Asking Alexandria: Battling The Backlash of Change

In these unprecedented times change is inevitable and growth is a necessity. JFK once said addressing a crowd in Frankfurt, 1963 that “change is the law of life.” That saying has a strong hold over the music industry, change is crucial for your success to flourish else you drop into the pitfall of predictability. Without change, music would blur into the same painfully droning sound. One band that knows all too well of the importance of change, and that ignorance isn’t always bliss is ASKING ALEXANDRIA.

The British five-piece have been trailblazers of change since their earliest days breaking through the next wave of 2010 metalcore on MySpace, ASKING ALEXANDRIA have always been on the cutting edge of what’s next and also on the cutting board when it comes to criticisms. This band have faced more than most – drug addiction, lost members, new members, ‘sell-out’ claims and having their whole life publicly blasted online for the public to critique – it’s never been easy for them to catch a break.

Even with their sixth-studio album bringing them full circle into a whole new era, one that represents maturity and sound evolution, it hasn’t come without backlash. Possibly one of their most devise albums to date, Like A House On Fire is unlike anything the band have put out before. Speaking about the importance of change and how online abuse, gate keeping and ignorance can be the death of creative freedoms for musicians is guitarist, Ben Bruce.

2020 feels like the digital age of existence and that acts as almost a double-edged sword, for all the positive comments online there’s a grim underbelly of hatred. On more than one occasion ASKING ALEXANDRIA have been at the butt end of online jokes. “I think because of that a lot of artists don’t branch out and they are afraid because people can be so spiteful, or so negative,” Bruce comments. “It’s like if they don’t like it then fuck you! You see death threats like ‘I hope your band bus crashes’, ‘you suck now’ and then they get vicious like ‘you’re so fat and ugly’, like what is going on? I’ll never understand the need for people to be spiteful.”

There is obviously a stark difference between criticism and hate, and Bruce makes this abundantly clear. “I spoke to someone online about this who said ‘oh so we’re not allowed to be critical?’ and I was like no, that’s not what I’m saying at all. To say ‘I’m not into this at all’ or ‘I’m into their old stuff better’ is fine, that’s your opinion. But that’s not how people react, that’s not how people behave, they’ll go out of their way to click record on their video camera and upload a video for some reason just bashing the shit out of this artist. Well, that’s not okay and surely that’s bullying?”

ASKING ALEXANDRIA peaked in a pivotal year for the metal/metalcore scene, the Dotcom boom opened a market for everyone including musicians who found solace in MySpace and Limewire for sharing content, building an audience and being the architects for online streaming. Bruce describes the band as “young and easily malleable” at that time, and explained how a lot of people pulled the strings for the and would make executive decisions on their behalf. “When we started coming up we were told by our label, management, and booking agents ‘don’t interact with the fans, there needs to be some sort of mystic behind you guys’ and that never really sat too well with me honestly. Growing up in Dubai, whenever a band came out they would go to the Virgin Megastore to do signings. I remember thinking it was the greatest thing of all time to just to be in that person’s presence of catch a smile. To be told at a young age not to do that, and not to give someone that feeling I had as a kid never really sat well with me.”

However, on the same note Bruce commented that almost a decade later where online communication is a necessity rather than a choice, he adds that people have become too possessive over the lives of others. “I think it’s gone from one extreme to the other and people are sort of too involved in your personal life and they expect too much from you.” He then went on to share a recent encounter that made him, in his words, come “full circle” and be more reclusive with the internet.

“My wife is pregnant with our third and due to give birth any day now. We had someone send her a direct message the other day, they were posting pictures of our kids all over their page pretending like they were theirs. My wife reached out like “hey, could you maybe not do that, it makes me a little uncomfortable.” This quickly escalated to Bruce and his family being sent explicitly photo shopped images of their children, to having death threats made against their unborn child. “I think it’s nice for people to get a glimpse of that home life. But people take advantage of our boundaries, I think there’s a very fine line and it’s got to the point now that anyone who’s really met me at a meet or greet or in public, I’m always as polite as I possibly can be and I always try to take a picture because I think I owe our fans that and how I felt when I was a kid but at the same time I don’t owe anyone an intimate look into my family. Whilst I was happy to do that for a while I definitely not happy to do that anymore.”

Like A House On Fire is out now via Sumerian Records. Like ASKING ALEXANDRIA? Be sure to check out our feature where we run through seven things you need to know about their new album!

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