THE HAUNTED's MARCO ARO: EARACHE RECORDS Are Lying To Us All The Time

February 24, 2003

Swedish high-energy thrashers THE HAUNTED have fulfilled their contractual obligations to Earache Records and have no intentions of re-signing with the label, according to frontman Marco Aro. "Earache are lying to us all the time," he told Finland's Kaista. "According to them, we have sold only ONE thousand copies of the last album in the States even though we've done headlining tours over there. You know, Earache doesn't keep any records that would reveal how many albums have been pressed and so on, so we have no idea how many albums we have actually sold.

"When we signed to Earache, we actually [inherited] AT THE GATES' old contract [as per the leaving member's clause in the agreement]," he added. "So when we got some royalties from our first album, all that money went to pay back the debts that AT THE GATES had with the label.

"ENTOMBED's situation with Earache was the 'funniest'," Aro continued. "Earache was built from the money that they made by selling the early records from NAPALM DEATH and ENTOMBED. Anyway, [former ENTOMBED drummer] Nicke Andersson saw some of the Earache guys when he was doing a show in London with THE HELLACOPTERS, and he asked them if he should perhaps be collecting some money from them in back royalties. The Earache guys were like, 'Yeah, sure.' Guess what Nicke got from them later? 25 pounds and one 'Monkey Puss' live video! (laughs)"

According to Aro, it was Earache's unwillingness to properly fund the group's recently-released DVD, "Caught On Tape", that resulted in the final product not being of the high standard that the band had hoped for.

"Well, it's ok, there's two shows and everything," Marco said of the DVD. "But it could have been better, too. We were supposed to get really good digital video camera from our record company when we went to tour US with CANNIBAL CORPSE and DIMMU BORGIR. We were supposed to shoot some material for the DVD... Well, we got that camera when there was two shows left in the tour. And then, when we asked if we could shoot some material from the summer festivals with that camera, we were told that this was not OK and we had to return the camera to the record company. By the way, our first idea was to release the live DVD and live album in one package at a special price. But that was not OK with Earache..."

(Thanks: Timo Isoaho / Sonera Plaza Kaista)

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