Cosmos Gaming conducted an interview with bassist Mike D'Antonio of Massachusetts metallers KILLSWITCH ENGAGE at last month's Rock On The Range festival in Columbus, Ohio. A few excerpts from the chat follow below.
Cosmos Gaming: In reference to where you came from musically, do you feel like your music has changed at all?
Mike D'Antonio: I guess we went about it in a roundabout way. We were all in separate bands that played 10-minute songs that played 30-40 riffs per song and we didn't have any fans. So we took a step back and said "What would promote a person walking into a venue and seeing us for the first time — loving or hating us — but just knowing right away rather than having to listen to a song 30-40 times to understand what was going on?" So the original idea of the band was to strip things down but I guess that was also the rock way of doing things because it helped us get onto the radio. But it was never anything that we were strived to do.
Cosmos Gaming: We assume you'll be doing your traditional DIO cover tonight, are you planning on doing anything special considering his recent passing?
Mike D'Antonio: Umm, we will dedicate the set to Dio. It was a really sad thing. He was one of the few older guys who could still put it on every day despite his age. It's sad to see such great talent lost but we're not going to do anything special besides just sending it out to him.
Cosmos Gaming: Is there any reason why you initially chose "Holy Diver" vs. any other song?
Mike D'Antonio: The original idea for the cover was Kerrang! magazine was doing a 25th or 30th anniversary edition of the magazine and were putting out a CD of current metal bands covering old school metal bands and there was a long list of bands from like BON JOVI to POISON to DIO and even WEEZER who were thrown in there which was kind of weird but they had the artists and then the songs that were possibilities that the bands could choose from and we had chosen DIO just based on our love for the guy and his band who put out some pretty great metal songs and albums over the years. Not necessarily something that'll be on the radio, but great metal songs nonetheless. And the song they originally wanted us to do "We Rock" but we'd always been big fans of "Holy Diver" so we went to them and there was a bit of back and forth and we just asked if we could do "Holy Diver" and they eventually said "Sure, why not?!" That's why we initially recorded the cover, because we normally don't do or record covers. We're not the kind of band who wants to get known but just recording a bunch of covers. We were just happy to do it and it ended up turning out really well. It was also the first time we'd seen our singer sing-sing a song throughout the entire thing and we weren't entirely sure if he could pull it off because there's a lot of falsetto in Dio's songs so it was cool to see him actually do it.
Cosmos Gaming: Do you feel that by covering "Holy Diver" that it brought a whole new generation to love Dio's music?
Mike D'Antonio: I'd like to hope so. It'd be great to know that. Some of those older guys were suffering a bit to the end of their careers so it would be great for them to gain a bit more respect. Some 14-year-old who doesn't know anything about music can kind of grow into it and learn to love his music. Kids need to find their way somewhere along the lines whether it's by us showing them what good music is or other bands playing songs like that, you know.
Cosmos Gaming: Whom do you blame for the downfall of record sales?
Mike D'Antonio: A lot of it unfortunately has to do with the Internet and songs being available for free but I guess it's just because it's such a new thing that's going on so people haven't figured out how to corral it back into the way it should be. Songwriters need to make money, too. I guess the next step would probably be music services sort of like in the old days where you'd put a penny in an envelope along with one of those old RCA lists where you check off 10 CDs and stuff and I guess that'll come into play and Rhapsody where you pay a certain fee and then get whatever you want. The unfortunate part is that no one owns anything anymore. You're paying the same amount of money but you do not physically own anything.
