What Haunts You

What Haunts You is a post-hardcore band that is made up of Trevor Clark, Jon Hashem, Trent Baxter, Jacob Strong, and Jacob Penland. The band is given lots of time for self-reflection to inspire their music in the rainy PNW. Their music focuses on themes of self-awareness, letting go, and contentment. 

Clark's love of music was built up over time by his dad who constantly showed him new music and eventually bought him his first instrument. His singing career however is thanks to Avril Lavigne; after all, wanting to imitate a musician you look up to is how most people get their start. That is also the case for Penland; he began playing guitar in fifth grade. Once he began to get a hang of it he was constantly looking for new bands, he found Blink-182 and My Chemical Romance and he got the itch to start learning new songs all the time. Being able to understand other people's music is what makes a musician great. To this day he finds the most inspiration in wanting to create something that makes him feel the way that songs by his idols make him feel. What Haunts You is driven by that chase of making you feel something in the pit of your stomach. A high that is not easily caught, but extremely rewarding when you get it. Clark notes that the goal is to make something just as soft, pretty, powerful, meaningful, or as hard as the things he likes listening to. 

What Haunts You is in the home stretch of an EP. It is recorded and in the process of being mixed and has a general release in Fall 2022. The EP will have six songs, all of which follow the theme that most music released in the past year has carried: the emotional toll of a pandemic and the aftermath of how that has changed their outlook on life. It has been hard to write about anything else as that has been at the forefront of nearly everyone's attention. As for the sound, it has evolved as it does with each new release. The same general sound, but is guided by what the band is listening to at any given time. It will be just as hard, just as emotional, and still in the ballpark of what previous albums have sounded like.