During a conversation with Metal Hammer, Asking Alexandria guitarist Ben Bruce talked about the hate and unjust criticism he’s received throughout the years, saying:
“It’s not nice to be criticized anyway, but especially when it’s unjust. People are like, ‘You’re fat now,’ and I’m like, ‘Who the f*ck are you?!’ I’m a 30-year-old man, I don’t think I’m doing too badly!
“‘Well, look what you used to look like!’ Yeah, when I was a teenager! Things like that can still get under my skin depending on the mood I’m in, but you just have to take it in your stride.
“If someone says, ‘I don’t like your band, they’re not for me,’ that’s fine; I don’t like lots of bands. But it’s just the childish sh*t. Someone said, ‘Your daughter doesn’t even look like you, I bet it’s someone else’s.’
“F*ck you! What’s wrong with you? What have I done to you that’s made you so upset that you’re going to attack my children and my family life?”
Agreeing with the sentiment that “the internet has ruined everything,” Ben also said:
“There are a lot of f*cking idiots in the world. Before social media, not everyone had a voice, and the people that had a voice were heard because their message was powerful.
“Now, you could be anyone, start a Twitter account, and you have a voice all of a sudden. It’d be nice to hit the reset button and delete all social media from the internet for six months.
“Twitter could shut down, Facebook could shut down, and everyone could look up from their phones and go, ‘Oh, look, there’s trees outside!'”
The musician also said he thinks a fair portion of music fans still doesn’t understand his band. Bruce explained:
“It’s funny; a lot of people, that don’t know who we are, write us off because they’ve heard, ‘Oh they’re that sceney-weeny breakdown band.’ Do you know what I mean?
“OK, we released ‘Stand Up and Scream’ in 2009, and it was great, but it’s not what we sound like anymore. We’ve moved on.
“We’ve toured with Slipknot, we’ve toured with Avenged, Shinedown, Papa Roach… we’re a rock band now. Artists progress. It’s hard when you have a hugely successful debut album because that is a huge staple and it’s a thing that people remember.”