Interview - How Gerard Way, Chris Daughtry + Three Days Grace All Amazed Producer Howard Benson

When powerhouse rock producer Howard Benson was still making a name for himself in the early '90s, he took a staff production job at Giant Records, the Warner Bros. subsidiary founded by Irving Azoff. Under the legendary music mogul's tutelage, Benson learned a foundational lesson that stuck with him through every phase of his career.

"It's really hard to sell records," Benson tells Loudwire in an exclusive interview. "Even if you deliver the label the best thing possible, it's still brutally hard to do it. And the artists don't see that and I didn't see it as a producer. I wasn't able to go behind the desk and say, 'Okay, what is the marketing department doing? The promotion department? The sales department? The social media department?' Back then it was, 'Here's the record. Go sell it!'"

Benson quickly took to heart the golden rule of the music industry: "I've got to deliver hits. This is a waste of time if I'm not having hits. The label's not going to make some magical thing happen."

In the decades that followed, Benson made good on his vow. He's produced multi-platinum, era-defining hits by the likes of My Chemical Romance, Three Days Grace, Daughtry and Halestorm.

In 2021, Benson launched Judge & Jury Records with Three Days Grace drummer Neil Sanderson — which means now he can go behind the desk and have a hand in every aspect of an artist's release. And through it all, his goal's stayed consistent: "I want to have smashes."

When Howard Benson Saw Gerard Way: 'This Kid's a Star'

When Benson signed on to produce My Chemical Romance's breakthrough sophomore album Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, he asked singer Gerard Way [via Grammy.com], "Are you worried about the 3,000 fans you have? Or do you want to have 300 million fans? Which kind of record are we going to make? He goes, 'Fuck the 3,000 fans.' I was like, 'Okay, we can do business.'"

"I don't think the other guys would have answered the same way," he tells Loudwire now. "But Gerard, there was something about that guy. I have to say, I didn't even want to do the project that much. Remember, that band was kind of a Hail Mary at Warner Bros. They didn't know what they had."

When Benson agreed to check out an MCR rehearsal, he saw Way's potential immediately. "At that point in my career, I think I'd had hits for about six years," he says. "I finally figured out what I was looking at. I realized what is a star and what's not a star. And as soon as I looked at him, I was like, 'This kid's a star.'"

He continues: "When I saw his lyrics, I was like, 'Okay, I don't understand a lot of this, but I'm getting something. Something's coming through this lyric to me.' Even 'Helena,' I really wasn't quite sure what it was about, but boy, it was about something that meant something to him. And it meant something to me because of the way he sang it, the way he delivered it."

How Clive Davis Wowed Howard Benson With Daughtry Song

Benson has worked with several such stars over the years, including Chris Daughtry. While producing Daughtry's 6x Platinum self-titled debut album, he worked with recently deceased A&R legend Clive Davis, who wowed Benson with his ability to identify hits.

"We had that song 'Home' that did really well for him," Benson says. "I remember Clive looked at the lyric sheet and first verse, he gets it, and right away he goes, 'This is gonna be one of our big singles.' I said, 'I haven't even hit play yet!' He goes, 'It speaks to everybody.' And that's a gift that you're just not seeing [anymore]."

Benson also recalls the whirlwind speed at which the album came together while Daughtry was on the American Idols Live! 2006 tour. "They get all these songs together [from various songwriters]. Chris flies back for one day with an acoustic guitar and plays them to a click track, and we're like, 'Okay, make the record.' So we took the acoustic guitar click track, brought in Josh Freese, Phil X — the top guys, I needed the Wrecking Crew right then. So I brought them in and we did the whole tracking in three days. And then we did all the overdubs and then Chris came back and sang all the parts."

Once again, Daughtry's potential quickly dawned on Benson. "I remember when he came to the studio, he sat down with an acoustic and he played 'Home,'" he says. "And one after the other, my guys are coming out and looking at him and going, 'Oh my God, my wife loves this guy! Oh my God, my wife loves this guy!' Oh my God, my wife loves this guy!' I was like, 'We might be onto something.'"

Howard Benson Reveals Three Days Grace's Secret Weapon

Benson's collaboration with Three Days Grace has spanned two decades, as he first produced their 5x Platinum 2006 album One-X and has continued to work with them through 2025's Alienation. He's watched the rockers go through multiple permutations, including the departure and return of original lead singer Adam Gontier, who now shares lead vocal duties with his replacement, Matt Walst.

It's a nearly unprecedented move that's paid off in a big way — and Benson has an explanation. "Three Days Grace have something that a lot of bands don't realize," he says. "They come at you as a group. Their vision is all together. There's nobody who's not following the vision. There's no internal dissent that comes out to the public." He goes one step further: "It's a gang. It's all for one. We're coming at you like an army." He smirks. "A guitar army."

That singular vision also applies to their music. "Have you ever heard AC/DC sound different than AC/DC? No. Three Days Grace are the same way," Benson says. "They sound like Three Days Grace, just updated sonics but still the same themes."

They're not the only massive modern rock act to embrace this philosophy. "When I did Chester [Bennington]'s solo album he said to me, 'Linkin Park, we have the same lyric message on every song: I'm 18 and I don't know what I'm feeling.' Three Days Grace's is struggling: I'm climbing the mountain, help me through this. ... The bands that can keep going, keep the message and stay on point, they're gonna do well."

Sorry, New Bands: You Actually Do Have to Post on Social Media

As a co-founder of Judge & Jury Records, Benson is still on the hunt for hits even as the music industry has transformed radically. Gone are the days of million-dollar album budgets and traditional A&R reps. Judge & Jury makes records for about three percent of that price, and they offer their artists 50-50 deals as opposed to the parasitic 85-15 deals of the industry's halcyon days.

So if the label and the artist are both reaping the benefits of their labor equally, that means Benson expects his artists to do the dreaded task of promoting themselves on social media. Because nowadays, the court of public opinion is where hits are made.

"It does matter how many followers you have, because it shows your work ethic and it shows whether your music's good," he says. "In some ways, it's made the A&R business a little easier for us to do, because now we can just see that the public either likes it or they don't."

Benson's team is holding up their end of the bargain as well. "Nobody sleeps at Judge and Jury. We have to work full-time on these projects. My staff is literally up all night because it's just such a hard thing to do to cut through the junk out there and get the right people on your side. To get the right tastemakers to listen to your music, and get the relationships with Apple Music and Spotify and Tidal, and get the playlisting to be right. There's so much."

It's back-breaking work, but Benson maintains that artists can still get out of their careers what they put into them. And he uses a time-honored sports analogy to drive home his point.

"I used to love Kobe Bryant because he would keep shooting even when he missed," he says. Musicians should take heed. "Just keep shooting. Don't be afraid. You've got to keep putting out music, keep putting out great records. If you keep putting them out, some are going to find a niche. Some are just going to be stiffs. You can't predict. I'm not the arbiter of taste at all. I don't know what's going to happen. But if I only put one record out a year, it'd be pretty tough to have the lifestyle that I have right now."