THE HAUNTED Frontman Says Music Inspires Him To Stay Sober

THE HAUNTED frontman Peter Dolving has posted the following message on his MySpace page:

"Last weekend we played in a city called Malmö in Sweden. It kicked ass. Big time. Facing 500 people in a packed club, blood pumping, a sense of spiritual clarity, everything is simple, clean and as the music kicks in — crushing every other doubt.

"I was talking to one of my friends the other night after one of my NA meetings about what made us come clean and really work to try to stay that way, and I realized in my case it's the music. And I felt kind of shitty, because it's not initially me, not initially my friends or my immediate family, it's loud-as-fuck, abrasive, screaming my lungs out and contorting my flesh and bones and finding a space in that overpowering sensation where the existence of gods is quite possible to believe. I know I've said it before, but it kicks my ego in the head and allows me to feel joy. Yeah, it's a drug-like experience. Yeah, it transcends washing dirty laundry or aching muscle. But it's not a thing that I control. All I can do is participate. Give myself to it. And yes I pay a pretty steep price.

"Performers are so romanticized. As if we in our function automatically become successful and bathe in glory the moment we step off stage. There's no limo waiting for us. There's a van or some tours a bus. I understand why other musicians do drugs. It helps. It doesn't make things better but it takes a lot of the consequences of make that choice to tour easier to carry. Though once you try to take that step back, off the bus — that´s when the real effects hit you. So some tour dawgs never go home. Keep moving.

"Right now we're about to head out more or less for three months straight after a couple of weeks off, and at home spring just hit. I know some people cringe at the sound of birds and the breaking of leaves, newly dried grass and woodland. I'm not one of those people. For me it the most serene time of the year. But I'm a lucky guy, I live in the sticks. Chicks don't start undressing here. Hell, the chicks around where I live wear rubber boots and coveralls, chew tobacco and shovel cow and horse dung like cityfolk worry about their looks every time they pass a store front where they see their own reflection. No, I don't have to worry about urban problematics much.

'Today, and the last couple of days, I've been feeling kinda torn inside about going on tour. I mean yes, it's what I do. And yeah I got to stay home most of last year and I do like it once I get up on that stage. But right now I'm in the quiet warm safety of my own little house. A hundred yard down the road I hear the creek that I know my family will be swimming in in two and a half months. I'll be in Warschau, Poland sweating in a room with 1000 insane metalheads. I'm insane.

"Oh — politics... Right wing, left wing, did anyone ever stop and thing about the body they should carry? Fuck em all, let's just cut the fuckers off and start walking. We're human, idealism is all good, but we deserve something better than the mouthing off of men and women who struggle for power and are willing walk over corpses for it. I say, let's just be human, do what we need, and try our god damned hardest to treat ourselves with some respect... it can be done, you know."