THE HAUNTED Guitarist Says Everything Is Finally Looking Up For The Band

THE HAUNTED guitarist Patrik Jensen recently spoke to Blistering.com about the group's split with Earache Records and frontman Marco Aro, and the band's latest release, "rEVOLVEr", among other topics. Several excerpts from the interview follow:

On the split with Earache:

"Earache Records kind of hijacked THE HAUNTED. THE HAUNTED is my band, but they claimed that while three AT THE GATES members were in the band, THE HAUNTED needed to fulfil the old AT THE GATES contract. So we never really signed a deal with Earache Records, they simply made sure that we just took over the old contract I guess. So AT THE GATES had three more albums to complete, which we have finally completed. Now we were free to sign our own contract with anyone we chose to sign to. Well, needless to say, we weren't that happy with the way Earache Records just took complete control over the band, and the kind of backing they gave us wasn't what we considered enough for what we needed to grow. So we moved on to Century Media Records. I don't think anyone is happy on Earache Records these days! (Laughs) I heard that they had recently lost MORBID ANGEL too, so I don’t know what is happening there. It seems to be a bit of a sinking ship these days."

On new label, Century Media Records:

"We're very excited now that we’re off Earache Records and now on Century Media Records! (Laughs) Century Media Records is a label that actually puts money into their bands, so we're very happy. On Earache Records, we were one of their better selling bands, but hey saw no reason to put tour support towards us so we could tour with bigger acts and grow. They would say to us that we we're doing well and that they saw no reason or need to sink any more money into an established act such as ourselves. Now with Century Media Records, we have this opening slot on the SHADOWS FALL/DAMAGEPLAN tour in the U.S. Instead of playing in front of five hundred/one thousand people on our own headlining tour, we'll be playing to one/three thousand people every night. We also got a new manager in Petri Lundén (of Talent Trust, and who represents acts such as EUROPE, TURBONEGRO and THE CARDIGANS). That was also another thing we couldn’t do when on Earache Records. We couldn't get a manger with a 'name' because everybody who knows Earache Records knows that they can’t work with that company. So we're very anxious. We have a great album, a great manager and have a great label. Finally, everything is looking up for us."

On the departure of vocalist Marco Aro:

"It was July 2003 when Aro told us that he had decided to leave the band. I think he had three kids by then, and that is a lot of responsibility to simply leave with your partner full time. He didn't want to be away from his family that much. So it was totally understandable that he wanted to commit to that instead. So the split was amicable in that sense. I mean, can you think of a better reason for quitting a band? I don't think you can. We're totally good friends, and we still talk every week."

On the return of original vocalist Peter Dolving:

"We're very excited about Dolving being back. He's an amazing singer, but we were pretty wary of asking Dolving to return when Aro left. Aro left because of his family, and we knew that Dolving also has two kids. So we were asking ourselves if we would be signing up with the same sort of problems in a year's time. So we asked around, and we understood that he was very eager to rejoin the band. When we officially approached him with the proposition, he needed a couple of hours to think about it. But after discussing it with his wife, he said yes, as well as promising us that it was going to be cool. So we’re very happy to have Dolving back in the band. I don't think a band benefits from having a lot of changes in its line up, but we needed a new frontman, and there was no better person to get than Dolving from the first album."

Read Patrik Jensen's entire interview with Blistering.com at this location.