With all the recent reports of young new metal bands getting 1.7 million record deals, playing sell-out London shows and landing support gigs with Lady GaGa it isn’t hard to develop the misconception that there is still big money to be easily made in the metal industry. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Even seasoned veterans like The Haunted are feeling the pinch of being a metal musician in a digital age, as the band’s guitarist Patrik Jensen recently revealed.
In a new interview with GoetiaMedia.com, Jensen said that while the band once was financially stable enough for its to be full-time musicians, current circumstances had forced many of them to seek other revenues of income: “Almost since the second album, we have been professional musicians, which means we only did music,” he began. “But we noticed a decline in the financial situation within the band, which resulted in that I went to university and I got myself an education. I work as an IT consultant now and Jonas [Björler, bass] is a financial accountant.”
Unfortunately, Jensen explained that as well as taking up a lot of their free-time, working a day job took away a lot of valuable writing time: “Usually, before, I would only maybe play a little guitar during the day, because I know I’m going to be working during the evening. But now I have done eight hours of work, so I had to hurry home and then I have another four hours [of interviews] here. I’m not complaining, but it is a different situation. And when you ask, ‘Are you relaxing?’ Well, I am and I’m happy that the [new The Haunted] album will soon be out, but there’s a lot of things that still need to be done.”
The full interview with Jensen can be viewed in the video below.
The Haunted’s new album, ‘Exit Wounds’ is scheduled for release on August 25 in Europe and September 2 in North America via Century Media. It features a revamped lineup version of the band: founding members Jonas Björler (bass) and Patrik Jensen (guitar) along with with returning members Adrian Erlandsson (drums) and Marco Aro (vocals), and the band’s latest addition, guitarist Ola Englund.