THE HAUNTED Frontman: 'Being 20 Something Was The Stupidest Time Of My Life'

THE HAUNTED frontman Peter Dolving has posted the following message on his MySpace page:

"Imagine sitting in a damp basement filled with the stink of mold, cigarette smoke, shitty lights, black or dark red walls, sticky floors and an atmosphere of slight stress and marijuana dazed indifference. Yea, it's clubland!

"Ere we go again. It's the world and even though I got a nasty cold today I realize I like this in some sick way. OK, it ain't too comfortable I'll admit. But it's where I work. Underworld, London... The first time I played here I was still just a kid. The band we were supporting was this band called KYUSS. We could just barely afford a meal a day, so we'd sneak sandwiches from their catering and try to look innocent. Everone was stoned and drunk pretty much all the time.

"Right then I was on some kind of 'holier than thou' trip, trying to prove to myself that I was stronger than everyone else. I was really just a self-righteous little prick with little else than hate to communicate. Still I almost saw every one of those shows awed by the abandon with which KYUSS set about their music. Possessed. I was so blown away, how did they do it? How could they just get up their oblivious to everything but the music they were playing? I never understood it until I gave up trying so goddamned hard.

"I could never understand where the hell MARY BEATS JANE was taking me. It was music I didn't know. The places we played were dinges I never even knew existed. Tiny basement clubs, squats and random bars/discos. An entire world that smelled of fungus, stale smoke, piss and bleach. A world where at three in the afternoon it felt like a funeral parlor, dead cold and desolate, but at 11 at night it was the epicentre of pumping bass drunk abnter and loud voices, dancing bodies and sweaty faces. This was so far away from the silent hills of my childhood. There was no one there to tell you what to do or not, chicks were pretty but not innocent, drugs were free or cheap as long as you were ON stage, and every one around me started acting as I was their friend. Yeah, you get the picture, Alice's Wonderland come true.

"The biggest difference from the AcidHouse/Techno scene I'd engorged myself in back in Gothenburg early '92, besides the drugs, was the undertone of violence and the lack of smiles. I can still miss that, no matter how superficial it was — the acid and E-heads fucking smiled and laughed more than punkrockers and metalheads. But rock did involve more casual sex with no strings attached.

"There was a young woman from Basqiua in Spain, who had her apartment/loft/studio two floors down from the illegal afterhours club I worked at who would always offer her couch or her bed depending on which mood she was in. I was never in love with her per se, but I sure felt love for her. She was so cool, so strong and she made feel like I actually mattered. She'd done a stretch in jail for drug trafficking so I figured she was someone I could trust. It seemed to me she'd put all the traditional taboos of relationships and sexual boundaries behind her and hanging out at her place was my secret haven and it gave me access to the small heart of what turned into the fullblown rave cirkus in the two years that were to follow.

"I hooked up with a couple of DJs and did spoken word through their set acting as their MC, and I'd supply them with records by early CAN, KRAFTWERK and JELLO BIAFRA. William S Burroughs, Timothy Leary and Terrence McKenna spoken-word records mixed with URBAN GUERILLA, PAPUA NEW GUINEA, APHEX TWINS and and whitelabels by Mixmaster Morris, Laurent Garnier and anything that we found by the Warp collective. The paralell universe for me was one of amphetamine, hasch, moonshine and beer. The GANG GREEN, SLAYER, MC5, STOOGES, BLACK SABBATH and CAPTAIN BEEFHEART records as a backdrop for a bunch of easy-going self-loathing kids with a working-class or lower middle-class background with some kind of work ethic I could never identify with. If it was the drugs or my upbringing, I don't know. But I found something in mixtapes one of my friends started giving me. Bands like 108, ICEBURN, LEEWAY, SICK OF IT ALL, GORILLA BISCUITS, and FUGAZI. We'd hang out 24/7, sleep anywhere that was offered, go to rehearsals with MARY BEATS JANE, get smashed on moonshine, go to a acid jazz afterhoursclub, smoke haschish, drink more, do a couple of lines, dance until dawn, head out for breakfast end up sleeping in a park or with someone who felt the need for closeness, eat all their food and head for one of the clubs I worked at or some show. One of our ways of getting free food was making bets. Come up with the most disgusting combination of ingredients we found on the menu and bet someone who looked enough of a mark to actually fall for it. Mostly we didn't spend much money on food. My pal put his money on 7-inch singles, I put mine on god knows what? Mostly drugs, I think...

"Being 20 something was the stupidest time of my life. I don't regret it though. Because like every other thing I've done I ended up learning something..."