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

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.