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In-person interview with Joel Stroetzel of Killswitch Engage

March 6th 2010, The Wiltern, Los Angeles CA

Julia: Howard dropped out of the tour, and he has been temporarily replaced by Phil [from All That Remains]. So it's 'Philswitch' now! Tell me a little bit about how things are going with Phil.
Joel: Things have been going great. Initially, we just had Phil come out with the thought that we had three shows we had to get through, then we'd postpone the tour and come back and do it with Howard in a few months. But it went so well with Phil the first few shows that everybody was so stoked. We have a lot of the same fans I think, so a lot of people were psyched to see him. If it was Joe Schmoe it wouldn't work, but since it's Phil, it works. And like I said, the shows were so much fun and Phil was willing to do the whole tour.

Julia: Did you have a lot of rehearsals with him or did he kind of just get thrown in there?
Joel: No, he was thrown, thrown to the wolves. We called him I think at three in the morning and we were like 'Hey, can you fly to Florida in about five hours?' He was like 'Yeah I'll be there!' So we did like a quick sound check with him, went through the songs that he wasn't familiar with, and we played that night. That was pretty much it. So yeah, obviously after a couple of shows he started to get more comfortable.

Julia: You guys cancelled your show in Tucson. What exactly made you decide to do that?
Joel: Well, for one thing I think Phil really needed a break because I'm not sure if All That Remains usually does this many shows in a week. We were doing like six shows a week, and there were hardly any days off. It's a longer set than he's used to. So it just got to the point where we were like hey, we're gonna have to bail on one of these shows and see if we can get through 'em all. Finally, the night after Vegas he was like yeah, I don't know if I can do tomorrow. So we just let him rest, because we had the Phoenix and LA shows right after that, which are kind of bigger shows for us. We had to make sure he was in good shape. Sorry Tucson! We'll be back soon.

Julia: What's it like touring with the guys from Dark Tranquillity and The Devil Wears Prada?
Joel: It's great. Everybody's pretty mellow actually. We've toured with Dark Tranquillity before, so we've kinda known those guys for many years. They are very nice guys, awesome band. The Devil guys are kind of new friends of ours, they're really cool dudes. Good band, they do killer live.

Julia: What do you do to maintain your sanity when you're on a tourbus for weeks on end, with the same group of guys?
Joel: Drink a little too much [laughs]. Sometimes play guitar if there's one around. But yeah, kinda just hang out and watch movies, drink, everyone gets their iPod rage going, fighting for what song is next on the iPod. That's pretty much it, it's pretty chill.

Julia: Are there any particular countries you'd really like to tour that you haven't gotten to yet? I know you just finished up South America for the first time.
Joel: Yep, first time there. Believe it or not, we've never been to Mexico. We have a friend who is a promoter there too, so we've been trying to get there for two years but the scheduling has never worked out. So we gotta get there at some point. We've never been to Southeast Asia, we've only been to Japan, so we'd like to get to that area. The shows are crazy there.

Julia: The band just released the song 'My Obsession' on the soundtrack to the God of War III videogame. How does it feel to be a part of that?
Joel: It was awesome. We didn't really have to do much, because we had three or four extra songs that we didn't have room for on the new record but they weren't quite finished. I guess they contacted our management and asked if we wanted to be a part of this game. We had really good luck being part of Guitar Hero and it's always a good opportunity for a band like us to be in a game that sells like 5 million copies or something. So hell yeah!

Julia: Did you ever play the game?
Joel: Nah, I'm not much of a videogamer myself. Some of the guys are. Howard is big into videogames and Mike D is. Adam occasionally.

Julia: How would you say you've evolved both musically and as a person over the course of the decade you've been a part of Killswitch Engage?
Joel: I've actually learned a lot from Adam D, because he's such a good producer and he's good at arranging songs and things like that. I think I've probably learned to write more for the song and riff by riff, because we used to just paste riffs together. We'd keep adding riffs to it until it's four minutes long, and that's not really how we operate anymore. I learned that from Adam D, I think all of us have. I think we're all at the point where writing material is actually easy. We kind of started to think the same way. You know, like 'Hey what do you think of that riff?' 'Oh yeah, I know what to do with it next' and 'I know what to do with it after that!' It's really easy now.

Julia: Are there any particular bands that you are really into at the moment, or bands that are inspiring you right now?
Joel: I like the new HIM record, I just got that. I'm a big fan of those guys. I'm trying to think of what else. I haven't been listening to a lot of metal lately!

Julia: What do you listen to?
Joel: A lot of indie rock stuff but dirtier, like Sheila Divine and Joseph Arthur. I need to get away from the metal at the end of the night [laughs].

Julia: Do you ever read people's comments on your facebook and myspace pages?
Joel: I never really got much into that. I don't even have a facebook or a myspace. I know the band has one but I never really look at it.

Julia: What about fan covers on Youtube?
Joel: I've seen some of those, yeah. Some of them are pretty funny, some of them are actually really good.

Julia: What are your plans for after this tour and for the summer?
Joel: After this we're just taking a break for a couple months, giving Howard some time to recuperate and all that. Then we're gonna head back out in the spring. We're shooting for mid to late May to get out and do the States again and hit all the cities that we missed on this run. That's the plan.