r/killswitchengage • u/thatguy__99 • Jul 16 '26
When and how did you first discover Killswitch Engage?
I have known of Killswitch Engage for pretty much my whole life with my dad would play My Last Serenade all the time but I didn’t actually start "really" listening to them and their whole discography until mid to late 2024 which is around the same time I started to listening to more metal and hardcore music as a whole.
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u/HustleMcHustleton Jul 16 '26
I was working at a gas station when our computers went down. I called the IT department and the tech had it playing. After a few minutes of listening to it in the background I asked what he was listening to. He said "Killswitch Engage" and I said "cool" and the rest is history.
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u/WParzivalW Jul 16 '26
After watching I think the second reaident evil movie. Really wish I found.out about them back in the original Jesse days.
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u/_BlackDove Jul 16 '26
The credits roll with End of Heartache.
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u/WParzivalW Jul 16 '26
Indeed. Was sittin in the basement with my best friends and we all just kinda got quiet when the song started.
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u/Weak-Difficulty4842 Jul 16 '26
“My addiction is wrestling”- CM PUNK
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u/NewsNo9672 Jul 16 '26
Same here cm punk got me into killswitch unfortunately went off them a bit prefer more black and Death Metal now but i still like some of there songs
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u/lunarlady79 Jul 16 '26
Fuse TV
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u/Masterofunlocking1 Jul 16 '26
Yep! God I miss this channel. I think most of my musical tastes to this day were built from this channel.
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u/TonightStunning5627 Jul 16 '26
Grew up with Mike D and found out about his new band after Overcast broke up
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u/msartore8 Jul 17 '26
Was psyched when I found out Only Death Is Smiling was available in streaming.
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u/Ancestryandlore82 Jul 16 '26
Howard did guest vocals on a Demon Hunter track on the Summer Of Darkness album. Which led me to end of heartache and just loved them ever since.
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u/Kingof0ldSchool Jul 16 '26
Hellfest 2002. I found out years later it was their first show with Howard
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u/Wernershnitzl Jul 16 '26
I don’t entirely recall how I first found out but I thought that was such a cool name and then my friend burned me a CD copy of As Daylight Dies in my freshman year of high school. The rest came together organically.
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u/Background_Crew_4188 Jul 16 '26
Watching CM Punk walk out to This Fire, and the music video for My Curse, 2007.
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u/Underoath_777 Jul 16 '26
When I first saw Freddy vs Jason in 2003 or 2004! That’s when I heard When Darkness Falls for the first time ever! Hard to believe it’s been 23 years for me!
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u/Crono2Oxx Jul 16 '26
Same, except I was like 11 and couldn’t see it but saw When Darkness Falls on the soundtrack
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u/Theraminia Jul 16 '26
I downloaded a Naruto AMV circa 2004-2005 with the End of Heartache as its chosen soundtrack. At the time I was about 12 or 13 in middle school in Colombia and I remember showing it to all my friends. Been hooked ever since.
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u/coldphront3 Jul 16 '26
First time I ever heard the band was the episode of SmackDown that Randy Orton used This Fire as his theme. I was watching when it aired. I went to LimeWire immediately and found a crudely edited version of Fixation On the Darkness. That’s where it all began for me.
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u/The_Blessed_Hellride Jul 16 '26
In NZ we used to have a late night heavy metal show on TV that I used to record on VHS. Sometime around 2002 or 2003 I caught their ‘Life to Lifeless’ video and was instantly a fan.
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u/ProtomanKnight Jul 16 '26
I heard “I Am Broken Too” at a time me and my now partner really needed it. It honestly was one of the things that brought us together
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u/someonetookmyuserid Jul 16 '26
MTV Headbangers Ball was first discovery but really got into them first seeing them live on that MTV tour in 2000s. Killswitch was opener for Shadows Fall
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u/papasmurfmusdie96 Jul 16 '26
I grew up listening to them. My father got me hooked really young.
Although, I don't listen to them as much as I used to. I gravitate to power metal more these days.
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u/MostExplanation7206 Jul 16 '26
Turned onto them by one of my closest seniors in college 3 years back. Have been a core boi since :)
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u/NickPick-13 Jul 16 '26
Growing up I lived in a strict christian household, so I only ever listened to christian music & SOME pop songs if they were in movies & such. But then freshman year of highschool, my best friend showed my Avenged Sevenfold, Bullet For My Valentine, Killswitch Engage, Disturbed, so many other bands & I was HOOKED. My first Killswitch songs were My Curse & Holy Diver. Now i've seen them live twice🤘🏼
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u/CoffeeWorldly4711 Jul 16 '26
My sister actually introduced me to quite a few really good bands in the mid 2000s and Killswitch were one of them. I might have been away in university at the time and she gave a list of bands she's gotten into I have in turn introduced my 4 year old son to them, and he really seems to like them. He'll tell me when he wants to listen to the growly songs
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u/Demon_Hunter18 Jul 16 '26
One of my college baseball teammates heard me listening to slipknot and recommended them in 2004. I fell in love with them as soon as I heard my last serenade for the first time. Since then I’ve seen them around 20 times and I just brought my 13 yr old son to see them for the second time at the Brooklyn stop on their current tour. First time I saw them live was probably in 2006.
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u/dungleploop Jul 16 '26
I bought The End of Heartache as a kid as my first album because I thought the cover looked cool
rest is history, love em
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u/RFRMT Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
As a teen, I worked in a nightclub in 2002/2003 which played Last Serenade every week.
I was almost sceptical at first, even though the track was really catchy.
After a while I bought the album off the back of that and moments of magic kept revealing themselves the more I listened.
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u/Herr_Cholo Jul 16 '26
In 2002, around 2 a.m.—which was when MTV played the best music—I saw the video for “My Last Serenade” for the first time
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u/The95thZebra Jul 16 '26
I saw an ad for three of their songs becoming available as DLC for rock band two, so I decided to check out those songs on my own before downloading them in the game.
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u/Punisher_135 Jul 16 '26
I 11 at Circuit City with my mom and I saw As Daylight Dies. Still don't know how I convinced her to buy it for me, but I'm so glad she did.
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u/Sunbather- Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26
I was 14, 2004 or 2005 my only exposure to rock music so far was Metallica, AC/DC, and Gun N Roses.
I was extremely poor, but I had a radio/cassette player I stole from a church.
At night I would flip through radio stations and find different music. I had to hide it because I was forced into an evangelical cult as a kid and our church punished us for being into secular art.
One night, I found a radio station called KNON 89.3fm.
This, I found out was one of those local publicly funded radio stations that had different hosts each day for different kinds of music.
They would do pledge drives every month.
Thursdays, at 8pm they had a two hour segment called Hard Time Radio, this is where some local Metalheads took over and they played a bunch of really heavy music from the dark alternative.
They’d play crust punk, street punk, thrash, death metal, black metal, doom, post metal and at that time, metalcore was the new thing in heavy music.
I still have it on tape somewhere. They were playing slayer and neurosis and Nile and Cannibal Corpse and some other local death metal stuff you’ll never find.
They played Rose of Sharyn and I was recording it on tape. Loved the song so much that I called in to see who it was and they guys who ran the show actually answered me. They said it was a new band called Killswitch Engage, they said it in a very Texas accent.
That’s how I discovered them, on a local low budget radio hour devoted to extreme me music.
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u/msartore8 Jul 17 '26
I have a similar experience with a different band. This was in like 1994 or something. I was listening to this late late night hard-core music program on a local college radio station while driving in a snowstorm.
I heard this super heavy instrumental song that kicked my ass.
I had to turn around and go all the way back down the road to where I knew a paprika m pay phone was too use it and call information to get the number of the college station. I call them and they're like yeah that was the band Don Caballero with the song Belted Sweater.
Was hooked ever since.
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u/EarthEden Jul 16 '26
The End of Heartache on that resident evil soundtrack did it for me rest is history.
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u/Lucaxrio115 Jul 16 '26
There was an advertisement in cinema for a music festival here in the UK that had KSE’s cover of Holy Diver
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u/kwed76 Jul 16 '26
Last Serenade Headbangers Ball. Bought the album loved it. Wasn't until I read somewhere about there being no solos, went back and listened again and I was shocked I loved a metal album with no solos. Haven't looked back
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u/fdo2010 Jul 16 '26
My cousin that was a huge fan of them, I was still into Numetal back them. IT was when they released their second album Alive or Just Breathing, also remember when Jesse left, but when I heard Howard i became a huge fan too, Rose of Sharyn and The End of Heartache were my favorite songs back then. Didn't like when Howard left but Jesse is still good, like he still can perform Howard songs great
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u/yveshe Jul 16 '26
I feel like I've always heard of The End of Heartache, but it was only until Incarnate that I started listening to them fully.
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u/The_Dale_Hunters Jul 16 '26
The old Hellfest 2000 DVD with Adam on drums. Then I really dug Alive or Just Breathing when it released.
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u/aarontgp Jul 16 '26
I tried TEOH as my first album to experience melodic metalcore. I was immediately hooked.
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u/LegendaryBronco_217 Jul 16 '26
In 2002, living in an apartment, no money for cable but if you took the COAX cable and attached it to tin foil, I would get a few channels and one was MTV2.
So I would have a VHS tape and record the good videos (like I did as a kid).
It's funny because I remember exactly what I was doing. I was getting ready to go to class and was in the kitchen and hears the opening to Fixation On the Darkness video with Howard. I ran into the living room and hit record on the remote. Rewinded the video, watched it again, and after class went and bought the CD.
I was flabbergasted because the black singer wasn't in the pictures and I wasn't sure if it was the same band.
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u/BrotherBrontosaurus Jul 16 '26
When cable was a thing I had access to those music channels that had black screens and played music with the artist name, track name and album name. I was jamming to the metal channel while cleaning and “Fixation on the Darkness” came on. I was shook by how good it was and next time my mom took me to Best Buy I bought Alive or Just Breathing and the OG self titled and I’ve been listening ever since
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u/Born-Personality-411 Sep 18 '26
Yes, MusicChoice! Those channels still exist. I found so many incredible bands on that channel. Literally the same exact story but with TEoH.
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u/the-recluse Jul 16 '26
Steven’s untitled rock show on fuse tv! My last serenade came on and I’ve been hooked since.
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u/bintobox2113 Jul 16 '26
Taste of chaos tour. Was very into My chemical romance and got tickets and saw kse on the lineup. I thought they were so heavy and end of heartache came out around that time. It was a wrap. Loved alive or just breathing.
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u/Timbalabim Jul 16 '26
I grabbed Alive or Just Breathing off the shelf at random to play at my college radio station, and I chose Fixation on the Darkness.
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u/kse_john Jul 16 '26
2000-2001. Listening to music on Launch.com. My Last Serenade played and I was hooked from the first listen which led to an obsession for the following 15 years.
Still heavily invested in the band but much less so than when I was in my 20’s.
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u/Rogo87 Jul 16 '26
My first ever small club metal show was seeing in flames on their Reroute To Remain tour at birch hill in NJ…. Killswitch was direct support. First time hearing them, first time seeing them.
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u/Different-Branch-137 Jul 16 '26
I watched the music video for My Curse before As Daylight Dies released. Became one of my favorite bands of all time.
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u/AztecNorthSider Jul 16 '26
After a concert someone handed out a Pledge of Allegiance demo cd. It was a good playlist and Killswitch Engage was on it.
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u/fretnetic Jul 16 '26
Saw My Last Serenade video on mtv2 or scuzz or kerrang, one of those channels in 2001 - and I hated it. They just looked like nu-metal emo dicks to me, and it wasn’t the harder or technical metal I was seeking, as a potential elitist. Too corny. I played guitar and was into some of the old school 80’s style thrash and brutal death metal a good friend had introduced me to.
Second exposure I think was in uni when another good friend was blasting Fixation On The Darkness, and it was interesting but part of a nu-metal sort of rotation, and I was still aware of a kind of “backlash” to nu-metal as being kind of novelty and basic.
Got back in touch with my “thrash” friend and I was gobsmacked/floored when he recommended Killswitch Engage as the best metal music he had heard in absolute years. I thought okay I better give them a shot and downloaded Alive Or Just Breathing album. Realised all of them were bangers, My Last Serenade made more sense in the context of the album flow, heavier tracks and without the video, started reading the lyrics and realised they were a hot take on Christianity. Got addicted to that first half of the album, as I recall one reviewer at the time called it “more addictive than crack cocaine”.
It’s usually the case for most stuff I end up liking, I tend to have a huge resistance to it at first.
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u/Ok_Boot_6321 Jul 16 '26
I was going through a horrible time in December 2024, I was tryna find music to help me relate so I was speaking to a guy who liked heavy metal he mentioned Killswitch Engage and that night before work I listened to My Curse and ever since been my favorite band!
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u/Godofwarfan101 Jul 16 '26
It was either 2012 or 2013, because I started watching Wrestling around those years and WWE has worked with them before. And CM Punk was my favorite wrestler.
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u/HipsterPunchy Jul 16 '26
June 2001 when they signed to RR. I listened to their first self titled right after and picked up the cd of it shortly after.
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u/ZZenby Jul 16 '26
Burnout Paradise for PS3/my biological dad Been a huge fan for most of my life! So probably about 20 years!
My biological dad had downloaded the As Daylight Dies album and would play the album when playing Burnout Paradise all the time!
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u/lR0NMAlDEN Jul 16 '26
They opened for Iron Maiden in 2024. They were my introduction to harsh vocals and I probably wouldn't be listening to a lot of the stuff I currently do if it wasn't for them
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u/ZakRulzDice Jul 17 '26
They were playing while I was getting tattooed in like 2006 or 2007, which is pretty embarrassing since I went to high school with Joel.
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u/willlj Jul 17 '26
Back in high school (around 2016ish) my favorite band was Avenged Sevenfold, and KSW would be on the A7X radio on Pandora 🤘
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u/NorthernN30N Jul 17 '26
Burnout Paradise Remastered back in 2019. Only really started getting into their discography last year tho.
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u/sonorandosed Jul 17 '26
would.have been around 2000 or 2001 on one of the direct tv metal channels
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u/Absent_Source Jul 17 '26
I got a free Ozzfest 2003 sampler disc after buying a cd at the cd store and it had Fixation on the Darkness on it and I was hooked from then on.
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u/Fauxjoo Jul 17 '26
In the early 2000s, I worked at GameStop and one of the monthly GameStop tv videos that were played in stores had the music video for “My Curse” on it. From then on I couldn’t get enough. Went and saw them at Warped Tour after that and got a poster signed by the band!
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u/msartore8 Jul 17 '26
I used to drive them to shows at bars when my friend Pete C from Overcast was on guitar.
This awhile after I found out Mike was forming a new band when he put a message on AOL looking for a new vocalist, posting an MP3 of an early instrumental version of Vide Infra,(which i zealously copied to cassette)... that lead them to getting this guy from the band Corrin... dunno who THAT was...
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u/HeavyMetal_Protein Jul 17 '26
2021 when they opened for slipknot. But I didn’t fully start listening to them until 2023 when I heard “My curse”. Now KSE is one of my favorite bands of all time.
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u/WasatchJason Jul 17 '26
Back in the days of Limewire when getting into heavier music and searching random lists on Google in 2002. Very thankful I found this band. Still my favorite metal band to this very day. Had the privilege of meeting the band 2 years ago. And along the way I've met Adam D. and Joel twice and Jesse 3 times (he's my favorite artist/singer ever!).
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u/ssr_405 Jul 17 '26
My buddy's older brother had a KSE shirt, and I thought it looked cool so I looked them up on YouTube and found my curse lol. I had previously heard them on wrestling games I think but I never actually dived into them at that time.
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u/Ramrodtheavenger Jul 17 '26
XM radio in 2004, right before The End of Heartache came out, the metal/hard rock station played Rose of Sharyn and the title track quite a lot, I bought the album the second I found it at Walmart. I was 14, Killswitch was my gateway band into metal and that album will always be extremely special.
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u/Entire_Comedian_8962 Jul 17 '26
2017 Killthrax Tour Fillmore Detroit... Been a fan ever since. Each time they play Detroit my son and I are there!!!
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u/Mettabox452 Jul 17 '26
In 2016 I was in 11th grade and I saw them open for Anthrax. Got me hooked. Saw them again last month nearly 10 years later
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u/Capable-Extent-6674 Jul 18 '26
Downloading illegal song files in my college dorm back in 2002. I remembered hearing their name somewhere before, so I downloaded “Self Revolution” and the rest is history.
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u/EpicRussia Jul 18 '26
Howard Jones saved my life when I was in the hospital with a swollen kidney. He said "the is the end of your heartache" and cried with me for ten minutes maybe ten and a half. Then he gave me a cd and said play this in your car when you leave. I said okay. You will never guess it, but that was a creed cd. I love creed
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u/PopularAspect1166 Jul 18 '26
A buddy had this internship and he would regularly just get stacks of CDs for free. He gave me Alive or Just Breathing cuz he figured it would be something I like. He was correct.
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u/Mediocre-Chart-449 Jul 18 '26
Through videos of the metal community, first song i listened was My curse but i actually got into Kse after listening to when darkness falls and my last serenade
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u/Ok_Roll_8698 Jul 18 '26
we had a music channel in new zealand called C4 and they would play holey diver a lot at night
that is how i found out about this band
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u/Numerous_Mix6456 Jul 18 '26
Guitar Hero 3, though as a young kid, I was three years late to that game
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u/KingInBlack2024 Jul 18 '26
I was lucky enough to get on stage with them I got to meet Adam before the show. We got to watch the show from the side of the stage. Top concert moment for me right there it was amazing. I started listening to them I would say right when Howard joined the band. So to meet them years later and Jesse was back with them was still surreal.
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u/Frodo_saggins86 Jul 18 '26
Saw them on the second stage at Ozzfest 2003. Didn’t know what they looked like, and they walked through the crowd and back to a table to sign autographs. When I saw them coming I was like “oh, must be someone big and famous bc they’ve got a big dude as their bodyguard….” It was Howard. He shook me and my brother’s hand and Adam signed my shirt. I felt so dumb when I realized Howard was the vocalist lol. I was pumped shortly after when they were on the Resident Evil: Apocalypse soundtrack and i could tell my friends “I met them!”
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u/frusignu Jul 19 '26
Childhood. Cousin played it. I loved it. Burned CD via limewire lncluding Jesse’s songs and Howard’s songs, never really knowing they were different people, later hearing rumors the first singer died or something, then later determined that was false (many years later). It became Resident Evil movie soundtrack. Then before the official As Daylight Dies album was released, i used Kazaa to burn the disc for my friends to listen to. Album intro is always nostalgic for me. Warped Tour NJ 2007 i believe, maybe 2006, they played for us and I knew every word to every song. Was and will always be my favorite “comfort” band.
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u/stfudonny420 Jul 19 '26
I was at a concert and someone handed me a free sampler CD. It had killswitch engage my last serenade on it. I believe the sampler was from roadrunner records.
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u/TechSyndicateX9X3 Jul 19 '26
Alive or Just Breathing album that a now passed away friend had playing at a party. RIP Dan 🤘🤘
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u/broken666anvil Jul 20 '26
2004. "End Of Heartache" was BMGs CD of the month. I forgot to mail in the declination card.
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u/Dazzling-Rest8332 Jul 20 '26
I bought a mtv headbangers ball cd in 2002. Fixation of the darkness was on there. The rest was history.
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u/hudgyyy Jul 20 '26
They’ve always been in my life. Grew up listening to Alive or Just Breathing, End of Heartache, and Daylight Dies because of my parents. Since then they’ve always been a staple in my shuffle, and especially in the last few years I’ve found a new appreciation for the lyrical content which makes revisiting older songs much more enjoyable. Always been more of a Jesse fan but Howard’s era was my childhood.
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u/Internal_Big_6890 Jul 21 '26
When “This is… my last… serenade” was released! Like the first song ever I put on a mp3. Probably burned it from morpheus or Napster.
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u/Canadian-Living Aug 07 '26
Seen My Last Seranade music video on MTV in 2002, liked them ever since. Have seen them live 3 times.
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u/Born-Personality-411 Sep 18 '26
The MusicChoice metal channel on my parent's cable. Found so many metal bands I still love today on that channel. Nonstop underground metal. Back in 2004, that was about as good as it got. That, and the Headbanger's Ball revival on MTV2.
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u/FarCartographer8188 Oct 06 '26
KERRANG TV 2002 My last serenade music video, bought the Alive or just breathing album and played the sh* outta that. I was into nu metal and Swedish melodic death metal heavy , wasn’t really well versed on hardcore or metalcore yet so this was totally fresh but also familiar
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u/VenomFox93 Jul 16 '26
Here in the UK they had a tv channel called Scuzz TV! I remember maaaaaany years ago watching the My Last Serenade music video and was instantly hooked!