Peaches Interviews Keith Wallen of Breaking Benjamin - April 2024

Back in April of 2024, Keith Wallen visited the KBEAR studio prior to the Breaking Benjamin show at the Mountain America Center. Here's that conversation he had with Peaches. 

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The Artist Interrogations podcast. And rats as Peaches sitting down with Keith Wallen of Breaking Benjamin, also of Keith Wallen himself, Doing solo prod doing having a solo project as well. We've been playing a couple of your tracks. I have the titles here because I am the worst with names. It's myself.

And so Headspace Holiday, The Wolf, and there's one more that I'm forgetting. There's another one called Strings. Strings. Mhmm. And you have a new album out coming May.

Right? May 3rd. May 3rd. That's awesome. How do you balance Breaking Benjamin and, of course, doing your own solo stuff?

You know, it's a it's a little bit of extra work, but, it's not too bad. I mean, basically, whenever breaking Benjamin is, you know, not on tour and not really actively working on stuff, I take that opportunity to just hit the road and work on my own stuff and, you know, make the best use of my time. Obviously, I got to have a little bit of r and r squeezed in there, otherwise, I'll go insane, but, but man, I just love making music. I just love to perform and get out there and and meet as many people as I can and meet new fans and stuff. So, it really is, it really is a blessing.

I mean, I'm living living the dream for for real. And for the songwriting process, just trying to figure things out. For the songwriting process for you specifically and also for Breaking Benjamin, do you guys collaborate as a group for Breaking Benjamin songs and then also you're just kind of like on like for your own own stuff? Do you kind of have them also listen to it and give feedback as well? Oh no.

I I pretty much all the best ideas I take and use for myself basically. No. Yeah. We all work together and and, you know, we'll we'll come up with different ideas and I'll kind of send it back and forth, because we all live in different places. So a lot of the writing is done remotely.

Obviously, whenever we get in the same room, you know, we'll we'll kind of, you know, work on some stuff sometimes. We actually just finished up 2 new songs, a couple weeks ago. Just finished the the backing vocals up for it. So 2 more songs in the can, and we're gonna we're gonna probably work on some more stuff whenever we get off tour, but we're always working, man. Whether we're home, whether we're on tour.

Obviously, it's been a long time since, we've released some new music, so we we we don't wanna rush it though. You know, we wanna make sure we we, perfect it as as much as we want. We wanna put our best foot forward and make the best music that we possibly can. Absolutely. And for your own group and, like, do you actually just have your friends more so with that group?

And then for Breaking Benjamin, you know, of course, all those guys, you know, is it 2 completely different groups? Well, yes. You know, I mean, they're all my friends. They're all my brothers. Of course.

My road brothers. But, yeah, the, my my solo band actually, is comprised of our stage left guitar tech, Mike Warren, known as Cowboy, and, and our our drum tech, Blake. So, yeah, man. It's, and then, you know, I I just I got a bass player. He lives in Vegas.

So he he's gonna fly out and meet us and then because we're pretty much starting a solo tour here in about a week and a half, 2 weeks. Oh, nice. So right I I literally walk off stage from breaking Benjamin and get in a van and go to the first solo show. So, it's gonna be interesting, but, man, I love it. I mean, I I really do.

I I live for this. Now is there, like, a completely different, like, vibe change from one band to the other? Like, it as you you differentiate roles, of course, like you're the vocalist for, you know, your own your own group and then for Breaking Benjamin, guitar player, backup vocalist as well? Yeah. As far as vibe, I mean, it's just a different band.

It's a different, you know, style of music. You know, I'm a different singer. Yeah. It's just a different band, but, I mean, the goal is still the same and that is to to melt faces. So Right.

Yes. For your riffs, for your own stuff. Yeah. Do you kind of just come up with that on your own and, like, or like you're practicing with breaking Benjamin? Like, I want to keep this for myself sort of thing.

Not so much that. I mean, I wouldn't say it's that, devious. You made that sound so badass. Right. No.

I mean, I would. Yeah. I mean, I think it's just whenever I'm I'm I'm working on whatever, I think I kind of look at it just as a case by case basis, you know. If I'm look if I'm working on something that's for my stuff, I kind of have that mindset, you know. If it's something for breaking Benjamin, I'm like okay, I'm in breaking Benjamin mode, you know, or whatever kind of project whether it's with a different artist or whatever.

I kind of just, you know, look at it more cater to whatever the project is, you know. Right. And for the show tonight at the Mountain America Center, you, Daughtry, catch your breath. Deciding the set list, is that all Ben or is that you guys as a group or do you have fans sort of let let you know what songs to pick or Yeah. I think it's a little bit of, the the last 2, you know.

I think, we would kind of get with Ben there the the first 5 years of this new incarnation of Breaking Bad. But now we've kind of been able to kind of throw our 2¢ in and take over the kind of set list thing and, and plus, you know, the fans, we look at the streams, we look at what songs have done well, you know, historically. I think that goes in. That factors into what we should play and plus we read stuff online. People wanna hear certain things and but but, you know, we try to play the the hits and and play the the more album tracks that people really like too.

So Yeah. Have a nice little combination there. I think thinking of the hits, I mean, people don't really realize how many hits Breaking Benjamin has. Like, I think I I've seen I looked at all the tracks, and I was like, how many hits these guys have? And I was just counting how many that I've heard, enjoyed, and all that.

And I remember, like, as a very young kid playing, like, WWE Day of Reckoning and the first song you think you hear is Firefly or Polyamorous, that song. And that's crazy that, like, you know, years later, I'm not interviewing the guitarist of the band that I listened to as a kid. Yeah. So That's god. That's, like, over 20 years ago, something like that.

That was before my time. That's right. I was in the band. Yeah. And you were in what band before?

Is it Adelita's way before? I was in that band for for a short little bit. I was I was in another band, based out of Knoxville, Tennessee called Copper and we opened for Breaking Ben and then Adelita's Way opened for Breaking Ben. Now I'm in Breaking Ben. So it's it's it's funny full circle moment there.

I think we've had Adelita's Way in here before. I was trying to figure out if that was the case, if you were part of that or if it was like a different time. But I I think I was also reading somewhere about, like, you have written songs for other bands. Is that correct? Mhmm.

And, like, what other bands have you written songs for? I don't even I don't even like even like to say I've written songs for anybody. It's really a collaborative effort, you know. So, yeah, I've written songs with, I've done a few songs with, Saint Sonia. Okay.

Let's see. I did one with Dorothy on her album. 1 with We Came as Romans. Yeah. I'm sure I'm I can't think of any.

I can't think of any more. I'm sure I'm leaving some out, but That's pretty crazy. There's a handful of them, over the years, And I mean, obviously, I wrote some with Adelie's Way and then, with Breaking Bad now. Now I'm a soloist up too. But, yeah, I just I like to work.

I mean, especially, you know, during the whole COVID period, you know, there was really nothing to do but just try to write and work on music because I mean, we none of us were, you know, allowed to tour. So, is anything and everything to try to take our mind off of, you know, all the doom and gloom that was going on. Right. And even for just, like, the songwriting process overall without COVID being in the way and stuff, like, how do you hone in on 1 song? How do you come up with the lyrical content?

That sort of thing. I mean, it could come from anything. Sometimes you just, you know, wake up in the middle of the night and you're like, that's a weird idea. And then then if you're smart, you, like, make a little voice memo of it or something, but sometimes I'll be like, I'll remember that. I've done that before and then you wake up and it's just so gone.

Of course. But then I listen to some of my voice memos sometimes too, and it's just like, you can't even understand. I'm like, what is that crap? So yeah. I I find that whenever I kind of, I guess, clock in, if you will, if I show up, to, you know, I have a home studio, you just gotta I kind of have to force myself to kind of go down there.

Alright. I'm going to clock in. I'm going to try to write a song today and I think that the more often times you do that, you know, I think more things will come, you know. It's kind of a it's a muscle that you gotta exercise, you know. So that's what helps me.

I I don't think there's any wrong way to do it. Sometimes you come up with a riff or or a or a phrase or a melody. Sometimes I'll just start with a song title and then just kind of reverse engineer and write the song that way. So Yeah. I feel like it'd be tough to do, like, the song title first and then move on to lyrics, move on to the, you know, the whole thing afterwards.

You know, I I kinda liked it. I I did that a few for a few of the songs on this album of mine, Infinity Now, May 3rd and, yeah. I I would go into writing sessions with just a song title and I think how it helps is you already kind of almost have the concept, you know, just from the title, and you're there's just I don't know. Because if you sit down, you're like, what am I gonna write about? It's like endless possibilities, you know.

But with a title, it's like, okay. This kind of gives me a step in a direction, you know. And we talked about, AI on the way over here and like the use of AI. It's maybe silly and maybe scary too but at the same time like with this theme that we've been using just to create stupid songs for our show. Yeah.

Like do you ever just generate those songs and you're like that lyrics actually has some potential. We could add that to one of my songs. See, I I've I've used chat, GPT. Right. And and just to see, I'm like, if ever if I'm stuck on lyrics or something, I'll be like, you know, just for fun.

I'm like, let me see what this comes up with. And I'll type in, you know, write a song, you know, give me song lyrics for, you know, a song that deals with, you know, death or whatever. Just, you know, and it'll come up with the most cheesy stuff. It does. It's like so bad, but but maybe there's like a word or 2 in there.

Like, oh, that's kind of a cool word, but that's about my extent of the use, you know. I'm sure there's probably people that know how to kind of harness it a little better, but I don't. And and I kind of like just, leaning on the more human aspect of things at the moment, but Definitely. Hopefully hopefully, we don't get replaced. I don't think so.

I think there will be, like, that separation in the near future of, like, okay, AI generated content is gonna have its own page. Yeah. Let's draw the line somewhere, hopefully. That's my big joke on the air is talking about, like, a league of sports for people that just want to use steroids without a doubt. Just have AI generated Yeah.

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