Haken- Interview met Richard Henshall (guitars, keyboards)
Richard Henshall: “Shed your skin, look at the future and see how you can adapt. This EP in this period, it felt like the natural thing to do. Honest and focused on emotion.”
Sinds 2007 heeft Haken zich opgewerkt tot één van de hoekstenen van Engelse progressieve rock met een licht metalen randje. We treffen de band ditmaal nadat er ingrijpende veranderingen plaats gevonden hebben. Om deze periode helderheid te geven, brengen ze nu een verkennende EP ‘In A Fever Dream’ uit (let op: fysieke jacht is pas open in september, nu enkel digitaal). We waren er als de kippen bij om gitarist Richard Henshall een aantal vragen te stellen over hoe de vork aan de steel zit.
Vera Matthijssens Ι 29 juli 2026
Today we are talking about the departure of two important members, guitarist Charles Griffits and bassist Conner Green. This was probably not an overnight decision, so how did you come to that conclusion?
It was certainly not an easy one, it was a quite tricky one, because Charlie and Conner were integral members of the band for a long time. It is just one of these things happening in life: transitions, changes and sometimes we arrived at a point where we not necessary align concerning musical vision and direction. So we felt that the best way to do was part ways and focus on different things. So half of the process for us was to adapt at this new way of working and let the band evolve, move forward and we wish Charlie and Connor the best of luck, moving forward with their music. I guess these things cannot be avoided sometimes.
It is remarkable that they are both active in Tiktaalika…
Yes, it is great music, and the two albums they have made are incredible! Still I wish them the best of luck. We have been in a band for fifteen years, so we made some great music together and we will always remember that.
Now the live album ‘Lifeforms’ (2025) can be seen in a different light, as a kind of celebration of a goodbye so to speak…
Yeah, it wasn’t meant to be like that, but you can look at it like that. It felt like a combination of everything we had done to that point. We released an album called ‘Fauna’, which was arguably our most eclectic work and that must be seen as a record that included all our elements throughout the years. We played the album in its entirety and then for the second set, we played our favourite tracks from our back catalogue. So it was a celebration of our career at that point, I guess you can look at it in that way on it.
Then of course you had to fill the shoes of those guys… what is going on at that front?
Yeah, sometimes in these tricky situations, you have to adapt and figure out new ways of working that is best for the band, overall the situation that you are in, and it really helps to bring us together as a unit. We came together and worked in what we call ‘close environment’, working on these new songs. It is really giving the music a kind of emotional edge that we might not necessarily had on previous stuff, or at least we wouldn’t have focused on this emotion. So we decided to be cool and honest, and focused on this one sound and let us see where it takes us… so that is what we have done and we worked closer together in a room, throwing ideas at each other, which is not entirely new to us, but it gives the music a live edge. The songs sound like the live version. In terms of bass, we have got guests on this EP. We got Nolly, Adam Getgood, he has been the bassist in Periphery and we also got Bryan Beller who used to work with Joe Satriani and The Aristocrats. Both are incredible guys, incredible players and became friends of us through the years. With them we did this EP. We are moving forward, but not in a rush to fill their shoes. That takes time. We have to find some new foundation before we do the next step. We will take little steps, not just jump into this new way of working.
For the live gigs I think you have another bass player, a girl called Tiggy, isn’t it?
Well, we played two shows on Cruise on the Edge and we got a friend of ours, Tiggy to step in. It was only for that cruise. She really nailed it. We did two sets and she learned the songs in such a short period of time. She has a great presence on stage as well. We are moving forward, but still we haven’t fully established who we are going to work with, we are talking with some candidates. It is not long now, so hopefully we can decide pretty soon.
I think it also changed something in the recording process, isn’t it?
Yes, as I said, we changed the writing a bit and got together, we jam through stuff. We also changed the way we recorded, so we used our studio and got together working on the arrangements at that part of the process. In that way the songs started to grow; where previously you had these demos and they were pretty locked down, very concrete and there was actually not so much room for these songs to grow. We wanted to strap ideas in different directions. We also worked with a producer for the first time, a guy called George Lever. He has become famous for working with bands like Loathe and Sleep Token. It was cool to have an outside perspective to see if he could help realize the ideas that we had in a different way. Of course we are all pretty familiar with writing and producing our music, and we could do that again, but we wanted to explore a different way of working, developing the music in a different direction.
That is really turning a sad thing into something that grows and develops…
Exactly, it seems like a good time to establish the new foundations, having a solid starting point, a new chapter, a new era for us. So it felt like a good time to experiment, not only with the way we write, but with the way we record, with the way we brand the band, the way we talk. We want to try new things. We all want the band to continue, so we want to do whatever we can to make that happen in the most realistic way.
That will be with only you as guitarist in the band I guess, because there are no signs for replacing Griffiths…
With the same mindset and mentality as I just said of us four piece, we just want to lay the foundation. Because we have been working together for so long. I went to primary school with Ross. Pete and Ray were already jamming together about twenty years ago, before our demos. So the four of us; they are working together for so long. So let us just go back to the roots and establish the foundation again. It is not only a matter of fitting musically, it has to work on so many levels. Like the emotional connection with each other, you need to get along socially, all these things we are taking into count and it is just too much to do at one point, so we thought: ‘let us just carry on and see how this music will work’ and I think it was a fine process, because Pete and I worked closely together to make sure that the keyboards ad guitars fit. It breathes a lot of air and space into the arrangements, which I personally really enjoy. It reflects the music that we have been listening to in the last few years. So I think musically it is maybe a slight departure from some of our previous work, but that is natural, because we are in a transition, we are different, we are not the same people that we were sixteen years ago. We have to be sure that it really makes sense to us now, emotionally and musically, but it has been a fun process.
Do you have concrete impressions of what is different: more emotions, that is obvious, maybe more electronics, or more guitars?
I think the one thing that would be consistent is the idea of experimentation. We like to develop us in terms of the way we record, the way we write and how we incorporate our influences. As for the future, nothing is written in stone. We will see how it goes, things change constantly. We change as people, so our musical taste will change, our emotions will change, our experiences will grow and develop with time. For this EP in this period, it felt like the natural thing to do. Honest and focused on emotion. Rather than highlighting a particular instrument, we loved the idea of just being a unifying sound, so this is Haken. Instead of ‘this is Richard’ or ‘this is Pete’s moment’. This is the sound when we come together, we create the sound, that is what we are aiming for and driven by this emotional narrative that goes through it. We have done stuff like that in the past, one or two tracks on an album, ‘Deathless’ on the CD ‘Visions’ for example. It has that consistent emotion that runs through it and that resonates with people the most, because they have that emotional connection with it, with the lyrical connection that people can relate to. So we could do a whole record with that and see, who knows, we don’t know where the next record will take us…
One of the surprises is the harsh vocals, quite necessary when writing music full of emotions…
Yeah that is something we very briefly experimented with way back on ‘Aquarius’. We had a song called ‘Streams’ and that was a really gloom and doom moment. We were really like ‘oh this session needs a… almost like Mikael Akerfeldt growl. We did it back then and roughly experimented with it live. So we thought, with this EP which is driven by emotions, that section was very intense, so we thought it would elevate the track when having some harsh vocals in there to really push that emotion. The way I see a voice is like an instrument then, a melody which is very heavily distorted, like a texture in the music and that is the way bands like Opeth and Meshuggah do it and that is the way it works for me. We try to build it up in our music as well. Melody is always going to be on the foreground in our music.
In the opening title track it works very well…
Yeah it is another contentious point for me, losing fans. Not everyone is going to be into that, but then the same thing applies to anything you do, don’t necessary want to be guided by all. Whether you are going to like it or not, we are going to do it, because it feels like the right thing and choice. That’s the way we adopted the growls and also we are taken that mindset on all the stuff we have done.
I still remember Haken’s set at ProgPower EU…
Oh in Baarlo… I love that place! It is really cool and where everyone sleeps is awesome. I have a lot of great memories on it. I think we played two shows there over the years. In fact this was the first time we played outside the UK. We drove up in a small van and it was a great time for us.
And you are coming back to the Netherlands next year…
Yes! We will play at Midwinter Prog Festival
I discovered yesterday!
(chuckles) yeah a lot of people complained ‘no Netherlands, what’s going on?’ But we were sitting on this news… now it is going public…It is in Utrecht in a nice venue we played before I think. A lovely classical room, really cool. Can’t wait to get back. In the Netherlands we have the most dedicated fans and we have been building a fan base for years, playing in De Boerderij in Zoetermeer as well. We played so many shows there. 013 in Tilburg, also I place I am familiar with.
What about the video clips? I think you have them for almost every song… is there also a new approach?
Yeah indeed. We worked with a friend of ours called Oliver Kember and he was working very closely with us to fit in the videos, within that world we created, which is dark and reds and whites and black. So we decided to base the videos around these kinds of things. We did a whole day of filming and then we did a bunch of those visualizers there as well. It all came from that same session. We are very happy with that guy and there will be some more stuff in the near future.
I guess now you are already preparing the September gigs, because there are lots of them in a row…
Yeah exactly. We did like three months of preparation when we just played over and over the songs, till it gets to a point where we have it in our fingers and do not have to think about it. We just perform. The new songs in particular will be a lot of fun to play, we made them together jamming, so they work very well in that context, but we will be bringing in some old favourites to the set as well, so it is going to be a lot of fun.
So this really captures a moment in your development…
Yeah. I think so. I think it is important to acknowledge that and I think the most obvious artwork or albums or music or whatever it is, is that what is reflecting who you are, what you are doing at that point. We did not want to shy away from that and avoid the elephant in the room so to speak, this is what we are feeling, this is an album that encapsulates that moment in time. That was the mindset really.
Is there another song you want to tell something about?
Yeah for me, I love the occluding song ‘Lotus’. This is initially a part of the first song. So ‘In A Fever Dream’ and ‘Lotus’ were initially a project. It is quite long – around fifteen minutes – but when we listened back, it felt like two separate songs. There are some similarities, themes, temper, similar feel, mood generally, but they felt like two separate songs. And also, having a song that long did not make any sense with the other songs. It was better to cut the song in half and put the other songs in within those two and we ended ‘Lotus’ with the same opening theme from ‘Fever Dream’, and lyrically that one is based around overcoming a struggle and coming out at the other end. It is a positive spin on some things, shed your skin, look at the future and see how you can adapt. It is based around the lotus flower, because the lotus flower flourishes even in murky water. Somehow it blossoms and blooms through this murky waters. This was a nice analogy with where we are as a band.
In the lyrics is sung ‘a new day rises from the ashes’…
Yeah it is nice imagery and if I close my eyes, I like to see the song, see the emotions. Across the EP we have a lot of lines with a cinematic feel to them.
Are there already live plans after that EU tour in September/October?
Oh yeah, we have got some other things in the works which will be announced very soon. We would also love going to America and we did not announce any UK dates for this tour, while we are a UK band, so we are in the works of making that happen at the moment. So we will be announcing stuff very soon.
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