INTERVIEW: Keith Wallen, of Breaking Benjamin, celebrates release of solo album
Photo: Keith Wallen’s new album is called Infinity Now. Photo courtesy of the artist / Provided by Atom Splitter PR with permission.
Keith Wallen, the guitarist for Breaking Benjamin, recently released his new album, Infinity Now, on Rise Records. The album has been in the works this past year and features such singles as “The Wolf,” “Headspace Holiday” and “Strings.”
“Day one of this album I think began a year ago,” Wallen said in a recent phone interview. “I had just finished ShipRocked 2023, and I left from there to go out to L.A. to start the writing process. I think the first order of business was to find the right producer that was going to produce the album, so I had a lot of writing sessions with different people — songwriters, different producers — in the hopes of connecting with one of them or more than one of them to get some cool song ideas. … It was kind of like a speed-dating session with different writers and different people. That’s how it began, just getting in the room and working on tunes.”
The creation of each song started with Wallen bringing a song title to the writing session. This title was a springboard for the team to build a concept and “reverse-engineer” a song.
“I went in with Kevin Thrasher, who ultimately ended up being the producer,” he said. “The first day, we ended up just getting a whole song done and recorded from start to finish with everything. I was like, wow, that went great. I felt good about the song, and then the next day was the same kind of thing. I came in with a song title, and we were able to write the whole song from that, record it and have this little demo. I just felt like for the limited time I had to make a record, I was able to get the most bang for my buck with him. We just connected. It was a fast-moving thing, and I really thought that we were able to squeeze as much creativity out in that short amount of time as possible. I felt like it was a good decision.”
Wallen is bringing these new songs on the road with him. In the coming weeks and months, he’ll be opening for Breaking Benjamin, Daughtry, Citizen Soldier and Icon for Hire. One of the tunes that will hopefully make the setlist is called “Strings.”
“That was birthed through another writing session I had in Nashville with a few friends of mine, brilliant writers, producers,” Wallen said about “Strings.” “I was just able to get in the room with them and came up with some cool stuff. I knew I wanted something that had some energy, kind of an upbeat, in-your-face vibe. That’s kind of what we were chasing. I’m a big fan of Jimmy Eat World and their song ‘The Sweetness,’ and that kind of inspired that drumbeat and that uptempo for that song. We just started chatting about what we wanted to write about. I didn’t have a song title at the time for this one. We were just talking and working through the lyrics and working through some stuff.”
He added: “I really just want to be an escape for people. I want them to forget their problems, forget all the bad news that’s on the TV and all kinds of agendas and political stuff that’s just bombarding everybody on TV and with music, too. My music is not that; it’s about the escape from all those things. I think that inspired the lyrics for this song. The song is about having the freedom of thought to think for yourself and not to acquiesce to any of the agendas that are being pushed on us everyday.”
For Wallen, making music is therapeutic. He lets his inner-most thoughts out into the public sphere, and finds it a wonderful compliment when people can identify with those thoughts and relate to his stories.
“I think that’s the hope when you put something out,” he said. “You want somebody to be affected by it and feel something. You want it to help them with their own life and their own thoughts and feelings. Absolutely, this was very personal. There are some things that I talk about on this album and some of these songs that you wouldn’t normally talk about. I have a song about my father who passed away when I was 19. There’s just various other things that I touch upon, living this life, this so-called life that we’re living and experiencing in real time. Sometimes it seems like a dream. Sometimes it seems like a nightmare. One thing it is: It’s just constant. We’re all riding this wave together in a cosmic stream of the universe.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Keith Wallen’s new album is called Infinity Now, which is now available from Rise Records. Click here for more information.
