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Max and Anastasia of The Haunt · Caught on the Mike...

• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another exciting episode of Caught on the Mic.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: What happens when two siblings start making music together as kids, grow up on stage, tour internationally before they're even old enough to drive, and eventually turn all of that experience into something darker, heavier, and more honest.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: Anastasia and Max Haunt have spent more than a decade building the haunt from the ground up.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Now, just 15 months after new addiction, they're entering into their next chapter with Ghost, a 13-song record that pushes their sound into even darker territory.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I gotta tell you guys, my favorite song so far is Favorite Way to Die.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Album sounds great.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much, and thank you for having us.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thanks.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: I've been stoked about this.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: I've been talking with your publicist for a little while.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm I'm glad we were able to make it happen.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: When you guys think back to those early days of making music together as kids, what do you remember about what you were chasing before you even realized you were building a band?
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_03: That's a good question.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know if we were thought we were like chasing anything, to be honest.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_03: It was never like, oh, we're gonna start a band and we're gonna be the biggest band in the world.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_03: We were really just playing for fun at that time.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_03: It was just something that we really enjoyed doing.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_03: And yeah, it's just everything kind of happened very organically.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_03: We didn't start to realize that this could be like a career until a little bit down the line from that, a few years later.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_03: But this was uh the beginning phase was kind of just all fun.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_03: It was just, you know, playing local shows, playing bars that Anna wasn't even allowed to be in uh until our set time, you know, that kind of thing.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_03: So that that's kind of the beginning of it.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_03: It was just uh doing it for fun because we loved it, and then waking up for school the next morning.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Now, you guys have told this story a million times, I know, and I'm not gonna make you rehash it, but was it a massive aha moment, Max, whenever you realized that Anna had the voice that she did?
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: And what was that like for you, Anna?
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was the opposite, really.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_03: It was like she had the voice that she did, and so I just started playing music around her, um, mostly because she was very, very shy at the time and it was hard for her to perform.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_03: There was a phase really early on where I was just sitting on the stage as like an emotional support animal, not doing anything.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_03: Not doing anything at all.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_03: Um, while she sang cappella at open mics and things like that.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_03: So it just happened kind of naturally over time.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_03: I was like, I can't just sit here anymore.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_03: I gotta play something.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: First piano, then guitar, and then you just stack band members after that, and now you have the whole what kind of music were you singing, Anna, at the onset of you guys putting this together when you were doing open mics and what have you?
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_02: I wrote my first song pretty early on, um, around like age eight, nine.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um we played that.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_02: But um besides from that, we were playing mostly like covers.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um when I was singing alone, I was singing um a lot of Amy Winehouse, um Duffy at the time, Nancy Sinatra.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um very very twangy.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, a pretty eclectic mix too, right?
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: See, my my daughter's off to college right now and she sings, and like I look at her playlist and I'm like, dude, you are all over the place.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: She's listening to typo negative one moment, the Smiths the next moment, and then Amy Winehouse or Dolly Parton or some things along those lines.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's how I am.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'm all over all over the place.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we both have very eclectic music tastes.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_03: It's it's everything.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think that's a byproduct of just being a musician yourself?
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: For for sure, I think partially.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we've always had pretty eclectic music taste because our parents we grew up just like loving music in general and not like feeling tied to one specific genre.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_03: Specific genre our parents loved nice hip-hop and rock, classic rock, and grunge, and industrial, just regular pop music was always big.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_03: It was just kind of a combination of everything.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_03: So for us, we never really like looked down on any specific genre.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_03: We weren't raised like to just like one thing.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_03: It was kind of like we always liked everything.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_03: And I think the more that you get into music and the more you listen to you rock and make rock and you you're observing other people doing what you're doing, um, you start wanting to branch out a little bit more, you know.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_03: You start wanting to listen to stuff outside the genre.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I I honestly I've pointed this out a million times on my show.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: So anybody that listens or watches, I feel your deep eye roll when I say this, but I feel like that's the silver lining of streaming is people aren't married to genre or guardrails like they used to be.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody's more like eclectic at large.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: For sure.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I feel like for us, like in making music, it limits you so much to only listen to one genre.
• 5:38
  unknown: Yeah.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, you you can tell when somebody is just listening to what they make, and it becomes this kind of just endless cycle of the same music over and over again.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_03: You listen to the same genre that you make.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_03: We pull references from like everything.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_03: And so for us, it's you know, there's there's influence of country, there's influence of hip-hop, there's influence of hyper pop, you know, the industrial.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_03: So for us, it's like those are tools, you know, and you're like studying what other people do to make good music, you know.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: So getting into the business at such an early age and kind of developing your craft and your sound, how do you think those experiences shaped the people and the artists that you would eventually become?
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_03: I think, you know, we kind of always listened to different music when we were young.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_03: And then it kind of like there's like over a few bands that overlapped, and then we kind of got more and more into the same style of music.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and there's a few bands that really stuck out to us that were kind of bands that we really looked up to just like creatively.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_03: The first one, I think, from the youngest age was the White Stripes, um, back when we believed they were siblings, and it was uh, you know, uh it was uh a lot, you know, that was one of the biggest influences for us.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_03: And Jack White still continues to be a huge influence on the band.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_03: And um from there it was, you know, my first concert was Nine Inch Nails Industrial Music.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_03: Her first was Jack White.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_03: Um and then, you know, it just kind of Royal Blood was always a huge one.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and as we started making harder and harder rock, we started listening to harder and harder rock.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_03: Bring me the horizon is one that we really love to listen to and reference all the time.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_03: Now they're just killing the game.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_03: So it's uh, you know, it's kind of it develops with you, and you kind of develop with it.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_03: It changes you, and it's kind of back and forth.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_03: You change what you listen to over time.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_03: It's you know, kind of a give and take.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: Are you guys both Bring Me the Horizon fans?
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, huge.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: I want to know individually, one by one, because I'm sure you guys have different ones, what's your favorite Bring Me the Horizon song?
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_03: It always changes for me.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_03: Right now, I'm listening to a lot of the new record, the newest record, uh next gen.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_03: I think my favorite right now is probably Utopia.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_02: I was gonna say that.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_02: We can't say the same.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, I'll switch mine.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_03: Amen.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_03: Amen is my other favorite.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_03: Because I those I those are like on my gym plays.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_02: What's the other one?
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_02: NA?
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_03: NA.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_02: That's not my favorite, but that's still new.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_03: Top 10 statues.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_03: There's no bad songs on the new album, it's all good, and so I've just been playing it nonstop since it came out.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: They're one band that I like talking about because of how much they've evolved over time, and it's like listening to a different band on every single album, and I don't think there's any misses despite what some of the purists say about ammo specifically.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_03: There's good songs on that record.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_03: It's not my favorite record of theirs, but there's great songs on that record.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: The pop hooks on that album are undeniable.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_03: No, a hundred percent.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_03: You can't, there's no bad, they don't have any bad records.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_03: That's just not true.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_03: No, it could be your least favorite, but you know.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_03: Right, right.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: So was there a moment when the haunt stopped feeling like something you were experimenting with and you guys kind of decided this is who we are, speaking about like evolution and developing sound?
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think the last record was the last one that felt uh it stopped feeling like we were experimenting.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_03: We were always kind of like when we we were producing EPs and and stuff like that before it, it was always like poking at a specific sound, trying this out, trying that out, finding our footing, working with different producers, trying to figure out exactly what we wanted to do.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_03: And then on the last record, it really just felt like so obvious and everything kind of clicked into place.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_03: And Kevin Thrasher really, really helped us, you know, figure out what that defining sound for the haunt should be and was.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_03: And we always knew it, but it was really hard for us to just pinpoint it.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_03: And he did a great job helping us, you know, land the plane there.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_03: And then this new record feels like we took all the things that we loved that felt like the full discovery of the band and kind of just pushed it the envelope in like every direction.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_03: The heavier stuff is heavier, the balladier stuff is more ballady.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_03: There's some kind of more alternative pop rock bangers in there.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_03: So, you know, we uh I feel like we really stepped into it on new addiction, and then this this new record kind of feels like a continuation of that.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: So, from your perspective, Anna, whenever you guys listen to music and you're crafting songs, do you feel the two of you kind of land in a similar place or do you bring different elements that help craft the finished product?
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_02: It depends.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like we ha do have a lot of the same taste most of the time.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but we're we are different people, so I think we still have like uh different things that we can bring to the table.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_02: He'll definitely bring more like I don't know what the word for it, it's not like hardcore, but like Yeah, I mean I think some of the heavier influence is like from the guitar riffs and stuff that I was, yeah.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_02: Oh and then we can sync that out with like yeah, softer sort of melody.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think we bring different things to the for sure.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_03: She's definitely stronger on writing like the the really strong, you know, chorus melodies and stuff like that.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_03: And for me, it's all about trying to get the best, you know, instrumentation into the mix as I can.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I still write, you know, some of the songs myself, and then she'll take it and make it better, and vice versa.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I'll have influence on some of the stuff that she writes.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_03: And but every song's kind of a different process, and so it sometimes we're exactly in the same place, and then there's some songs um like Nervous Rag, which took us like a year to get where we wanted to go with that song.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_03: It was like a whole process.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know, kind of thinking back to my songwriting days personally, I used to go back and listen to my older material when I was writing newer material.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know if it's some savage self-abuse I used to do or something, but sometimes I would just take a moment and observe how my artistry had progressed over time.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: When you guys go back and you listen to some of your early songs now, do you hear a completely different band, or can you still hear the foundation of what the haunt has become?
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_03: I think you could see the bones of it for sure.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_03: When you go back, even to the earliest stuff.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_03: It's all mostly there, but we did it when we were so young.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_03: We started recording when we were so young that like a lot of times we'll look back and it's more of like aw.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_03: It's like the bones are there, but it is kind of like a learning experience.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_03: It feels like, you know, it feels like what it was.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_03: It feels like a kid version of the haunts, and now it's the adult version, you know.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you guys have never shied away from some pretty heavy and vulnerable subjects in your music, also.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: Has being that open become easier over the years, or it's is it still difficult to put those parts of yourselves out there when you're writing?
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_03: No, I think it's become easier for sure.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_03: It's kind of the basis of like what we do now as a band is like kind of don't hold any punches.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_03: We learned that.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_03: That was one of the bigger things that we learned on the last record was that the more honest we are when we're writing and you know, recording and and putting these songs out for our fans, the more people relate to what we're actually saying.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_03: And sometimes you don't need a metaphor and you can just tell a story, and that's kind of what we've been doing um more frequently on the last two.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_02: That our stories aren't fake.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_02: I know a lot of bands like um songwrite from fiction, and we've never done that.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that really resonates with people as well so far.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_03: We hear a lot that you know our music is helping people through times, and I think our big reason for that is just because it's honest, you know, honest about like going through hardshit.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: If you pay attention online and you doom scroll enough, you can't talk about music without talking about the content part of things in this modern industry that we're in.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: And in particular, the last year, there's been a lot of talk about how the algorithms are now favoring authenticity.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: And do you think that's helping your audiences connect to you more because you are being so vulnerable and authentic and not telling a fictionalized account of events in your songs?
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_03: You know, it's all happening at the same time, right?
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_03: So it's hard to tell.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_03: I think we'll be able to look back on it and see, but I feel like it does feel like that last record and this new record, uh, what whatever of it is out, um, the authenticity of it is connecting with the fans that we already had more than the older music was.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_03: Um so and it's not like the old music wasn't honest, it was just that we've become more and more open, you know.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_03: Um and I think talking about subjects, harsh realities, and just you know, being very like open about everything kind of going on in our lives has connected with the fans that we already had.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that when you connect on that level with a fan, they're more likely to share it with other fans.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_03: This music helped me through a hard time, so on.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: So we have a mutual friend, John Feldman from Goldfinger, affectionately known as Feldy.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: He's done some work on the new album Ghost.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: What did he help bring out of you as a band that you guys hadn't seen in yourselves before?
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I actually think that that's what he does, right?
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_03: He he's really good at pushing the envelope.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_03: Um, it felt like as soon as we got into the studio with him, he had known about us and done his research on us because he understood what we were going for, but he was really good at helping us push it in these other directions and still making it feel like us.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_03: Um, it was a really awesome experience working with him.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_03: He's such like a ball of energy and he knows what he wants it to feel like.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_03: And when we disagreed, he was always like down to like help us see through our side of the vision.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_03: And at the end of the day, it ended up like this awesome, you know, middle ground between what he brings to the table and what we bring to the table.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_03: And we're really excited about the songs we made with him.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's amazing.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: Did you guys go into the record knowing that you wanted to take the haunt somewhere darker and heavier, or did that evolution just happen naturally as you started writing?
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_03: Kind of new, right?
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I would say that the live show was a big part of it.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_03: We did our first headline towards last year, and the shows were kind of what pushed us even more in that direction was like, people are really connecting with this heavy shit.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_03: And like, we got like I want more of this in the set.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_03: And so that's like that was like one of the biggest things was like we were pushing hard to have these really, really fun live moments get the crowd involved, and just like I think that was new to us because there had been a you know, we were touring, but touring a headline set is different than touring as an opener, and like we really wanted to work specific things into the set, moments into the set.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes uh it's been my experience that sometimes your live version of your band and of yourself informs your creative avenues as you progress and move down the line.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: Have you guys found that about yourselves?
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_03: That's definitely the story of the haunt in general, was like we've always been trying to capture what we felt like live um in the studio, and it's been like a hard process.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_03: And kind of new addiction was the first time where it felt like okay, this is gonna be the same live as it is on the record.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_03: For a long time, everything that we made on the record we played totally differently live because it was a much heavier punk post-hardcore kind of show.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Seasonal Depression very anthemic song.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: I loved that one.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: It feels incredibly personal, but also really cinematic and almost massive in an emotional scope.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: What was happening when that song first started to take shape, if you don't mind me asking?
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: In life?
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: Or in the process of writing it.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: In life.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: In life.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like what inspired it?
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_02: Some seasonal depression.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_02: And it not actually being seasonal.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it not being seasonal because we live in Florida and we don't have seasonal.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_03: No seasons.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_02: So it is because of depression.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I think that is the whole concept of the song.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_02: Is that um kind of like the beginning is like an ironic sort of thing, like blaming it on seasonal depression, and it's not that at all.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it's just like a constant state.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that's what was going on.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: So when you're making yourself so busy with everything that's going on with the haunt, how do you keep yourself above water whenever you deal with the realities of like everyday life and some of the things that lend themselves to the themes of your music?
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, for me, uh, the busyness is kind of what helps.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_03: Being constantly on the road, being constantly working, writing, recording.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_03: It's the moments in between where you're kind of more uh vulnerable, you know.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_03: Uh and those moments are important too, because that's where you know the creativity comes from, and that's where you know you're able to write the beginnings of songs and little sketches and stuff like that of like feeling miserable.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_02: But I think staying busy is like the number one of course you gotta feel your feelings, and that's when we write.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but definitely staying busy and just like getting the show on the road definitely helps.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_02: Literally getting the show on the road.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_02: Our show is on the road right now.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think that that's a byproduct of creatives in general?
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: Is like the malaise of not being busy can kind of set in and just make you stir crazy.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_02: Definitely.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's what happens with most fans, especially like coming home from tour and having that low and just like sitting and not having something to do definitely adds to it's such a it's such a like uh roller coaster the whole time you're on tour.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_03: And then when you're home, it's like, oh, I'm home.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_03: It's like you don't you're meeting so many new people, and it's like, even if your home life is really good, which like mine is right now, for example, but when you're home, you're like, it's different than being on the road.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_03: It's much quieter.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_03: You know, you're not around, you're not living in a bus with 11 people, and then you're around so many people and fans and interviews and shows and you know, all that kind of stuff.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_03: It's just a different, two completely different lifestyles happening.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_03: And you kind of have to like, there's always that come down and then back up, you know.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's where I was going with this is the the huge come down aspect of it.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, the day after a show, the day after an album release or a single release or a song release where you're just like, okay, this is finally out in the world.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's almost worse than the anxiety leading up to it, I feel personally.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, do you guys feel the same way?
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, of course, like before it, you always have like the anxiety of like, is this gonna be anticlimatic?
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_03: Because we've been building this up in our heads for a long time.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_03: But then if it's not, that's all well and good.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_03: And then a week later you're like, oh, well, this album's out.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_03: We gotta like make a new record like right now.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_03: It's pretty crazy.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_03: And it's a constant demand now.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_03: It's like there's no phase where you can go into like for a band that's on the come up, like you can't take breaks, it's always nonstop.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I think this is kind of a crazy question, but you know, with this new application.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Album about to be released, are you already on your next batch of songs as far as the writing process goes?
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: In the beginning processes of it, yes.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_03: But this is definitely because of how much we've been touring and how much we've uh had going on over the past year.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_03: It's always it's usually by the time this a record comes out or an EP comes out, the next one's either done or like almost done.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_03: And this is the first time that this will be coming out, and we're gonna be in the beginning phases of writing new stuff.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_03: Um that's kind of fun because it's gonna it's gonna give us a different perspective of like not every album rolling straight into the next and being kind of the same creative mindset.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_03: It's gonna be like a real separation where we can jump back into a new kind of feeling, a new record.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: So for anybody that's listening to or watching this, what is the exact release date of Ghost?
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: October 30th, the day before Halloween.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yes! I love it.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_03: When we looked at the calendar and we saw that, we were like, let's go.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'll just just for fun, my my desk icon that I have, you know.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: Nice.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: I I've got a little Halloween imagery sitting on my desk.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: Inspire me right now.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: So after making music together for more than a decade, how do you guys navigate those moments when you have completely different ideas about where to go next?
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_03: We disagree more on visuals than we do about music.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_03: Like I feel like music video stuff, because we make our own music videos.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_03: I think like music video stuff is where like the majority of our arguments happen.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_03: But really, not a lot of arguments happen in the studio or when we're making music.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_03: It's uh usually we're like in the same headspace.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: So you're bringing the band to Omaha on October 13th.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: What do you want people to experience when they walk into a haunt show that they can't get by just listening to the record alone?
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_03: I think if you come to a haunt show, you'll understand what that is.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_03: It's that um there's just an energy about a live show, and the band has always been a live band.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_03: This has always been like the priority of the band is we love writing music, we love being in the studio, but for us, it's always been the live show.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_03: And we put a lot of work into this live show in particular, and I think people are gonna walk away with a totally different perspective on the music after seeing it live.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_03: And it's kind of a uh everybody involved ordeal.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_03: You know, everyone in the crowd is involved in the show, and it's uh it's something really special, and we take a lot of pride in it.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: So when you look at where the haunt is today compared to those two kids who first started making music together, what do you still feel like you haven't accomplished yet?
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: What's in the future?
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_02: There's a lot.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: We have to accomplish.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think we've accomplished much so far.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um, definitely grateful for what we have, but um I think we have I think that list would be very that would be an immense list.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, for us, I think the biggest thing right now is we just want to reach more people.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_03: We want more people to hear our music, we want more people to be at those live shows.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_03: And um that's kind of always been, you know, the thing for us is like we're kind of always working.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_03: Um, we're not really ones for victory lap.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_03: You know, we kind of just keep keep pushing and keep doing our thing.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_03: And uh, I don't know if there's ever going to be a phase where we're like, oh yeah, we accomplished what we wanted to accomplish.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's mostly gonna be like constantly working and and growing this thing to the to the biggest thing that it can be.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_03: And for us, that's just you know, the music, we it's hard to make that separation, but for us, you know, like there's a music side of this, and then there's a business side of this, and the business side of us is always gonna be like it's you know, we we you constantly strive for more.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_03: You always want more fans and more people to appreciate what you're creating as a creative, you know.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: So let's take this question one step further.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: Manifest it.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: Where do you see this project and your careers five years from now?
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, ideally, you know, The Haunt is playing arena shows five years from now.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_03: Um, hopefully, there's a few number one records on rock radio uh in the mix there too.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_03: That would be pretty good.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_03: Um personally, I'm not too big on the like the awards thing.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_03: Uh that's not like something that I care too much about.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_03: But as far as the uh as far as the the growing the fan base and just like having these shows where we can kind of just have this bigger budget to put on these crazy visual shows, like that's kind of where I would hope that the band is in five years.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_02: There's not really much more than that.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_02: Between us shows and um number one songs on the radio.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_03: Headlining some big festivals would be fun too.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe yeah.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I would like to blitz.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: That would be fun.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: Is there a band that you guys have wanted to play with that you haven't yet that you could see happening in your foreseeable future?
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, Bring Me is definitely the one that we've constantly wanted to tour with.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I just think that the fan bases would overlap really well, and also we're just used to fans, you know.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so that would kind of be a dream come true for us.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_03: We've been on festivals with them, but uh, we'd love to do like a real tour with them for their audience, like a real show.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: All right, my friends.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: Well, my closing question that I ask every guest that does the show, and I want to hear your individual perspectives.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of a left field question, but through your eyes and your experience, what's your advice for making the world a better place tomorrow than what it is today through the things that you guys are experiencing right now?
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's kind of been one of the bigger messages of the band throughout the band's history.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_03: The first music video that we ever put out was kind of pushing the same message.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_03: And I I think for the most part, like the band really stands for inclusivity.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that all the issues or 99% of the issues that we face on a day-to-day is just from people not listening to one another.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I don't think most people have opinions that are that separate from each other, and even when you do, it's like if people were to just listen to each other more and hear other people's perspectives more and not just lock themselves in an echo chamber and only listen to people who think like them or sound like them, I think the world would just be a much better place.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_02: I would hope that our music would do that.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_02: I hope that anyone that comes to our shows and um spends time with us, like I think that's the number one goal is just making people feel in the slightest bit less alone or better.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um spreading love.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: Tell everybody where they can find your music and you online.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_03: Um, all of our social medias are at We Are the Haunt and just the Haunt on Spotify, the haunt on YouTube.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um come see us on tour, stream ghosts when it comes out on October 30th.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, yeah.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: Heck yes, heck yes.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: Ladies and gentlemen, if you are listening to this and watching this, I am purposely going to get this episode out five days before these two lovely individuals are at the waiting room in Omaha, Nebraska, one of my personal favorite venues, a venue I've played at hundreds of times.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: I am so excited to see you guys there.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: I am hoping we can get some high fives and some hugs in, and I get to enjoy a great show with you guys.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, we can't wait.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: We're so excited.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: Max, Anna, thank you so much for doing the show.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: The world's a much better place with you in it.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much, and thank you for having us.