PETER DOLVING Discusses New Project, Upcoming Book, Next THE HAUNTED Album

Peter Dolving of Swedish metallers THE HAUNTED recently spoke to the German edition of the Metal Hammer magazine about his new project, dubbed O, which also features Jesper Liveröd (NASUM, BURST) and Scott Reeder (KYUSS). The group is scheduled to enter the studio in a few weeks with producer Fredrik Reinedahl (OPETH, IN FLAMES, GADGET, BURST) to begin recording its debut album. Several drummers are expected to contribute their services during the sessions, including Peter Asp (ex-MARY BEATS JANE),Dave Witte (MUNICIPAL WASTE) and Per Möller Jensen (THE HAUNTED).

A few excerpts from the Metal Hammer chat follow below.

On his new band O:

"O is a friendship project. I've worked on the music — like, the initial pieces of the music — that's been done for over a year. And I've been working on trying to set together a good construction of people who are really good friends and who are also very, very skilled musicians. It's not just about being skilled musicians; it's about understanding the music and understanding the kind of... I don't know... humanity... It's very heavy music. It would be somewhere... I don't know... NEUROSIS meets RADIOHEAD. It's very eclectic. It's not like a 'band' band; it's a project of friends. . .

"There is at least one instrumental piece. What we're concentrating now on are the 15 songs that are the strongest. There's a couple of songs that are very long, but most of the stuff is around three-and-a-half to five minutes. It's pretty basic songs, as far as length goes.

"The idea is to do something that's not a traditional rock or metal construction. Instead we go about it as if it's an orchestra — like a classical orchestra, but we happen to play electrical instruments. And that's how I composed the pieces. If we ever get the possibility to play live, if we do that, it will be eight to ten musicians on stage, because that's the only way to perform it."

"We're starting to record now — within the next couple of weeks. We've been going through the arrangements. Some will be recorded at my house, some will be recorded at Scott's studio... I'm really, really looking forward to it.

"I've been holding on to this project for, like, three years. It's a dream come true. For me, it's something that... it's fun. I've really wanted to do something that's very different from what I do; it's kind of artistically a change, and I think it also gives me new ideas for what we're gonna do with THE HAUNTED as well.

"We don't have a record company. I've shopped this stuff around to record companies over the last three years, and everyone... no one believes... 'cause everyone's like... they're looking after their money. So, in a way, I'm feeling like, 'Well, fuck you!' 'Cause I can just put that stuff out on iTunes and not have to fucking worry about it."

On his upcoming book, which he plans to release this fall:

"I've taken outtakes from my blogs and additional writing over the last five years, and I've kind of condensed that up. It's a pretty entertaining read; it'll make you laugh, and it's very serious at times as well. It kind of goes together; it has to go together. If you have no sense of humor — and most people do, because they have a heart — you should really kind of consider how you approach life."

On THE HAUNTED's next album:

"We've started writing. But we made our minds up to do this: We're gonna finish [writing] the record before we book a studio. We've never done that before. We've always been like, 'We have to think. We have to adapt to record companies. They're on our asses.' 'You have to get this record done.' Well, we have to get the record done and we have to make a good record that we feel good about, and we're gonna do that.

"It's gonna be a good record. Looking at the ideas that we're coming up with, looking at the stuff that we're doodling around with, it's gonna be a very heavy and it's gonna be a very strange record. It's gonna be like a continuation of what we started experimenting with both on 'rEVOLVEr' [2004] and on 'The Dead Eye' [2006], so it'll be eclectic and hard. 'Cause around the time of 'The Dead Eye', we felt that we really needed to do something that we hadn't done that we really wanted to do, and we got a lot of critique for it; a lot of people didn't like it. We loved it, and the songs that we're playing off that record are going over really well with the audience and we're really enjoying to play them. So we figure, why the fuck shouldn't we play and continue to try and evolve as musicians and songwriters?! And that's what we'll do."

Watch Metal Hammer's interview with Peter Dolving at this location.

THE HAUNTED is continuing to tour in support of its latest album, "Versus", which entered the Swedish chart at position No. 14 and the Finnish chart at No. 12.The CD was recorded in part at PUK studio in Denmark with producer Tue Madsen (HEAVEN SHALL BURN, DARK TRANQUILLITY, MOONSPELL, etc),who previously worked with the group on its two previous LPs, "rEVOLVEr" and "The Dead Eye".