Ben Bruce - Asking Alexandria (17/09/2013)
Ahead of their appearances at Soundwave Festival 2014, and the release of their latest record From Death to Destiny, The 59th Sound chats with Ben Bruce of Yorkshire metalcore act, Asking Alexandria.
Hey Ben, how are you?
Yeah I'm alright, mate. How you doing?
I'm good thanks. Let's start off with the new album From Death To Destiny. Where did that name come from?
Well basically, to cut a long story short as you may or may not be aware Asking Alexandria were going through quite a tough time through the record cycles with going on tour and partying too much, we were on a dangerous path.
We didn't know if we could keep going and there was turmoil within the band and a lot of stress on our relationships and the band was close to breaking up many times, so we had to sit down and work out what we were doing. We were partying way too much but we had the world at our fingertips and we want to be one of the biggest bands in the world so we decided we either had to keep writing music together or let it all crumble away.
We obviously decided to stay together, we're a family and we love what we do so to answer your question it symbolises where we were then to now where we've picked ourselves up to move onwards and upwards to essentially our destiny.
The new album also had a pretty big change of direction, was there any major reason for that?
A lot of bands release successful albums and it's safe and it's easy to keep releasing albums that sound the same but for us it'd be really, really boring to regurgitate the same old sound over and over again. It'd also be boring for our fans too.
With each album we wanna push ourselves in different directions and bring out different influences that we all had so when we went into the studio we made the conscious decision to not go with the same formula as previous albums. We really wanted to push ourselves to go onwards and upwards to write what we now think is a better album than our last one.
Just on writing the album, who writes the lyrics and music for the band?
Musically, I write all the music and lyrically it's ninety percent Danny (Worsnop, vocals) and ten percent myself. We're a very honest band. We don't shy away from mistakes we've made or the good things we've done so we always try to write an honest album that people can relate to.
Every single song we write tells a story and, for the most part, they're all since we've been in Asking Alexandria and touring the world together. Every song tells a story so more often than not the people that listen to our songs have shared something similar and can relate to them.
What's the story behind the album artwork? It's very unique.
Yeah it took us a while to come up with that. We wanted something that summed up the whole record from start to finish and obviously that's the visual part of the album so basically what it is is the girl in the vending machine represents all of our vices, whether it be alcohol, drugs, women, anything other than music. Basically anything that can cause a distraction big enough to make the band fall off the wagon and crumble to it's demise.
The person represents a band member, any member, and they're throwing their change on the floor next to the vending machine as they're walking past it to a stadium full of people. Basically it's him leaving his vices behind because they're not going to get the best of him anymore and he's moving onwards to fulfill his destiny that he set out from the beginning.
That's cool. Makes a lot of sense. We'll move onto Soundwave Festival now. You guys must be pretty excited to be returning to Australia for that?
Yes! I think the last time we did Soundwave it was 2011 and it was as fun a festival as we've ever been a part of.
It's well organised, we have a good time, everyone's awesome. We've been wanting to do it again every year but obviously we can't just come back and do Soundwave every year so we had to wait until the time is right. Our booking agent hit us up early on this year asking if we wanted to do Soundwave again and I said “yes, finally! Please get us on there” and low and behold we're coming back to do Soundwave.
What are your best memories of Soundwave 2011?
Other than Hungry Jacks of course (laughs) I like how laid back and down to earth everyone in Australia is. Everyone is out to have a good time. Touring can be quite stressful but for some reason whenever we tour Australia it's not like that.
I think a lot of bands that aren't from Australia are just stoked that they're there so that helps. The weather there is always good, there's people drinking everywhere. That Soundwave was one of the most memorable tours that we've ever been part of.
A lot of Australian fans may not have seen you live. How would you describe an Asking Alexandria show?
Well you see before, about a year to a year and a half ago, it would have been a drunken mess because we were idiots but now we've really worked on our live show so we're always spot on and always giving our all at one hundred percent. It's just a really good time. I can't really describe it, it's best to experience it for yourself.
I saw the band a couple of years ago with The Amity Affliction and your performance was absolutely brilliant so I'm really keen to see you guys live again.
Thank you very much. I can honestly say that I think we've come on in leaps and bounds since then as well and we take our jobs a lot more seriously so I think you might have an even better time this time around.
Are there any other bands on the Soundwave lineup that you're really keen to play alongside?
I'm actually, more than anyone, really looking forward to watching Avenged Sevenfold. We're pretty good friends with those guys and we haven't had the chance to see them live since their new album dropped so I'm really keen to see how they perform tracks from the new record live.
Absolutely. I agree. Yeah, man. It's going to be a really good Soundwave. When you were growing up what bands inspired you to want to be in a band yourself?
I listened to a whole bunch of different music really and I always have. Anything from Elton John to Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton, Slipknot, System Of A Down...but the one band that really made me want to be in a band for the rest of my life was Blink 182. Obviously I think they're a great band anyway but watching them as a group I just fell in love with them when I was a kid.
They were adults who just never really grew up past the age of sixteen and to me that was all I wanted to be because I never wanted to grow up and those guys got to mess around all day every day playing music around the world and having a good time as a family. It just made me say “fuck, that's what I wanna do.”
What about now? What bands do you love at the moment?
I'm really, really into Avenged Sevenfold right now. They're probably playing on my iPod more than anything else but I still listen to a lot of the classics. I find it difficult to find new bands nowadays because since I've been in a band I'm more reluctant to check out new music because I don't really want to start following trends. I like to stick to my comfort zone.
What would you say is the best and worst thing about being in Asking Alexandria?
The best thing about being in Asking Alexandria is obviously the fact that it's my dream job ever since I was a kid. I get to travel the world and see new places and play in front of thousands of different people every day and to do these things with the dudes that I love more than anything in the world is just unbeatable. The worst thing is being away from your loved ones for extended periods of time. The other thing is, and it's kinda sad, is remember when you were a kid and there was a show coming to town and you'd wait for months and months and months to see your favourite band and you'd be so excited and it'd be the greatest day of your life? Now, that's kind of every day. I never get to feel that feeling anymore. It's more just a daily routine which is kinda upsetting.
How do you deal with that? Does the touring get boring at times?
It can get very boring. The shows themselves are never, ever boring and that's what keeps us going because we love playing the shows. They're the best part of our day. The days themselves are very monotonous, very regimented. You wake up and you do press, you eat a sandwich and do more press then you do a signing and it's the same thing day in day out and you're just counting down the hours before you're finally on stage. Most of my day is just spent waiting for that hour or half hour were on stage and then after that you just try and think that it's only another twenty four hours before you get to play on stage again.
What about when you get some time away from the band back home? What do you like to get up to?
See again that's one of the bummers about my job is I don't know how to switch off. I mean I spend a lot of time with my wife and we do watch a lot of movies but we've just released our brand new album and all that's going on in my head is “fuck, I wanna start writing the next album” so I've already started writing some new tunes. I really don't know how to switch off the music part of me.
Wow so you've already started writing for the next album?
Yeah! (laughs) I like writing as soon as we release an album because it'll sound kinda similar because I'm in a similar frame of mind and that's always good to get the jump on new music and then as we get close to recording my mind set will change and things will actually change a little bit and that keeps the album diverse.
Yeah that makes sense. What one thing that Asking Alexandria has done would you say you're most proud of?
I really don't know....I guess as far as career accomplishment I guess it'd be the release of this album debuting at number five on the Billboard top two hundred charts with Jay-Z being number four. That's probably our biggest accomplishment to date. It was completely unexpected and it was one of the best feelings in the world.
How did you react to that news? It would have been extremely pleasing.
Oh it was ridiculous. I got way too drunk and had to spend the next day curled up in the foetal position in the living room of our tour bus....sorry, it was the celebratory position (laughs)
(laughs) Fair enough then. We'll have to wrap it up there. Thanks very much for your time and I look forward to seeing you at Soundwave next year.
Hell yeah, man. Thank you very much.
Matt Barton
SOUNDWAVE 2014
Saturday, 22nd February
RNA Showgrounds, Brisbane
Sunday, 23rd February
Sydney Olympic Park, Sydney
Friday, 28th February
Flemington Racecourse, Melbourne
Saturday, 1st March
Bonython Park, Adelaide
Monday, 3rd March
Claremont Showgrounds, Perth
Hey Ben, how are you?
Yeah I'm alright, mate. How you doing?
I'm good thanks. Let's start off with the new album From Death To Destiny. Where did that name come from?
Well basically, to cut a long story short as you may or may not be aware Asking Alexandria were going through quite a tough time through the record cycles with going on tour and partying too much, we were on a dangerous path.
We didn't know if we could keep going and there was turmoil within the band and a lot of stress on our relationships and the band was close to breaking up many times, so we had to sit down and work out what we were doing. We were partying way too much but we had the world at our fingertips and we want to be one of the biggest bands in the world so we decided we either had to keep writing music together or let it all crumble away.
We obviously decided to stay together, we're a family and we love what we do so to answer your question it symbolises where we were then to now where we've picked ourselves up to move onwards and upwards to essentially our destiny.
The new album also had a pretty big change of direction, was there any major reason for that?
A lot of bands release successful albums and it's safe and it's easy to keep releasing albums that sound the same but for us it'd be really, really boring to regurgitate the same old sound over and over again. It'd also be boring for our fans too.
With each album we wanna push ourselves in different directions and bring out different influences that we all had so when we went into the studio we made the conscious decision to not go with the same formula as previous albums. We really wanted to push ourselves to go onwards and upwards to write what we now think is a better album than our last one.
Just on writing the album, who writes the lyrics and music for the band?
Musically, I write all the music and lyrically it's ninety percent Danny (Worsnop, vocals) and ten percent myself. We're a very honest band. We don't shy away from mistakes we've made or the good things we've done so we always try to write an honest album that people can relate to.
Every single song we write tells a story and, for the most part, they're all since we've been in Asking Alexandria and touring the world together. Every song tells a story so more often than not the people that listen to our songs have shared something similar and can relate to them.
What's the story behind the album artwork? It's very unique.
Yeah it took us a while to come up with that. We wanted something that summed up the whole record from start to finish and obviously that's the visual part of the album so basically what it is is the girl in the vending machine represents all of our vices, whether it be alcohol, drugs, women, anything other than music. Basically anything that can cause a distraction big enough to make the band fall off the wagon and crumble to it's demise.
The person represents a band member, any member, and they're throwing their change on the floor next to the vending machine as they're walking past it to a stadium full of people. Basically it's him leaving his vices behind because they're not going to get the best of him anymore and he's moving onwards to fulfill his destiny that he set out from the beginning.
That's cool. Makes a lot of sense. We'll move onto Soundwave Festival now. You guys must be pretty excited to be returning to Australia for that?
Yes! I think the last time we did Soundwave it was 2011 and it was as fun a festival as we've ever been a part of.
It's well organised, we have a good time, everyone's awesome. We've been wanting to do it again every year but obviously we can't just come back and do Soundwave every year so we had to wait until the time is right. Our booking agent hit us up early on this year asking if we wanted to do Soundwave again and I said “yes, finally! Please get us on there” and low and behold we're coming back to do Soundwave.
What are your best memories of Soundwave 2011?
Other than Hungry Jacks of course (laughs) I like how laid back and down to earth everyone in Australia is. Everyone is out to have a good time. Touring can be quite stressful but for some reason whenever we tour Australia it's not like that.
I think a lot of bands that aren't from Australia are just stoked that they're there so that helps. The weather there is always good, there's people drinking everywhere. That Soundwave was one of the most memorable tours that we've ever been part of.
A lot of Australian fans may not have seen you live. How would you describe an Asking Alexandria show?
Well you see before, about a year to a year and a half ago, it would have been a drunken mess because we were idiots but now we've really worked on our live show so we're always spot on and always giving our all at one hundred percent. It's just a really good time. I can't really describe it, it's best to experience it for yourself.
I saw the band a couple of years ago with The Amity Affliction and your performance was absolutely brilliant so I'm really keen to see you guys live again.
Thank you very much. I can honestly say that I think we've come on in leaps and bounds since then as well and we take our jobs a lot more seriously so I think you might have an even better time this time around.
Are there any other bands on the Soundwave lineup that you're really keen to play alongside?
I'm actually, more than anyone, really looking forward to watching Avenged Sevenfold. We're pretty good friends with those guys and we haven't had the chance to see them live since their new album dropped so I'm really keen to see how they perform tracks from the new record live.
Absolutely. I agree. Yeah, man. It's going to be a really good Soundwave. When you were growing up what bands inspired you to want to be in a band yourself?
I listened to a whole bunch of different music really and I always have. Anything from Elton John to Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton, Slipknot, System Of A Down...but the one band that really made me want to be in a band for the rest of my life was Blink 182. Obviously I think they're a great band anyway but watching them as a group I just fell in love with them when I was a kid.
They were adults who just never really grew up past the age of sixteen and to me that was all I wanted to be because I never wanted to grow up and those guys got to mess around all day every day playing music around the world and having a good time as a family. It just made me say “fuck, that's what I wanna do.”
What about now? What bands do you love at the moment?
I'm really, really into Avenged Sevenfold right now. They're probably playing on my iPod more than anything else but I still listen to a lot of the classics. I find it difficult to find new bands nowadays because since I've been in a band I'm more reluctant to check out new music because I don't really want to start following trends. I like to stick to my comfort zone.
What would you say is the best and worst thing about being in Asking Alexandria?
The best thing about being in Asking Alexandria is obviously the fact that it's my dream job ever since I was a kid. I get to travel the world and see new places and play in front of thousands of different people every day and to do these things with the dudes that I love more than anything in the world is just unbeatable. The worst thing is being away from your loved ones for extended periods of time. The other thing is, and it's kinda sad, is remember when you were a kid and there was a show coming to town and you'd wait for months and months and months to see your favourite band and you'd be so excited and it'd be the greatest day of your life? Now, that's kind of every day. I never get to feel that feeling anymore. It's more just a daily routine which is kinda upsetting.
How do you deal with that? Does the touring get boring at times?
It can get very boring. The shows themselves are never, ever boring and that's what keeps us going because we love playing the shows. They're the best part of our day. The days themselves are very monotonous, very regimented. You wake up and you do press, you eat a sandwich and do more press then you do a signing and it's the same thing day in day out and you're just counting down the hours before you're finally on stage. Most of my day is just spent waiting for that hour or half hour were on stage and then after that you just try and think that it's only another twenty four hours before you get to play on stage again.
What about when you get some time away from the band back home? What do you like to get up to?
See again that's one of the bummers about my job is I don't know how to switch off. I mean I spend a lot of time with my wife and we do watch a lot of movies but we've just released our brand new album and all that's going on in my head is “fuck, I wanna start writing the next album” so I've already started writing some new tunes. I really don't know how to switch off the music part of me.
Wow so you've already started writing for the next album?
Yeah! (laughs) I like writing as soon as we release an album because it'll sound kinda similar because I'm in a similar frame of mind and that's always good to get the jump on new music and then as we get close to recording my mind set will change and things will actually change a little bit and that keeps the album diverse.
Yeah that makes sense. What one thing that Asking Alexandria has done would you say you're most proud of?
I really don't know....I guess as far as career accomplishment I guess it'd be the release of this album debuting at number five on the Billboard top two hundred charts with Jay-Z being number four. That's probably our biggest accomplishment to date. It was completely unexpected and it was one of the best feelings in the world.
How did you react to that news? It would have been extremely pleasing.
Oh it was ridiculous. I got way too drunk and had to spend the next day curled up in the foetal position in the living room of our tour bus....sorry, it was the celebratory position (laughs)
(laughs) Fair enough then. We'll have to wrap it up there. Thanks very much for your time and I look forward to seeing you at Soundwave next year.
Hell yeah, man. Thank you very much.
Matt Barton
SOUNDWAVE 2014
Saturday, 22nd February
RNA Showgrounds, Brisbane
Sunday, 23rd February
Sydney Olympic Park, Sydney
Friday, 28th February
Flemington Racecourse, Melbourne
Saturday, 1st March
Bonython Park, Adelaide
Monday, 3rd March
Claremont Showgrounds, Perth