Keith Wallen may be best known as the guitarist for Breaking Benjamin, but he’s also been carving out his own path on the side. His solo discography includes Allies (2014), This World or The Next (2021), and Infinity Now (2024). His latest single is a haunting and emotional cover of Avril Lavigne’s “I’m With You,” showing even more of the depth of his vocal talents. Keith’s solo music offers a more intimate glimpse into who he is as an artist, and we were eager to explore that side of him. We sat down recently to talk about his latest single and more!
MSM: You have had massive success with Breaking Benjamin, but your solo work is really where we get to see who you are. I know it's been a number of years since you stepped out on your own, but what kind of pushed you to do that?
KEITH: That's a great question. Well, I love to sing, and I love to write songs, but some of the songs I have aren't really the right fit for Breaking Ben. And plus, I like the idea of writing exactly what I want without having to answer to anybody too much. And it is a kind of artistic freedom, and it's just kind of fun. And plus, I know I'm going to be an old person maybe, hopefully someday, and I won't be able to sing and play and do all this touring. So I'm just kind of like, why not full sin right now while I can do it and while I have a voice? And plus, I love it. It's fun, and well, Breaking Ben, that's always kind of been Ben's baby, and so this is kind of like my baby. I gave you the long answer, too, but the short answer is “why not?”
Do you have a different mindset or emotion going into when you play with Breaking Benjamin versus when you play your own music?
I mean, I take both entities very seriously and with the utmost professionalism and everything else. I want to do right by the material. Obviously, I've respected Breaking Benjamin long before I was ever in the band. And, in fact, I used to be in different bands that had opened for Breaking Ben back in the day, which is kind of funny. But I think I've always just had the same approach—to just perform at my best, but it's a different kind of position with my stuff. I'm the frontman, so I'm thinking about different things. I'm thinking about when I address the crowd and the set, and what should I say? Make sure to think I'm keeping notes on stuff, whereas I can with Breaking Ben, I just kind of play guitar and sing, and I don't have to worry about being a frontman and all the banter in between songs and stuff.
Yeah. So, I've actually seen you live before. I shot the Red acoustic tour and you opened. I honestly had no idea who you were before that, but I was just really impressed so I looked you up and I was like, "Wait, what? He's in Breaking Benjamin, this is really cool!"
Thank you so much. I have a full band now. It's a full thing. So, that was back when I was still just little old me with an acoustic.
Your latest single is a cover of Avril Lavigne's song, "I'm With You." What drew you to cover that particular song?
I think a lot of things. I mean, obviously, I think that any new artist probably goes into it thinking should do some sort of cover so that hopefully it will kind of draw some new fans in for when we do release some more originals. So that was the plan there. And also, you want to pick a song that connects, and it's so hard to pick a cover song. I mean, it's not hard because there's so many songs that I like that'd be fun to sing, but then no one would necessarily care about it because not everybody likes what I like and vice versa. So I think that was important with the decisions, and the 2000s and the music of the 2000s is kind of having a moment right now. All these rock bands from that era are just bigger and better than ever, and also, it's just nostalgic. I remember that album coming out and I remember where I was and just being, man, that's a good song. And I felt like I could do it, like it kind of matched my vibe and sound, so I could just do the dude version of it.
And I mean, it's also not one that's been covered a million times.
That was another thing. I was like, I don't know if this has been done really too much, so it kind of seemed like a perfect choice.
And so what has the response been to it so far, and do you know if Avril has heard it?
The response has been outstanding. Everybody's been really cool. I mean, people will get online sometimes and be like, the original's better. They'll say something like that, and I'm like, of course it is. The original is always better. But the response has been great overall. Everybody's been just super stoked on it. And when we play it live, people sing along and it's really fun. And as far as if Avril has heard it or not, who knows? Probably not. It'd be cool if she'd heard it, but who knows? Maybe hopefully she likes it if she has heard it.
That's why I thought you might know, just because I figured she would like it and maybe you would get a shout out somewhere.
Oh man, that'd be amazing. That'd be amazing.
And the video, it's so simple, but I think that makes it more powerful. I just think it really lets your vocals shine. We're not watching some story with the video, we're just focusing on your voice. It's great.
Thank you, I really appreciate that. That was kind of the hope and the plan to just, hey, this is the cover. Her video and her message and her vision for it, it's been done. And she did it incredibly. So with my little version, it's just kind of like, ah, you know what? Let's just do something that's visually different. But thank you very much.
So are there any artists, within or outside of rock, that you would love to collaborate with?
Oh man, I have no idea. That's tough. I'm sure there's a bunch, but I can't think of any off the top of my head. I guess if it was just a magical thing where it could happen. If it was a real person and it was a real life thing, they'd probably be like, nah, I'm good.
No! Well, how about, what are you listening to these days?
Well, the new Deftones, that's been cool. And just the new singles from bands that they've got some albums on the way, like Dayseeker. I really like the Turnstile album, too, just kind of stuff like that. And yeah, that's kind of been it.
And you've written with some big names as well, not just your own work, but written for other artists, I mean. Do you think that teaches you more about your own style when you co-write?
Yeah, maybe just whenever I'm writing with somebody, and anybody out there that has done co-writing and knows about that, it's just like you're not really writing for someone. You're really just trying to come up with the coolest thing you can at the time. I kind of put myself in the shoes of like, Hey, I'm in this band for the day, and what would I want my band to come up with? So I don't really look at it as an outsider, I just look at it as two songwriters that are trying to come up with the coolest thing and that everybody likes. Obviously it's another band, and I'm thinking about what kind of message and vision and how they want to say it. So that's really important to me, for them to really love it and for them to really love what they're doing and what we're doing.
So if someone were to listen to your solo work for the first time, how would you want them to feel? What would you want them to take away from your music?
That's a good question. I would think that the message that I would like for them to take away is that yes, no matter what is you're not alone. Whatever you're feeling, you're not alone in feeling it. And just we're all feeling different things, and we're all going through this life and this crazy world and surviving the human condition and what it means to be alive and what it means to be human. And none of us really know what we're doing. We're just kind of doing it the best we can, whatever it is. And that you're not alone. The song I could think of off the top of my head is just "Us Against the World." Because to me, that song's about kind of finding your person, and that's a powerful feeling when you do find your person. And yeah, I mean, there's other songs, too, of course, like some of the toxic relationship songs. I have the completely opposite spectrum there, and we've all kind of had a taste of that, too. So I don't know, obviously just to take away whatever they take away and there's really no wrong answer. Hopefully it helps 'em, though. I hope that it helps and makes them feel something.
Yeah. And how does your writing help you process your own life? Is it part of a therapy process for you to write things out like that, like does it help you with your own mental health?
I think that's the goal. It kind of is a little bit of a therapy session. There are things that are very much real feelings and real things, but there's some things that are kind of just exaggerated for story purposes that aren't necessarily autobiographical. Not that it's not a falsehood, but I want to try to write everything that's authentic. But sometimes, you write about something that's not going great, but things could be okay at that time. But hey, it's not that you haven't lived through something like that. At some point, it's like, I can easily go back to a time or place and a feeling to conjure an inspiration. But yeah, I mean, I think it's kind of what I said before. It's like I hope people can get something and from it that makes 'em feel and hopefully helps 'em. And to answer your question more specifically, as far as me and my mental health, I hope that it helps. I feel like it helps to try and dissect feelings and experiences and just try to just live through it.
If you could create a dream lineup in a show that you were playing, who would you love to have on the bill with you?
Gosh, man. It's funny. These are such questions that will never happen. I feel so weird saying certain things, just like they'll just never happen. I feel silly a little bit, but I mean, one of my favorite bands is Metallica. And, I mean, it would be cool to just open for Metallica. That'd be amazing. But there's so many artists and bands that I look at it at a business standpoint, too. It's like, well, what kind of bands would I play with where their fans would maybe like my music, too? So, I think about that stuff, too. And I mean, there's a lot, I feel, at least I hope, maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like there's a lot of bands out there that their fans that might like my music, too, but I don't know. So, any tour at this point, any tour that'll fucking have me, I think I'm at that point now. [laughs]
And then what's next for you?
Yeah, with both musical horizons, both my solo endeavors and with Breaking Benjamin endeavors, there's new music on both of those horizons. So yeah, more of the same, I think. And some more tours, and we're just going to just keep going. And as long as there's fans there that want to see us, we'll still get out there and play shows. But yeah, I'm just grateful. I'm just grateful to be able to play music and still be doing this thing after so many years on both of those fronts. Yeah, so that's where I'm at.
I saw your story a little bit ago with the burning CDs and how old you must be.
Oh man, I saw that and I was like, oh, I got to retweet that one. I remember my first band, we were printing our own CDs, and we had just our own little sweatshop sitting there printing like, all right, we got a show tomorrow night. We got to print a hundred CDs so we have 'em ready. And that was a thing. But yeah, I saw that and it made me laugh.
Yeah. Well, that's actually all I've got for you.
Awesome. Well, thank you so much. This was fun, Melanie. Thank you for having me. And thank you so much for all the support of my music, and of course the Breaking Benjamin music, and to all the listeners and readers, thank you so much for all the support, and thank you for just giving me a platform to talk about it a little bit.
