The Haunted's frontman Marco Aro was the guest on Full Metal Jackie's weekend radio show. The vocalist opened up about his long-awaited return to the band, the group's new 'Exit Wounds' disc and more. Check out the chat below.

We've got Marco Aro from The Haunted on the show with us. How are you?

I'm great, how are you?

I'm great. Thanks so much for being on the show. You took time to really think about rejoining The Haunted.

[laughs] I did! About ten years.

What made it a difficult decision that required so much thought?

First and foremost when I quit the band in '03 I was pretty much done with it. I reached every point I wanted to reach and also I had some personal issues that I needed to attend to and so all these problems are now sorted out. So I'm back, back where I started.

What did you miss most about not working with Patrik [Jensen] and Jonas [Bjorler] for ten years?

The fun we had, definitely the fun we had. Because that was something that we never had like had a lack of, was fun. Having fun, because this band, what you have to understand is back then we were five people having the time of our lives. I'm sure that they just went on for ten years they were doing the same thing because that's the vibe we're back in now, in 2014. We're just having the time of our lives.

Talking about the new record from The Haunted called 'Exit Wounds.' Did writing music after so much time come easily or was there any period of re-adjustment?

The only readjustment was because I've been writing music for other bands I was in. I was in Face Down and The Resistance. which is a completely different mindset of writing stuff, so of course it was a bit of an adjustment. But I pretty much remembered how it works. So I got it pretty quick.

Marco, what song was written first for this record and how did it affect the direction of the rest of the album?

The first song that was written like in full -- because we were still thinking about what direction should we take and where should we go, should we continue or what should we do? Do we take it to a new direction? And then Ola [Englund], because he he's the only guy in the band without a history in a band, so he he wrote one song in a straight up fan perspective which was 'Kill the Light.' And that's when we all like ... this is this is definitely the route we're taking. Because once you have a guy writing a song out of a real fan perspective, that's when we decide, 'Okay, this is something we're doing.'

What led to Chuck Billy being a guest vocalist on this album? Was the song 'Trend Killer' written specifically with Chuck in mind?

It was actually written specifically with Chuck in mind because because [Patrik] Jensen asked me, 'How would you like to?' because we hadn't decided on doing that song yet and then he asked me, 'What would you feel like doing the song as a duet with Chuck Billy?' And I was like, 'Yeah, let's do it because Chuck Billy's a good friend of ours and Testament's a good friend of ours since we did a tour with them back in '99 and we kept in touch every since. Once Jensen wrote that song 'Trend Killer,' I wasn't to sure at first, because its not a traditional Haunted song in that sense.

But I put my vocals down on it and I got the song sent back to me with just my vocals on it and I was driving in my car when I was listening to it. I just had to pull over and there is this just insane just crazy [part] and then to send it up to Chuck so he can write his vocals down. Once that version came back I actually stopped the car I was sitting in the car again I had pull over and I just started laughing just started laughing because this song is just insane. So now that was a big dream come true because Chuck is one of the reasons why I started yelling in the first place. I've been a huge fan of Testament for ever, since I started listening to metal, getting to do a duet with him was just a dream come true. So that was a really cool thing. That was actually Jensen's idea. And it just blew me away. That was really cool.

Any plans for U.S. touring this year?

Not in the sense of extensive touring, but we're definitely thinking about coming over and doing some shows because the whole idea of The Haunted nowadays, it's because our lives don't depend on it anymore because we all have jobs and everything. We're just doing it for fun so we're like hitting the territories and we're hitting major cities. Non-stop touring doesn't make any sense any more. Because we're just picking the raisins out of the cake, so we'll definitely be coming over to the U.S., but we're not doing any extensive touring. We're just going to hit major cities.

Unless we get a tour that actually makes sense. Because us going out on a headlining tour and playing for 150-200 a night for five weeks when you can do one festival and we hit 5000 people in one night, it makes more sense than doing extensive touring. So that's what we're doing now.

Thanks so much for being on the show, Marco!

Thank you!

Many thanks to The Haunted's Marco Aro for the interview. The band's 'Exit Wounds' disc arrives Sept. 2 and can be ordered at both Amazon and iTunes. The group will return to the road later this month in Europe. Dates can be found here. Full Metal Jackie can be heard on radio stations around the country — for a full list of stations, go to fullmetaljackieradio.com.

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