Evils of this world that we don’t see. Those people benefit and weaponize our separation, whether it be what God you pray to, who you make love to, who you vote for. None of that matters to any of us. What matters is the humanity. And we do have so much more, incredible amounts of similarities as humans. Our differences are very small, and it’s just the focusing on those differences and weaponizing those differences to create the divide-rule-and-conquer thing. It is revolutionary to be accepting, to be compassionate, to be tolerant, and hopefully open up discussions, not arguments about our differences. I’ve done that personally as I travel. I’ve met people I don’t agree with, and I don’t shun them and block them and cancel them. I wanna hear what they have to say. And hopefully I can get some point across. But half the time I’m learning something from them, too. ‘Oh, that’s why you think that way.’ It’s kind of like people’s interpretation of life. It’s an interpretation, and I’m open to being wrong and incorrect and changing what I think if it serves the greater purpose and makes sense.”
For Leach, that outlook is not incidental to the show — it is the point of it. He described it as something close to a ritual:
“So opening the dialogue for — compassion, I think is the best word to use, 100%, that is my goal. That is my prayer before I hit the stage. That is my meditation. That’s what I’m manifesting through my body language, is love and acceptance. I want people to have fun and enjoy what we’re doing, but I also want them to leave with a message, to take that light, if you will, and spread it, ’cause the world needs it.”
The interviewer asked whether Leach ever catches himself getting hooked on outrage, given how social media rewards emotional posts with attention and validation. His answer went somewhere more considered — that both obsessing over anger and avoiding it entirely are unhealthy, and that anger itself is worth examining rather than fearing:
“I wouldn’t say I’m addicted to it. In fact, I would even say in my younger years I avoided it, and I think that’s unhealthy. I think either way, I think obsession with anger is unhealthy, but I think avoidance of anger is unhealthy too. If anything, I’ve learned that anger, just like any other emotion, is rooted in something, and I think the root of anger is fear. I think fear of what might happen to me, fear of what might happen to other people. So I think the real enemy, and that ties in to be very sort of like Yoda and ‘Star Wars‘, hatred. Hatred and fear are… I think hatred is rooted in fear as well. I think fear is the real enemy of us. That’s what creates all of these uglier emotions. So getting to the root of why you might feel that way or why you’re enraged, getting to the root of it and contemplating it, walking through that anger, then you can have a perspective that can teach, a perspective that has compassion because you understand that at the root of all of us, we’re people that just wanna be loved. We wanna be heard. We wanna be understood. So again, I’m gonna throw that word compassion back out there, ’cause that’s what I have to do to sort of combat the anger that’s in the Internet. And I think there’s enough people spouting hatred and anger. There’s enough of that. And I can relate to it, but that’s not my gift. I’m not the person that can stand on the front lines screaming at somebody because I don’t like what they’re doing. I’m the one going, ‘Hey, we should all figure this out together.’ I think there needs to be more voices like that. And that’s just my gift. I’m not very good at arguing and getting angry with people. I lose myself through that, and I don’t like that. So I like to stay sort of centered in love and use that as my weapon to combat against whether it be anger, hatred or fear.”
There is a notable tension between this message and the record Leach made last year. This Consequence, released February 21, 2025 through Metal Blade, was born partly out of what Leach has called a period of “righteous anger” — songs like “Discordant Nation,” “Collusion” and “The Fall Of Us” came pouring out of that frustration before he found his way to the hope of the Top 10 single “I Believe.” In that sense, the compassion he preaches now is less a denial of anger than something he says he had to walk through it to reach.
The album was the band’s ninth overall and sixth since Leach rejoined in 2012, arriving after a six-year gap between records. It landed the band on the covers of Revolver and Outburn and was backed by a strong winter/spring 2025 tour.
Killswitch Engage, Leach, guitarist and producer Adam Dutkiewicz, guitarist Joel Stroetzel, bassist Mike D’Antonio and drummer Justin Foley, recently wrapped a U.S. run supported by Machine Head, Iron Reagan and Havok.
That followed a busy 2025 that included the large co-headlining “Summer Of Loud” tour alongside Beartooth, I Prevail and Parkway Drive, a run that saw former Killswitch Engage vocalist Howard Jones join the band onstage in Florida for their 2019 collaboration “The Signal Fire.”
