Asking Alexandria is a household name in the scene. The former bad boys of metal(core) have overcome a great deal of hardships in the recent years which would have made other bands call it quits a long time ago. And yet, the British outfit continues to evolve in their voyage from self-destruction to growth, creating music that serves as therapy, both for the fans and for themselves.
We recently had the chance to sit down with guitarist and founding member, Ben Bruce, to discuss the reality of the band. With his wonderful sense of humor, Ben is mature and retrospective as he details the band's career, being a theater nerd and making a difference in people's lives.
Unraveled: Greetings from Greece and welcome to Unraveled! Thank you for joining me today! How is the pandemic treating you?
Ben Bruce: It’s been pretty great for me just because I’ve been able to stay home and hang out with my wife and kids for two years so it’s been pretty nice for me to kinda sit back and be dad for a little bit.
U: This pretty much answers my next question, how did you
manage to stay sane during your time off.
B.B.: I haven’t had a time off, in fact if anything I’m more
entertained now. I’ve got four kids, they’re crazy, they’ve kept me busy and
they’ve aged me significantly [he gestures at his head].
U: No, I wouldn’t say that, you’re looking fine. So, let’s
start with the new EP, which came out a few weeks ago. How’s the reception been
so far?
B.B.: It’s been great you know. It was kind of like a surprise
release, we didn’t tell anyone about it, so it’s been pretty cool. Everyone
knew what was gonna happen when you release something. I
think especially in today’s era, where there’s so much stuff being thrown around, at all times it’s easy for things to be lost in the shuffle, but for us it’s
been really really good and it’s been a lot of fun too.
U: This EP came out only a few months after your latest
album, “See What’s On The Inside”. What lead you to have two separate releases
instead of a more “traditional” format of a deluxe edition or to sit on the EP
a little longer?
B.B.: I think it’s exactly that, we didn’t want to do anything
that was “traditional”, if that makes sense. Even the way this new album was
constructed and written and recorded wasn’t very traditional in terms of how
things are done now. For instance, we didn’t rely on any computer programming or
drum samples or anything like that, everything was raw, recorded by us, no
replacements. From day one the inception of this new era of Asking Alexandria
we did things kinda different than people would anyway. It was the same with
the release of “See What’s On The Inside”, we released the album without
releasing multiple singles beforehand, which most people don’t do anymore.
When it came to do another single which at the moment is “Never Gonna Learn” we wanted, again, to do things slightly differently and we kinda thought to ourselves “how can we do a single and make it more interesting for us, for our fans” so we came up with the concept of this small EP that’s a continuation of the journey from “See What’s On The Inside”. It’s been a lot more fun that saying “hey! Here’s another single!”. It was something extra for our fans since we haven’t been able to tour or do anything for two and a half years, so it was like… It kinds feels nice to sort of give a little bit more when we can.
U: This is your first –well, technically second- release on Better noise Music, how’s the
experience been so far on the new label?
B.B.: It’s been great! Better Noise have been better at
supporting us and understanding our vision and our goals, and our music desires
and creativity and such, so it’s been a great time. We have a great team and
we’re looking forward to the next release. I think our bond and relationship is
gonna get stronger as we learn more about each other.
U: You were able to do a massive tour last year. How did it
feel to be back on stage and back on the road? How have interactions with fans
changed?
B.B.: It was weird, it was kind of surreal… It was really hard
and really enjoyable at the same time. Leaving my family after so long was very
tough for me; I got very homesick, I struggled being away from the kids, they
struggled being away from me, but at the same time, being back on stage, that
aspect of touring... It was insane because, even before the pandemic, getting on
stage and performing in front of your fans and sharing that energy and that
connection was already indescribable, it’s not like anything you’d ever felt,
so after not doing it in so long it was insane, like I said it was surreal. It
felt pretty nuts just to see everyone there, shoulder to shoulder singing,
having a good time… It was really really nice to see that and I think people
needed it. It’s been a rough time for everyone; music and live music is such a
great release for people, it was pretty wild.
U: How have interactions with fans changed? Other than
obviously not having Meet and Greets anymore, I know that on certain tours bands
don’t even allow backstage guests anymore…
B.B.: We didn’t do any Meet and Greets either, it’s still for
us a learning thing, we’re not too sure where we stand… For us, we kept it to
our family [being] allowed to come backstage and hang out because, the problem
is, if you allow everyone and you pretend that everything’s good and [Covid] doesn’t exist, if one person gets sick, the whole tour can get sick and then it
goes away. Then the fans miss out, the bands miss out, the crew miss out, the
promoters, the venues, everyone misses out and so there’s a lot to think about
when doing that. It would be nice to say “screw it, we’re all in this together,
let’s be normal again” but I feel there’s more that goes into it than that, so
I think it’s definitely going to be a learning curve, I think that next year is
when touring starts to re-emerge, there will be a lot of re-learning and
figuring out new ways to keep people healthy and stuff like that.
U: With tours being constantly postponed or cancelled, how do you feel about the uncertainty in the live industry and how do you think this will affect bands in the future? Asking Alexandria is a big band but how do you think smaller bands will cope with the situation? Getting back on track will be a lot trickier I think…
B.B.: I think so, I think the music industry is gonna have to rebuild and I think it’s gonna take time. People are expecting this magic wand to be waved and be like “the pandemic’s over, we’re back!” but I don’t think it’s that simple. No matter what level band you are, you’ve lost money, you’ve lost crew members, people have lost jobs and had to find new jobs… Beyond the band, there’s crew members, venue owners, people that work at venues, from cleaners to promoters to vendors, there’s so many people that have been affected by this, it would be naïve to think that it’s gonna pop back magically overnight. I think it’s gonna affect the entire industry, there’s gonna be a ripple effect that’s gonna take a few years to build back.
And it’s still uncertain, you know? We’ve got shows booked that we don’t even know if we’re playing them, that we don’t know if we’re allowed, don’t know if we can… People are starting to get tired of bands postponing or cancelling and stuff, but it truly is beyond everyone’s control. I don’t think people wake up in the morning and go “let’s cancel these shows!”. When we get told we have to postpone or cancel a show it’s devastating for us as well, we want to tour, we want to play! We’ve released two albums during the pandemic, we’ve not really got to play these songs in front of many people! It’s tough.
U: Let’s go back to the music. With these new releases,
Asking Alexandria returns to their hard rock roots, with the sound becoming
bigger, which reflects on the live show as well. Your live production has
become more theatrical, which makes me suspect that there’s a theater fan in
the band…
B.B.: I grew up going to the theater from the age of, like, 3,
I used to go to the West End in London all the time and I’ve seen just
everything, from The Phantom Of The Opera to Cats to… Anything you can think
of, I’ve probably seen it. And then to top it off, our lighting director, he’s
a huge theater nerd too so he went “let’s up the ante and bring some
theatricals to the show!” and I was like
“let’s do it!”. It’s not new, you know, bands like Iron Maiden and Avenged
Sevenfold have been doing theatrical stuff forever. I’m excited to delve more
into that world and try to bring our live shows sort of to life.
U: What inspired the theatricality of this new element,
especially now, and how does the theatricality enhance the interpretation of
the new songs?
B.B.: You know what it is? Like I said from the inception of
this album we wanted to do things differently and we kinda went back in time to
create this album. We were influenced by all the bands that we grew up loving,
whether that was Queen or Zeppelin or Metallica, Nirvana, Elton John, The
Beatles, it’s all these great rock bands that we grew up listening to, and we
allowed them to influence this album, even the way it was created. Like I
mentioned, there was nothing digital, it was all microphones and amps and we
recorded for real. Looking back at bands like Metallica or Iron Maiden, their
shows were very theatrical, very over the top, and it kinda made it more of an
experience.
Over the years, the last years in particular, everything has become very… similar. Everyone’s doing drum samples and digital replacements, and that translates to the live show, with big LED screens and everything looks very modern and very crisp. It looks great! But we wanted to go back to that old-school feel where when you step foot to an Asking Alexandria show you’re at a show, you’re at a performance, emerged in it. It was something that we’ve wanted to do for a long time and now we’re actually attempting to build, but it’s tough, it’s gonna take time but hopefully our show gets bigger and bigger. You know, I was looking at Metallica’s “…And Justice For All” tour and their album cover came to life on that tour, and I think that’s such a cool thing to incorporate, and it just helps tell the story of the record a little bit more.
U: I agree and I think that, the bigger the venues you play,
the easier it will become to bring this to life.
B.B.: Right, yeah. It depends on the size of the stage and
everything.
U: Do you think that fans, who may be younger, will be able
to appreciate the overall ambience beyond just the music?
B.B.: I hope they would be able to. I feel that when you go to a show, whether
it’s a rock and roll show or a pop show, you want to be taken out of reality;
you see people that are still texting and filming, if you can take people out
of that element and insert them into a new one, I don’t think it matters what
age you are, surely it’s enjoyable.
U: In the recent years, we have seen many bands openly talk
about mental health struggles in their songs. How important is it for you to
help further establish this dialogue?
B.B.: I think it’s really important. It’s such a subject that
was such a taboo for years and years, and people didn’t talk about mental
health, they shied away from it as if it was embarrassing. My mum has suffered
from depression, my wife suffers from anxiety, it’s a huge thing that affects
way more people than we realize. Whether you’re a multi-millionaire or have no
money, everyone’s got problems, everyone’s got issues they are dealing with to
a certain degree and I think it’s important to use our platform to let people
know “hey, we’re all in this together, we’re all going through a hard time, and
you’re not alone”. It’s the biggest thing that people don’t necessarily
remember because they think [others] won’t understand, but we have a platform
to let them know that people do understand and there’s loads other people out
there going through lots of stuff. It’s important to get that across.
U: Does having more personal songs help fans?
B.B.: I think so. Even growing up I went through some pretty
tough stuff too, like everyone does; my parents got divorced, people dying, so I
think music can help heal. [When it comes to] personal songs, when an artist is
pouring their heart and soul into a song you can hear it and you can feel it,
and for me as a music fan, It would always come out of the speakers and affect
me in such a big way where it helped and it made me realize –whether it was the
words or the melody- it was almost a form of therapy for me growing up. I do
think more personal songs help people. It’s easier to write songs that have no
substance or lyrics that don’t really mean anything but they were written to be
a hit. It’s a lot harder to write a song with real meaning and emotion and
connect to someone. But when you do, I think magic happens.
That’s something that I love about A.A.; we write music that
we love and that we care about, we put a lot of passion in it. A song, for
instance, on our new album, “Find Myself”, the opening lyric is “How do I kill
myself? All the parts that have been created to please”, and it’s not
necessarily about suicide but it’s struggling with what’s going on and how do
you keep the good and get rid of the bad, and I think it’s such a powerful
moment when Danny [Worsnop, vocals] opens his mouth. It was so powerful to us that I said we
should open the album with this song. Ultimately we ended up going with “Alone
Again” but I think it’s harder to do that than it is to write a Top-10 hit.
U: And that song in particular is open to interpretation as
well. For me it sounded more about destroying the image someone else has of
you and showing who you really are.
B.B.: Exactly. Exactly. Which is why a lot of that is in that song. A lot of what Danny’s
been through, we’ve all been through, and that’s the best thing about music;
it’s open to interpretation. Maybe a song I listened to as a kid wasn’t
intended for me to take it the way I did but it helped me nonetheless the way I
heard it. That’s the great thing about music I think.
U: Let’s move on to some harder questions. If Asking
Alexandria were members of the Spice Girls, what would be your Spice Names?
B.B.: Cam [Liddell, guitar] would be Sleepy Spice, because
he’s so quiet and timid, and he’s always in the background, he’s always kinda
just there. Sam [Bettley, bass] would be Shorty Spice because he’s shorter than
the rest of us, not even necessarily short. James [Cassells, drums] would be
Angry Spice because he gets very angry over very silly things, like, if he
orders a pizza and the wrong toppings are on that pizza… It’s a bad evening. It’s
a terrible evening. Danny would be
Hairy Spice. Lots of hair, that man… That beard doesn’t stop there, it
continues down to his toes. I’d be Curly Spice [points at his hair] Nailed it!
U: Yes you did! If you could have a one-minute phone
conversation with a younger you, what age would you call and what would you
tell yourself?
B.B.: [Exhales heavily] Man… I’d probably call 17 or
18-year-old me and say “hey listen, you’ve been signed, that’s awesome…” –the
thing is, we got signed so young, and for whatever reason we got told we were
the next rock n roll band so there was always people in our ears saying
[gestures in the air] “this is rock n roll, this is rock n roll, this is rock n
roll” which lead us down such a dark and treacherous path, you know. We got
drug addictions, alcohol dependency and all kind of things, so I think I’d call
and be like “don’t listen to any of them, you’ve been signed because you worked
hard and just keep working hard doing what you love to do”. It’s not ‘sex,
drugs and rock n roll’, rock n roll is being true to yourself and doing what
you love to do. Obviously when you’re young you don’t know that, but that’s
what I would do, I would tell myself to just ignore all the noise and keep
doing what you’re doing.
U: Do you think that your 17-year-old self would do as he
was told?
B.B.: Probably not, [I was] stupid.
U: Did you think you would make it this far, both in your
career and in life, when you were starting out?
B.B.: I don’t think I
ever thought about it. My goal was to always play music in front of anyone that
would listen, and that still really the goal. We’ve been very fortunate, really
really lucky with what we’ve accomplished but I’ve never really thought about it.
It was never my goal to be famous or
super successful, it was just my goal to play music and that’s what we’re still
doing. I always wanted to be a father and I always wanted to be a husband, and
that takes time; you go through life, and you figure stuff out, but did I ever
think I would be here? I don’t think
so. I never thought this far ahead, it was very much what’s happening now what
am I doing now.
U: Your house is on fire [he looks across the room and at
the ceiling feigning panic] and you only have time to grab 3 items before you
flee. Pets and family are safe. What do you take?
B.B.: I would take the guitar that my grandfather got me before
he passed away, I would take… My wife takes polaroid pictures of our kids and
stuff, we’ve got them all over, so I’d grab those. Everyone’s got a million
pictures on their phone but there’s something about a polaroid with a date on
it that takes you back to that place, I think it’s pretty special, and then I’d
grab the family’s passports and birth certificates [laughs] Pretty important!
U: That’s a first! But would you take shoes?
B.B.: I’m always wearing shoes, I don’t know why. They’re
comfortable. I’m on my phone a lot because I work a lot so I pace, I’m always
outside at my house, pacing back and forth –and also, my Labrador has a
horrible habit of stepping on people’s toes so I’ve got shoes on, you’re not
getting my toes!
U: That’s a problem I never had with the cats. I mean they
will piss in the shoes but they won’t step on my toes.
B.B.: Oh my cat is always sat on the couch like this and then she’ll jump up and she’ll start scratching the couch, and she’ll catch me by
accident. That’s always fun… I used to have long hair. She chewed it off, my cat chews my hair! She
eats it! She’ll sit behind me and she’ll just lick my hair and chew it!
U: Final question. What do you want the band’s legacy to be?
B.B.: My favorite thing to see –I don’t know if it’s a legacy-
is people [saying] even now “Asking Alexandria has been there for me since high
school, I’m in my 30’s, I’ve got children, I’m working, they’re still there for
me when I need something in life”. I just think that’s a legacy you’ve left in
someone’s individual life and that’s the bigger gift that you can ask for. You
might be the biggest and the best band in the world for one person and that’s
awesome.
U: Yes, exactly! And this is beautiful! We are done for
today, thanks for taking the time to do this, and hopefully we’ll see you guys
again on the road soon!
B.B.: Thank you for talking to me, I hope so! [crosses his
fingers] I’ll keep my fingers firmly crossed, and my toes in my shoes!
Asking Alexandria's latest EP, "Never Gonna Learn", is out now via Better Noise Music, you can stream it here.
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