ASKING ALEXANDRIA Guitarist Talks Next Album

December 10, 2012

ARTISTdirect.com editor-in-chief Rick Florino recently conducted an interview with ASKING ALEXANDRIA guitarist Ben Bruce. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

ARTISTdirect.com: What was the vision for the new album as a whole?

Ben: By far, I think it's the best album we've ever written. There's more to this record. There are heavy parts and softer parts. There's a really rock-y ballad too. The whole record flows from heavy to more mellow. It tells a cool story.

ARTISTdirect.com: Did you get try anything new here?

Ben: We've been playing together a lot longer now so we're used to each other's playing styles. We had a much more solid direction of where we wanted to take this record. Everyone knows we're huge '80s rock fans, hence the SKID ROW covers. We've got a few more covers coming out. We delved a little bit more into that aspect, which we didn't get to do on our last two records because we were still trying to establish ourselves and find our sound. It was fun to experiment with that more. On the last two records, there were heavy string sections, which were all done on the computer. On this record, we got a well-known composer Stevie Blacke to write a real score. We had real string instruments and real choir. I'm really excited we got to explore that on this record.

ARTISTdirect.com: Is this album a bit brighter than "Reckless & Relentless"?

Ben: It definitely is a little bit brighter. We still explored the dark side. For a long time, we struggled with alcohol, drugs, and being on the road at such a young age. We still explore those things on this record, but we're in a much better place as a group of guys. There are some more positive and uplifting songs like [the band's latest single] "Run Free". We feel like we have a voice now and a responsibility. There are a lot of kids who go through shit at school and people who go through bullshit in their personal lives who we feel we can relate to. We're trying to use our voice to send a more positive message on "Run Free", especially.

Read the entire interview from ARTISTdirect.com.

Find more on

Prev More News Next

Comments Disclaimer And Information

BLABBERMOUTH.NET uses the Facebook Comments plugin to let people comment on content on the site using their Facebook account. The comments reside on Facebook servers and are not stored on BLABBERMOUTH.NET. To comment on a BLABBERMOUTH.NET story or review, you must be logged in to an active personal account on Facebook. Once you're logged in, you will be able to comment. User comments or postings do not reflect the viewpoint of BLABBERMOUTH.NET and BLABBERMOUTH.NET does not endorse, or guarantee the accuracy of, any user comment. To report spam or any abusive, obscene, defamatory, racist, homophobic or threatening comments, or anything that may violate any applicable laws, use the "Report to Facebook" and "Mark as spam" links that appear next to the comments themselves. To do so, click the downward arrow on the top-right corner of the Facebook comment (the arrow is invisible until you roll over it) and select the appropriate action. You can also send an e-mail to blabbermouthinbox(@)gmail.com with pertinent details. BLABBERMOUTH.NET reserves the right to "hide" comments that may be considered offensive, illegal or inappropriate and to "ban" users that violate the site's Terms Of Service. Hidden comments will still appear to the user and to the user's Facebook friends. If a new comment is published from a "banned" user or contains a blacklisted word, this comment will automatically have limited visibility (the "banned" user's comments will only be visible to the user and the user's Facebook friends).