In this second part of our interview, I discovered that Jones is a massive wrestling fan. For years, metal and wrestling have been connected among the fans and wrestlers themselves. Howard Jones brought to light how Killswitch Engage has fans in the likes of Stone Cold Steve Austin and Chris Jericho.  

Since you guys are from Massachusetts, are you guys big sports fans?  

I had my fanatic days but I just love the competitiveness overall, especially if it’s full contact. The more contact, the better.  

I asked him this partly because while we were talking, the TV program “The Ultimate Fighter” was playing on the TV in the bus. I didn’t realize that would segueway into the brunt of our conversation.  

So who is your favorite fighter at this point?  

Wow. That is tough to say but I love George St. Pierre. I’m also looking forward to see what Brock Lesnar is going to do as well.  

At this point, we discover that both he and I are massive wrestling fans since Lesnar was a WWE wrestler from 2002 to 2005, which lightened the conversation even further. Jones further explains his love for full-contact sports and professional wrestling in general.  

“He was an All-American wrestler in college and is a legitimate destructive force. I know that he has been training very hard and I’m looking forward to his debut. I had been following him since his college days, then into the stint with the WWE, and into Japan. If it has to do with fighting and wrestling, I love it. I mean, it has nothing to with Killswitch at all but personally, that’s what I’m into.”  

He went onto explain how the WWE (the famed sports entertainment empire) contacted the band initially and the song, “This Fire Burns”, is being used for wrestler CM Punk in the ECW brand. He also shared that in addition to CM Punk’s theme; he also sings the theme song for ECW program on the Sci-Fi Channel and did the vocals for another WWE wrestler, Chuck Palumbo.  

He also shared how he gave up tickets to WrestleMania in Detroit this past March so he would be able to record their cover of the Dio’s classic “Holy Diver.”  

“The day we recorded the Dio song, I had tickets to the show plus tickets to the afterparty. I was going to fly out but due to our recording schedules, I wasn’t able to. It was a bummer to miss Wrestlemania for a Dio song but hey, it is Dio, so it's all good.”

Jones continues to talk about his first meetings with former and current WWE superstars Stone Cold Steve Austin, Chris Jericho, and the Dudley Boyz.