"Guitarist slot still open?!?"
You had Marcus from The Crown on the US tour, how did he
fit to the band?!?
It took two days from him to learn the stuff and then he was
able to do the whole shit. He is a very smart guitarist.
Is he here tonight too ?!?
Yeah sure.
What is Sharlee D Angelo doing here?!?
He is selling T-shirts here..
Yeah started wondering why... Damn didn't bring any
Mercyful Fate cds to get his autographs.
Hehehhh...He has been all the time during the whole tour
selling T-shirts, he is a good guy.
But you are still seeking a new replacement for the second
guitarist job ?!?
Yeah we are still seeking. Well the new album of Marcus' The
Crown will be coming out within the month and he will be busy
with it. I don't dig that stealing a guitarist from another
band..
Even though how good he would be ?!?
Yeah he is a good pal and gets along with us very well. It
would be a pity to pull him out of his main band where he has
grown up. Who knows what happens in the future, maybe he will
stay with us or then not, who knows.
"The Haunted Slayerize"
When touring there in The States once again, the local
crowd has started knowing your material better so do they now
have specific certain fave tracks that they always scream them
on gigs for example Hollow Ground, Revelation, Hate Song?!
Always, always and then they scream "Blinded By
Fear"...
... Still the At The Gates stuff ?!?!?!
Yeah, when we now have only one member left from At The
Gates, so we don't have any kind of feeling to do it anymore..
Have you however done any At The Gates stuff as an encore in The
States ?!?
Yeah we did it on the last night in Toronto which was a kinda joke
night, cos it was the last gig of the tour and it was kinda special.
Hmm... Didn't you do the Slayer cover some time, at least I
heard you did it in Athens ?!?
Yeah once in Athens. We had "The Reaper" from Witchery
and two ATG tracks and then Raining The Blood, It was a headliner gig
and we didn't have the material enough, so had to play all kinds of
extra stuff...Laughter...
What kind of relationship do you have with Slayer, I mean by
that Slayer visited here a couple of months ago on "Tattoo The
Planet" and we met them at the hotel and Tom Araya had the
Haunted shirt on ?!?
It is funny as they are our fans, it is quite a weird thought
indeed, cos you have looked up to them since you have started
listening to metal and all of a sudden they are your fans. Quite a
strange feeling. If we are in the same city when being on the tour we
definitely meet each other and drink a few beers. Actually Jensen is a
pretty good pal with Kerry King. Sometimes they call each other.
Are there any possibilities that The Haunted would set off for
the tour along with Slayer, I guess there was some discussion anyway
?!?
Yeah it was. When Jensen met Kerry King in Stockholm and I was sick
I couldn't go. Of course he had said (drunk) "Yeah of course you
come to The States with us". But our and their staff had talked,
but I don't know if they asked for too much money or something cos it
never came true.
But it isn't out of question ?!?
No no.. Whenever we always meet them they are like "We gotta
get on the tour with you".
Hasn't Kerry King said that The Haunted is the only band which
he allows to cover Slayer ?!?
Yeah he said that in Los Angeles "You are the only one band in
the world which I allow to cover Slayer".
That would be quite an intensive package for the audience that
you would play app one hour and then...
Actually we have once warmed Slayer. It was in Switzerland.
Wasn't some local band supposed to play there in Switzerland ?!?
Yeah. It was Slayer's lightman who was the tour manager for
Testament too and therefore we met him. He walked by our bus and we
were there with Entombed and they were supposed to warm Slayer. Anyway
he walked by and wondered "what the fuck are you doing here
?" and we were "Well we are gonna have a gig tomorrow and
now sitting here drinking the beer", he was "Does Kerry know
you are here ?!?", "Well don't think so". Then he
called Kerry to the hotel and three hours later he had kicked the
local band out and changed their own set for about 30 minutes that we
managed to get to play.
Does it feel somehow great that all those thrash stars Sadus,
Testament, Dark Angel, Exodus, Kreator what you used to dig and adore
back in the 80's have become your fans and praise The Haunted all the
time ?!?
Yeah indeed. When we were just in San Francisco, all of a sudden
our tour bus was totally packed by the Testament and Sadus guys and we
had a huge party there. And Chuck Billy has short hair cos he got the
chemotherapy because of the cancer. And he was ok again. I guess he
got something to his lungs and they don't know if he is able to sing
anymore.
That would be a really bad thing
But they try to sort out something that he would get to do gigs.
"ALIVE IN JAPAN"
You recently got a live album out I guess, recorded in Japan ?!?
I guess it has been postponed until the beginning of the year and
that's Earache once again. But I think it is a very smart idea, cos if
it is released in December all these big companies would eat the album
alive. It is smart to put it out in January.
What made you record the album in Tokyo, as several other bands
have also recorded their own live albums there too?!?
It went this way. In Flames were there recording their own live and
we asked if they could record ours too, cos they already had all the
equipment there ready. Then we forgot that they had recorded it. Then
we thought of getting rid of Earache and we had one only album to make
for them. We tried this live album in order to get rid of that
company, but they weren't that much thrilled. We however decided to
put the live out and mixed it. But we have to do one album for them...
heh heh... But all in all we have done 150 gigs for this album, Made
Me Do It, after this Scandinavian tour and that's quite a lot.
Last time you said The Haunted is a more live band than any
studio band, all these aggressive elements what you have come up
better ?!?
Even though we have done so many gigs, there are a lot of places
where we haven't visited yet. That's why we thought of putting the
live album out that they can listen until they have a chance to see us
on the stage. You can never forget all these people who put you to
where you are now today. Besides the live album has the Japanese bonus
track which we decided to let it be out.
And it is ?!?
"Eclipse", it is a little bit different Haunted song. A
little bit slower and it has some rock'n'roll feelings. It can be
heard it is us.
Don't say Hellacopters ?!?
NO NO NO, we don't have the piano....”Laughter a lot” !!!!!!!!
Will this track possibly be on the next Haunted album ?!
No, I don't think so cos it is now on the Japanese release. That
live comes out in the same package with Made Me Do It so it is a
double album. But they will sell it for one cd price.
Have you already written any stuff yet ?!?
Actually we were writing the new material but then this USA tour
came and we couldn't skip that tour, so we put the new stuff on hiatus
for a while. After finishing this tour we will be taking a two week
break and then we will start working on them. All in all five items
and I have lyrics for a couple of tracks, it is quite near. Made Me Do
It was written in three months.
That's quite a quick time to do an album ?!
But when everyone in the band is so goddamn creative. When you say
when an album is going to be done then it is done. Most of guys try to
write an album one year, cos it can't be pushed - you know. Of course
it has to be pushed cos it however goes over. If you are such a
creative dude then there is never a push, just sit down and write -
that's it. When someone says "Yeah this one was written
when we were on the tour", that's total bullshit. There is no
time to write anything. There is no piece of creativity, you just sit
in the bus - thinking this is fucking boring, more boring. I had a cd-r
featuring one new track on it, sent to me, I tried to write the text,
it just didn't work out at all. When I sit at home and put into the
computer and then it is another thing.. That is probably some kind of
rock'n'roll myth "On the road"...And bullshit... Phhh...
"Conquering Scandinavia"
Where else have you played on this Scandinavian tour, Sweden and
three gigs here in Finland...
And two gigs in Denmark and nothing in Norway cos we visited there
last time when Finland had to be dropped out cos I lost my voice.
There was some blood boils in my throat. I was coughing blood all the
time when singing.
Yak! That doesn't sound very healthy.
Now my voice just vanishes when I have screamed too long, but it
doesn't hurt at all.
The Swedish TV showed a live gig of The Haunted and Nasum some
time ago in a music show called MusikByrån, so what did that bring to
you, anything ?! As you know The Swedish TV can be watched here in
Finland too..
There I had already lost my voice..heh... When we visited here last
time several people had seen it. That TV thing helped us a lot. When
we visited Denmark, people came to us saying "We saw you on
"Musikbyrån". The Scandinavian tour helped us a lot then
and then this Grammy award too.
Actually this MusikByrån shows quite a lot of metal stuff, they
showed Slayer, a part of Priest's British Steel.
They have now noticed in Sweden the music is one of their biggest
exports. Towns usually pay rehearsal rooms you get a small list which
you mark how many rehearsals you have had and the town pays a certain
amount of money for the band.
What do you think of the current flourishing Swedish power
metal, does it appeal to you ?!?
Well I don't know, it is just this "cross over" thing
which ain't my thing. Ok Soilwork is a great band, but they plaguarize
a goddamn lot. Their new album is almost reminds me of the In Flames
album.
And Arch Enemy is quite popular, especially in Japan.
Oh my, they are so big there in Japan.
A few weeks ago we interviewed Edguy and they said the whole
heavy metal has gone down there in Japan because of the economic
slump, have you faced that kind of thing ?!?
Hopefully we will manage to get back to Japan soon. But no we
haven't faced that kind of thing at all. Every time when we have
visited there places have been packed.
"Shit on a Stick ! "
What about your former band FaceDown I still remember all those
big articles in Metal Hammer 2-3 pages somewhere in 95...
In 95 "MindField" came out. I hadn't shaven my face.. A
real gynecologic picture...Yeah we once talked about doing some kind
of reunion gig, but there is one damn guitarist who is such a fucking
cry baby. He is really pissed off now when Peter, who went to
Entombed, and me to Haunted, he is pissed off cos they would haven
taken his stardom. He would never ever get on the same stage with us.
FaceDown was about to do a breakthrough, it was quite near...
It was so that we had pretty crap luck with these record companies.
We were on Roadrunner firstly and then on Nuclear Blast. We sold more
albums ever than any other debut band on Roadrunner in England. Sold
more than Machine Head, Sepultura and so on. However they threw us
out. And then Nuclear Blast paid a fucking lot of money that they got
us to sign the contract with them and we made an album. They at
Nuclear Blast started complaining about the awful sound on the album.
We went to Sunlight and Thomas Skogberg, you know. There was a shitty
feeling in those songs on the album and we wanted to have the shitty
sounds, just exactly this Sunlight's sounds which is a little bit
dirty. Then "Production Suxx", it came back. During two
months they tried us to get to re-record it again, then we said
"Okay we’re gonna re-record it", then it came "You
only have fine 10.000 Deutsche marks to pay for it".. Fuck you,
you pay it !!!!!!
Pretty weird policy by the company
After all they paid it and when we wanted to get to tour. We got a
personal loan from him that we got on the tour. We had to pay it back
in London. It was...
But think now, we sold over 6000 albums in England, but guess how
many albums the NB chief, Markus Stainer, let to England.. Only 800
!!!! There wasn't any kind of sense. But if you were Mika
Hakkinen's manager who would have bought both a driver and a car and
you know he is such a great winner. It cost so damn much, but let's
put the car in the garage. That is pretty much the same feeling.
That was a really good comparison ...*Laughter*...
You spoke a little bit earlier about this
Facedown reunion, but in general what do you think about these
reunions, for example this upcoming tour of the German thrashers,
Sodom, Destruction and Kreator ?!?
UUUHHH... The Destruction guys are really good friends of ours.
Well I don't know, I think they take too much time from younger bands
which should get more recognition in my opinion. Think about Helloween
-"Ohh we are forty years old, but we are still as angry as
before”. C’mon now !!!
But you warmed Destruction in Chile?!?
Yeah we really did a gig with them in Chile. Yeah it was a real
tough feeling to play with them. But I don't like this reunion thing.
Just like us after 15 years from now, we would get back together to do
something....heh.. It doesn't feel any original in my opinion.
All right Marco, thanks for the interview !
Yeah thanks guys!