Great quote from Ben on writing the characters in his songs, talking in reference to writing "Erase Me":
BF: A lot of times, it's something that I can understand--what I'm writing about--but I don't often know why until years later, to tell you the truth. The music led to that and what I imagined was sort of a passive aggressive demand that since this relationship is over, the other person should just forget it all. "Forget me, forget the whole thing, erase the whole thing, delete our Facebook page together, delete our pictures, erase the entire thing, and I'll just walk like you never knew me." It doesn't work that way because the other party has picked up and begun seeing someone else immediately, and so the protagonist flips out.
MR: That's so right on. What's funny about that is it's almost like you expect a decent grieving period. You're both supposed to be grieving through the whole thing and then when the other person takes off and everything is fine, that kind of sucks.
BF: Yeah, that does suck, and it's hard on people. But at the same time, the character in this song sort of asks for it when they try to be too cavalier. You know,"Just don't worry about it. Erase me. Act like it never happened," and then the second verse goes right into, "What the F is this? You're crazy! Two weeks later and you're already with someone else? You'd better call the cops because I'm gonna kill you." He or she just flips out. I couldn't tell if the character I was writing was male or female. It also sounded like it was female sometimes, but I never got a gage on that.
The rest of the interview, talking about the album, BFF, and NYCC, Ben's first comic con:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-ragogna/emthe-sound-of-the-life-o_b_1960203.html
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