Changes in Band Lineups and the Ubiquity of Songwriters

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Major hard rock act Breaking Benjamin went through an unfortunate situation a few years ago – while on personal hiatus in 2011, lead singer and founder Ben Burnley sued his own bassist, Mark Klepaski, and guitarist, Aaron Fink, for collaborating with another artist in remixing an early Breaking Benjamin track, “Blow Me Away”, apparently without his permission. What happened next was the disintegration of one of the most popular mainstream rock acts today: Burnley eventually fired his two bandmates and gained complete control of the rights to the band after the lawsuit ended in 2013.

Already, the many, many Breaking Benjamin fans around the world were pretty saddened to hear the news that half of their favorite band had been essentially fired by their own lead singer.

We had hopes that the true band would stay together. Chad Szeliga, the drummer, stuck around for a little bit longer after that, promising the return of Breaking Benjamin, but left of his own accord in 2013 after Burnley had been given exclusive rights. The reason he gave was for “creative differences”.

After that second shock, we all wondered if Breaking Benjamin was over. Or, more correctly, how could this not be the end of Breaking Benjamin? Could they ever come back?

Burnley was left the last man standing, for the moment the only member of his band – and though he did play a few solo acoustic shows, the real question concerned what Breaking Benjamin’s future as a band would be. Though they would never have the same sound without any of their three original instrumentalists, Burnley was still their main songwriter, and so any future material would still probably have a similar vibe.

After a year of hearing nothing, Breaking Benjamin released the news this August that they had hired four new members and will soon be back to creating music as a five-piece rock act.

Are we excited? Sure.

But much like Adam Gontier’s ugly departure from the off-the-charts successful band Three Days Grace early in 2013, Breaking Benjamin has left behind its powerhouse core that rocketed them to that success. In Three Days Grace’s case, while it’s universally agreed that while Matt Walst is a good singer, he’s nowhere near to fully replacing the awesomeness that was Adam Gontier.

Hopefully, Breaking Benjamin won’t be drawing the same parallels as they begin to release new material.

On their new member list, though I completely didn’t recognize three of the names, the name that caught my attention was Jasen Rauch on guitar: Rauch is most well-known for being RED’s rhythm guitarist and songwriter on their critically-acclaimed first two albums (End of Silence and Innocence & Instinct) before leaving the band to focus on songwriting. It has been emphasized, though, that Rauch still contributes songwriting to RED, having been given credit on every song from Until We Have Faces (2011) and the majority from Release the Panic (2013).

Rauch is one of my favorite songwriters. He has worked with bands such as Korn, Pillar, Flyleaf, RED, Egypt Central, Fireflight, Disciple, and most recently, Nothing More, all bands that I enjoy immensely and didn’t know he wrote for. I’m excited to see him work with the revamped (and much more popular) Breaking Benjamin, but I hope he doesn’t turn his back on the amazing work he’s done with RED along the way.

The other interesting note about Breaking Benjamin and RED is that they’ve collaborated on certain songs throughout their careers. Rauch actually co-wrote Breaking Benjamin’s hit single from Dear Agony (2009), “I Will Not Bow”, which reached #1 on the U.S. Billboard Rock Songs chart, and three more from the same album, of which “Lights Out” went on to become another radio single.

Ben Burnley, for his part, co-wrote the song “Shadows” with RED from Innocence & Instinct (2009), which never became a single but still became fan favorite.

Not many people know that the songwriters for some of their favorite bands actually overlap – including me! This kind of stuff is cool to learn about. Since they’ve collaborated before, Breaking Benjamin is in good hands in terms of songwriting, with both Rauch and Burnley providing a strong duo of hard rock giants upfront. As for the instrumentalist part, we’ll have to wait and see.

Here’s the status of notable bands on hiatus: metalcore band Atreyu has just come back with a strong single (“So Others Can Live”) after a five-year hiatus, legends System Of A Down returned to playing shows after a 4-year absence (though they’ve released no new material), and metal giants Disturbed are hinting at returning from a 3-year hiatus. Here’s to hoping that Breaking Benjamin, too, as they pass the five-year hiatus mark, return as soon as possible!

As I was reading about RED, I got another surprising bit of news that I somehow missed as it happened: drummer Joe Rickard left the band in February of this year on amiable terms. Rickard had recorded and toured with the band from I&I until Until We Have Faces and was probably the coolest dude in the “Lie To Me (Denial)” official music video, and it’ll suck to see him go. His drumming style added a lot to RED’s sound.

Whatever it was, after their latest album and touring cycle, he called it quits.

In his place, RED has recruited a touring drummer, Dan Johnson, who I’ve never heard of. Apparently he used to be associated with Korn’s Brian “Head” Welch – but Korn is a completely different style. That’ll be interesting.

What tipped me off about Rickard disassociating from RED was me reading about the band Starset’s new single, “My Demons”, from their just-released 2014 album Transmissions. Though the official lineup for Starset is yet to be released (for some reason, only Dustin Bates as the lead singer is officially known), rumors are that the project is a collaboration between Bates, Rickard, and Rob Graves.

“My Demons” has a characteristic symphonic rock sound, one that Rickard’s style fits perfectly on. Graves’s songwriting also bleeds through, with a catchy chorus and no lack of a string orchestra backing the band up throughout.

So maybe Rickard left RED as he knew he would be committing to Starset? It’s possible, and I don’t mind Rickard playing with this new band. Starset has the potential to be as big as Breaking Benjamin and other mainstream acts, especially with the services of Graves, who has collaborated with RED on many of their hit singles before.

Rob Graves is another recognized name in the songwriting industry, having also worked with RED (with Rauch at times), Pillar, Halestorm, and All That Remains in the past (among others), as well as writing scores to several films and video games. Again, these are bands that I know and love, but didn’t know were so closely related – by a single songwriter.

The odd-band-out on that list that really surprised me – and not necessarily in a good way – was All That Remains. Graves is listed as a songwriter for some of the songs from For We Are Many (2010) and A War You Cannot Win (2012). Graves, like Rauch and Burnley, is fit for writing songs for alternative rock/hard rock/metal bands with mainstream tendencies, and he does great with those bands: his work in writing parts of RED’s first albums were phenomenal, and the two tracks he co-wrote from Halestorm’s The Strange Case Of… (2012) were also great.

But A War You Cannot Win was a bad album by All That Remains’s standards. As I listened to it, the thing that I felt caused it was lackluster songwriting and instrumentation, but I couldn’t quite put my finger to it exactly. Well, now I know why: a songwriter fit for rock attempted to write a metalcore album, and the sound completely failed in appealing to the fanbase. Perhaps All That Remains enlisted Graves’s help, knowing that they’d get a watered-down metalcore sound, and, being okay with that, hoping for more mainstream success. If it hadn’t been All That Remains, I would’ve praised his songwriting on tracks like “Not Fading”, “Asking Too Much”, and “What If I Was Nothing”, but the truth is that All That Remains is not fit for that type of sound.

Anyhow, Graves’s new project in Starset seems to be very promising, especially if his past work with RED is any indication.

I wish Rickard the best of luck in his new band Starset, and the best of luck to Aaron Fink in Gentleman East, Chad Szeliga in Scott Stapp’s touring band, Mark Klepaski in The Vampire Factory, Matt Walst in Three Days Grace, Adam Gontier in his solo career, and Jasen Rauch and everybody else in the new Breaking Benjamin, all new projects in a similar genre, all interconnected in some way.

Changes abound.