INTERVIEW : HAKEN

3 months ago, I discovered Haken : a genius prog/metal/rock band which come from London (UK) and I fall in love with their last album "The Mountain". 

I had the chance to ask them some questions (I was very glad to prepare them). 

It was Ray Hearne, the drummer, who accepted to answer... 

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WAS : To begin with, can you introduce your band?

Haken : There's 5 members of the band nowadays. Ross Jennings on vocals, Charles Griffiths on guitar, Diego Tejeida on keyboards, Richard Henshall on guitar AND keyboards (!) and myself on the drums. We don't currently have a full-time bassist, but for our upcoming tour we've got a young man from the USA named Conner Green joining us. Conner is a great young talent and maybe one day he'll join the Haken family for good!

WAS : How did you come to make music together?

Haken : Ross and Richard are old school friends and played together when they were younger. Along with another of their friends, Matthew Marshall (ex-guitar), the 3 guys formed Haken in their late teens. Soon they found a friend of mine (Pete Jones, ex-keyboard) online to join them. Pete and I always played in bands together throughout our school life and I was honoured to be asked to join as I'd already heard some demos! Tom Maclean of To-mera joined us soon after on bass but has now gone on to do other musical projects. Before we started work on our first album, we contacted Diego through myspace to ask if he was willing to come and play with us and Charlie contacted us through myspace when he saw we had a guitar vacancy. It all seemed quite simple back then...in the time of myspace!

WAS : I listen your music and my first impression was «it sounds a little bit like Karnivool » what do you think? Which artist(s) inspires you or what inspires you around you to make music?

Haken : Interesting you should say that! Richard writes most of the music we play and also does listen to a bit of Karnivool. I'd say we all have fairly broad but also fairly common musical influences and favourite bands. In recent years we've all learned to appreciate the music of Gentle Giant. And in our teens we all listened to bands like Dream Theater, Metallica, Pink Floyd and so on. But we have our own individual musical influences as well. Richard loves a bit of electronica or hip hop from time to time. Charlie is an all-out metal head at heart but is a sucker for a bit of Toto! Diego is a big fan of electronic/ambient music and jazz. Ross is a real classic prog/classic rock fan and digs Genesis, Aerosmith, Yes and Journey but also has a dirty secretive relationship with country and western music! I listen to a lot of classical music funnily enough. Doesn't really help me play the drums but it's nice to have a say on the symphonic side of things when it comes to creating big orchestral sounds in our music.

WAS : Since the creation of your band, you released 3 albums, you turned around the world and meet a lot of people, can you list me 3 of your best moments with the band?

Haken : Our first appearance at Night of the Prog in Germany was amazing! Dream Theater were headlining that day so the crowd was huge. The weather was awesome and it was our first open air show so all in all, a really nice experience!

More recently, going on Progressive Nation at Sea and getting to meet a bunch of our favourite bands was awesome. We got a free trip to the Bahamas, listened to great live music and mingled with our fans from all over the world. A truly surreal week!

Stepping up to Inside Out for the latest album, The Mountain, was a great move for us. Since then, we have received great support worldwide for our music and we hope it will continue in the future!

WAS : Your music is mostly prog and metal, but sometimes you steal other music style ...that you put in some moments of your music...especially in your last record, «The Mountain», where you can heard the big difference between each track, where they become unique, the listener cannot be bored..

Haken : Yes, we do our best to incorporate as many of our influences as we can. In the early days, our music sounded a bit like a mixing pot of different genres and it was difficult for us to mould real compositions and transitions between sections because we wanted a Latin section here and a Death growls section there! It's fun to try it of course but hard to pull it off! Now that we're three albums in, we feel much more comfortable blending our influences in a way to make them compliment eachother rather than work against eachother. And of course, if it's done well, it brings the listener on a musical journey they can't escape from. So it's important to us not to bore the listener but to keep them constantly engrossed in our music.

This isn't how all music works however. We are often told by fans and other listeners that our albums have to be actively listened to all in one go. That you can't just put it on in the background because all the details must be noticed. This is very flattering for us to hear, but ultimately we'd like our music to be appreciated by as many people as possible and some people just prefer to listen to music in a more relaxed setting. We tried to achieve this a bit more with The Mountain and gave each track its own individual stamp so that it can stand alone from the other tracks. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn't.....

WAS : Could you tell me more about the artwork of your last album? (anecdote,story...??)

Haken : We worked with Blacklake design in the Netherlands. They worked with friends of ours, Headspace, on their album. They are a truly great company to work with for a band at our level. They try to take in everything you say and are far more open than some artists/designers.

The story follows the mythical character Sisyphus, the man with a never ending journey up a mountain. It also has a march of progress feel about it. Starting off with a monkey and progressing through to the end with a modern day man who overcomes his obstacles, his mountain, by reaching the top and freeing himself from this great weight. All the artwork compliments the themes of the album really nicely; overcoming real life problems and dealing with them in almost God-like ways.

WAS : To be honest, i was not very crazy about metal, but my boyfriend change my opinion when he plays « The Mountain » in his car, i fall in love with this album, the others are very good too but there is something more in it...the magic touch that these sounds can attract everybody, a larger panel of listeners...Is it what you want when you decided to make the album? To do something new that could attract more people?

Haken : Absolutely. We're all very aware that progressive music is niche and shouldn't be. it's a great, broad genre that showcases some of the best music ever written in the modern day and should be appreciated. I suppose we are trying to make complex progressive music more accessible to non-listeners and give it an air of simplicity so the average man or women doesn't just turn their nose up at it on first listen.

WAS : Do you have any plans for the future you would like to tell us about?

Haken : We're definitely going to make a fourth album but we might release one or two shorter pieces before that. We want to make album 4 our best yet so we can't rush the process!

WAS : Anything to add?

Haken : Please, if you get a chance, come to a show if we're playing near you. We'd love to meet you and see you in the crowd! The live music scene is struggling nowadays and small bands like us need all the support we can get! Alternatively, have a look at our website www.hakenmusic.com and buy a tshirt or a CD if it appeals to you. All the best and thanks for reading!