“Haken, as in bacon” as their web page so eloquently pronounces their name. A London sextet that in only six short years have quickly rose through the ranks from a support act to selling out small clubs around London to getting picked up by Inside Out for the release of their third and arguably best album to date The Mountain. So who are they? we hear you whisper… They’re still the little guys but the future is bright, very bright. Their career has been like climbing a mountain, an analogy that would influence the upcoming album title but the summit is near, the light is getting brighter but is this the first of many peaks? We catch Charlie Griffiths at his home in the UK just weeks prior to the release of The Mountain to learn more.
What is The Mountain all about?
Well, it’s not a concept album like before. We decided early on that we wouldn’t do that with this one, which we had done previously twice. What we also done this time was rather than Ross taking care of all the lyrics, each band member wrote lyrics… I suppose it was all evenly spread this time.
Was that a conscious decision or would you say it was just the way things worked out?
It happened naturally. We started looking at the lyrics and they had this similar theme of the struggles of life and overcoming your general hardships and what not. So, we had this kind of idea of climbing to the summit of your goals. When we started putting the songs together it had this kind of slope, a beginning, middle and an end of journey of sorts. It’s not really a concept or a story but there is a thematic progression.
These struggles you speak of, are they personal struggles or struggles as a band?
Because we split the lyrics up I suppose it touches on both. I co-wrote ‘In Memoriam with Ross [Jennings] which is about… we’re all lost people, it’s about losing loved ones and how you get through that whole process. Ross came up with the chorus and he had this line that put a positive swing on the song. Out of all those loved ones, although we’ve lost them they’re still with us in our hearts. That was a personal story for me, which Ross helped with. Others like, ‘Because It’s There’, Ray [Hearne] wrote and he was thinking more about the band and the struggles we go through trying to be a band in todays economic climate and how difficult it is to get it off the ground and keep going. So, it’s really a mixture of both. We’re also thinking of how we want to progress as a band and I think that definitely comes through. I’m sure everyone can relate to that part no matter what they’re trying to achieve.
In that sense would you say The Mountain is a new chapter for the band or is it the closing of one?
I suppose only time will tell. If it is the last album we write then I suppose that is the end. It feels like we’re moving into a new level though. We’re getting better gig offers and playing more frequently and stuff like that. We’re getting more recognition…
What are the goals? What do you want to achieve?
Really at the moment… [Haken] is a part time thing. We all work in day jobs so we fit Haken around our work schedules and families… weekends and evenings or when we have the time. The biggest goal would be to address that balance and make it that we can spend more time doing it. It’s probably a fantasy being able to rely on a band financially these days but any closer to it than where we are now would be a massive achievement.
What about musically?
When we get together and write or rehearse one of the main points of doing it is to learn new musical skills and/or learn a bit more theory. Chords, key changes, there’s always something that will happen and we’ll say ‘oh, why did you do that?’ or ‘how does that work?’ There’s something to learn from everyone in the band. We want to keep writing songs we’re happy with. We’re not necessarily trying to push the genre or anything we just want to write songs that we want to hear. Naturally there has been a bit of progression with that as we’ve improved as musicians; which is part of it.
You’ve come quite a bit since Visions, what’s been the greatest achievement?
Since ‘Visions’… I suppose one of the big achievements or one of the things that we wanted to reach fairly early on at some point was to get signed by Inside Out. They are the iconic home of prog… We actually sent our first demo in to all these labels and we didn’t hear anything back, Inside Out being one of them. Obviously we weren’t ready then but it’s nice to know we’ve gone up a few levels and impressed them enough now. That’s definitely the biggest achievement.
How’s it going with InsideOut so far?
Already just talking to them we know they are doing it for the music. You get a good vibe from them and they’re very hands on. They’re very up for helping out and making suggestions. Things like releasing the allum at the right time… they were very keen that we got it out at the end of the year and not early so we didn’t rush things. They’ve been very supportive and it feels like a comfort blanket.
You’re artists not a product…
Exactly! They know that we’re trying to create a piece of art and they’re not worried about it being particularly commercial or anything like that. It’s a good place to be. Also, just having your name associated with them gets you a certain level of credibility and hopefully that will help in getting us more gigs and bigger gigs. When we put ourselves forward hopefully they’re more inclined to check us out seeing that were on Inside Out.
How would you compare it to previous work then?
It feels more streamlined. More editing went on. We previously might have let a section go on too long or an instrumental went too far but as you grow as a musician you learn how to write better songs and I think we cut out a lot of the stuff that didn’t need to be there which led to a more streamlined version.
Given the digital era and a time where downloading is becoming ever more popular, how relevant is artwork these days and how important is it to Haken?
I still buy CD’s. I’m old school where I like to hold the thing in my hands and I like to look through the booklet. Actually I think it’s more relevant than ever because you need to make something people want to buy. Illegal downloading is so easy and people can get any song or album they want for free but as long as there’s a cardboard book somewhere… that’s something you can’t download.
Andrew Pennington