Rob: Did you enjoy yourselves on the Headbanger’s Ball Tour, playing with LAMB OF GOD and  SHADOWS FALL?

Howard Jones: Oh, of course. They’re friends and we’ve played with both bands many times and this was just like hanging out with your buddies. Very much relaxed. 

R: Are there any bands that you haven’t yet toured with that you would love to go out on the road with? If so, who? 

HJ: There’s tons. That’s a very general question that it’s just hard to say. There’s so many bands that you’d love to tour with that it’s just so hard to answer. My top picks would be IN FLAMES again, SOILWORK, BLEEDING THROUGH. Those are some that just come up off the top of my head, but yeah, there are tons more. Definitely like to do some time with SLAYER, HATEBREED. 

R: Your last release was in 2002. When are you guys planning on getting into the studio for another album? Are you already working on new material? (Always find the NAME of the last album they released. There's was 'Alive Or Just Breathing', and was released by Roadrunner. Also, he should really ask him how he feels about piracy, and the album leaking out before it's ready, blah blah) 

HJ: There’s That’s exactly what we’re doing right now. We’re in the studio right now. We’re just in the process of recording. 

R: This is a question we ask just about everyone because fans are always interested----- who are your primary musical influences and what motivates you when creating music?

HJ: The first kind of heavy band that I’d ever heard was AC/DC and loved it. I’ve listened to just about everything under the sun but I just remember that to be sort of the first guitar-driven music I’d heard and I just thought it was cool. As far as vocally, I know it’s kind of passe to say these days, but Faith No More’s Mike Patton did it for me. As far as screaming, I could always say Pantera. I pretty much listened to everything, and that’s probably why I don’t really sound like a lot of people. There’s some similarities between me and the old singer of Killswitch but I definitely sound different. 

R: Who are your favorite musicians/bands right now? Any new artists that just broke out onto the scene that caught your ears?

HJ: Well, not really new band, but I’m really digging the new BURNT BY THE SUN. I listen a lot to HIM, which is probably one of my favorite bands right now. For the most part, I’m usually listening to a lot more mellower music. I kinda have this stuff going on all the time. I’m involved with two bands, so it’s like I need a breather from my heavy music for a while. 

It just seems that now, more than before, there’s a lot more bands coming out more frequently, and some of them sound very similar, almost formula-written. That’s obviously not the case with you and a lot of other bands that are still out there going strong. So it’s interesting to see what established artists see in the trends of the industry. 

It is true, there’s so many bands popping up now. Everybody’s got a band, everybody’s got a good-sounding CD or good video out. So it’s definitely difficult to establish yourself as something apart from the masses, and that’s what makes this tour cool. All these bands sound different, come from different places musically, and it just worked.

R: When did you decide music was the career you were going to follow in your life and how did you go about making your dream a reality?

HJ: I actually moved out to the East coast because I was in a band and my friend was moving out here and he said, “Yea I wanna keep the band going. I’m moving out here to work with my family and I’m getting married…” And he was the guitarist in my other band, and he was like, “I want the band to keep doing stuff but I understand that it’s not.” And I think that was the defining moment when I decided, why not? How often do you get chances to do this? So I moved out here, kept doing things with my other band, went through various name changes and band members and was still involved with him in doing stuff, then got into Killswitch. I dunno, it’s not something that I particularly said, “Hey, I’m gonna be a musician, that’s gonna be my career.” It just kinda realized itself when I started noticing it was a passion for me. 

R: Were your family and friends supportive of your decision? 

HJ: No, not really. They all thought I was little nuts, but they were into it. I’ve always pursued things that I’ve been into wholeheartedly, so yea, they were into it. 

R: Once you broke into the music business, were there things that disappointed you that you didn’t expect about the industry? 

HJ: Pretty much the disappointing side of it is the business side of it. You basically wanna just go jam and hang out, that’s it. When you get involved with this you don’t expect to be signing large quantities of contracts or having discussions about equipment endorsements, paying management for things, you know, you never really think about that. Usually you start a band and you start rocking and that’s it. Little did I know that this would become a business. And that’s unfortunately the nature of the beast. I’m actually really happy to have the people aboard with me who are with me, but at the same time, it’s really a shock to the system when you realize everything that comes on with it, you know when you read the contract that you have. It’s like, “Wow, this is amazing. I need an interpreter for some of this!” It’s like, “Wow, why doesn’t this just say, ‘Go play shows! Rock out!’” ::laughs:: 

R: That would be the best contract, wouldn’t it? 

HJ: Yea, exactly! But no, there’s just so much more to it. And I think that’s just the disappointing part of it, not what part of the business aspect, just the fact that it is a business. 

R: Yea, it can’t stay a “have fun” type of hobby… 

HJ: Yeah. If you wanna do it full-time, you have to make it a business, you have no choice in the matter. I guess it’s just the nature of the beast. It’s a little on the disappointing side, but then when you get involved and you meet really cool people who are doing their best to help you out, and things go well, it ends up being a cool thing. 

A lot of people who aren’t musicians, and maybe even people who are in bands but haven’t gotten into the business, don’t seem to realize that there’s just as much hard work that goes into being a musician as there is in any other typical day job. 

Yeah, most people have no idea what it’s really like. It’s like, “Oh my gosh! Wow, you’re band’s got a brand new van!” Or, “Wow, I saw you guys were on a bus!” You know how much that stuff costs? It’s like the more you make, the more you end up spending, and not because you’re being frivolous or you’re wanting to live the rock star life, it’s just how it is. When you do these tours that are so unbelievably long, and booked the way they are, you just physically can’t take a van, unload everything, set everything up yourself, sell your own merchandise, meet a bunch of people at the shows and hang out, hang out with kids who come to the shows and everything, and drive to the next place and do it all over again, and hopefully sleep a couple hours. It becomes impossibility. You have to have someone drive for you. We’ve done some amazing tours in our van, but it just got to the point, like with this Headbanger’s Ball Tour, it’s like, “Wow.” Just the fact that Unearth did half and God Forbid did half, and they both did it in vans, that’s just rough. And the amount of press that you end up doing during the day and everything else, you end up having to take the next step and it’s like, for you to sound good, you need a good sound guy. And the thing is, you don’t have the time when you’re doing the interviews, doing soundcheck, playing, meeting people and everything, you don’t have time to organize everything, so you need a tour manager who’s gonna be able to take care of all that for you, so there’s someone else on board. And hopefully your tour manager will be your sound guy. If not, you might have your tour manager and a sound guy because you don’t wanna sound like crap. Sometimes it might be a good club but they don’t have the best sound guy and then you end up sounding bad. They might not be used to mixing a heavy band. They might be used to mixing a boy band or something, and it’s like “We sound terrible tonight. Well, it’s because we don’t have our own sound guy.” It’s just, you never know. There’s so many variables. And most people don’t know. Everyone involved have to be paid. Like if you get on a bus, that’s a money pit right there. We played Ozzfest, and I never thought I’d be playing it, never thought I’d want to, but it ended up being unbelievably fun! But there’s just no way we could’ve done that in a van, no way! And so you just end up on a bus and having occasionally people thinking you’re making crazy amounts of money and living high on the hog when it’s like, “OK, there’s 10 very smelly people on this bus. It’s constantly dirty in here.” You never get solid sleep because someone is always awake making noise. It doesn’t matter when, someone’s making noise. So you just won’t get sleep. It can be not fun ::laughs:: to say the least, but at the same time, it’s still the best job in the world, so you can’t complain that much. 

R: Yea at the end of the day, you’re still doing what you love doing. 

HJ: Yea exactly. You get out there and you’re having fun with people who are there to see you. Not many people get to do that. I’ve gotten to see the world. I’ve made memories I’ll get to take to my grave with me. And I’m just unbelievably grateful for that. 

R: Between the Headbanger’s Ball Tour and Ozzfest, which was more taxing on you guys, physically and mentally? 

HJ: They were both taxing for different reasons. Ozzfest because it was so long. Almost 2 ½ months we were out on the road and we were playing at different times in the day. There were times we were playing at 3pm, others when we played at 9:30am, and that’s just insane. And then there were the off-days when you played in the evenings. We’d be playing at 11pm and then we’d play at 10am. Usually out in the heat. Those California, Arizona, Texas shows, ugh, wow, just scorchingly hot. Plus you’re in the dirt all day. You meet a bunch of people, you sign stuff for hours….that was pretty taxing. 
Headbanger’s Ball was about 5 ½ weeks. We had, I think, 3 or 4 days off. We just basically had no breaks, and the days we did have off, we were driving so there was just not a moment’s breath in that tour. 

R: Where do you see Killswitch Engage going in the future? 

HJ: That’s hard to say. Hopefully back to Europe and Japan again! ::laughs:: I dunno, we’re just trying to write stuff and do what we can, you know? If it goes well, awesome. It’s so hard to say where you’re going and what you wanna do. We just wanna play and make music that hopefully people don’t think is too terrible. 

R: You guys going for world domination? 

HJ: Nah man. 

R: Just a couple small continents? ::laughs:: 

HJ: No need for world domination or even continent domination. I think there’s a place for every type of music. Even bad music has its place. Hey, look how long NuMetal survived. ::laughs:: Or just straight-up bad Rapcore and stuff like that. There’s a place for everything. 

R: Yeah, you’re right. If it’s around long enough, I guess there’s some kind of cause for it. 

HJ: Oh yea, so I think there’s a legitimate spot for us just like there is for just about everything else. 

R: So you’ll just keep going, see where it takes you on your own? 

HJ: Yea exactly. What we want is just to push ourselves and make music that we enjoy. That’s where the challenge is.

R: Any last words for our readers, your fans, etc? 

HJ: Thanks for the interview. New album should be out late April/early May. It’s not the exact same album. There is a different singer, so definitely not the same album. We think it’s a step in the right direction so hopefully you’ll like it. Look out for it and we’ll be back around on the road sometime soon.