Interview: The Haunted
You can tell when we play live that we have super fun, because it's hard to look tough and stuff when you're grinning ear to ear!
The Haunted have recently returned with their tenth album Songs Of Last Resort and it sees the Swedish metal monsters on top form, with a collection of songs that are the audio equivalent of a bullet to the head, with the precision and brutality that we have come to expect from the band. Gavin Brown had the privilege of talking to with The Haunted vocalist Marco Aro to discuss Songs Of Last Resort and the return of The Haunted as well as the 25th anniversary of his first album with The Haunted, Made Me Do It and his time in previous band Face Down.
E&D: It’s been eight years since the last The Haunted record. You must be excited for the band to be back and to release your new album Songs Of Last Resort?
Marco: Yeah, as excited as we’ve been during these eight years, because the thing about us, is that we’re not a rehearsing band. We don’t have a rehearsal studio or anything like that. So the only time we actually get together is when we’re doing shows. Adrian lives in London, and me and Ola live in Stockholm, and Jensen and Jonas, they live elsewhere in Sweden, so we don’t have this natural space where we get together. Every time we met during these eight years, we just we talked about doing this album, and everybody gets all excited, and we start writing songs, and we put them in our Dropbox, and then it just fizzles out to nothing, because life gets in the way, and then the pandemic came along but we got together to do a show at Sweden Rock Festival, and that’s when we decided, Okay, enough of the bullshit. We need to do this now, so we actually didn’t use any of the eight years worth of songs on our Dropbox. The whole album was written in three or four months, all new material.
E&D: Have you still got some of those ideas in the Dropbox for use in the future?
Marco: A few riffs are taken from there, but otherwise, there is a good amount of songs in there that are still waiting to be processed and being put together. We recorded about sixteen or seventeen songs and twelve made it to the album. So we have a few songs left. We had this record company listening party, where we had a competition with a big Swedish record store, Bengans, and the first twenty pre-order customers got to hear the album before everybody else, and that’s the first time I heard the rest of the songs that we recorded, mixed and mastered, and now sitting listening to these songs, it was like, why the fuck didn’t this one make the album, and why didn’t this one make the album, because they’re all really, really good! The last time I heard them was when me and Bjorn recorded them, the levels are all off, the vocals are really high, and blah, blah, blah…but when you heard them mixed and mastered, you were like, oh, yeah, excellent! The talk about those songs is that we’re probably going to do an EP or something along the down the road.
E&D: Your vocals sound incredible on the album, and every member is on fire throughout too. Do the band feel re-energised and stronger than ever with this album, even though it’s the tenth album for The Haunted?
Marco: Everybody says that the vocals sounds a lot better than I’ve ever done, but in my head, I didn’t do anything different. I guess that Bjorn came in and because he didn’t let me get away with shit, because when I’m in the studio and I get tired and lazy, I always say, that takes a good take leave it, and he’s like, No man, we’re not even close. So he starts pushing me. But the thing is that Bjorn and I have been friends for twenty years, probably, but we’ve never done anything professional together. We’ve always been up for a few beers and talk some shit always. You know what guys always do when they get together and they start bands that never become anything! I didn’t set out to do it, but that’s probably the the difference that I subconsciously was trying to impress him.
E&D: How was it working with Andreas “Diaz” Pettersson agin on the artwork for the album?
Marco: When we got back together in 2013 and we decided on doing the whole aggressive Haunted thing, because they’d been out with Peter exploring their musicianship and they made some tremendous albums. Even though when I left the band and Peter joined again. I didn’t listen to any Haunted or anything, because I was completely done but I started listening to those albums for the first time in 2013 and I just fell in love with them. The thing is that Andreas, when, in 2013 we decided to put this format together, we talked about, okay, let’s bring everybody in that was involved back in the day, and Andreas came along as well. He’s crazy! He was actually on the record listing thing, and when you talk to him, you just can’t keep up, because he’s crazy. He’s a professional ad maker, he works for Volvo and stuff and he’s the best guy, he has so many crazy ideas and he’s an MMA fighter also, When he came up with the idea with the inverted cross as a pistol, It was amazing.
E&D: What was it like when you returned to the band back in 2013 and didn’t feel like returning to family with everyone involved?
Marco: It was like coming home. When I got the call from Jensen back in 2013, I heard that Peter left the band, and Per left the band, and Anders left the band. And he said, you know what I’m going to ask you? I said, Don’t even ask me because I’m not interested. I left the band because I fell in love with the rock and roll lifestyle too much, and I took it too seriously, so I had to leave the band and everything just to clean up my act and focus on what’s important in life, surviving. I then told him. Okay, I need a week to talk to my wife and stuff, because she was at the receiving end of the craziness back then. Once I talked to her, and she was on board, that’s when I said, Okay, let’s do this. And we laid out the format for The Haunted 2013 and onwards, because they were spared from touring as well, and when you’re doing like, four hundred shows in two years. it gets to you. So now we decided this time around, we’re going for quality before quantity, and make it exclusive and stuff like that. It’s been working for us so far. The fun thing about this format now is, it’s not about a living anymore, because back then, we did it for a living. That’s why we jumped on all these crazy tours and and shows that really didn’t add up to anything. It was just a waste of time, but it paid you. We’re not doing that anymore. We’re picking the raisins out of the cake and we’re in a blessed position to do so also.
E&D: It must feel good to do that, do what shows you want, like Damnation Festival in Manchester in November. Are you looking forward to shows like that and on your own terms?
Marco: Yeah, definitely. The thing is that we missed out on the whole festival season this year. We’re doing one off festivals, and then we have a small Nordic tour in November/December. Otherwise it’s just one off shows. The offers for 2026 are coming in hard. It’s a lot, so we’re sitting down and we’re picking and choosing. We consider 2025 to be more of a warm up to see how the new material works and because there’s 10 albums, it’s pretty hard to put a setlist for one hour fifteen minutes, because everybody in the audience needs to get theirs. So it’s going to be tough, but we’ve been doing it for a few years, when we try to incorporate new songs, and then it’s like old songs that Peter sang on that I want to do, because I really love them, so it’s a struggle, but so far so good.
E&D: How do you feel approaching those the songs that Peter Dolving sang on the albums and doing it with your own style?
Marco: No problem at all. The singing part, it’s not that I don’t know how to sing. It’s just that I don’t want to. I think the harsh vocals and clean vocals they have, they don’t mix in my opinion, they should be in different songs. There’s so many bands doing it now. But the thing is that I love all the songs from rEVOLVEr, The Dead Eye, they’re amazing songs with amazing lyrics, so I would really love to do a few more of them. We do ‘The Medication’, ‘The Flood’ ‘99’ and a few others, but I would love to do more of those as well, because Pete is a very inspirational vocalist for me as well. When I left the band, and they were talking about, who’s going to replace you? I said, get Pete back. Ask him, because I don’t think the fans can bear another new face.
E&D: Has a live show ever been discussed with you and Peter doing a Haunted show together as co-vocalists?
Marco: I wouldn’t be opposed to it at all. We did a few, before we went public that I had left the band. Peter came up in Gothenburg and another show as well. We did ‘Hate Song’ together, so we’ve done it before, but I don’t know. I guess they have a lot more history with him, so it’s probably up to them. But I wouldn’t be opposed to it at all.
E&D: This year marks 25 years since your first album with The Haunted, Made Me Do It. Will you be doing anything to commemorate the anniversary this year at all?
Marco: We’ve been talking about it a lot, actually, but nothing has come to fruition yet. We’ve been talking about promoting a package with only those songs, and rehearse all those songs that we haven’t played for five years. When At The Gates did their whole comeback tour, it was just early songs. I don’t know if we probably are gonna do one of those one off shows. We’ve been talking about it, definitely, but nothing has really been set in stone yet.
E&D: What are your memories of making that record?
Marco: The whole Made Me Do It, I remember living in a shitty apartment in Malmö, and the whole album was recorded analog, there’s no digital effects, nothing, at Berno studios, and I remember listening to the rough mix of it before I was taking a train home, back to Stockholm, and I had this ridiculously stupid grin on my face. This turned out really, really good! You didn’t hear it for a long time, and then you get it back, mastered and mixed, amazing! I played it to a lot of my friends in Stockholm, and they were all just, what the fuck happened?! What is this? This is amazing! I The memories are kind of blurred also, because every night after we went to the studio, we went to the bar!
E&D: Do you look back fondly on those early days with the band, on that album and its companion One Kill Wonder?
Marco: The one thing that we never missed out on, was having fun. That’s where we’re at now. It’s a blessing to travel the world in your fifties with your best friends many times, It’s amazing and also there’s no stress. There’s nothing is riding on it anymore. It’s just fun. That’s what we decided. Also, in 2013 when we decided to do this again, we decided that we need to have fun. As long as this is fun, we’re 100% in it.
E&D: It has also been 30 years since Mindfield. The debut album from your previous band Face Down. Do you have good memories of making and releasing that album?
Marco: With fondness, yes but in that band, it was pretty much drenched in alcohol, the whole experience with the band, because we set out with very childish eyes on conquering the world, but we became our own worst enemies. So when I left The Haunted and we got back together with Face Down to do The Will To Power which is the best Face Down album, in my opinion, anyway. We did a few shows, and we pretty much remembered why we split up in the first place is because we really didn’t like each other. So that was a reminder. We’re friends and everything, but we’re the kind of friends that if we didn’t had a band together, we would never have been friends.
E&D: Going back to The Haunted. What do you still want to achieve with the band going forward?
Marco: if I got that question when I was twenty five, to conquer the world! Now, just to have fun and get out on stage and see those people that actually came to see you, and see the look on their faces when you start their favorite song. It’s amazing to see it. We pretty much achieved all that we wanted to achieve, like the goals that you set for yourself. To do the Marquee, CBGBs. We’ve done all those, and we done the big festivals and everything. Now it’s all about having fun, up on stage, meeting fans, and just having a good time.
E&D: Are you looking forward to coming back to the UK for Damnation?
Marco: Absolutely! When we were in the UK with Meshuggah, it was 2017 The thing is, we jumped on that tour because we hadn’t been in the UK for so long. Meshuggah are really old friends of ours, and we jumped on that tour knowing that we will get paid dirt. We didn’t even have money to bring our own front of house. We didn’t have a crew. We didn’t have anything. We rented a small Mercedes bus that we cramped all our shit in that. Actually after two shows, after we used like the local front of house, Meshuggah got together and paid air tickets to get our real front of house on the tour, because they told us that you don’t sound anything like you used to. So they paid our front of house, flew him in, that was so good of them.
E&D: It must make you feel proud to be looking out on the crowd and people who are anticipating seeing you, who have not seen you for a while. The last time I saw you live was on the One Kill Wonder tour so can’t wait to see The Haunted again at Damnation!
Marco: Cool! Yeah, the thing is that even though we’re old now, the energy is still there, because when you get into that stage persona, that stage persona, is about twenty five years old. You can tell when we play live that we have super fun, because it’s hard to look tough and stuff when you’re grinning ear to ear!
Photo by Linda Florin
