THE HAUNTED’S PETER DOLVING BLOGS FOR METALSUCKS
[We’re huge fans of The Haunted’s Peter Dolving’s MySpace rants; the dude is intelligent, funny, and generally spot on (if you need confirmation of this just look at comments below anything about him on Blabbermouth, and just assume the usual Blabbermouth maxim: that whatever people are saying, the opposite is true). His band happens to be fucking awesome too. So we figured, hey, why not see if he’s up for porting his rants to MetalSucks? Through a little bit of luck and some good connections (you know who you are — thanks, dude!) we are thrilled to present to you the one and only Peter Dolving himself. God bless. We hope to make this a regular feature. -Ed.]
Fuck. My Lawnmower Of Death broke down.
I feel devastated. It’s an english lawnmower, ’cause the english are without question masters of grass. Now why the devastation one might ask. Awright, here’s the deal – I’ve been on tour the last five summers and this year since the Björler twins are doing their little At The Gates outing – it’s me, and my garden.
Nothing comes between us.
I have a really small house, but a huge garden folks. When me and the family, with my now ex-wife (yeah I had to get that in there…) moved in three years ago, the yard was a mess. Littered, no, covered by car tires, scrap metal, twigs, tons of twigs, branches, garbage and old construction debris. I spent weeks, months inbetween tourdates clearing the place up, dragging and burning shit night after night. It drove my exwife crazy, her being a citygirl and all. She’d tell me I was running away. I tried to explain what I saw was there, but you know… “You just don’t spend your time outside all day long, digging around in muck and come in smelling all smoke and soot, we’re your family come insiiiiiide…”).
Well, now I’m divorced, the place looks beautiful and my kids fucking love it. They love it because they’ve been and are a part of making it, creating it as it unfolds. Poetry in fucking motion. Not everyone gets that part of life. But dude, don’t fucking expect beauty to come dropping in your lap. That, little buddy – will not happen.
Participation and action are the keywords of todays ranting. It’s the simplest fucking thing in the world. If you want a glass of water. Get off your ass, get something to drink from and find a place to fill whatever the fuck you found, then; Commence drinking. If you want a tree to grow out of your fucking skull, plant seed in soil – water until seedling rises – drill hole in head – plant seedling and let heal – Presto! Get it?
As someone who does a lot of interviews in a band, I can tell you, I get to listen to several thousand completely moronic questions everytime we release a new album. Like this one “What are your plans now that the album is out?”… Here’s where I pinch my chin; “Hmmm, I think I’ll sit on my hands and pine for the fields. Oh, or wait! I might build a giant squidfilled sno-cone and call it Sven!” “No? Oh… tour!!”
Why would I want to tour? Aha! Because I want to get sloshed on free beer and cheap weed every night and get genital herpes without the hassle of having to beg, possibly pay for it?!
No.
I WANT TO TOUR BECAUSE I WANT YOU TO FUCKING SEE MY BAND BECAUSE IT KICKS ASS AND I FUCKING LOVE IT! OK?! And if someone else out there understands what I love about it, then yes, eventually enough people will have bought our album and fuck, maybe even a Tshirt and I and my brothers in the band will be able to pay our fucking rent. Oh. Did I mention that I fucking love my band?
And yes, the last couple of years we have pulled our own and that has taken a fucken tremendous amount of work. So what does all that mean?
It means we are reaping what we sowed, and you, if you are fan, are paying us for the service of providing you with more of what we hope you’ll enjoy.
And here’s a little passus I need to add for the extreme neoliberal kids, the (bile spewing froth forming around my mouth) neo-cons, or the anarcho-chique crusty-the-clowners; This is NOT a capitalist mechanism – folks this is so fucking simple. I’m a redneck I should know; You make something someone else feels they’d like a portion of. You give them some and you get something back.
Since we live in a capitalist world, we need money – that’s what our fans give us. Money, cool tshirts, weird little trinkets JoeBob and his momma glued together in the attic, dreamcatchers, weed, panties, waaaaaaay to many copies of someone’s cousins garage bands homeburnt CD. But mostly thank Lucifer, money.
It pays the fucking bills dog.
Now back to the subject; participation and action. Since I was a kid it’s always been the most obvious thing in the world. Though I spent a long part of my life staying the fuck away from participating(in ANYTHING) with what I considered morons( iow. anyone who didn’t agree with me) somewhere along the way it dawned on me; My grand dad was right! He said “Give everything time, don’t stop, don’t give up. If you’re doing what you feel you need to do…” and here’s were I have to add a little cinematic imagery; He actually swept his hand, no I’m shitting you – in front us, to show me the miles and miles of forest in the hills below that was all his.
How he lost it all is a different story, it involves goverment, need I say…
The thing is this, I’ve done exactly that. And it’s finally paying off. And I even started to grow some humility along the line, just enough to work, even with people I considered morons. And guess what. It turns out they’re NOT morons! They just think different that my bloated little ego. Boy, wish someone would have told me…
One of the things I’ve always done, since I was a teenager, was try to help in getting punkrock and metal shows off the ground where ever I happened to be living at the moment. And it always worked. We didn’t make a bundle of cash, nor get huge crowds, but we had live bands play their hearts out to no matter how few we were, and we had a fucking ball doing it. In fact, more times than one I’ve had the privilige to watch entire scenes grow out of that conviction. The conviction that I can be a part of actually making something cool happen. And fuck yes, participation and action fucking works.
So good folks… If you want change – you get the fuck off your ass and start doing shit. Do.
Peace / Pete
