KILLSWITCH ENGAGE Drummer On Touring, Fans And Band's Lyrics

SunJournal.com recently conducted the following interview with KILLSWITCH ENGAGE drummer Justin Foley:

SunJournal.com: Name, age?

Foley: Justin Foley, 31.

SunJournal.com: How long have you been playing?

Foley: About 8 years now. We came together from a bunch of different bands in Massachusetts and Connecticut. Now we're based in western Mass.

SunJournal.com: What are your fans like?

Foley: It's mostly I would say angry teenagers. I don't know. We've done some tours lately where the kids aren't quite as angry. But they're mostly younger than we are.

SunJournal.com: They're angry though? Are you?

Foley: Not at all, we're pretty goofy. Really the music is heavy and it's loud, but there's nothing mad about what we're doing. We're just having fun.

SunJournal.com: So, do fans come up and ask for autographs in any odd situations?

Foley: The weirdest thing that's happened was when I was driving down the highway and some kids pulled up next to me and asked me for my autograph. Oh, and when we were in a pet store. We were buying a bearded dragon lizard for the bus and there were a bunch of kids that followed us into the store — it was pretty weird.

SunJournal.com: Any pre-show rituals?

Foley: Not so much. I warm up a little bit. Everyone else drinks a lot. But I wait till afterwards to drink. But shots are the ritual. Shots of usually whisky, sometimes vodka. It depends.

SunJournal.com: Where's your favorite place you've been on tour?

Foley: We just went to Russia and it was absolutely amazing. It was pretty incredible. More and more bands are going there now. I think the kids there are really really stoked when shows come out. They went nuts. It was one of the loudest crowds ever — they were singing every word of every song. We had a day off in Moscow, we walked around and went to Red Square and it was snowing, and we were all soaking wet and miserable afterwards, but it was pretty cool. How often do you get to do something like that?

SunJournal.com: How'd you come up with the band name?

Foley: The bass player did. He came up with it a long time ago. He was watching TV and heard the word "Killswitch," thought it was a neat word. But not on its own, so we threw another word on it.

SunJournal.com: Do you enjoy being on tour?

Foley: Well, it ... sucks to be away from home, but it's still fun. It's fun to see new places, especially.

SunJournal.com: Long-term goals?

Foley: I don't think any of us thought this would happen, anyway, so we're just kind of hanging out and doing the best we can. We don't really think too far ahead. We'll probably tour through the summer and do another album after that. It's all so weird it can end very quickly.

SunJournal.com: Has anyone been injured at a show?

Foley: We've injured ourselves a lot. The most serious was our guitar player has had back surgeries partly because of his onstage antics. He jumps around and acts like a fool and it's not good for his back. But every now and then you hear about somebody in the crowd that got hurt and it sucks. We don't like that.

SunJournal.com: Which of your song lyrics means the most to you, and why?

Foley: I don't really know. I don't know what he's going on about up there (laughs). I try to tune him out. I think the things that mean the most to me are the spontaneous ramblings from our guitar player, Adam, who usually talks about doing horrible things to the young girls in the crowd. It's really funny, because you can't possibly take him seriously when you hear him. You just can't.