MARCO ARO: Why I Decided To Rejoin THE HAUNTED

Kaaos TV conducted an interview with vocalist Marco Aro of THE RESISTANCE and THE HAUNTED prior to THE RESISTANCE's June 28 concert at Tavastia in Helsinki, Finland. You can now watch the chat below.

On how he plans to juggle THE RESISTANCE and THE HAUNTED while both bands are working on music and scheduling live shows:

Marco: "It's gonna be a hassle, planning-wise, because both bands next year are gonna have a lot of things to do. So we have to make good schedules to make sure nothing collides. And sometimes there's gonna be two shows [that I will have to do] in one festival. I just have to live with it. It's gonna be hard, but I'll pull it off. The thing is that THE HAUNTED nowadays is not focused on touring as much as we used to be, and that's one of the reasons I came back. Because I hated the touring. Because we did so many tours in so little time that it burns you out. And they still kept doing it for another ten years after that, so everybody's pretty much fed up with it. So this time around, we're gonna pick the raisins out of the cake and pick and choose what we want to do."

On how he came to rejoin THE HAUNTED ten years after he originally left the band:

Marco: "The thing is that Jonas [Björler, bass] and [Patrik] Jensen [guitar] met up at Jonas' 40-year-old party and they started talking about, 'We can't let this die.' And they were talking to [former THE HAUNTED guitarist] Anders [Björler] as well about 'who should we pick for a frontman again?' and Anders just said, 'Marco is the best pick.' So they called me up a few days after that party and Jensen [told] me, 'You know what I'm gonna ask you.' And I said, 'No, no, no, no, no, no. Don't ask it. Don't even ask it.' But he said, 'Yes, I'm asking you now.' So I asked him, 'OK, can I have two weeks to think about it?' Because the whole thing with THE HAUNTED, with my drug addiction and everything that I had back in the day, it doesn't really sit right with my family — because I really stirred up some shit with my family and everything. So I had to talk to my family and really, really know that they're on board with this, and I had to talk to THE RESISTANCE to know that they're on board, and blah blah blah. So after about two weeks, I was talking again with the [other] guys [in THE HAUNTED] and they laid out the format for THE HAUNTED for 2013 and onwards and it sounded appealing, so I went for it. Because I missed the boys — I really, really missed the boys."

On THE HAUNTED's plans to write and record new music:

Marco: "That's what we're doing now. We're just testing the waters and finding our way back to a sound that we want to have. So we're working on it. And once we get there, we'll know."