PipemanRadio Interviews Stowaways Purple & Jesse Leach of Killswitch Engage on Shiprocked 2025

0:04 Hey, you have done to censure? I'm see Why were you young? Roy? Why become of America? It's time for. The Adventures of white Man on W four C why dot Com West pomp Beats is number one internet radio station. Here's your host, the hit Man.

0:51 What's that crazy? Fo? This is the pipe Man here on the Adventures pipe Man W four C Y Radio. And I'm here with Jesse Leach from kill Switch Engage. How y'all doing nice here on ship rocked Man? What do you think of doing ship rock that somebody does so many festivals, so many tours. Has this compare to everything else? Yeah? The reason why I'm back is the people on this boat are wonderful, just open, honest, fun caring people. I have some great conversations sitting at a bar with someone and they just open up to you. And it happens all the time here and either it's a really positive, fun story where people are sharing about their kids or the memory of a loved one who's been lost, or fighting cancer or overcoming addiction. There's something about it. You just feel like a community here. There's a real culture.

1:50 Ship rocked has built something that is really unique when it comes to. I almost kind of call it like a cult, not in a bad way, good, No, it is. And in like the themes every year, and people really get into it and they dress up and there's an air of just no one's taking themselves that seriously. Even the artists who come on here. You see it's a shift when you get on the shift, especially if you see a band that's never done it before, and then they start to get immersed in, and you see people like they relax, their shoulders drop, their body language changes because you realize everybody here is just being friendly. It's a vibe. I love it. It makes me really happy. You know. What I think's really cool that I've noticed is like the people on ship Rocked. They're mingling with you, guys, but you're not hiding because they're not bugging the crap out of you. They're just like being cool or just walking by and saying hey, or like it's not that same like oh my god, oh my god, I'm gonna fanboy fan grow out on you like a festival.

2:48 But even if there is a slight fanboy fangirl thing in the beginning, it goes away and they turn into ing and then you see them the next day and that's gone. They just they want to buy you a beer, they want to talk to you more, and to me, it's not annoying at all. I love it. Yes, people are the people that are continuing to help us with our career, and they care, especially people here in ship Rocks, because that's a story. Everyone's got a story and they want to share with they want to be seen. Yeah. I think it's just a great opportunity for you to get to know your fan base on a real personal level without all the hysterics and stuff that you can get at the quick meet and greets or whatever. Like to be able to just hang at a bar with somebody, for example, and just hear them outright, and all of a sudden you got a new friend. And next year when you see them, they're like remember, I'm like yeah a pals.

3:32 Yeah great. And then you know, at the same token, they find out that what we all know that because you're a musician doesn't mean you're not just a normal person, right Yeah. And watching the acts, I go into the crowd and watch too, and people get excited to see me out there, and I love it or not on this ship, but in general, like getting into the pit, dancing with people. I love all that stuff. It's great. Or like the other day, I was teaching Rob from Flat Black how to play craps nice. I like, oh, that's fun. Where else are you going to do that? Right, It's just like you're just hanging out. Even for all of artists I'm friends with, it's still a different vibe here and the activity is chill. Yeah. The activities to allow artists to interact in a way that you would never be able to interact with them at a regular festival, because it's usually the quick meet and greet. You're in and out and that's it, and then you'll never see them for the rest of the day.

4:22 Where you can walk around the ship and there's members of Peude hanging out, yeah, watching other band. Joey from Anthrax is like the people's man. He's like the mayor of this boat already. He's amazing. Yeah, And my wife and I have been hanging hand with him and his wife and just being around his energy. I see the bodies like what Ship Rocked is all about. He's the mayor. And it's not even just fans, it's like staff. He's asking where they come from, what their country's like they start sharing their stories of like where they come from. Yeah, Joey's the man. He's awesome and yeah I saw that when you guys were on stage, you look like you had been best friends as couples forever. Yeah, there's a spark there man, I mean him and his lady there, there's magic to him. They're just good people. Good people. I think that's what it is.

5:04 Yeah, attracted to people who have just this positive energy. And Joey is just a legend on top of it. Like I grew up listening to him. He was one of my yuros, still is and now he's my pal. It's pretty unreal, it. Is, right, And so yeah, prom you guys almost one prom Yeah he got beat by a kid. Yeah, you can't compete with the kid. And he was dude, he was awesome. After he won, to was like break dance and breakdancing on the dance floor. Good for him, that's a memory. He's gonna cherish it. Oh that was pretty wild. Like he did that. It was awesome, and he just seemed like so into. Most kids would be like scared to death. Yeah, like it was just like secure. He was not not at all I was. Going for it. Disco dancing and break dancing was awesome totally, And so what else do you have going on in twenty twenty five?

5:52 Tons of touring The side hustlet I've been doing for fun and get my name out there is I've been guestsvocaling with a lot of smaller bands or even just guys who have a demo kicking around, and I like it. I'm singing on their tracks, I'm writing stuff for them, I'm getting my name out there. But I'm also helping boost sort of baby bands. I know, if I sing on the track they put my name on it, it helps helps them get raised up. And I've seen it a couple of bands already. Their numbers went way up and. They're so so excited that right. But to me, it's just making me better as a producer, as a vocalist and as a songwriter. And then my idea is, after I do this for a little while, like make it professional where I can actually go to a studio with a band and produce their vocals or help them with lyrics. Start to be that guy behind the scenes. As I get older, because that's what it's all about. You get to share your experience. The more you do this touring thing, the more you write songs, you get in the studio, there's wisdom there that people can learn from and I would love to pass that along to a younger generation.

6:48 And here at ship Rock to you to DJ set too. Yet it'll be the last night at midnight with my lovely wife, purple goddess purple dancing. We're going to put on the after party to end all after party, and it's gonna be awesome. So yeah, that has yet to happen, but I guarantee you if you show up to that whoever, it's. Going to be a party, it'sna be great. Nice. I love it and speak at your wife. Were you wearing like blue the other day? Yeah, I don't know if you remember, but I walked by. I'm like, you look bad ass because I normally have blue hair. You're blue everywhere. I was like, oh man, I didn't do the blue for the cruise because there's water. So you know, I went with the eighties new wave look because I was a thrash metal head in the eighties and that wasn't allowed to do anything new wave. So yeah, yeah, right, Yeah, you had a reputation as a headbanger.

7:36 He can't do that. No new wave totally, and now we all love it. You know, I was a closeted new wave guy. I loved Duran Duran, I just wouldn't talk about it. Right, And that was killer last night, That Duran Duran was killing and fun. Yeah. And you did the Clash, Yeah, that was pretty cool, huge Clash fan. Yeah. And then Benar I was gonna say I couldn't believe it, like I'm like wow, And then I got say, you had set up there that you never felt that you could really do it, and now you could finally do it. You fricking nailed. It up last man. You I mean it's hard to do, Pat Bntar, Yeah, and you definitely full disclosure though. I just recently learned that the band does it like a half step down, so that they cheated it. I had no idea, but it was a lot easier than I thought it was gonna because I've been rehearsing it at full pitch, so the band's like doing a half step down from all these songs, so they made it a lot easier for me too.

8:29 Well, I didn't need that, but they did it, and it helped there you go. Yeah, and what are you going to do cool tomorrow night? I got a rebel yell by Billy Idol, which we killed in rehearsal, and then the end A will be all to me. One of the best songs from one of the best bands of all time. Motorhead Asa Spades. It should be like second to last song of the of the set, and I'm going to pull out the big guns for that one. And so you're doing that with Henry who was dressed here. Yes, he's mentioned that. Yeah, so that's cool. And we meddled it out today. We really took it to the next level. So it's gonna be fun. So I have a great thing for you. I just started this on ship Rocked. This is something I haven't worn since I'm sixteen years old. I've never brought to a festival the festivals I do on like eighties themed ship Rocked. I think it's time busted out.

9:15 Oh your battle vest, dude, are you kidding me? Is this your og one? Look? Yeah? And you have to take a look at this ship dude, running back, I drew I drew all that shit on there. This is awesome. Winston from Parkins comments like I've never seen them. I've never seen either. Well that's because it's before they had an album. Wow, this is wild, dude. I love this. See this is what it's all about, man, the real deal. And nowadays you can buy these pre made. Get the hell out of you. Are you fucking goming? That's stupid, right, It is shredded, dude, no doubt. And then there's blood on not this side, but the other side from when I got up on stage a show at the country club and the security was chasing me. So I climbed up on the marsh stack and dove and the crowd moved while I was in full swan and I knocked my teeth out. Yeah.

10:06 Wow it Actually the band was Savage Gray, so I was really good close with They toured with Motorhead, but they never really went further. And I interviewed him recently because he just came out with a new album after thirty years. Yeah, and so he was like it was great because he got to prove to my kids store a story. You know, you tell your kids' stories, they don't fucking believe you. And it's sunset strip days, so like, of course, nobody's going to believe you, And I was like, yeah, I'm pretty well known in LA for knocking out my teeth and then in a Savage Gray show at the country club, and like pretty much everybody knows me for that, and they're probably like, yeah, right, dad, blah blah blah.

10:48 So he brought it up an interview. He goes, yeah, that was the most tragic thing of La metal ever. And I always wondered what happened to you if you were okay, I felt so bad. It's hysterical, right, things we do when we're young, and our adrenalines pumping, and we got some beers in us, no doubt. I got a friend who's got plates in his face from getting punched in the face at a pit. Oh yeah, you got that scar for the rest of your life, dude. But you know what, the youth, you got to just go for it, no regrets, no fear. When back then, who cared? I used to? I used to. I'm lucky. I ride my skateboard off of roofs into pool. Yeah totally, dude, Yeah, okay, yes, Now I'm like, I still ride my skateboard, but if the hill's too much, I'm like, yay, maybe I should slow it down.

11:36 Yeah, I've gotten a lot safer as I've gotten older. I got to be able to perform on stage, so I can't break anything. Well, that's you know, American health healthcare is so expensive. I came and afford it. Dude, I have proof I don't have health care. I have proof of that. So I that end of twenty seventeen, I was surfing in Hawaii and I got a heart attack. And Hawaii fucked me up because they misplaced at and over the whole year that you do this recovery, like I kept telling doctor, like, people say you feel twenty years younger, Like I was in mashpit before the heart attack, so I was already twenty years younger. I feel like shit, now it's normal. Blah blah blah. They released me. After your recovery. I decided to celebrate and go to Costa Rica and go surfing and was on top of a ten foot wave and that's why I had the massive heart attack from American health care.

12:29 Yeah, yeah, Okay, negligence in malpractice, it's commonplace. Yep. Now get this, four hundred thousand dollars for them to try to kill me. Costa Rica. The carreologist calls my insurance company and they're like, typical of American. Yeah, he said he needs this procedure right now where he's going to die. And they're like, oh, well, you know it's gonna take forty eight to seventy two hours to process to claim and it's a weekend so it'll probably take longer. And he's like, you don't understand he'll be dead by then. And when he hung up, he goes, yeah, the US never pays even when they approve it, so don't worry about And they put me in their healthcare system and they have free health care, so they put me in there and one hundred percent for free. They did more work because they had to fix the damage and do shit. And I saw the bill if I had to pay for fifteen thousand. Yeah, Like why is the third world country able gives stellar healthcare for next to nothing and nothing to theirs.

13:29 Yeah, that's one of the I always say, a huge grape that I have with not just with the American health care, but the food industry. The fdo like they're poisonless. They don't care, they don't care that they're killing us. It's literally big farm of money. Money over humanity and that needs to change. That really needs to change in this country. And as you probably shameful from touring like and I go Europe a lot. It's like I see the same thing in Europe that's here, and like here it's got like fifty ingredients and one hundred grams of sugar or whatever answer thing three ingredients and two grams of sugar for the same exact products. Right, Yeah, people need to open their eyes and we need radical change in this country over that.

14:09 It is something that upsets me on a regular basis. Yeah, I've taken control of my health and now that I do eat healthy and I take care of myself, I don't have to go to the doctor. They don't. There's no reason to. I reverse diabetes in six months with you just food. Yes, I don't take fucking medical I hate big pharma with a passion. Same and eating is medicine, yes, sir. And the eating they're giving us is poison exactly, no doubt. So back to the battle. We can talk about this for hour, We could do a whole podcast. I actually have a whole station for health and wellness, Like I own four radio stations. One of them is just for health of all, because I hate all this shit. It's revolutionary to speak about these things, but it's super important. I think people need to hear that message. Take control of your health and you can kill diseases. You can knock them out.

14:53 They don't want to cure us, They want to keep us as a repeat customer. Money, money, money, money, It's ridiculous. Yep, agreed. So back to the Battle Vest. If you were to pick one band on that Battle Vest to tour with, who would it be? Who did you have on there? Metallica? All right, there it is. Metallica is one of those bands that, like, you know, even if we were playing during the day to a half fold stadium, just to say that we got to open for like the Godfathers, because with all those first couple of Metallica records, there's no kill switch engage. Hands down, they're a huge influence. I mean, I can't imagine my life without Metallic. Metallic and Anthrax, with the two bands that really changed everything for me and made me want to get into music and what is this stuff? You know? It was so different from what was playing on the radio.

15:36 Yeah, one hundred and like I went to Metallica's first show ever end Slayers, that's why. But the Metallica one's a good story because back in the day in LA, the bands would play and afterwards you would hang out with them and then go to their house and party all night, right like, because we're all the same age. Right. So this guy gets off the stage, comes up to me, starts talking, hands me it's business card. It says Metallica power metal because they were power metal for a minute, because there was no such word as thrash metal. Dave Mustain, Oh wow, yeah, wild yeah. Talking those days back in the I would have loved to see a cliff and dude, what's that lineup?

16:17 Sick? Yeah, I saw that, but I saw Ron McGovney. Wow, that's wild right, it's way back. And then when Metallica and Slayer left LA and went to the Bay Area, me and my bro used to hitchhike up to the Bay Area to go to real shows because we were stuck with all the hair metal bands. Well, what a. Wild time to be alive and to be able to see that shift in the scene. That's so cool it is. I got lucky because I grew up in New Jersey and my dad one day came to me, he goes, pack your bags. In three days, we're moving to California. It was nineteen eighty when that happened. Wow, and so like I immediately like the first club show I ever went to was Montley Crue at the Roxy before they had an album, when they were horror punk. They weren'tamy, dude. Yeah, they were lighting the whole Oxy on fire, trying trying to bring Satan in. I was like, I'm never going to a real concert ever again.

17:06 Why would you do so exciting? What an exciting time to see a scene like just exploding literally. Totally, and then you would walk over with crew over to the Rainbow and hang out with Lemon Ron Jerremany Just I can't even talk about you're likeing to be a live dude. I'm telling you one hundred man. Some of I was at that party when Vince left with Razzle like breaking talk about lucky to be alive. You know, it's like it could have been anybody too, you know, in that day and age, And I'm glad they don't haven't recorded shit from that day and age, like TJ. Hoffman, lots of people in jail was Yeah, we were talking to me and him were talking. I'm like, I'm glad I don't have any there's no video for anything I ever did back then. Well even remember that you did back then, no doubt anything else you Why tell the listeners that's coming up in twenty twenty five that they want to know about.

18:04 I would just say, more than anything, the message of unifying, finding common ground together as people is the one that I'm bringing with this album and with just the way that I'm trying to live my life. The division that is happening purposefully by the powers that be to keep us divided on the left to the right, we need to realize that our common ground is so much greater than our differences. And if we want to change things, not just in our own country, but in the world, we have to band together. We have to start having these conversations about where we can find these common grounds, what needs to change, and take our power back. No doubt, That's where I'm out right now. That's another passion subject of mine right there. Like I always say, they're all on the same team, and the politicians and it ain't mine, no, and it's not all this trick in the book Divide and conquer. Why do these people on all sides glorify these politicians like the rock stars that they don't give two shits.

18:58 Of it and they're controlled. But they're just puppets, Yeah, ponds and puppets. They're liars, they're cheaters and their thieves. And I want nothing to do with any of that stuff. My interest is the common people. My interest is human rights. My interest is people actually having the freedom to make a choice about things. Yes, and that stuff is. Being taken away, very clandestine, very slowly. They're chipping away, and they're changing the whole course of history. And it doesn't have to be that way. No, it doesn't. And there's a lot of people out there that say, well, musicians, when they're up there playing, they shouldn't say anything. They're exactly who should be saying something, right, because first of all, you have the pulpit to be able to do it. Number one. Number two, anybody that's ever been to a rock or metal show knows we're one big, happy family and we are united and there are no outsiders. And the rest of the world could take our example.

19:47 Yeah, the whole like you stick to your whatever, like politics is for the people by the people. I'm a person. Just because I have a platform, I have something to say to me, I'm going to continue to do it. I don't do it in such a way where I'm pushing an agenda. My only thought process is for people to think for themselves. Yeah, and artists have done it since the clash Bob Marley, those are two of my heroes I could think off at the top of my head, like they changed the course of not just music, but it got into the fabric of society. And a message of unity will always stand the test of time, and I'll always stand behind it. We'll look at people like Bob Marley and John Lennon. They were a threat and now they're not. Here exactly, and there's a reason for that. Yes, one hundred percent. So I'm glad somebody like you can be a voice for us, and I'm a voice for it, and we all need to be a voice.

20:33 It's important unity. And I'm also a big believer. Hey you do you Okay? Most of these people that are bitching about other people, what the other people do doesn't affect their life in any way, shape or form. It's just pure hate and that's all. Especially if someone is loving another person. Why do you care if they're not harming somebody. Exactly, they're living their lives and they're being peaceful. Just let them be. It's not real happy instead of miserable. Why we want people so miserable exactly. Yeah, So to me, it's all about letting people make choices, being able to actually be free. We got to scale way back to the way it's supposed to be. And again, not just this country, but I'm talking the world over and the message. I'll continue with it. It gives me purpose and I don't care if it gets me in trouble. It's something I'm going to say to the day I die.

21:17 I hope so and keep saying it. And if we all keep saying, we can make the pange change. The power of strength and numbers and we that far far outnumber those people up at the top. That's right. You got it. Well, you are a badass as a human and a musician. And thanks for being here on ship Rocky Man. It's trying to live my best life. And you are. And thanks for being on the Adventures pipe Man. You got it. Thank you everybody. What's up? Good people to suggest these from kills switch engage and you listen to the Pipe Man on W. Four C why I'll rad Thank you for listening to the Adventures of Pipemen on W for c u I Radio.