The Haunted (Jonas Bjorler)

Tuesday, April 14th, 2009, posted by K.Panagiotis

The Swedish masters are back in Greece to perform a couple of shows in Thessaloniki and Athens and of course Metalpaths was there to discuss with them about their latest album, their performance and their direct plans.

Hello Jonas, it’s been a pleasure to see you once again in our country, how are you?

I’m fine, thank you!

So your sixth album is finally released under the name of “Versus”. Are you satisfied with the result?

Yes, we’re very happy with that, we have tried a few different things such as recording live so it was a really smooth recording process.

Why you chose this way of recording, wasn’t that more difficult for the band?

It was one thing we wanted to try and we were thinking about it for years. We finally got the opportunity to do it and I think it turned out good. We recorded everything in like one week.

“Versus” seems to be more close to your older releases, I think it’s more aggressive than your last release “The Dead Eye”.

Yeah, much have to do with the songs. I think it’s a mixture of what we have ever done. We have the thrash, we have the brutality and we also have songs similar to “Iron Mask”, like “Trenches” for example. It’s a mixture of everything we have ever done.

Did you ever get into the process of comparing your albums?

You do a record and then you move on. I don’t listen to the albums at home at all.

So you’re not a fan of The Haunted?

I don’t know, we don’t like listening to our works, at least I don’t.

So according to these, I guess that you prefer playing live than being in the studio, right?

The songs we play now live from the older albums sound so different from the record so I think it’s more interesting this way. I like finding new ways of playing our songs.

Which countries are you going to visit these days apart from Greece?

It’s just a mini tour. It’s only like a weekend in Turkey and Greece.

Which was the reaction of the people who saw you perform the new songs?

We have toured since October last year so we played almost a hundred shows already, the reactions were not new.

Which was the reason you selected to shoot a videoclip with the “Trenches”? What makes it more special than the others?

The first video was actually Moronic Colossus from the Wacken festival but this is different since it comes from a live show. The director had the idea about everything so we thought that “Trenches” would be good idea.

Is there any special message behind the album’s title “Versus” ?

You can think of anything. It’s a strong word so it doesn’t have to mean something special. It’s a good title I think.

Thrash metal hits our backs the last years but in a more modern way. Do you think that it will become the strongest metal genre again? And how do you imagine it’s progress?

I don’t think it will be that big. I think that it’s still going to be underground, it might be more popular than the last years but not that big.

Any guess about the future of metal?

It’s hard to predict that, maybe another AOR wave or glam wave.

That’s an interesting point!

I think thrash is out already. It’s been popular for the last two years with bands like Municipal Waste etc but I think this will end here.

Are there any Swedish newborn bands that you personally distinguish ?

I don’t listen too much music at all, I don’t have the time to do this. There are a lot of bands that are coming up, mostly like emo, metalcore but nothing interesting for me. I don’t like these bands.

Did anything in particular inspired your lyrics in this album?

That’s a question for Peter I think. It’s all the things he encounters everyday, more like personal stuff. It doesn’t have much to do with fiction, we’re more focused on the reality.

During your today’s performance, Peter mentioned a few stuffs about Instabul and Turkey. He spoke about their God etc and it was pretty strange to hear from The Haunted making such statements.

Peter is very impulsive and says things… Turkey is a great country, we had a good time there. However, I think there is a kind of hostility between Greece and Turkey, right?

I hope and believe that we have overcomed these things in the last few years.

Is it about religion?

No it’s about war, politics and stuff but I think that the new generation is more open-minded to spend time on this crap.

Yeah and Instabul is more like a European city so…

So what’s the next step? What are The Haunted’s direct plans?

The US tour which starts on Wednesday, for four weeks. Then we have festivals during the summer and maybe we will work to make a new record.

Wish you the best for the tour and the record then and thanks a lot for the interview!

Thank you too!

Interviewed by: Karagiannidis Panagiotis & Rena Koutsou.

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