Singled Out: Rene Benton's Love Is Pain

Marine Corps veteran and internationally acclaimed guitarist Rene Benton recently release his new album , "2 Live in O-Ma-Haw; Lyvv in Omaha," and to celebrate we asked him to tell us about the track "Love Is Pain". Here is the story:

"Love is Pain" is a song with a lot of layers. It was written some time ago based on part imaginary part realistic scenarios about break ups or more specifically DIVORCE!! I have NEVER been through anything like that but, I would hear various stories from men who had experienced such things. Another part of the story of this song is; I never wrote it for myself. I wrote this song with the intent of submitting it to either Danzig or Peter Steele ( Type -O - Negative) . Though I do Metal/Rock; my primary background is in Funk/R&B which is a community that uses outside songwriters. I did not know the rules within the genre and, did not realize what I was doing was a NO - NO and , subsequently met with deaf ears.

During the 90's being heard was a much harder process. I was not looking for a record deal or the like at the time but, I viewed hearing from a record label as a sign of encouragement to keep going. After my first 8 track demos got attention from labels such as Metal Blade and Epic that is what motivated me to record another set of demos which included "Love is Pain" . Being that I was trying to emulate those singers as I mentioned my voice is quite different in spots than my normal voice which does show up on the same record. The deeper tone of my voice represents the "Love aspect of a relationship and the higher and softer register represents the " Painful parts" of it. I wanted the music to have an aggressive pulse or feel throughout except on the soft break down . That part when given a close listen the bass drum sounds like a heartbeat. Lyrically speaking it is closer to a poem than a song in writing structure. There is no chorus and the words" My Love is Pain" or " This Love is Pain are repeated throughout normally at the beginning of phrase. That is normal when there is chorus but, unusual when there is an absence of one. My soul purpose whether I did it or not was to convey a raw emotion which never is really show amongst us men .

Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen for yourself here

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