THE HAUNTED Frontman Talks About AT THE GATES Reunion, BLABBERMOUTH.NET Detractors

Vince Neilstein of MetalSucks caught up with THE HAUNTED frontman Peter Dolving last month at the New England Metal and Hardcore Festival in Worcester, Massachusetts. Dolving spoke about why touring musicians are inherently dysfunctional, what he did while the brothers Björler toured with the reunited AT THE GATES ("Cried a lot... I really did spend a lot of time last summer in a little crawled up package whimpering with a lot of snot involved."),what it was like for him to go through therapy, what he hopes to accomplish via his controversial writing, the interactive nature of the Internet and how that affects communication, the haters on BLABBERMOUTH.NET ("... there is so much ignorance involved in the Internet community."),and the difference between having knowledge and being smart. An excerpt from the chat follows below.

MetalSucks: You said onstage today that you're "dysfunctional"...

Dolving: (laughs) Well, it's true. Why in the world would anyone do this, this much? The main motivator, you know, to get up on stage over and over and to try and do something well enough where other people will get enjoyment enough to give you applause or approval. That's pretty fucking dysfunctional. That says a lot about the general sense of self-esteem or self-knowledge. If you're fortunate enough, you kind of come to terms with yourself along the years. I think that's something that's there with a lot of people that do this because it is a strong motivator. It keeps you coming back for more, and in a way, it's kind of addictive for good or bad. It is what it is.

MetalSucks: What did you do on your time off while the rest of the band was doing AT THE GATES?

Dolving: Cried a lot. It was an intense summer and spring last year. We finished the record.

MetalSucks: I got bits and pieces of it through your writing. You didn't write a lot during that time.

Dolving: No, I didn't because it was one of those intense times of revelation. I've been going to therapy and working with myself to get some really nasty shit — not out of the way, but to deal with it and to come to terms with it. So I really did spend a lot of time last summer in a little crawled up package whimpering with a lot of snot involved. It was cool because I came out on the other side feeling a lot more, I don't know, stronger and human and part of the human race. I've dropped a lot of alienating bullshit that I've had going for many years, and I'm really fucking grateful. Thank God for modern psychiatry and psychology. That stuff is great.

MetalSucks: Who would you say that you are writing to? Is there a specific type of person in mind?

Dolving: It depends on the blog.

MetalSucks: Is it the kids on Blabbermouth who go and say "fuck this guy. Why does he write this fucking shit?"

Dolving: It depends. Every piece is different. I think style-wise, that is pretty obvious. Some are really intended to be directly provocative. Some are just observational and pretty introverted. Some are more on a friendly level. I think, stylistically, it's something that comes off pretty clear as you read it. Mostly, something that I've noticed and gotten feedback when I've put the writing together and have people read it all the way through, is that it is very direct as a whole. It really depends on which piece, because, like I said, some are meant to be provocative. I do try to provoke consciously with some subjects because I think provocation is necessary when it comes to a lot of subjects because there is so much ignorance involved in the Internet community. I don't know if there is an Internet community, but it has a very young kind of demography. The thing is that people are very young and smart motherfuckers, but that doesn't mean that they know a lot. It just means that they are really fucking smart. So if you provoke them, they'll get pissed off, and five years later they'll start thinking because they got pissed off. It'll be in there. It will just nag away and a couple of years later, suddenly you have that little awakening and that's cool. So provocation is important as a means of communication. It also freaks the fuck out of people when they react, and I write them back. I'm not hostile. "But I told you to fuck off and I want you to die," and I'm like "I guess it's good for you that you can say that, but I'm a human being." It does freak people out, and it inspires people to hit with something more. Like another step and another step. I think that's the cool part with this type of writing and communicating. I love it dearly.

MetalSucks: It reads almost like philosophy. Is that its intention, to affect some little kind of social change even on the smallest level the same way music is meant to be sort of a personal experience?

Dolving: Yeah. I think when it comes to much of what I write; it touches on moral philosophy a lot. I think for me personally it's more for me to try and understand. What I write is more of writing things in a question way because I don't always know. Sometimes I think I know, and I realize just because I think I know, it doesn't mean jack shit. I need to write about it in order to further see where the logical lapses are and where it really doesn't hold together. Writing will state more questions and prove whether my trail of thought is coherent and holds up. When it doesn't hold up, I'm amazed. I'm like, "Wow, that's cool" because I'm understanding something new. It's thought-provoking and it's inspiring. I've stated that it's not very clear in what I write. I don't know. I do not have the answers. What I write is not the absolute truth because there ain't none, as far as I'm concerned.

MetalSucks: I think a lot of people take it as "this guy is trying to impose his beliefs upon us," and they react the way they do.

Dolving: Absolutely. I should probably have a disclaimer at the beginning of every blog. Here's the disclaimer, read this first, and then read the blog. I guess I'll accept the misunderstandings, that's fine, I'll write people back. About a year ago, I got into this really nasty exchange of writing with this kid who got really nasty. Finally he started threatening me. He was literally saying that he was going to kill me at this place and that my family was going to get killed. That was very uncomfortable. I actually went as far as getting the police to do an investigation. We know where the guy is. We're not going to press charges, but it was weird. I understand that I pushed him too far. I was being too much of a smart-ass to someone who didn't have the emotional capacity to deal with what I was giving. He was being a tough guy, but he wasn't being a smart guy. I just pushed that a little too far. I understand that. As I said, there's a lot of ignorance. Sometimes being fairly knowledgeable doesn't mean that you're right. That's something that I learned from that.

Read the entire interview at www.metalsucks.net.

HeavyMetalSource.com conducted an interview with Peter Dolving at the New England Metal and Hardcore Festival. Watch the 10-minute chat below.