If there’s any band that, while listening to, one should expect the unexpected, it’s Haken. The English progressive metal outfit has carved quite the career for themselves, earning a devoted legion of fans the world over for their complete disregard of “the rules”. When other bands take a right, Haken takes a sharp left, then a right, then a U-turn, before going 80 MPH in reverse…or something like that. In just a matter of days, Haken will bring their no holds barred prog attack to the States, where they will embark upon their largest headline run to date. We sat down with frontman Ross Jennings to discuss this upcoming tour, the band’s new album, Fauna, and the wonders of album art.
Greetings Ross and welcome to Defenders of the Faith! How are you doing today?
Ross Jennings: I’m doing great! Thanks for having me. It’s tonight actually here in the UK. I’m coming to you quite late in the evening *laughs*.
I was gonna say, early evening here, late evening for you, so I appreciate you taking the time to do this. I’d like to start by congratulating you on the new Haken album, Fauna. What did the band set out to achieve with this album separate from past releases?
RJ: It was like drawing a line in the sand after we did Virus, and very much felt like a fresh start for the band. We’ve had a rough couple of years with the pandemic, cancelled shows, an album coming out when that couldn’t be performed live, and then subsequently, personnel change with Diego (Tejeida) leaving the band and Pete Jones returning to fill the spot. Pete Jones, our keyboardist, who drove straight into the material and had this fresh energy that he brought to the band. It just felt like a fresh start and we wanted to mark that with a fresh approach to how we were writing and the record.
The irony, of course, being that the last album was entitled Virus, and then…well, you know.
RJ: Yeah, we’re the Nostradamus of metal *laughs*. It was crazy! I explained all this in interviews at the time, but it was all planned from when we were writing Vector, this double album. It’s absolutely wild the events that unfolded.
Could you give us some background on the underlying lyrical and musical themes of Fauna?
RJ: Yeah, it’s very varied. We’ve moved away from having a narrative strand that runs through the record, which we’ve overused, I would say, on previous albums. With Aquarius/Visions and the Vector/Virus combo being all narrative based concept albums, we wanted to approach this album more in a traditional sense, so each song having its own identity. That ties in with the theme of animals, fauna being the animal kingdom. It represents such a diverse range of species and each of these species has a history of evolution. We feel that way about songs and music. That was the best way to represent each song we felt. That they could stand on their own feet and have its own little mini-concept within the album.
When writing a new Haken album, does the band use any ideas from past releases that didn’t make the cut, or do you start from scratch?
RJ: We’ve done that before, where we’ve had little bits and pieces that have been kept to the side. “Maybe we’ll use that in the future.” I don’t think that happened on this occasion. Everything was from scratch, with Pete coming in with fresh ideas like I mentioned. We just didn’t want to rehash old ideas. It was a clean slate: new ideas, new approach. That’s very much how we treated the approach for this one.
Of all the songs on this album, perhaps no song has been more talked about than “Beneath the White Rainbow”.
RJ: Oh really?!
Yeah, there’s comments all over social media along the lines of, “This messes up my mind in the most perfect way.” How did this one come about? It’s really stuck with me.
RJ: That’s great man. Mission accomplished *laughs*. It is a wild one, so I appreciate that. I thought you were gonna say “Elephants Never Forget”. For us, that’s one of our favorites. It takes you through quite a journey of different musical styles. The same can be said for “Beneath the White Rainbow” for sure. We’ve really pushed the boat out and experimented with certain things. Namely, there’s a vocal section which is all sang through distortion. It’s something I’ve not really done before and it’s just a crazy idea that we all felt was worth pursuing.
I guess the other part of that track is just the crazy instrumental section that embodies the middle section of the song. That was all Pete Jones. This was his jazz influence coming through. I think Tigran Hamasyan was a huge influence. He’s an Armenian pianist who approaches the piano as if it’s djent style, like Meshuggah on piano. That was kind of borrowed on this track and it really works. I love the approach.
Was the distorted part done through a megaphone?
RJ: It was actually sang through one of these SM7Bs in the studio, where the gain was cranked up *laughs*. We just did our own sort of analog distortion on that.
With Haken, not only is the music important, but so is the visual aspect, from the videos to the album art. Who coordinates these visual decisions and how important are these aesthetics to you?
RJ: Hugely important, certainly when it comes to album art. We’re all advocates of the physical format. We obviously love and embrace that times have changed and people can hear music in different ways. That’s cool, but as children of the 80s *laughs* we love the physical format. I still collect CDs and vinyl. We put a lot of love and effort into making sure that people who do collect this stuff have something tangible and extra details that go into the art that they can get a lot of fulfillment out of. We put a whole lot of Easter eggs into the artwork. It’s a lot of fun to create.
We all have sort of a say in the creation of that stuff. There’s always a point man who’s communicating with the artist, but they just feed whatever ideas we put forward and discussed. It’s very much a collaborative process. We’re particularly happy, the happiest we’ve ever been, with the artwork on Fauna. We hired a new guy, Dan Goldsworthy. He’s not worked with us before, but he’s a huge fan. He got heavily involved from very early on in the process, getting into the world of Fauna. He had all the lyrics and access to the early demos. He understood how dense the album was and certainly translated that onto this piece of art, the whole package really.
It’s almost reminiscent of the old Roger Dean or Hipgnosis covers, where you put the album on and you just stare at it.
RJ: Oh totally. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Charlie’s (Griffiths) solo album, Tiktaalika. Charlie found Dan Goldsworthy for that project and he actually did a metal Roger Dean style artwork for that. It’s crazy good. We were blown away by it and wanted to use Dan for our Haken album, of course. He’s more known doing artwork for the thrash metal world, not necessarily the prog rock world, but one of our pointers was steering him in the direction of old Marillion album covers, also Iron Maiden and Megadeth. That’s exactly what he’s produced and it’s just crazy how effect that’s come across.
You’re about to tour here in support of this new album. I know you were here last year as a co-headliner with Symphony X. What can fans expect on this upcoming headline run?
RJ: Yeah, it’s been a fair few years since we’ve done a headline tour. Like you said, the last visit was opening for Symphony X. Our set length was about 60 minutes long. Prior to that, we were out with Devin Townsend, albeit shortened by the pandemic, but we did 10 or so shows. Again, a very short set, maybe 60 minutes there as well. This time around, we are back doing a full length set of about an hour and 45 or something like that. Maybe a little longer.
We’re gonna throw in a few epic songs that have never been played in the States. They can expect a wild night of our back catalog, really celebrating Fauna, but also throwing in some of our favorites from our catalog. We have Arch Echo supporting, who are a phenomenal instrumental band, phenomenal musicians. All in all, it’s gonna be really fun tour, a great night of music for anyone who wants to come along, so don’t miss out.
Considering the complexity of Haken’s compositions, has the band ever written a song that ended up being too much of a chore to play live?
RJ: *laughs* I think “Messiah Complex” might be that one. We played it on the European tour we just went on. I think it took…to be totally frank with you, my parts are a lot easier to learn, as the vocalist. Albeit, there are some tricky beats and rhythms to get my teeth into, but for the guitarists and drummer and everyone really, the instrumental parts of that 5 piece epic has taken them a year to relearn and get up to speed *laughs*. It’s crazy, but they nailed it every night. Come along and watch it live. I think we’re planning on doing it on the US run as well. Not to be missed out, some of the most complex music you’ll ever hear live. You’ll see the sweat running down everyone’s faces *laughs*.
I think what attracts so many people to Haken’s music, besides the quality of the writing and musicianship, is the band’s diverse stylistic approach. There are nods to classic 70s prog, the 80s neo-prog era, and even modern prog metal. As a fan, do you prefer one of these styles over the other?
RJ: I have such an eclectic taste in music. We embrace it all, really. That’s exactly why we produce what we produce. We’re just music fans. It’s not necessarily about prog for us. It just happens to be labelled under the progressive banner because we’re including so much. Actually, I see our band as…I’ve described it as a casserole of different genres mixed into a bed of metal. That’s really what we are: fundamentally a metal band, but throwing so many leftfield ideas into the mix. Out of the pot, you get Haken *laughs*. It can come in many forms, you know? That’s how I describe it.
Growing up, who were your favorite bands and singers? Was there any one singer who inspired you to pursue music?
RJ: That’s a good question. I guess my self-inflicted overexposure to 90s MTV arena rock is my downfall, I suppose *laughs* my blessing and my curse. I grew up a huge fan of Steven Tyler from Aerosmith, Jon Bon Jovi, that ilk. Digging deeper, Steve Perry from Journey would be one that I would tend to draw influence from. It might surprise people that I don’t really consider myself as a metal singer. I draw a lot of influences from singers in the indie rock world like Thom Yorke from Radiohead, or perhaps Guy Garvey from Elbow. I don’t know how huge they are in the US. That kind of world is where my voice seems to draw influence from. It’s quite a large mix, I’d say.
I know in 2021, you released a solo album entitled A Shadow of My Future Self. Are there plans of doing another solo album in the future?
RJ: Yeah, I got some songs! Timing at the moment isn’t quite right for it. Personally, I’m putting all of my eggs in the Haken basket. However, there are some plans to work on some other projects as well. I also have my side project Novena, which we are slowly putting some material together for a follow up record. I’ve also done work with Neal Morse and Nick D’Virgilio for our trio, a sort of “country”, Crosby, Stills & Nash project. We’re doing more of that stuff as well, but yeah. I’ve got plenty of 90% finished songs which I’d be up for recording in the near future. I’m just waiting for that opening in my schedule to focus on that. I’m sure it’ll come in the next year or two.
In closing, this upcoming tour will be closing out in my hometown of Chicago at Concord Music Hall. Now this is a town you’ve played many times before. You’ve played my home away from home Reggies, Bottom Lounge, Park West. Do you have any favorite Chicago memories and any special message for the Chicago Haken fans?
RJ: It’s great because most of our tours tend to finish in Chicago *laughs*. It’s always the fun night where all the end of tour antics come out, the pranks I should say. It’s always fun and uplifting to play, and it’s always a great crowd. We love Chicago. We’ve played a few times there and never got to explore Chicago until the last run with Symphony X where we had some time. I did the whole tourist thing and just headed into town and did everything. It was really great to soak in the city, one of my favorite cities in the US to come and play. Again, final night of the tour, it’s gonna be a big one. We hope all of you will come down and see that one. Bring it on! And I’ll be getting some of that thick pizza pie you do out there, which is the ultimate pizza *laughs*.
The new Haken album, Fauna, is available now on InsideOut Music. They will be playing Concord Music Hall in Chicago, Illinois on Saturday, June 3. Tickets can be purchased here. For more information on Ross Jennings and Haken, visit www.hakenmusic.com.