ASKING ALEXANDRIA // Discuss How Their Eclectic Eighth Release ‘See What’s On The Inside’ Is One For The Fans.

Having spent the last 15 years carving their way to the top, British rock luminaries Asking Alexandria are without a doubt an act that most of Hysteria’s readers would be familiar with.

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Their debut Stand Up and Scream is regarded by many as one of the most pivotal albums of the early metalcore scene; lead guitarist Ben Bruce has always been known as one of the main teenage heartthrobs for many metal lovers, while the group’s vocalist Danny Wornshop has always been revered for his debaucherous behaviour and outspoken personality. Sam Betley (bass) on the other hand, has largely shied away from the public eye, only recently emerging from the shadows to do interviews.

“I don’t usually do this kind of stuff in all honesty. I could probably count on my hands the amount of interviews I’ve done over the past few years,” he remarks.

“I used to have really bad anxiety about doing stuff like this. I’m quite quiet person, so is Cameron, so it always just worked well letting Ben and Danny do the interviews because they are such huge characters, it’s almost like they are three people in one, so I was just always on the backburner and that worked for me because I never wanted to share personal stuff. But as time has gone on I have a little bit more to say and now I’m all for it.”

With a new found comfortability talking to the press, Betley goes on to proudly show off his incredibly well equipped home studio setup, the hardships of being a father that also spends a lot of time on the road, and the difference in the band’s dynamics since most of them have moved into fatherhood before proudly discussing the groups triumphant eight full length release, ‘Where Do We Go From Here?’, which sees the group chopping and changing between all of the different stylistic changeups Asking Alexandria have dabbled with over the years.

I just felt like I was thrown back years. Like, in a live sense we were a really heavy band back in the day and playing these shows and seeing the energy from the crowd, it was like I’d gone back in time. The excitement I got from that was something I hadn’t experienced in a long time.
[ Sam Betley, Asking Alexandria ]

“I think that the great thing about our band is that every record we’ve ever done has been completely different, so we’ve got such a vast choice of what we can do now. So we thought, let’s just mash it all together.”

“We definitely wanted to give the fans an album that we think that they’re going to absolutely love because we’ve been quite stubborn historically, where we’ll just do what we want. Like On our last album, ‘See What’s On The Inside’, we had a bunch of ballads on it, which was something that we needed to do for us as musicians. But this new one, ‘Where Do We Go From Here?’ we definitely had the fans in mind and we just wanted to give back some of those elements that weren’t necessarily in the past couple records.”

“So I’ve not been more excited for an album. I said it about the last one and I’m going to say it about this one. But I’m more excited to play this one live, because when we went out in Europe and did the European festival circuit most recently we played Dark Void, just to kind of test the waters a little bit before it came out, and it went down crazy.

“I just felt like I was thrown back years. Like, in a live sense we were a really heavy band back in the day and playing these shows and seeing the energy from the crowd, it was like I’d gone back in time. The excitement I got from that was something I hadn’t experienced in a long time. So now I’m like, ‘can we play more new stuff?”

For those keen to hear Asking Alexandria’s return to heaviness, ‘Where Do We Go From Here?’ will see its release on the 25th of August, and if you think ‘Dark Void’ is the heaviest song that the group has released in a while, you’re in for a few surprises.

Purchase and stream here.