BREAKING BENJAMIN Frontman: 'If You Don't Have A Good Relationship With Your Band, It Comes Across To People'

December 20, 2018

BREAKING BENJAMIN frontman frontman Benjamin Burnley was recently interviewed by Terrie Carr of WDHA-FM 105.5 FM, the rock music station licensed to Dover and Morristown, New Jersey. You can now watch the chat below.

Speaking about BREAKING BENJAMIN's lineup of the past five years after a long period of instability, which included lawsuits and acrimony among former members, as well as a multi-year hiatus, Burnley said: "I had a chance to play with people that I thought would be the best personality match and the best musician match for the band. And with everyone that I had in the band before, they were always very capable, very talented musicians, but sometimes you just kind of have different ideas that are not sort of things that you share, that you're not mutual with. So reforming the band after the hiatus, I basically just picked who I knew was gonna be the best fit. And it's been really incredible."

He continued: "I've always really been grateful to the fans and I've always been nothing but absolutely appreciative for everything that they've done, but I wouldn't say that I was the happiest in my own band. And so now the band is what it should be, where business is the last thing we kind of deal with and we make sure that everybody's happy and everybody's doing what they want to be doing, not what they're contractually obligated to be doing. I just don't wanna be in that sort of situation. That's okay for a desk job, but a band is emotional, music is expressive, and I think if you don't have a good relationship with your band, it kind of comes across to people."

In addition to Burnley, BREAKING BENJAMIN's current lineup consists of Jason Rauch and Keith Wallen on guitar; Aaron Bruch on bass and Shaun Foist on drums.

The new members were very much involved in the songwriting process for BREAKING BENJAMIN's latest album, "Ember", unlike on the group's previous five LPs where Burnley wrote nearly all of the songs himself, getting only occasional contributions from his former bandmates.

"I never really wanted to be the main writer in the band," he told Atlantic City Weekly. "It wasn't even an issue of giving up creative control — I never wanted it in the first place. I just always wrote music. Other than the guys I'm playing with now, I never heard songs from anybody else that I was interested in. If I'm not interested in it, I'm not going to do a good job with it. I don't want to live a lie — if I don't like it, I don't like it."

"Ember" debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 chart and has spawned off two No. 1 rock radio hits with recent singles "Red Cold River" and "Torn In Two", marking the band's eighth and ninth No. 1 singles to date.

Find more on Breaking benjamin
  • facebook
  • twitter
  • reddit
  • email

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).