The Haunted pour l'album ''Exit Wounds''

1/The Haunted is back with full force and a recently partly renewed line up. (It’s good to have you back Marco by the way, i’m a fan). You had a pretty stable line up those last few years, what happened?

I think Peter, Anders and Per got tired of being in the band, I guess they thought they had taken The Haunted as far as they could musically. Also, we had very different ideas on how to take The Haunted further. Me and Jensen wanted to focus more on the brutal/agressive side of the band, whereas the others liked the more progressive, dynamic approach perhaps.

2/I’ve hard “Exit Wounds” almost ten times in a row, and a few hours later “Unseen”. Hard transition. Seriously, i mean, what happened to the band during the “Unseen” period? Was it a real envy of the band members to evolve in this “In Flames-y” way or just something that did happened during the creation process ? No critics here, just wanted to know how you came back from an album like “Unseen” to the full of energy “Exit Wounds”? Does it have a link for those changes in the line up?

Yes, at that time we wanted to explore new musical routes. We had no plan to become successful like In Flames or anything. It was something we wanted to do at the time, and personally, I think Unseen is a solid record with a lot of solid songs.

I guess with the new members we felt we had to start fresh again, and with Marco on vocals, you instantly get a more aggressive sound.

3/“Exit Wounds” reminds me a lot of “One Kill Wonder”, same feeling, riffing (the killer duo Jensen / Bjorler is back!!) and Marco’s screams (heavenly). The energy is back with full force, i just love it!! How does it feel, from your point of view, to be back to a “full thrash attack” attitude after some albums who where definitely “softer”...i can give mine: welcome back to greatness, the Haunted.

It feels good. Thanks for the nice words :D
As I said before, I have always liked the more aggressive side of The Haunted, so this was probably a very natural step to take.

4/ The lyrics of “Trend Killer” are quite funny, revealing what has become a part of the metal scene nowadays. Care to give our readers some insights about what inspire those lyrics? And how did you got the great Chuck Billy to sing with you on this one?

It's Jensen's lyrics and I guess they describe how fake and hollow a lot of trendy metal bands can be? It deals with the subject of humility as well. You always have to remember that the people you meet when you're moving up, it's gonna be the same people you'll meet when you're on your way down to rock bottom.
We asked Chuck if he wanted to help us out – and he did..
I think Jensen's got some very good connections for these kind of things...

5/“Exit Wounds” is out today in Europe, I’ve bought my copy this morning. Sadly, it has also leaked almost the same day on those mp3 blogs. I know it’s an endless discussion, mais still I’m curious to know your opinion about the easiness nowadays to “not buy but listing for free” trend? Do you, as a person, do sometimes download and / or listen on youtube some albums as some of us ungrateful geeks sometimes do?

I don't download any music illegally – I use Spotify myself. I think that's a great channel to get introduced to new music. Back in the days, you had radio channels, but now it's very easy and very accessible. I don't condone the digital revolution, I think it can be use as a marketing tool and help a lot of bands to find new fans.

6/I’m curious to know how do you create a Haunted-song, do you rehearse all together or is it done online (sending riffs, drum patterns by e-mail...)? Did Ola had the opportunity to throw in some riffs, despite he wasn’t a old-time member of the band?

We live quite far from each other, so we send a lot of stuff back and forth on the Internet.
Ola contributed a lot and made like 3-4 songs on Exit Wounds. He has a style that reminds us of how Haunted used to sound back in the old days.
A lot of songs were collaborations between us all, and those tracks were really successful, like “Kill the Lights” and “Time”

7/Which rock / metal bands got you into guitar / bass playing? (i won’t be shy, concerning myself it was mostly At the Gates, Slayer and.... The Haunted. Cheers) Did you had the opportunity to actually meet / speak with those bands you were into?

Deep Purple, Rainbow, Thin Lizzy.
Never got to meet these bass players though, would have been cool to exchange a few words.

8/We’re a French metal webzine (again, sorry for that). What your opinion about our country (way of life, cultural differences you may have noticed, Metal Bands you may like...? Be honest, we won’t bite.

Nice country, awesome food, and friendly people.
Our gigs in France are always special to us.

9/Which bands do you listing to these days? Any good new bands for us to listing to? Metal and non-metal?

I only listen to classical music and jazz right now, but my choice of music is always changing.

10/Ok, if you still have a bit of energy left, let’s review your discography together, could you please throw us some words about some of your earlier works, how does it feel when you listen to them right now, if you could change something on it, some goods stories about the time it was released or recorded...?

The Haunted - Cool songs, but a weak production. You can kind'a hear that this album is the debut, it sounds very “hungry”. This was recorded in studio Fredman in Gothenburg.

Made Me Dot It – I think this was a break-through album for us, the songs are a little more dynamic and diverse. Could have been better with a heavier sound though. This was our first Grammy win. This was recorded in Berno Studio, Malmo Sweden

One Kill Wonder – A little messy sound, but have a few gems. We kind of returned to a more brutal approach on this one. Recorded in studio Fredman in Gothenburg.

rEVOLVEr – Kind of our break-through album. This time we used Tue Madsen to mix the album, and this was the first real good production. Recorded in Studio Fredman.
We tried a few heavier tunes for the first time, like Abysmal & My Shadow.

The Dead Eye – My favourite so far. Really dynamic record and cool songs. It was recorded in PUK studio in Denmark, and mixed by Tue Madsen. Some of our best songs ever are on this record, like Flood, Medication, Medusa

Versus – Was recorded live in the studio in PUK studios, Mixed later on by Tue Madsen. I think we had too many songs to record and lost the overall focus. Maybe was a little rushed?
Good production though.

Unseen – I like it, a little more progressive than other releases. It was recorded and mixed in Antfarm studios by Tue Madsen.

Exit Wounds – Back to the style of OKW. This was a very natural approach with Marco back in the band. Also the lead guitars got a little push with Ola on lead guitar. Good production by Tue Madsen again. This was recorded on different locations in Sweden and Denmark