About - Mountview Instituion

An exclusive Mountview Institution interview with Richard Henshall!

In late 2024, Haken embarked on the European leg of their An Evening With HAKEN tour, with a headline show at the very end in London. I was lucky enough to get to go to that show, and the band myself! (You might recognise me in some photos from my signature coat, and cat-based apparel!)

But more importantly than that, a good friend of mine over in Germany, who by their own request I'll credit mononymously as "Local Aquarius Fanatic, Lucca", was able to ask Richard Henshall a handful of very fan-oriented questions. They were lovely enough to transcribe it all for everybody's viewing pleasure, and has given me the full seal of approval to post this here.

So, without further ado, enjoy the very first exclusive Mountview Institution interview!

-Emily, Site Architect

In the 2017 interview you did with Charlie for Aquarius' re-issue, you mentioned how the fanbase in Germany especially was quite big and passionate. Do you think this is still the case?

Yeah, 100% because if we play a tour, we play maybe 5 or 6 shows in Germany alone, and if you think we're a UK band, I mean we'll probably play 5 or 6 shows in our own country. So that does really suggest the fanbase in Germany is still thriving for us.

One of the first shows we ever played was in Germany. It was at a festival called Night of the Prog, and that was a really big moment for us. It was one of our first times out of the country, playing a show. I feel like that really kind of put our stamp on Germany, and now we've been coming back ever since. It's been a great place to play for us here.

And is there anything noteworthy or different about German gigs and crowds?

Really energetic. So, on this tour we've been playing a seated tour, so most of the shows are in like theatres or venues, like this one, where we have seats put out. Which as a result is a different kind of show for us, the energy is different. It's sometimes tricky for us to gauge whether the crowd are really into it, because they're sitting still and they're just taking in the music.

But we did our first show in Germany yesterday in Hamburg, and even though they were seated, there was like a great energy in the crowd, and by the end of the show everyone was standing, and it almost felt like a standing show for us. So yeah, the energy is always good, and the fans are very dedicated, which is what we love

Most people know you as the guitarist and keyboard player of Haken, but you do contribute lyrically to some songs, and what I find very interesting is that one of the most famous and beloved Haken songs, which is "Cockroach King", you actually wrote the lyrics to!

Yes!

Is there any other noteworthy or general lyrical contribution that you've done?

Well, so with that album, The Mountain, that was the first time we each got involved with the lyrics, and we each picked a song and then decided to focus it around what we were interested in, within that general theme of climbing up the mountain and overcoming obstacles. So, for me, I picked "Cockroach King", and I guess at that point, that was my first contribution lyrically, for Haken. I along with Charlie and Ross wrote lyrics for "Crystallised", for a few of those sections.

I also, which is also well-known, wrote the lyrics to "Eyes of Ebony", which is about my late father. I also wrote some of the lyrics to "Puzzle Box" with Ross. And apart from that, I don't think I've contributed any other lyrics, but on my solo album, I wrote all the lyrics of that one, so hahaha. Yeah, apart from one song, actually; Lunar Room, which Ben Levin wrote the lyrics for. Yeah, that was a lot of fun, but it's not my natural habitat, I'll say that, to write lyrics on top of the music.

Because the music is all-consuming, I put everything into that. And then coming up with concepts and ideas, and writing lyrics on top of all the music, it's quite tricky I'll say, to fully master everything, and so The Cocoon was tricky in that sense, but a lot of fun as well, because it really is like the ultimate free expression in writing on your own, but yeah.

How would you determine if an idea for a riff musically otherwise is going to be Haken or Richard Henshall?

Yeah, so it depends, really. A lot of the time we'll lock off a bit of time, and we'll say over these few months, we're going to work on a new Haken record. And then within those few months, we'll try not to work on anything else, and we'll work on just getting key ideas down for that project. So, anything that's written in that period will probably be part of the Haken album. Having said that; I'm always working on music, so it's tricky sometimes.

So, for example, I've got these EPs I'm working on, which is a solo venture, the Mu EP, there's three volumes of it, and I started working on these ideas way back in the lockdown, and I had a whole bunch of ideas that are unfinished, but they're all kind of part of that same feeling that was generated from being stuck at home in this lockdown. So, I know that all of those ideas that are in this one folder are going to be part of the Mu EP, and I knew that all of these songs are going to be instrumental as well, so that was like a key guideline to where these songs would go.

Yeah, it's constantly evolving, even back in the day of Haken, on the first three albums, I kind of did that lion share of the writing, and I would just focus solely on that, and then share it with the rest of the guys, and back then I wasn't doing any solo stuff, or anything else really, that was just my only thing, so it was obvious where those songs were going to go. But yeah, it takes time, and it gets trickier sometimes, the more you're working on it

What's your favourite Haken riff that you've written?

Urghh, yeah, I feel like there's so many riffs! I mean we've got a lot of riffs hahaha. One of my favourite songs to play, because it's in Drop D, is Carousel. And that one was a lot fun to write, and a lot of the riffs are very enjoyable, because they use open strings, and it's just very satisfying to play. Another one, where I wrote a lot of riffs for was "Nil By Mouth", that one is a bit of a finger-twister, so it's quite a tricky one to play, but it's very enjoyable, and I think it gets the crowd going as well, so that's always a fun one to play live.

Ray is going to hate me, because a lot of the stuff that I will write and send his way is like rhythmically a bit awkward to play on the drums, and so likewise, if he ever writes a guitar part, it's the same, it's almost impossible to play on the guitar. So, I think the key here is, guitarists should write guitar parts, and drummers should write drum parts.

How much do you practice playing the guitar now, versus when you were younger?

Oh, that's a good one. It's a great question. Wayyy back, when I was maybe, say between like 16, and maybe 24, or like maybe not that old, more like 22, I was pretty intense about practicing, I would practice as much as I could. To the point where I would compromise my social life, sacrifice meeting friends, so I could like get in more practice time.

Some days, if it was a great day, and I had nothing to do, I could practice for like 10 hours a day, or even more if I was just on my own at home. There are obviously things that get in the way, like you've got to do things, you've got family events, or you've got to go study, or whatever you're doing, so it wasn't always possible. But back then, I would just prioritize practicing, and I'd just be quite regimented with it, so I would break it down into sections, so I'd be like, 30 minutes alternate picking, 30 minutes Legato, 30 minutes sweeping, or wherever it is, 30 minutes tapping. I would have a whole routine worked out. I'd make sure, also, that I would spend a bit of time on improvising, so I could really put to practice those things that I practice technically, in a more real-life musical situation, which I think is important.

But over the years, that's evolved a lot, for many reasons; Now I have a family, so that takes up a lot of my time, and I want to be as best a father as I can be, so I need to be there with my kids, playing with them, and I'm married now, so when I was 16 years old, I wasn't married. Now we go away a lot, travel, we do lots of things with the family, so I've had to compress the time down. And also, another thing is that back then, writing wasn't so prominent in my life, whereas now that's become the main thing for me as a musician! I love writing music, so when I'm in my studio, 95% of the time will be spent writing music. The other 5% will be doing other bits and bobs, which ironically is probably the stuff that makes me more money as a musician. But it's the writing that I'm really passionate about, so more and more I've tried to evolve the way I practice and try to fuse it with writing at the same time, so I will try and come up with exercises that allow me to work on my writing approach and my writing chops, but also my technical chops as well, and then try to write songs where I'm incorporating a lot of the stuff I'm working on theoretically, so I'm kind of compressing it all into a smaller period of time, if that makes sense.

It's hard to really gauge the exact amounts of time I practice now, but when I'm at home and I'm not on tour, I will treat my writing, practicing sessions, almost like a 9-to-5 job, so I will drop my children to school, come home, I'll go into my studio, and I'll just be there all day until like dinner time. So, it'll be like a 9-to-5 job, but what happens in those hours is always kind of different.

What parts from other Haken members have been the most difficult to figure out for you, and which parts that you wrote were the most difficult to figure out for them?

Yeah, so, back to that point with Ray; he actually mapped out the first draft of "Messiah Complex", so then I took that, and then I added loads of riffs and made it more guitar friendly and a bit more possible to play, so it's kind of like a joint effort really, in the end. But then obviously over time other people added their sections and it became this big mammoth of a track. I guess nowadays I would just put it out as one singular track and not do parts. I can't really remember why we did it that way back then.

But, yeah, that one is definitely rhythmically quite tricky to play, and as I mentioned before, when a drummer or a keyboardist writes guitar parts, it's a lot of times very, very tricky to play, because it doesn't naturally fall under the fingers in the most effective way, so that one's got a lot of tricky moments to play, and I imagine it's the same in reverse, so there's sections like, probably in Carousel, a good example actually: In the middle section of Carousel, some of those grooves are a bit tricky to play, and quite awkward to feel/fill (not sure), and I imagine that would be quite hard for Ray, I'm sure he's great at it, he always nails it, but that might require a bit more practicing.

There's the middle part of The Architect, the kind of really quirky whole tone bit that I kind of helped work on, that bit I think that's a bit tricky as well on the drums. But it's usually the case that if a guitarist writes a riff, it's usually okay to play on the guitar, but if anyone else writes it, it's a nightmare.

So, which song was the most difficult to compose?

Ohhh, the song? Well, I feel like it's a tricky one. Now that we all write together as a band, it's a very collaborative experience. For me, I've become less emotionally invested from the start in the song, and I'll come up with an idea, and I think I've learned, I'm sure the other guys would say the same, to not get too emotionally involved with the idea to begin with. You just present an idea, and then you can say, I've got this riff or a chorus, I like it, what do you guys think? And then someone else might say, okay, I really like the way that sounds, I can hear some cool vocal lines, and then it goes somewhere else, and then you take it back, and then you start bouncing ideas off each other, and the song starts to grow. But back in the day, when I was almost exclusively writing the music, up until the Affinity-period really.

I'd have a lot of sleepless nights where I was just overthinking things and just obsessing about simple ideas, it would be like this all-consuming process, which it kind of still is the same with my solo stuff really, but it's... I guess when you're working together, you're kind of sharing the load of that pressure. But back then, one song that sticks out in my mind is Visions. It's a long song, and that one was the first one I started writing on that album, and it ended up having like 20 different logic projects, because I was just like, this bit would sound better like this, rather than deleting the other idea, I'll keep it saved and I'll save a new project. Eventually there were about 20 different projects, and I'd arrived at this finished-ish version, which was obviously tweaked a little bit, and people added their spice to that. So, I had all these other projects, and then they actually formed the bulk of the rest of the album, which is why the whole album has a certain feeling to it, which all stems from this minor-major parallel harmony idea.

So if you know a bit of music theory, you understand that it's got this weird- It's not diatonic, and you've got the major and the minor feeling kind of working against each other, which is a bit ambiguous in terms of how you feel emotionally, and it's a little bit atypical sounding, which I really like the sound of, but that forms the colour and the basis of that whole album, which kind of makes the whole album feel very cohesive, and it has a sense of flow to it. But yeah, the song itself took over a year to write, so it was a long one. It took a while, it took a while hahaha.

I mean it's one of the most beloved for the community.

Oh yeah, it's a good fun one to play as well, because a lot of it is in 6/8, which is just a really fun groove to kind of nod your head to, and a lot of our songs over the years have gotten more and more complicated rhythmically, so it's nice to play songs where you can actually groove to it, and that one, for the most part, you can groove to it, but obviously it does go off into some crazy sections, but it's a fun one to play.

Is it ever weird playing a song from those days where you did the composing, now where it's not really a sole effort anymore?

Uhm no, I mean I love playing all our music equally, I love playing the new songs as well, like we've evolved so much, and I feel like that evolution is the best thing that's happened to the band, because everyone in Haken is very creative, and everyone's got their voice, and I feel like it's branched out to this whole new beast now, and the music that we've come out with together is really fun to play, and there's something about being on stage with five other guys like that, we're a brotherhood, and we've written songs together. That's arguably an even greater feeling, because we've worked together as a team to create this music, and there's always people in the crowd that are enjoying it, so it's a really great feeling.

How do you deal with conflict in the band?

Yeah, it's a tricky one, I mean luckily we for the most part get along, naturally when you're being creative or you're working on things that don't really have a clear answer, it's hard, because everyone has their opinion, and for example, might be working on a section in a song, I might like it a certain way, the next person might say, it doesn't sound good, I'd prefer this, but in that situation it's tricky, because there's no right or wrong answer, so I think you've just got to be very open-minded, and be aware of the fact that no one's right here, it's just very subjective, and one can't be objective about these things.

So, generally, we're very good at doing that kind of thing, we don't get into fights or anything, and I feel like an element of compromising has to be in there, in that situation. We've been working on new music, and compromising is a key part of that process, because if everyone had their own say it wouldn't work, because we've all got a different vision of where the songs are going; Compromising is how you work together, I think that's really important, so that's something, thankfully, that we're really good at, so it works out well.

If you didn't play in Haken, and which band would you want to play?

Ohhhhh... I mean there's so many amazing bands... Maybe Muse, because then I could buy a yacht, and I'll just go sailing around the world haha. I love Muse, Great Band, I doubt that they would have me though, because they're a small band, they've got all their members already. Who I would love to play with, and I mention this guy all the time; Tigran Hamasyan. He's just a great musician, a great brain, the way he approaches harmony and rhythm. I just find it fascinating, it's like a constant source of inspiration for me, so whether I'll be able to keep up with him, I don't know, but I would love to just jam with him and see what happens, because he's just such a freak of nature. I've seen him a few times live, and it's just mind-blowing to see him.

I think it would be fun to see you in Mr. Bungle!

Oh yeah, yeah, I love the quirky element of Mr. Bungle! I mean, are they still going? We saw them- Where were we? Hellfest! Way back, and he played with Faith No More, and yeah, great, great gig.

A big difference is the way the members of a band like Mr. Bungle deal with the fans, it's kind of the exact opposite of what you guys do, from what I've experienced and what people have shared in the community.

It's like, you are so down to earth, and you really have a very passionate fanbase, that's special and unusual even for prog standards, and yet you deal with it so gracefully!

As far as we're concerned, Haken fans are really what keeps us going, I mean, we wouldn't be able to keep playing shows and touring the world without that support, and as I mentioned before, it also gives you affirmation to suggest that what you're doing is actually a good thing; It's giving people positive feelings, so yeah, I couldn't be more grateful for the support we get, and it's the least we could do to share a bit of love back.

This one is a very good one, I was quite proud of coming up with it. How would a 2010 to 2013 Richard Henshall react to the current state of the band and your career? What would he think of Fauna, would he enjoy it?

Oh, yeah haha, that's a really good one. I mean, I always- Back in 2010, so we'd just released Aquarius, and it was an exciting time, we'd just given the demo to sensory records, and he gave us this opportunity to write an album, so I just went- I thought this is my chance now! I'm writing this album, I'm going to lock myself away, get to work on this for 6 months, and put everything into it, and it was exciting, and the way it was received critically and for all the fans, and back then we weren't big, but the support we got was great, and it was a great response.

So back then my only dream was to be able to carry on doing that, and to be able to get to a point where we could make it a career, and at that point I was working in a music shop, I believe, and then after that I ended up teaching music in schools for a bit. But these were only jobs that I did, so I could fuel writing music for Haken, it was like, I need a job where I can be flexible, where I can generate my own time, and I can still write, and I can also go on tour if I needed to, so that was the only reason I was doing those jobs. My passion was Haken, it was like, that was my dream. That was always the dream, to build Haken to a point where this would be exclusively our job, and that's what we're doing now, so we're touring, we're not playing arenas 'cause, I mean, yeah, it's progressive music, but I feel very lucky that we're able to go around the world and play in all these different cities and people come out to see us. It blows my mind because there's so many incredible bands and musicians out there that aren't able to do that, so I don't want to take it for granted.

There's always room to grow, and I we always have dreams to get bigger and go to different places, play bigger venues, so that's always there, and without that, you're never going to strive to better yourself and be a better musician or a better band, so we're always trying to get better at what we do. But I'm very content with where we are, and this was always what I wanted to do with my life, so yeah, I'd be very happy if I was looking into the future, and I feel like Fauna, for me, is like a representation of everything we've done, and Pete just re-joined the band, and it was just a celebration really of all the music we love, because there's a bit of everything in there, there's like electronic music, there's like jazz stuff, there's indie stuff, metal stuff, which for me kind of represents everything that we love in the band, so I think looking forward from that time, I'd be really, really impressed!

Like, we've evolved, wow! And I guess the advancements in technology as well- I feel like now we can make the album sound better as well, I think Fauna in terms of sonics and sounds, it's like a better album than say Aquarius, in terms of just the way it's mixed, the way it's recorded, and just the tones we have, so all in all, yeah, I'd be pretty impressed, I think.

I think it's funny because one thing that is exceedingly rare to find, but I'm quite good at it now, is interviews that are like old, old Haken, like 2010, 2013, that sorta thing, and I found one interview that you did in March 2013, which was before Visions released, so it was still just Aquarius out, it's funny because there was this one segment where you kind of went on about like "Oh, we like Dream Theater, and oh there're doing this "An Evening With Dream Theater" thing, and someday I'd like to do that too with Haken!"

Yeah, this has really been a thing, because when I was watching Dream Theater back in the day, we used to see them at Hammersmith Apollo a lot, and that was their thing, the Evening With Dream Theater, it would be an incredible night, it would be so long, like three hours of playing, it would just blow my mind, that they had the endurance to be able to do that, and the fact that they could just go to the opposite end of the world and play to that many people was incredible, and the music they were playing, so forward-thinking and adventurous and progressive. So yeah, it feels like we're very lucky that we're in this position now, to be able to come out here, we don't have a support band with us, and we're playing in some cool venues, we're playing in theatres, and it's an interesting tour. It's seated in theatres, I feel very distinguished now- I mean, you've got a suit on, you've got a bowtie, I feel underdressed! I need to up my game a bit hahaha.

Yeah, you know, well I realised I was going to meet you and one has to be dressed for the occasion, right?

I love that, it's great.

So, you listen to these influences, obviously, that came before, and it's like, in that sense, it really just feels like what you have been doing is a proper progression from that, which I mean, that's not something a lot of people can say about themselves.

Yeah, that's why I love Dream Theater so much, because that's what they did, they took a lot of their influences, and they were quite open about it, like Rush, Queensryche, say King Crimson, and these older bands, and they added this metallic edge to it, and it really created this unique sound, and I thought that was great. And they were one of the catalysts really, for us to start Haken, I just vividly remember hearing Awake thinking, What is this? I've never heard anything like it, this is so cool, I would love to be able to have a band where we could do something like this!

And then that was like a starting point really, and then over time, it's just evolved into what it is now, we still obviously have that influence, but we've changed a lot, and it's probably less apparent now than it used to be, but without them, who knows, a lot of these bands in this genre probably wouldn't be doing what they're doing, it'd be a very different world, I think, in terms of progressive music.

I'd say it's really full circle now in a sense, because now bands like Haken influence the majority of new bands in the prog community.

Yeah, it's crazy to think that we're- I mean, I feel like Dream Theater were the last big band, like in the progressive world, that really made it, and maybe that generation's gone now, with the oversaturation of music like general, like Spotify and Apple Music, there's so much music to be digested, it's almost impossible. Not impossible, but almost impossible for bands to really explode, obviously there are freak cases where it does happen, but then it's not necessarily always about the music, it's about the brand, or the image. There's something else that's part of it, like a story that's attached to it. Where I feel like with Dream Theater it was just the music, like people were just, that was the brand. It was like the music was so out there and so adventurous for when it was made, it just captured people's hearts and imaginations, and that's what took them to that next level. But yeah, we'll see, we'll see how it goes, because it's a great time to be alive, because there's so much music to digest and listen to, and to be spoiled for choice.

Do you miss the control that you had when composing the first records that you made with Haken?

No! Part of the reason I handed that over, was because I had kids, and I was like, well, this is consuming all my time, I'm very obsessive about it, and it's hindering everything else in my life, like my social life that kind of gets hindered, and even when you're not writing, you're obsessing about it, you're not sleeping properly, or you're just constantly thinking about it. So I thought, well, we're all in a band together, it'd be best if we are all equally invested in the music, and when we're on tour together, we're all sharing this experience and it's everyone's music, so that was like a feeling that I had, and it also freed up a lot of time, because I was able to work on the Nova Collective album.

Ohhh, you have it? Nice one! Oh you've got a complete collection? Legend, thank you!

Uhm, and then also my solo stuff as well, so that was a very conscious thing, I thought I want to do some other things, I like to branch out, but also I feel it's the best thing for Haken. So no, I think it's good [to give up some control], and it actually is less stressful, because like I said before, I can just share an idea, or anyone can share an idea, and you're all working on it together so you're kind of taking a lot of that load off yourself, and you're not obsessing so much about the small details in the songs, you're doing it together with your band, and yeah, I really enjoy the approach that we have now.

With Pete being back in the band, did that trigger any memories from the Enter the Fifth Dimension era, and did anything from that time resurface in any way?

Well, firstly, getting Pete back was great fun, he's a great guy, and he injected so much energy into the band. And we kept in contact. He went off to study his theoretical physics, but we kept in contact and we'd meet up over Christmas and stuff. And we were in Nova Collective together, so musically we stayed in contact as well, and yeah, back then it was a very different time, we were younger, and a lot more carefree, so we were just like, oh, we'll write whatever comes. Now it's a lot more focused; our tastes have changed a lot since then, individually, and as a band collectively.

So yeah, I don't feel like any of the newer ideas, to me anyway, sound like that, I just always think that each album is like a window into your life or your interests at that time, and the music I was listening to back then, and same goes for everyone in the band, it has changed drastically, like it really has, so yeah, there weren't any musical callbacks I don't think. I don't know, what do you think? Like, listening to it, do you pick up on anything?

I think one thing that I very much appreciated with Fauna is that, as in the community you really have this kind of separation of old era Haken and new era Haken, like The Demo to The Mountain, and then Affinity to Virus, and there was a lot- And I remember this vividly, being a part of it, there was a lot of suspension in the air in the community, which was like, you know, you kind of had these two camps of people that liked this era and that era, and it was like "What are they going to do? Who's going to be disappointed?"

Yeah, yeah.

And when Fauna dropped, you could see that it's a perfect blend.

Yeah, it was very like, old meets new, we wanted to do that, we wanted to like share, and celebrate everything. I mean, we still listen to the old stuff, it's still there, it still helps warm us as musicians, so it's very important.

One thing that I particularly love about Haken, and which has left me to discover albums like In a Glass House, is the wackiness.

Mmmh, Yeah, haha, well it is tricky, especially with our older stuff there's a lot of kind of quirky, wacky moments in there, which really resonate with me. I love that sense of humour in the music, and it's almost like a tongue-in-cheek approach, where you're not taking yourself too seriously all the time, but then that's juxtaposed with very emotive sections, so a lot of the time, I always found it tricky to fuse those two completely separate worlds together, and that's part of the challenge of writing.

A lot of times, you'll come up with a section, rhythmically you might have this groove, and it might have a really emotional feeling to it, but then you might come out with a completely wacky section over the same kind of groove. So you're like, okay, well they feel like they should be together because they're the same tempo and they've got the same rhythm, but in terms of the way it makes you feel, it's completely different, so the mood and the feeling and the emotion are completely different, so how are we going to do this? How are we going to bridge the gap?

So, part of the challenge is to find out how you can do that, making bridge sections or some kind of modulation to make it sound smooth. But yeah, I guess we do that less now, so I imagine there's more of a kind of just focused emotion throughout the whole song, but I mean it's still fun to play the older tunes. "Beneath the White Rainbow"! Yeah, that was a funny one, we spoke about it before, but we had this writing session where we met up in a house, and we worked on the vocals together.

That middle megaphone section came from that whole session, and I don't know what we did, but we were like thinking "How are we going to sing over this? There's nothing melodic that's going to work. Why don't we just try something really crazy and just get some- Just start shouting- And we'll add some distortion," and it just instantly started to sound like Mike Patton and Mr. Bungle-esque. We were like, yeah, this is it, this is what the section needs! Not everyone loves it, but we don't care, because we enjoy playing it, and that's the main thing.

This is a very niche one, but someone wanted me to ask it, and I realized that if I didn't ask it, no one would.

Yeah? Haha!

On Wikipedia, it says that Square Pusher was an influence for The Cocoon. Could you talk more about your history with Square Pusher and EDM in general, how and when did you get to discover that, and which albums are you favourites?

So, Square Pusher, he's a one-man kind of thing, where he's a producer, and he does like his own really progressive brand of like drum and bass essentially, like using sample drums, but like cutting them up to make a really abrasive, aggressive sound. It's really interesting, I think just generally that style of music, Square Pusher, Venetian Snares, Apex Twin, those kinds of guys, what they're doing is so forward thinking, and they're highly progressive- And there's no boundaries to that, because we're limited to what we can play as musicians. Generally, with that kind of music, it's largely programmed, so it's like infinite. It's almost like watching an animation where you're not restricted to what the stuntman can do, or whatever is happening in the movie. You can do anything, you know, like the Studio Ghibli stuff, like those kinds of movies are so creative because it's coming from the brain purely, which I find really interesting.

So yeah, with that kind of music, I've always gravitated towards it for that reason, it's so adventurous, rhythmically, and it takes you on this journey. I actually saw Square Pusher do a concert, fairly near to where I live, and they played with an orchestra, and it was such a cool experience. He is actually a musician, so he plays bass, so he's one of the few that maybe are musicians, a lot of these guys aren't necessarily known for being instrumentalists, but he's an incredible bass player, so he'll play bass live as well on top of this crazy music that he's produced. Back when I was getting into them, Go Plastic was a really cool album that got me into him, so I'll go with that as my favourite. It's really interesting, when you listen to The Cocoon, you wouldn't necessarily hear the influence straight up, but it's buried in there, along with so many other influences, which helped create the overall sound.

This is another big one for a lot of people. A very passionate thing in the Haken fandom is the "Hakenverse".

Oh yeah, haha.

How do you feel about that?

I'll leave it open, because I don't want to ruin anyone's dreams. Personally, I love that kind of stuff, I love lore, and I'm a big Stephen King guy, so he has a Stephen King universe where a lot of these characters are featured in other stories, and I love that kind of thing. With the Hakenverse, we obviously dipped our toes into that, with Virus, and that whole Vector and Virus being the backstory of the protagonist in Cockroach King, so that's quite explicit, but all of the other stuff, I haven't read into any of the theories so much, so I'll leave it open. No comment, haha.

Someone actually asked, what is your favourite Stephen King book?

Yes, well I love immersive storytelling, it's a form of escapism, and he's a great storyteller, he really takes you on a journey. My favourite book of his, it's a favourite for a lot of people, because it's great, is The Stand, and the uncut edition of that, which is huge, just like, I don't know, a thousand pages long, it's like really long, and it takes you a while to get through it, but just the character development is incredible, and it's essentially a post-apocalyptic scenario, which always hits a spot for me, love that, and I quite liked one of his more recent ones "11, 22, 63" it's like this alternative history idea based around the assassination of J.F.K., that was quite an interesting one, I really liked that, but yeah, all of his books are great, really good, so I'll suggest if you've got time, try it out, it's a good one, it's a good one.

Another big one, which was on a lot of people's minds; Nova Collective 2?

Ohhh yeah! I mean, like I said before, that whole process is so much fun, hanging out, because of Dan Briggs. Great guy, I love him, he's an incredible writer, he's got so many crazy ideas, and he actually posted this video where he was talking about The Mountain, saying he was really into this album, and that's how we got into contact, so I sent him an e-mail, saying Thanks man, I'm a big fan of your music and Between The Buried and Me, thanks so much for helping spread the word! Because at that point, we were really growing the band as much as possible. So, then we got chatting, and we realized we were into similar kinds of music, and then we ended up saying, why don't we just write some music together?

And we hadn't met each other by this point, so we ended up writing- We started writing the album, and that whole process was so cool, we got Pete involved and he started sharing ideas, and it really started to grow into this incredible like, incredibly crazy piece of music, which was like a nightmare to play hahaha, and then we met Matt, Dan had met Matt, but I'd never met him, and he just completely blew me away, by how crazy he is at the drums, and that led to him being on The Cocoon, so that whole journey was really, really cool, and that whole process was very liberating. Because we quite literally had no focus, or any boundaries.

we're just like, let's just write everything, it doesn't matter, the only thing we knew was that there wasn't going to be any vocals, it was instrumental, but we weren't trying to sell millions of records, we weren't trying to get on MTV, we didn't want to support Metallica, or whatever, we didn't have a plan, we were just like, let's just write music, we just want to write it, and that was the main focus. So it was a very exciting time, and I'd love to do it again, and we actually got halfway through writing asecond album, yeah, and the ideas were really flowing, but then we just- We've got so much to do in our own bands, like they're constantly touring, we're constantly touring, and we usually will try and get an album out every two years, same for them as well, so it's quite hard to fit it in the gaps, and I'm busy doing solo stuff, so is Dan as well, he's very busy, and now Pete is as well, and Matt is also drumming with Cynic now. So between us, we were very busy, but I would love to do it, it was a great, great process. And the next album, it's been a while now since we wrote that first one, so the next album, when we do get eventually around to writing it, which I hope we do, it's going to sound different, it's going to sound completely fresh from the other one, so yeah, watch this space, it might happen!

And what about a Restoration 2, considering its upcoming anniversary? The Demo sadly hasn't aged too well, with regards to its audio fidelity, so is a touch-up planned on that front at all or maybe even the aforementioned Restoration 2 for the remaining songs?

Yeah, well, Ross actually brings this up at least once every few months, so he really wants to do it, it seems hahaha. But, we feel that as a band we want to look forward, not back; Evolve instead of dwelling on the past. Restoration was a short EP and really fit to figure things out with Conner, as his then-first venture as a part of the band. So uhm, sadly not, though yeah, that's probably going to disappoint a lot of fans... We'll see, maybe at some point it happens!

Obviously, I have my Haken collection as you saw, even though it's not complete actually because I don't have The Cocoon on vinyl, and so the question would be, because especially right now with the “vinyl revival” or whatever, there is demand.

Yeah!

And even for the smaller stuff, like The Further Side or The Cocoon, but also if you wanted to get your hands on Visions, Aquarius, or Vector, they're like a hundred bucks each. And in my mind, you know, it's like, it's free money, like you could print a thousand of them, and they'd be gone in less than a month!

Yeah, it's mad! Yeah, I mean with The Cocoon, I had no clue what the reception would be, so I didn't print many, I just did a very limited amount, and it sold out, like really quickly, I was like, oh, maybe I'll do another run of them when The Cocoon 2 comes out, but then life got in the way. And I already had all the ideas for the next one, but I just didn't get around to finishing it, so I always said, I'll do another run when the next one comes out, so I will stick to that.

Eventually, one day I'll do it, but the whole process of making vinyl is tricky, because you have to fill it perfectly onto each side, and you don't want to go over a certain amount of time without hindering the quality of the audio, which is a bit of a hurdle with our music, because it's always so long, it doesn't typically fit onto vinyl without having to jiggle things around, so yeah, I'm not looking forward to getting back into that process, but I will do it, because I know everyone loves vinyl. So it seems to be a thing. And I do get a lot of requests for these things, so it will happen one day, but I need to write the followup, I think, which I'm hoping to do next year, that's the plan, I'm just going to get these new EP's done. And then, as I had all these ideas for it (Cocoon 2), I mean they're just sitting in a folder.

And is Mu going to have a vinyl release?

Yeah, yeah, the plan will be to do all three, and then have a vinyl release at the end of them. That's a plan, yeah, I'm going to stick to that.

This is another one that people really liked; You did Fauna, are you going to do Flora?

Probably not, to be honest, because we did Vector/Virus, a double album, and we wanted Fauna to stand on its own. It's Pete's first album, back in the band, and we wanted it to be a standalone thing. Completely separate from Flora and Fauna, my wife and I were thinking of doing this album, we've been talking about it for years, I even started working on music for it during the lockdown, so I got another one of those folders, with all of those ideas, it was all about the uh, the "Wood Wide Web", if you've ever heard of that. And the "Mother Tree", and how there's this tree that basically gives all the nutrients to the whole tree world underneath the roots, and so that's a subject I really want to explore on an album, so I'm going to do that, which is kind of linked I guess, to Flora, so, that can be in its place.

Now, this is going to be a deep cut, because not a lot of people even know that this exists, and I pride myself in knowing that they exist: The earliest Haken tracks, as far as is known, are "The Guyver" and "A Little Bit of Cheese"

Hahahaha, "A Little Bit of Cheese", yeah.

You did play The Guyver during the 2020 live stream, and Matt joined you for that.

Oh, yeah we played the audio, hahaha.

Exactly, and there's a very, very passionate fan, her name is Emily, and she's the admin of the site called "The Mountview Institution", which is her handcrafted Haken archive, and it looks professional, if I don't know any better I'd say it's you guys.

Oh, no, I don't think I've seen it, but I should check it out.

That's a place where, as a Haken fan, you can really find stuff that only the most die-hard fans would ever know, and so, on there I read about "The Guyver" and "A Little Bit of Cheese", and so far they are lost media. Is there any way that these are ever going to be archived in any way?

There's a crazy story with that. Maybe we talked about it on the Twitch session, I don't know. So, back then, there was a point where I was trying to mix music, but I can't mix. I'm terrible- I've got bad ears, and my right ear isn't there, so I'm the worst person to mix it. But, so we wrote a song, "The Guyver", and it was going to be this like overly epic power metal kind of thing, and we were all really happy with it, but as we finished the mixing, I suddenly got really ill. Like, literally during the final day. I don't know if we spoke about this in the Twitch, but I started going numb, like, as I was sitting at the computer, and ended up- Like, my whole right side of my body, it had gone completely numb, I couldn't feel it, and I was with Matthew Marshall, the old guitarist, was sitting there, and he was like, Are you okay, are you okay?, and I was like I don't know what's going on, I can't feel my right side. So, he phoned the ambulance, and then I was like, This is getting worse, it's getting worse, and he was there, thankfully.

By the time the ambulance had come, I blacked out. So I passed out, I woke up in the hospital, and it turns out I had meningitis. Yeah, and so I was in the hospital for a month, kind of trying to battle with this meningitis, and eventually I got over it, but it was that song! That song did it to me hahaha, it was too powerful! I think then, yeah- So, we've- I don't really revisited it ever since really, but it was part of the Haken Lore, and it's definitely a part of our history. It was like a stepping stone, I guess, towards the Demo, and then the Demo led to Aquarius, so yeah, it's a fun one, we joke about that song a lot, but it's fun, I love to listen back to that.

Obviously since you played an excerpt on the Twitch, The Guyver's kind of known, but A Little Bit of Cheese is completely unknown, still.

Yeah, I can't even remember what it is, there's a few others, there's Balushi, that was another one that we had, wholetone riffs, there were a few other little tunes that didn't really ever kind of make it anywhere, and before that, or around that time, we had another, kind of like demo, before Haken, it was like "Master of Time", "Master of Light", uhhhh, "The Monk". I don't know where any of these songs are. Once again, they were all recorded in my house, but they were stupidly epic, they were kind of like, Symphony X meets "Never-Ending Story", or something. It was like really fun songs to play, but really badly recorded. I feel like Ross will have them archived, because Ross is really good at archiving things, whereas I'm terrible, I just forget about things as soon as I've done them, like that's it and I just move on to something new, but Ross is really good at archiving everything we've done, so I'm pretty sure he's got those early songs somewhere.

One thing that a lot of people asked, it was probably the question I read the most often, which is about the parasocial aspect, because as you mentioned, the prog sphere isn't too big, but within the prog sphere Haken is somewhat at the top, and I feel like the Haken community, even just speaking from personal experiences, is especially passionate and kind of tight, so how do you deal with that side of things?

Well, we're just a bunch of normal guys that come from just pretty average backgrounds, nothing that people can't relate to. So when I meet our fans, I just feel like I'm on the same level as them, I don't feel like I'm above anyone, and I feel like thinking about it like that is the key to it really: It's true as well, we're not better than anyone. We might meet somebody who isn't a musician who cares nothing about music, they're not going to think I'm above them, so a musician shouldn't think I'm above them, I really do passionately believe that.

I feel like anyone who wants to meet us should think that as well; we're just a bunch of guys. Yeah, I don't really think about it too much, and because the progressive world is such a small, niche market, we don't really get spotted in public much, it's not like a thing, it's not like I'm David Grohl, or Matt Bellamy from Muse, that would be a whole different world, I feel like if you're constantly bombarded with that kind of pressure on a daily basis, that probably would affect your outlook.

It is well known in the fandom that you are really great guys to interact with the fans.

Yeah, I mean I enjoy it, I mean I genuinely enjoy hanging with people, talking, hearing people's backgrounds, everyone's been through a journey, and I can relate to a lot of that. Everyone has their struggles, we do as well, we're just normal people. Yeah, it's a really positive thing, but in 99% of the time we're just walking through the street, like everyone else, and are just doing family things, or eating dinner, the standard things you do as a human, so we don't really get that pressure that a lot of these high profile, popular artists would get, so it's hard to really gauge what it would be like for them, but for us, I don't feel it, if I'm entirely honest.

And what is the most memorable or crazy experience that you've had with a fan?

Ah, I can't really think of any... I don't know, I'd have to think about that one... We're like, we're a very sensible band, we'll play the show, and then we'll finish, and we'll maybe have a cup of tea, and go back to the bunk and read a book. That's what we do, and we're not really that crazy. I can't think of anything that wild that I've done with a fan... No, I don't know; I have no answer haha! I'll think about it, but if anything I think that kind of just shows the kind of band that we are. We're not really a wild band that takes all the drugs and goes crazy, it's not that kind of group. Plus, I don't know, I feel like when I'm out here, and I'm away from my family, I feel like I should be focused on just the music, and try to do other things around it, try to work on things, and use the time productively, so that's always my main focus, really.

Aside from that, we're just trying to stay fit, to exercise- But nothing wild that comes to mind. I'll always make the effort to chat to the fans, and I've never shied away from that, I think it's important, for multiple reasons. It helps us realise that we've got people that are into the music, and it's having a positive impact, you know, if it fulfils their life in some kind of way, I will come and do that, it's not hard for us to go out and speak to people, and it's enjoyable, I like that whole process.

Oh, this is a question that comes directly from Emily from the Haken archive, and I didn't even know about this, so, according to the old 2020 live stream you did with Pete and Matt, the band's name comes from an old OC you had back in 2004 called Haakon the Magnificent, a Viking adventurer in search of the fabled "celestial elixir", which was just bottled water.

Okay, so that probably got diluted a bit, or exaggerated in some kind of way, but back in the day, Matt was always my best friend, we grew up together, and with Ross as well, and he was the best man at my wedding, he's a great guy. And we kind of formed this band together, and we had a big social group, and we used to meet up a lot, and it was just so much fun, we used to tell stories, almost like D&D-esque style stories, they'd largely be driven by Matt, because he's such a funny guy, he's a story teller, so he likes to write books, he's a bit of an author.

He used to just get crazy, his imagination would go wild, after a few drinks, and he's telling these stories about "Olaf-Land", and all these characters within it, and from what I remember Haakon was one of these characters, and we were always like, "Well, what are we gonna call the band, everything's been taken, there's no other options, why don't we just go with this?", and we checked out some Norse mythology, and King Haakon came up. So we were like, okay, let's just go with that, and initially the band title had two a's, and we took that away, because it was a bit confusing for certain people. And yeah, it just became Haken, and it just stuck really. So there's a bit of a vague answer, there's no profound reason why we went with it, but we just liked the sound of it, and it all stemmed from those early days of just telling stores to each other. And we were even going to, back in the day, write concept albums about this world, but then that's been done a million times by power metal bands, so we kind of- We didn't do that, but that's where it all stemmed from, really.

One thing that is fairly well known, you have to dig a bit, but people know it, is that "Insomnia" was originally titled "Numbered".

Oh yeah!

And what I also know is that the working title for "Taurus" was "Go-Jira"!

Yes!

And so, would there be any other facts like that?

Yes, so "Go-jira"!, I think I was programming some sounds for the Neuro-DSP Gojira plugin, and I was working on a track or something, like a demo for it, and I was aiming for this kind of Gojira sound, and I had this rhythm, I never recorded it in the end, but then I just found this project, and then that rhythm was like the starting point for that song, Taurus, so that was like the working title. Um, yeah, Numbered, we even had a different version recorded, of Numbered, somewhere. That's another one for the archive that Ross will have, I don't haha. But it's somewhere, and it had a whole different section, it had like a whole crazy piano thing that I had written down, like a chromatic, descending wacky piano idea, but we ended up taking it out, because it didn't sound anything like the rest of the song, but it was a fun one, and I feel like some of the grooves were a bit different. And yeah, I feel like that one we recorded maybe, as like a test song to send to the label to see if they're up for working on the album or something like that.

So that was, um, that one... "Bang-A-Rang", was the working title for Carousel! Yeah, I don't know why I gave it that title, but that was that. Invasion's working title was "Feet", hahaha. I don't know why. Um, yeah, there's a bunch! My memory isn't the best, but every song had a working title which is completely unrelated to the actual title, I feel like we spoke about a lot of these on Twitch, but I could never remember. And I remember people mentioning it, like this one was called that, and even I had forgotten, so, um, yeah, it's a fun one. But these are two that I could remember at the top of my head.

For the Haken fans, is there anything that you think would be interesting for them to know, that's not already established for the community? Like some deep cut info that you have, but that isn't really known in the community?

Way back when we were, uh, like rehearsing, some of the first rehearsals that we had, we had Pete- So we auditioned Pete to join the band, we put these adverts out, and there was no keyboardist in the whole of London, that wanted to join, because at that point, we weren't an established band, we weren't making any money, we were just a bunch of youngsters who were interested in writing very non-commercial music, so no one's going to want to join a band like that. So, eventually we got a message back, I think we were on maybe like Jordan Ruddess' Forum. And it was from this young guy, he was called Pete, and then, so we're like, yeah, yeah, come on down, and then he told us he was 16 at the time, and he was so good, he was just playing all these crazy ideas, and we're like, can you play it like in a French style? And he was like playing with a harmonica, the accordion, or whatever it was, and he could just do anything, and we're like, this is crazy, this is amazing, this is exactly what we need.

And then on the way home, he said, guys, guys, I'm really sorry, I lied to you, I'm not 16, I'm 15! And I'm like, ahh, really, no way! You're that good, you're incredible, we're 20 and you're better than us, and you're 16! So, I remember that. And that was like wayyyy back, in the very early days before even the Demo. And then, through Pete we found Ray, ironically. So, Pete said, I've got a drummer friend who's into the same music as me. So, Ray and Pete went to primary school together, just like Ross, myself and Matt went to primary school. But they lived in north London. So they'd been friends for years, growing up listening to the same music.

So, we invited Ray, and I just remember vividly, him, playing this groove in 9. And I was like, this is so cool! Ah, you're amazing, this is, like, exactly what we need! And it just blew me away. So then, ironically Ray is the one who stayed in the band, and Pete went off and studied for 10 years or so, but then eventually came back. It was a fun time, very lose, we had no massive dreams back then. We were just writing music, just hanging out and we didn't have the pressure of a label saying you need to get this done by this point! We would just meet, write music, and have fun with it. And then as time went on, it got more serious. Yeah, can't think of any other deep cuts, at the top of my head!

Do you remember your reaction to Pete's audition?

He didn't actually send an audition, he just turned up, and he just started playing! And we were just like, wow! He comes from a classical background, so the stuff we were playing back then was just easy for him. And even back then we were learning, and we were still on our journey to becoming better musicians ourselves, so it was inspiring seeing him play at such a young age. A little bit depressing as well, haha. But naturally, we kind of knew that he would go off and study, and it also happened at the same time that Matt decided to choose a different career. And he went to live in Australia, which couldn't be further away from London. And we started the band together, it was like our joint passion and love- Like, we used to meet all the time, we would meet and set our metronomes together and practice on the guitar for hours, together, just in my bedroom or Matt's bedroom.

And we always used to dream about Haken being a thing. So, when he said Dude, it's just not for me, I could see myself doing something else - and he was studying law. So, I was like, "Ahhh, man, really?" And it shattered my dreams for a bit, like I really didn't feel like Haken could carry on at that point. But then obviously we said, you can do this, let's audition, for a new guitarist, and that's where we met Charlie, and then it really started to pick up momentum from that point onwards, but it was hard at that moment to really think it was going to carry on.

But I remember having a phone call with Tom at that time, he was like, you've got to carry it on man, this is a dream, don't let it die, so he was kind of the instigator almost. But then when we did that, we auditioned, and that's when things really started to happen, and we were all working together, building that momentum, so I couldn't be happier that we carried on, and didn't let it finish.

And did you ever have any doubts about the line-up?

Not really, I mean, since we found Charlie, we just knew he was the perfect fit, he's just got so many amazing riffs up his sleeve, it's really added so much to our music. And it's funny as well because we later found out that he'd only lived about 10 minutes from me all along, so that's an interesting coincidence as well.

Oh wow! Actually, Charlie's the one that got me into Gentle Giant.

Yeah, Gentle Giant are a great band! It's like almost a common ground for all of us. Which is widely known, a lot of our music is built upon those foundations of the older prog bands, like King Crimson, Gentle Giant, Pink Floyd, Yes, and we all love that, and we try to fuse the modern influences with that, but Gentle Giant are one of those bands that didn't get enough recognition, I think anyway, back in the day. They were so prolific, they released so many albums in such a short span of time, like every year, for like 10 years or so

So good, so talented, but they just never reached the same level as bands like King Crimson, and Yes, but musically, I feel like they were on par, if not better, but it may just didn't hit the spot, or it was just a bit too wacky for most people. But they're a great band, and we've learned a lot from them, the idea of syncopation, and every instrument has its part in the arrangement, that comes from those guys. So they'd have a very simple beat, the drummer is playing a very simple groove, but all the other instruments are dancing around those simple beats, and filling in the gaps, which is something we have taken a lot from, a lot of the arranging skills we have are from those kinds of guys, you know.

I have friends that aren't really into prog and when, you know, I pull up like "Visions", a 20 minute track, they think I'm mad, and maybe I am, but the analogy that I use to explain to them what I love about this sort of music, is that if you have a movie, you have scenes, and the scenes constitute the movie, and now the normal music equivalent would be having an album, and the songs constitute the scenes on that album. But what you do, which is like the most virtuoso-level that a band can do, is that within a song, you have parts that are scenes, and the song is the movie, and you just have like half a dozen movies on one album

Yeah, with Visions especially, I wanted it to feel like a movie, so I would close my eyes, and I would try to imagine a visual representation of what the music was, and then that was guiding the music a lot of the time- That cinematic approach was very much at the forefront of the process. And as a result, I feel like the music was emotive, and it added a lot of colour to it, so I'm glad you picked up on that!