Miss May I have been around long enough to watch an entire generation of metalcore fans grow up.
Formed in Troy, Ohio in 2007, the band signed with Rise Records in 2008 and released Apologies Are for the Weak in 2009 while the members were still in high school. Nearly two decades later, Levi Benton is still fronting the band, still touring and still making records.
A lot has changed since those early days.
In 2024, founding guitarists B.J. Stead and Justin Aufdemkampe left the band after more than 15 years, with Elisha Mullins joining the lineup. Today, Miss May I are Benton, drummer Jerod Boyd, bassist Ryan Neff and guitarist Mullins.
That change is an important part of the story behind No Place for Me, the band's eighth full-length, released October 2 via Solid State Records. It's the first album written with the current lineup, and rather than trying to recreate what Miss May I have already done, the band used the change as an opportunity to approach the writing differently.
I had the chance to sit down with Benton to talk about the record, and one of the first things that became clear was just how personal this album became for him.
No Place for Me grew out of a lot of self-reflection. The title itself comes from a feeling Benton says has followed him for years, that sense of being isolated or not quite knowing where you belong.
Considering everything Miss May I have accomplished, it's an interesting thing to still wrestle with.
Benton said the writing process forced him to look at some of his own patterns, including his tendency to push himself too hard and overcompensate when he wanted something.
“I think the biggest thing was overcompensating.”
That realization became one of the foundations of the record.
“Sanctuary” takes that idea in a different direction. The song is about wanting somewhere safe while realizing that you may also be responsible for making that safety possible. Benton told me he didn't fully understand what the song was going to become when he started writing it. The meaning developed as he worked through it. For him, that's part of what makes songwriting so useful.
“I think I can process things better in writing a song than I do in my real life.”
He described the songs as “little bookmarks,” snapshots of different points in his life that he can return to years later.
That's become especially interesting as Miss May I's fans have grown up alongside them. People who discovered the band as teenagers are now adults, parents and dealing with entirely different stages of life.
Benton joked about how strange it is to hear fans relate to the band's newer material from that perspective.
The band's own history is pretty surreal too. Their rise happened during the MySpace era, when a single recommendation could completely change the trajectory of a band. Benton remembers their music spreading online after a Denver promoter helped get them in front of a much larger audience, with their daily plays reportedly jumping from around 250 to 250,000.
Nearly two decades later, he's still paying attention to younger bands. Benton talked about taking Currents out on early tours and watching them develop into the band they are today. He's also constantly discovering new music himself, joking that you can miss an entire new wave of bands simply by being offline for a few days.
“If you sleep for one weekend, it’s over.”
That same sense of movement carries into the new album. The lineup change meant the band had to rethink how songs were built. For years, Stead and Aufdemkampe had been a major part of the band's songwriting foundation. With Mullins joining, the group had to figure out a new starting point. That ended up opening the door to some different ideas.
“We try so hard to make songs sound different.”
Rather than simply recreating an older version of Miss May I, Benton said the band wanted to become more confident in what they could do musically. That meant keeping some of the stranger ideas that might previously have been thrown away. Sometimes, if a guitar part sounded technically wrong, they decided the wrong version sounded better.
A major part of that process was producer Nick Sampson, who has been involved with Miss May I since their earliest records. Benton remembers Sampson from the band's first album, when he was still working under other producers and engineers. This time around, Sampson stepped into the producer role and helped shape the record alongside the new lineup.
The album moves through a number of different subjects without losing that overall sense of looking inward. “Pray for Silence” came from a particularly overwhelmed period for Benton, while “Die on the Vine” developed later in the writing process. “Highbrow Thieves,” the closing track, looks at a period when Benton was working himself into the ground and realizing just how much of his time he was giving away.
No Place for Me Track List
- Sanctuary
- Portrait of Pain
- Hand Me A Halo
- Pray for Silence
- Death Threat
- Die on the Vine
- Fire Falls
- Bury Me Down
- Ashes Of The Altar
- Highbrow Thieves
The album contains 10 tracks and was released October 2, 2026 through Solid State Records.
By the time we talked about “Highbrow Thieves,” Benton was able to look back at that version of himself from a different perspective. That's probably the most interesting thing about No Place for Me.
It's not a record that comes across like Benton has finally figured everything out. If anything, it's the opposite. At the end of our conversation, I asked him whether making the album had finally made him feel like he'd found his place. He doesn't think he has.
“Maybe that’s a forever search, which I’ve lately thought that’s okay.”
After nearly 20 years with the same band, that answer feels pretty fitting. Miss May I have grown from a group of teenagers in Ohio into a band that has toured the world, watched their fans grow up and made it through a major lineup change without losing sight of what brought them here in the first place.
No Place for Me feels like another chapter in that story. It's personal, it's reflective, and it shows a band that's still willing to push themselves rather than simply repeat what they've already done.
And after nearly two decades, they're still here, still making noise and still giving people something to connect with.
No Place for Me is out now via Solid State Records. Order the album HERE.
