“Not too long ago a fan asked me to sign his penis, which was pretty bizarre. It was weird. You know what's weirder? I did it. I made him stretch it out over the table and I signed it, but I didn't touch it... I remember walking away from the table going, 'Yeah, I can't believe I just signed his cock'.”
Ben Bruce, lead guitarist of UK metalcore band Asking Alexandria, has had some weird experiences. Another strange moment for Ben came when he found out the band's last album, From Death To Destiny, had climbed to the top end of the Billboard Top 200 chart: “Yeah, I definitely shat myself. Literally. A little bit of poo came out when I found that out. It was mental.”
From Death To Destiny debuted at number five on the charts, which is the group's highest charting debut to date. “We like to count it as number 4, because if you look at the week our album was released that stupid Now That's What I Call Music 1092 [Now! 47] or whatever number they were on was also released. Which is bullshit because that's a bunch of different really famous artists, so that shouldn't really count. So we were number 4 in our eyes.”
The success of the album isn't the only thing that excites Ben — the band is also keen to head back to Australia for Soundwave 2014. “Our first time ever going to Australia [was for Soundwave 2011]. We are based in America even though we are from the UK and we decided to fly the wrong way around the world to get to Australia. So we were a bit pissed off and grumpy when we landed. But all that changed the second we got to Hungry Jack's because that place is a proper good Burger King and not the shit one we get, which is awesome. And there appears to be way more women in Australia than dudes, so that also cheered us up.
“I think you're a bit more mental, if I'm honest. I remember playing a venue [in Australia]… there was a second balcony floor. It was just like [watching] lemmings throwing themselves off the edge of a cliff… I think there were like eight or nine ambulances called in after that and they all got carried out on stretchers or limping out with bloody noses or broken ribs, but still grinning with their thumbs up. We were like, 'What the fuck is wrong with these people?' Mental.”
Asking Alexandria fans were thinking similar things about the band around 12 months ago, with many fans questioning the band's stability. “I guess that, since day one, we have always drank too much and partied too hard. I guess for a while, probably about a year ago, it got to the point that it was too much. We were getting ill from it, and we were arguing.
"Yeah, it's just not a healthy way to live, and it was causing a lot of turmoil in the band and we weren't all getting along as we used to. But we sat down and went, 'What the hell are we doing? We've got the world at our fingertips, we can throw it all away to get drunk and fucked up every night or we can take this seriously and remember why we started doing this in the first place.' And obviously we chose the second option. And honestly, now, I think that we're stronger then we ever have been as a unit.”
The band isn't claiming straight edge status or anything. Ben Bruce's favourite part about touring is still “being able to [get] completely obliterated every night and not be judged for it because apparently it's normal when you're touring”.
Asking Alexandria Soundwave Date:
<Sat Feb 22 — RNA Showgrounds (Brisbane)Sun Feb 23 — Olympic Park (Sydney)
Fri Feb 28 — Flemington Racecourse (Melbourne)
Sat Mar 01 — Bonython Park (Adelaide)
Mon Mar 03 — Claremont Showgrounds (Perth)
