THE HAUNTED Frontman: The Real Irony Of A Kid In A MINOR THREAT T-Shirt

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

"So it's springtime and we're in Deventer, Holland.

"The show was fucking weird. On one side of the room, a bunch of 'ironic' (?) HC kids with MINOR THREAT and SXE t-shirts doing mock dance moves, I guess feeling superior somehow, and then there's metal heads who obviously know we don't give a fuck how you look when you're digging the rock, then younger dudes — kinda trying to do some kind of 'metal/HC' dance, but still into it.

"Anyway, we had a good time. What gets me a little bummed though is how anyone can put on a MINOR THREAT t-shirt and fucking downplay the people around you, and irony for that matter is such fucking cowardice. Sarcasm, hey — that I can dig. But fucking irony? From some 19 year old kid in a MINOR THREAT t-shirt... that's just — ironic.

"Poor kid. I asked him if he wanted to fuck after the show between two songs, cause he was doing a great very gay dramatization of one of our songs, but I think he might have thought I was serious — 'cause him and his very 'scene' friends left a song and a half later... And there you go, ironic people never deal to well with sarcasm.

"I mean, come on, if you come to a HAUNTED show, it's not like we're gonna pretend we're some fucking wisecracks, nor are we the smartest dudes in the room — ever.

"Really.

"We play the fucking metal. There's nothing ironic about it. And we are serious about it too.

"No — we are not there to do anything else. What's hard to get with that?

"If you want to stand completely still with you eyes shut most of the show and just listen, like one dude did today, that's fucking cool with us — because he listened, and we play — so that makes perfect fucking sense.

"Some will dance, some won't — but don't come to our show to fucking patronize and mock people enjoying the rock, that's just degrading yourself, and proving to everyone around you - that you obviously missed the point.

"See, if you don't like us, that's just fine with us. But if you're fucking dumb enough to actually pay to get in, not even like our music, and hang out to make some kind of statement?

"Sure, go ahead. By the way, thanks for your support, that ironic buck goes a long way...

"Now what's more, and this is swet, these last two days = summer! This is so soft man. Winter touring really get's to you, but summer time it's all like rock n roll camp.

"Flashback; I get off the bus in San Fransico. Barely awake, feeling slow, disoriented and just wanting to go back to bed. The cold I got really meeses with me. We get in a cab, get out, walk into a well designed lobby of MP3.com's offices and next thing we know we're sitting in a clean dry and modern studio talking about music for 30 minutes.

"Back into cab, talk to the driver about music and politics as he takes us across town back to the club. I eat and go back to sleep. Rest. Recouperate. I sleep until two hours before the show. Get up, warm up, move out. the show is brutal. I walk off feeling like I'm sweating blood. I feel like murder. Hammered steak. Like I just ate humans, still wanting more. I sit. Rest. Slowly regaining my humanity. Water up. Cool down. We all look at eachother in the dressingroom, chuckling, kinda qiuet.

"It's a good feeling.

"An hour before the show Chuck Billy and the guys from both TESTAMENT and EXODUS hang out on our bus.

"Our friends Nick Barker, Chris Kontos and all these other sweet people in this city that mean so much for us.

"I feel honoured. We're just these five dudes who started a band 'cause we love to play loud music, and some the very people whose music were part of making us who we are, treat us like equals... Life my friends, is a god damned beautiful mystery.

"Later, in the morning we sit pigging out at a diner on our way down to L.A. and just shake our heads, and chuckle. Though we've known these guys for years, and have had the privilige of touring with them it feels unreal.

"I love rock n roll."