Interview: Haunt the Woods
Genuinely one of the most exciting bands on the scene, we chatted with Haunt the Woods, exploring their songwriting, diverse sound and the almost spiritual undertone to their new album, Ubiquity.
I first came across Haunt the Woods earlier this year before the 2000trees festival. By that point, I’d only dipped a mere pinky toe into their music, but had an inkling there was something interesting here. While we unfortunately missed their set at Trees, it gave me time to more closely delve into their 2020 album Opaque, and entire 7-year discography.
By this point, the Cornwall quartet - comprised of Jonathan Stafford (vocals, rhythm guitar), Phoenix Elleschild (lead guitar) Oliver Bignell (drums) and Jack Hale (bass) - had already released two singles and acoustic track of what would become their sophomore album. But it was one random day, Sonos on shuffle in the kitchen, when I finally heard “Elephant” and I mean really heard it, that everything shifted.
This. This is it. This is special.
Now releasing their latest album Ubiquity, we had the opportunity to chat with 3 of 4 “Woodsies” (as we call them) on album release day last week, before a special release show at Carnglaze Caverns. Chatting with Jon, Phoenix and Olly we explore their songwriting approaches, diverse sound and the almost spiritual undertow present in the questioning lyricism.
Haunt the Woods! Thanks so much for taking time with us on your release day! The albums out, you’ve got a special release show tonight at Carnglaze Caverns - it’s a big day, how is it all?
Oliver: Yeah, it's been good. We've just finished sound check in the cave, just over there. Sounded great, very pumped for tonight.
You've got such an expansive sound, I imagine the cave must amplify that so well?
Phoenix: Oh yeah. It’s the third or fourth time we've been here and it always surprises us just how magical the sound is. It’s always really suited us.
Jonathan: I think it’s our favourite venue probably.
Oliver: Yeah, 100%.
The new album is out today but we’ve had a sneaky preview. The sound that you have is….something else. Something magical. And in this album, you’ve got a mix of anthemic songs and other more ethereal pieces. Can you tell us about the diversity of sound, but also how you keep it cohesive?
Jonathan: I definitely think we all bring different perspectives, and that's what defines the sound. But from my perspective, I never really want to make a song based on any other song we've done before. Our music is all about the emotion, and the emotion that's triggered the song. So really, in my head at least, anything we've done before doesn't influence anything we're going to do next. That's why we have songs like “Now Is Our Time” that’s more metal influenced, and songs like “Ubiquity” which, I wouldn't know how to define, but is very minimalist and it's all about the beauty of that song.
Phoenix: I think there's a lot of common ground between what we all love in music, but we all come from different genre backgrounds. If the four of us wrote four albums, you'd get four very different genres out of it. When we come together, we pull each other in such wildly different directions that Haunt the Woods itself becomes the common ground. I think that's why there's a ‘Haunt the Woods sound’ across the album or across all of our songs, but there’s still quite a variety of approaches.
What can you tell us about your songwriting process?
Jonathan: I'd say there are lots of different ones. Historically, I’d bring an idea for a song or a song that’s formed at varying levels - hardly formed, very formed, a bit formed. And then we'll flesh it out, change it, and make it into a Haunt the Woods song together. And that’s still partially the case, but this album was far more collaborative. There were a lot more occasions where, maybe I wasn't even involved in the music and only wrote the lyrics, or where my ideas were far less formed and we’d flesh them out together. But I'd say it was a very collaborative, very spontaneous creative process as well.
Phoenix: I think, more so than our previous records, there was a lot of stuff that wasn't written until we actually got into the studio and started doing pre-production. We were quite lucky over COVID that we could be isolated and then come together in the studio for a while. I would say, maybe 40-50% of the album wasn’t written until we got into the studio.
Jonathan: I’d say that’s about right. There were songs, like “Now Is Our Time”, where a lot changed and was added. I think my part was fairly formed then Olly and I rhythmically worked on it together. And then once we were able to see Jack and Phoenix and get in the studio, it transformed quite a lot. Especially the end of that song.
“Fever Dream” was another song where a lot was formed but it was a bit bizarre and sporadic and needed sorting out. But then there's songs like “The Line, Pt. II” which was written while we were at the studio making the record.
Oliver: Yeah 100% of that song was written in the studio.
Jonathan: Yeah, all of it from start to finish. And “Numb” is another one where I suppose we revisited an old idea and wedged it onto a new guitar line.
Oliver: “Play a chorus!”
Jonathan: Ha yeah, that was funny.
What was that “play a chorus” comment?
Jonathan: So I don't get stoned because it makes me feel dreadful. But I, for some reason thought, maybe it won’t feel so dreadful. So I got stoned, and then I really wasn't okay.
Oliver: We'd jammed through part of that track and it came to where there should be a chorus. But we didn’t know what to do. And I was just, I looked at Jon who was really struggling and shouted “playing a chorus” at him a few times.
Jonathan: Bullied some music out of me.
Oliver: And it just came out and then that ended up being the chorus.
Jonathan: This weird punk rock thing came out of me. It's a funny memory.
Lyrically, the album deals with some fairly existential questions. Without being ageist, you are relatively young and asking quite big questions. Where does that come from?
Jonathan: I write the lyrics, and I'm really grateful for the guys giving me the space to do that. Really am. I'm so glad to get to sing what I believe in. I guess I don't really know where it comes from. I think the subjects on the album talk about emotions that…they’re not exclusive to me in any way, I think everyone's probably felt before. Everyone has, including me, lots of pain in their life at different moments, and a lot of joy too. The first can be really crushing and hard and feel pretty hopeless. And the other can be just the best thing, the best feeling. That spectrum of emotion is covered in the whole album. And that's where it comes from really. None of us really know why the hell we're here.
Phoenix: Jon's still in his late 20s and probably had his midlife crisis like, six years ago.
Jonathan: I’ve had at least three midlife crises. I've had my quarter life crisis, midlife crisis, and jumped ahead to my OAP retirement crisis. All before I was 27, I think.
I’ve been grappling with how to ask about this, but there's a spiritual undertone to the lyrics, this kind of searching of ‘greater-ness’. Do you feel like there's something spiritual in it? Is there a higher being or power you’re searching for in the lyrics?
Jonathan: Definitely. It's really nice that you picked up on that actually. I don't talk about my lyrics very much so it's nice to be asked and for you to notice that. But definitely, I think underpinning everything is a spiritual question. Not any answers or any claim to have any answers, but just a longing.
I think everyone has a space - well I don’t know because I’m not anyone else but me. But from the people I know and the people I love and am close to, everyone has a bit of a well inside them that often feels quite empty. I feel like that's where the longing comes from. I'd love to think there's something beautiful beyond this world. And even if there's not, the world's beautiful enough anyway. I don't know what the spiritual underpinning is, but maybe we'll get closer to understanding it on our next record.
I’ve listened to this album a lot already but started hearing it a bit differently just the other day. It’s really interesting that you’ve placed your third single, “Now Is Our Time” as the seventh track. It’s pretty rare to see a single that deep into an album listing. I’ve got multiple questions here but to start, “Now Is Our Time”, who are you talking to
Jonathan: There's people I could think of that I know I'd be talking to. But broadly speaking, in a way it's myself, in a way it's everyone really. During COVID, at the time it wasn’t a very popular thing to say, but it just felt like bullshit to be honest. It felt authoritarian and it felt like being controlled, being lied to and liberties being stripped away. And I think it's just a song about that. It’s an honest look at ‘this is how I feel, does anyone else see this?’ It's talking to someone separate from myself who maybe is just going along with it all, not questioning anything and just believing what is said on the television.
I bring up that it's the seventh track, because I have a suspicion that you as a group are quite purposeful about your choices. Do you think that’s accurate?
Phoenix: Sometimes. I think sometimes we are, and in other ways, we may be less concerned with certain things. I don't know if that's fair to say? I feel like we do what we feel is right. We really love “Now Is Our Time” and wanted it to have its moment. I don't think we said at any point if track seven was a good thing or not.
Jonathan: I think the purposefulness with “Now Is Our Time” came from having “Ubiquity” directly following it. We wanted the loudest track and the quietest track together. I remember, there was a debate in the studio about whether it was a good idea to go from the loudest moment to basically the quietest moment. I think we all concluded it was a total buzz for us.
It’s really nice that transition. And got me questioning if you’d purposefully structured the album as two parts, two movements even, or tried to tell the story in two parts? After “Now Is Our Time”, you switch into a much more sombre vibe for the remainder of the album.
Oliver: Our initial thought on it was gonna be four parts to one record. That kind of ended up not quite happening the way we planned.
Jonathan: When we left the studio, that was the plan. We did make it as side one, all of these songs are one cohesive piece - “Fever Dream”, “Gold” and “Save Me” we play live without any pauses as a whole piece. And then the next part, they're all cohesive bodies of work within themselves. That was the idea. And they're split into four.
In my mind, I wanted to build towards “Said And Done”. For me, that whole second side of the record is about building towards “Said And Done”.
That’s my favourite song. They're all great on their own, they're really exceptional. That one is just a bit different.
Phoenix: I think it's been more raw. There's a lot of raw songs on that album but that one from every element just seemed really authentic to us.
Jonathan: There's no harmonies. The texture is not too thick. It's a lot of space.
Phoenix: We've kind of gone back to the acoustic meets electric thing as well. That was a big part of earlier records, like The Line. Jon on acoustic and everyone else bringing slightly more electric and intense angles. For me, it's a very “Haunt the Woods” track, which sounds weird to say.
Jonathan: It's like the cornerstone that sound, of what we did in our early stuff. But a huge development on it. I feel like “Said And Done” for me is so honest. It's so real. And it's so raw. It's the perfect way to end that record. And maybe a hat tilt to what might be coming next? I don't know. We're still in the process, we're very much thinking about it. I know we literally released an album today, but it’s been awhile since we made it. Always excited for the future too.
That song in particular, but also throughout the record, you've added orchestration. Is that something you went in knowing you wanted to do? Did you hear the songs that way before going into the studio?
Jonathan: It depends on the song really. “Ubiquity” and “Overflow”, I had fully formed demos of both those tunes and we transposed the guitar part I was playing across to a cello. But then other songs, like “Now Is Our Time”, Phoenix arranged the strings with Jack. “Equilibrium” I arranged the strings because that was like my baby that song. And then Simon Dobson comes in and does stuff on songs that we could never even imagine, like “The Line, Pt.II”, “Numb” and others.
Phoenix: We had the best time when we were making The Line years ago, working with Parallax Orchestra. The way they brought life to music, we were just so excited by and we worked with them really well. So it was something we always wanted to do again and we talked about it before recording this album that we wanted them to be involved.
Jonathan: Yeah, like Phoenix said, we went into the studio thinking we had the budget and we thought we could do it. It was a bit of a patchwork of Simon contributing arrangements, Phoenix arranging, me arranging, me kind of singing stuff to Maddie, like the cello solo linking “Save Me” and “Equilibrium”. Maddie Cutter, who played the cello on the record and who we’ve collaborated with before, she's so humble. She's this incredible, world class cello player and she lets me, who has no idea about the cello, sing things to her that she’ll then play. And all of them, they’re so humble the people we get to work with. And Will’s a genius, Will Harvey. He used to be in the band Dry the River, and we all love Dry the River. Now he's playing on our records and it's a real privilege to have that.
That’s beautiful and it all works so well together. Jon mentioned that his favourite song on the record is “Said And Done”? What are everyone else’s favourites?
Phoenix: I think, probably “Save Me”. I really love that song a lot. It's one that resonates really strongly with me. If not that, maybe “Gold”? I think “Gold” is a really beautiful piece of music. It's probably one of the things I'm most proud of as well.
Oliver: It always changes for me. I listen back to the songs that I haven't listened to for a while. And then I'll hear it and think, actually this is my fav. But I think “Ubiquity” is probably my favourite. And parly that’s because of the memory of playing that all live to tape. We had three takes and had to pick the best. It was so much fun.
Jonathan: That was beautiful actually.
Oliver: Yeah it was a great moment.
Jonathan: I’m with you there. If Phoenix gets two then I'm having “Ubiquity” as well. There were a few moments like that. “Overflow” was mostly recorded live to tape with all the musicians in the room. “Save Me” was live, one night I was just with our engineer in a room and I just played it. The whole first half of the song, my take is live with the guitar and vocals recorded at the same time, then the second half of the song is a one take. A lot of moments like that.
That’s really interesting. I’ll have to listen again and see if I hear it differently. A couple rapid questions to close - we asked on Instagram if your fans had any questions. Some we’ve answered but someone asks, what's the secret behind the name Haunt the Woods?
Oliver: Not sadly, there's not really much of a secret.
Phoenix: In my mind, the reason that works is - I think about our formative years and when I met Jon, he brought a folk angle with a lot of harmonies and I was really into metal. When we met in the middle, there was this light and shade thing that we really loved. Bringing that kind of more depressing side and then having that optimism and the hopefulness. I think Haunt the Woods itself as a name kind of described both the light and shade and the slightly more ethereal stuff. It just seemed to kind of work. Being from Cornwall as well and a love of nature.
Jonathan: Yeah, I know what you mean by that. And a love of nature, I mean, it's hard to live in this part of the world and not love nature.
What have I not asked you that I should have asked you?
Jonathan: Do we want a million pounds? Yes, please. If you have it.
I sure don’t.
Oliver: Do we want a new lead singer? Yes, please. If you have it.
I could do it.
Oliver: Perfect.
Phoenix: Something that feels worth pointing out about this record is the fact that it was made before we gigged it much. I don't know if you guys think that's relevant. But to me, a lot of the older stuff was gigged quite a bit before it was recorded. I don't really know why that's the question to ask, I just feel like it’s something about this record thats different.
I have wondered, I haven’t had the privilege to see you play live, but how are you executing bringing all of this atmosphere and orchestration into the live show?
Phoenix: For a little while we did kind of struggle taking it to our live shows. It's the first time we've ever experimented with using backing tracks. It’s something we were really hesitant to do for a long time, for reasons that now looking back maybe seem a bit ridiculous, for lack of a better word.
Jonathan: Yeah, idealist.
Phoenix: We’re trying to be very authentic. And we've always been a very live, live band. This was a very weird step for us to move onto click tracks and the rest of it.
Jonathan: I think particularly I have this romanticised, idealist view of what live music should be. And I just had to let go a bit of my inhibitions around it. We all did to some extent. I certainly was very against wanting to experiment with tracks, but I'm so glad we did.
Phoenix: It's been pretty magic working the strings into the live show.
Jonathan: The ambition is to play with an orchestra though one day. That'd be great.
Phoenix: We'd love to go full circle and bring musicians in.
That'd be amazing. My last question for you is, if you could listen to any song again for the first time, what would it be?
Phoenix: For me, I think it'd be “Save Me.”
Oliver: Do you mean on the record or in the world?
Either or both?
Jonathan: “Here Comes The River” by Patrick Watson. It made me absolutely just…I was having a great day and I listened to it and it just made me cry my eyes out for 20 minutes and listen to it seven more times. And it wasn't that long ago so it's probably furthest forward in my memory of the many songs that have done that. It’s beautiful.
Oliver: “Under The Pressure” by The War On Drugs, that would be mine. When I heard that song, it was super good time in my life. It was very sunny. The nostalgia of that moment is what keeps that song fresh in my head a lot of the time. It’d be good to relive that.
That’s beautiful. Thank you guys so much for your time, especially today. Have a great release day and a great show tonight, and we will see you again.
Ubiquity, the second album from Haunt the Woods, is out now via Spinefarm. Stay tuned for our review and fingers crossed we get some tour news soon!
