Killswitch Engage, the band who confused Spokane for Tacoma, returns to town

“Hello, Tacoma!” roared Killswitch Engage vocalist Jesse Leach when his band played Knitting Factory in April 2016.

“That was hilarious,” guitarist Adam Dutkiewicz recalled. “It was one of those Spinal Tap moments that happened, but that was just unbelievable. We caught what Jesse said immediately. I said, ‘Jesse, we’re not in Tacoma.’

“The audience couldn’t stop laughing. We couldn’t stop laughing. … It was one of those crazy times on the road that you never forget.”

The members of Killswitch Engage, who will return Friday to the Knitting Factory, missed the road like every other band when the pandemic started, but the metalcore group was extra frustrated in March 2020 because the quintet was just two shows into its tour when the jaunt was put on ice.

“It was beyond awful since we were literally just getting started,” Dutkiewicz said while calling from Dallas. “We couldn’t wait to get this tour up and running again since our fans held on to their tickets. We call this our Postponement tour since we’re finally on our long-overdue Atonement tour.”

“Atonement,” which was produced and engineered by Dutkiewicz, is full of menacing, visceral metalcore. It’s arguably the best sounding of the eight-album canon of Killswitch Engage.

“Even though the album has been out for a while (‘Atonement’ was released in August 2019), the material still feels fresh to us,” Dutkiewicz said. “We hardly played these songs.

“We played just two shows before we were shut down. We lost a boatload of money, but we’re back. We’re going to play a lot of songs from ‘Atonement’ for these fans who bought tickets and were nice enough to wait for us to come to their town.”

Expect Killswitch Engage ,which also includes guitarist Joel Stroetzel, bassist Mike D’Antonio and drummer Justin Foley, to include at least one song from each of their albums and some deep tracks, as well.

“We like adding weird songs to our setlists,” Dutkiewicz said. “I like playing songs that people don’t expect like ‘Reject Yourself’ from ‘As Daylight Dies.’ It’s not a song most people would ask for. It’s fun to mix it up. We’ll play a bit of everything and just try to stay on top of everything.”

That includes knowing what city Killswitch Engage is playing. “I guarantee you that I’ll mention Jesse thinking he was in Tacoma when we come back to Spokane,” Dutkiewicz said. “It’s still funny.”