Justin Foley

Killswitch Engage

Justin Foley joined Killswitch Engage back in 2003. 16 years on and still going strong. He took the time to perform an interview with JoJo Hamilton, just before going on stage to perform the first leg of the tour for the new album "Atonement".

By JoJo Rocket Queen Hamilton

• November 16, 2019

Killswitch Engage's Justin Foley: "We wrote too many songs

Hi Justin great to meet you, I've seen you play live never realised how tall you are! Thank you for performing this interview for Metal Temple magazine.

What age were you when you started to play the drums?

I think I was 13 when I started. So I've had 30 years of playing the drums now, yeah I'm old haha but I started when I was 13.

If you hadn't become a drummer what would have been your alternative career?

Well um a baseball player haha, that's what I was trying to do before I played the drums. Or maybe um… I really don't know haha but luckily this working out. I don't know what else I would do.

Who would you say are your influences in the early stages of your musical career?

Early on the biggest 2 were Led Zeppelin and Rush, pretty standard drummer answers, but I mean there's a reason, those guys are so good, they were my 2 favourites. They still are really I still really like them.

When you're on tour with Killswitch Engage, which country has been your favourite to play in?

Which country? Aw man um, well definitely Scotland haha. The shows have been awesome here. I think like the coolest place we can go to is when we go to Japan. Its so much fun. It so foreign and really different, um it felt like you went to another world and the shows were really fun to do.

Since joining Killswitch Engage in 2003 which album has been your favourite to perform live?

Uh hmm I think maybe "Disarm The Descent" record I think since I joined but I still think the best Killswitch album was "Alive Or Just Breathing" even though it was before I joined but the "Disarm The Descent" one was really fun. We just had like a lot of really good energy when we did that. It was exciting having Jesse back in the band and the songs were kind of fast, high energy songs so that was a really fun touring cycle to do.

How long did it take to write the material for the new album Atonement?

A long time, um over a year I would say from when we started, like from when we started writing song together until having it finished was definitely over a year. We wrote too many songs, that was one problem. We also had touring get in the way, then Jesse had a problem with his voice, so a lot of things really slowed down the writing process but I think it was worth it in the end, that's what counts right?

In your spare time, what hobbies do you have?

Uh, I like to play around with my cats that's pretty much it haha. I do like cats, there's a cat cafe right down the street I went to yesterday so I'd recommend that, it's a good one.

What would you so far has been the highlight of your career?

Oh um jeez, highlight? Um I guess any real specific shows I would say & all like the really huge hero festivals are really great like and playing with Iron Maiden last year was um that was pretty insane because you never think you're going to share a stage with somebody as legendary as Maiden. That was pretty cool even though they blew us off the stage every night they were incredible haha. So probably doing that has been my highlight.

So Justin, what can we expect from Killswitch Engage in the future?

Lots of touring now, this one's just starting so this (Glasgow, Scotland) is the 3^rd show. Its the 3^rd show of the record cycle, so really we've only just played a handful of shows for this new album so we are going to play a bunch of shows & um working a bunch of new songs into the set we've even got 4 of them in the set now so that's a good start. Yeah just a bunch of touring so that's been a good start. We are going to get to a whole bunch of places. This is the first place we've came so we will get to do the USA eventually then hopefully go around all sorts of places around the world.

Justin, I'd like to thank you for taking the time to perform this interview for Metal Temple Magazine before you go on stage with your show tonight and may I wish you every success in the future.