'The Fear Was Gone' — Carla Harvey + Charlie Benante Loved Working Together on New Music For the Violent Hour

On Tuesday (Sept. 30), Carla Harvey and Charlie Benante joined Loudwire Nights to dive into what it was like working together on new music for Harvey's band, the Violent Hour.

Listen to the full conversation in the player near the end of this article.

"I was a little bit shy bringing my ideas to him," Harvey admitted to host Chuck Armstrong. Harvey and Benante weren't just friends or writing partners, but they were in a relationship (and now are engaged).

"Ninety-nine-percent of the time, he's just my boyfriend or fiancé, but I'm quite aware that he is a prolific musician. I mean, he's the kind of person who's just writing music all day long. He's been doing this for his whole life."

Part of Harvey's shyness also stemmed from the fact that she wasn't even sure what the future held following her departure from Butcher Babies. Fortunately, Benante knew she had a lot of musical life left in her.

"During the pandemic, I was doing these jams [and] I just asked a bunch of my friends to help me out with them and it snowballed into something else," Benante recalled. One of his friends was Harvey, who joined him to cover Tom Petty and Massive Attack.

"Those two songs were so far away from what she was doing," he said.

"I always knew she could sing, but pushing her out of her comfort zone was a big thing. And once it was done – and I think she heard herself — she was like, 'I could do this.' I knew it."

Eventually, it all came together as Harvey and Benante created the Violent Hour's self-titled debut EP.

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"The ideas started to flow and the fear was gone," Harvey said.

"I felt trapped at first when I first started writing. When it all started to click, I don't know, it felt incredible."

What Else Did Carla Harvey + Charlie Benante Discuss on Loudwire Nights?

• What's next for the Violent Hour from Benante's perspective: "The next EP is already written and some of it's recorded already. Now, I'm just looking to the future, because the goal is to put these two EPs on a full-length record."
• Harvey getting a new lease on life after Butcher Babies: "After we'd been in the studio a few times and we're writing, I started to be really excited again about getting in the studio, about getting opportunities, about filming videos. I hadn't felt like that, honestly, in years."
• What Back to the Beginning was like for Benante, who performed with Anthrax and Pantera: "It was all about love and camaraderie. Every band was up onstage watching the other bands or backstage hanging, talking, because it meant something to everyone who was there. To me, that was the metal community coming together to pay respects to these four men who really influenced everything that is hard rock and heavy metal."

Listen to the Full Interview in the Podcast Player Below

Carla Harvey and Charlie Benante joined Loudwire Nights on Tuesday, Sept. 29; the show replays online here, and you can tune in live every weeknight at 7PM ET or on the Loudwire app; you can also see if the show is available on your local radio station and listen to interviews on-demand.