Killswitch Engage Vocalist Recounts Being Recognised By Fans While Working As A Bartender

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Returned Killswitch Engage vocalist Jesse Leach has opened up on his time spent in the straight world after leaving the group in 2002. The frontman said “the most humbling experience” of his time away was being recognised by fans while working as a trainee cocktail bartender in Manhattan.

“After Times of Grace faded out a little bit and [KSE] started up again I was working behind a bar,” he told TeamRock. “I was bar-backing in Manhattan and training to be a cocktail bartender, which was great fun but a lot of hard work and long nights. It’s nice to be on the other side of the bar now.”

Asked what he learned as a bar-back, he said, “It takes time, the ingredients have to be exact. For me though, the most humbling experience of being a bar-back is having someone recognise you when you’re wiping their glass down, getting ready to serve them. It’s a very humbling experience.”

Leach previously stated that he left KSE because “there was definitely something wrong with my head.” The frontman told TeamRock, “I was dealing with a depression. At that time it was a pretty lowdown feeling of being alienated, just sort of not being prepared mentally for a life on the road.”

Meanwhile, Leach’s replacement Howard Jones, now of Devil You Know, recently revealed that he left the band for similar reasons to Leach. Initially thought to have departed because of the impact of touring on his diabetes, Jones recently told Revolver Magazine (via Metal Injection) that he left because of a “complete mental breakdown” that had begun to cause pre-show panic attacks.

Listen: Killswitch Engage’s Jesse Leach Speak to TeamRock at Download Festival 2014

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