Okkultokrati

Stranded with Haust at Hove

Interview by Åse Bredeli Røyset

Haust made sure the Tent-venue was the darkest place on Hove Monday evening, calling out to every black-clad soul that “the weather forecast for tomorrow” is a sunny day. Right they were, so we decided to take them out to sea in a little ol’ boat. Little did we know we were about to get stuck on a bank of sand, surrounded by evil-looking jelly fish.

It started off nice and smooth, everybody got safely onto the little wooden boat, and cuddle up in the salon bit at the back (hey, I’m no skipper, there’ll be no ocean slang in this article…), then off, tuff-tuffing out towards where ocean blue becomes sky blue.

Nö Music: What makes Haust worth catching on festivals this summer?
Haust: We’re not playing that many festivals this year, just here at Hove, and the club night at Øya.

NM: Well, there’s enough bands fighting for attention that night… Why should we go to your gig and not the hundreds of others at Øya?
H: There’s a great package of bands the night we’re playing. It’s Fysisk Format’s label night, with us, Manhattan Skyline, Death is Not Glamorous and some other bands… But we’re different from them. We’re not all hardcore.

NM: If you’re not hardcore… what are you?
H: We’re.. well… we’ve got a bit of everything. Those bands go for the full-on hardcore package, which we try to stay out of. The vocals are not typical hardcore vocals,

NM: Yeah, we were discussing this after your gig last night - where exactly is the black metal in Haust?
H: We don’t claim to be black metal, it’s more in our influences than in the actual expression, bands like Burzum, Darkthrone are very present…

NM: So what concerts are you catching at Hove this year?
H: Necro!
Necro.
Yes, Necro…
I’m planning on seeing a lot of music. I don’t know what exactly, there’s a lot of weird stuff on I haven’t even heard of, I only know the headliners. We saw Lykke Li last night, she was good.

No one’s noticed, but at this point we’ve stopped, and have apparently stood still for quite a while, and only now our captain feels he has to tell us that, uhm, his friend’s got us stuck. We peek over the railing, and can see about 20 cm deep crystal clear water separating us from the pebbly ground. «Not to worry, we’ll get us off in no time!» We really wouldn’t mind spending the rest of the festival out here anyway, so nodding we get back to our beer and chat…

NM: You are Toffen for a day; what does your Hove line-up look like?
H: oooh… Sleep is playing, yeah, definitely Sleep. And… Haust, of course, Melvins, a lot of real heavy stuff… and Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr, I guess we need something a bit chill. Lykke Li?
*The whole band giggles…*
Is there some sort a band crush on Lykke Li here?
Yep, we saw her last night. She’s cool.

NM: Sounds good. We’ll be there. What about worldwide, what’s your favourite festivals internationally?
H: Roadburn in The Netherlands, All Tomorrow’s Parties probably, they usually put on real heavy stuff. And Norway Rock Festival, don’t you think, Dag Otto? Haha, yeah, in Kvinesdal! No… not really, no… God no.

Half our crew has now jumped ship, trying to push the boat off. Doesn’t work. If we mind stepping to the front of the boat instead of the back..? Not at all.

NM: So do you have any immediate plans on conquering the rest of Bergen, uh, I mean… world?
H: What, Bergen? We haven’t played there yet, Bergen hates us. Bergens Tidende (regional newspaper) slaughtered our album…

NM: Uhm, no, I meant the world… Freudian slip from yours truly.
H: Oh, the world, yeah, but we thought we’d take on Bergen first. There are quite a few things stirring at the moment that we’re not supposed to talk about. There’s definitely a tour coming up this autumn, and in the spring. We have a new album coming out in February, and a split 12″ with Next Life before that, so there will be some stuff in relation to that. Really, there are some exciting things in the making, but nothing’s official yet..!

NM: One year after Ride the Relapse, what have you been up to?
H: Recorded new stuff, created a new album, playing a few concerts, but not too many, we’re not keen on playing live too much.

NM: What’s the new stuff like, you played a few new songs last night, any major changes?
H: Yes and no… There’s a lot more riffing, but we’re the same band. We’ve gone a bit more hardcore, but with sing-along and proper mosh sections. And plenty of hits of course, we only do hit songs.

NM: Speaking of “Ugly fucking Oslo” - you guys happier on the picturesque south coast?
H: Yeah, this is a lot better! We like it here.

NM: What’s the deal… You really don’t like Oslo, or what?
H: I don’t like Oslo (Vebjørn Guttormsgaard). I don’t even live there. I live in Tromsø. The rest of the band’s in Oslo, I guess that’s part of the reason we don’t play that many gigs.

I (Pål Bredrup) only live in Oslo out of convenience. You can’t live in Notodden… Not if you want an education. And I wouldn’t want to go to Bergen, either, so there we are. And then Ruben’s got a studio in Oslo, so that’s really cool. We can spend hours and hours there, creating a consistent sound, no need to worry about the bill.

NM: So where would you rather live, ideally, the day you only have to play two festivals a year to be sorted…
H: I dunno. Probably not in Norway.
I’d like to record in Telemark though. Way up in the mountains.
Yeah, Telemark could work. Or some Caribbean island feat. tiny umbrella drinks.

http://www.nomusicmedia.com/2009/06/24/stranded-with-haust-at-hove/