Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last two years, you know by now that The Halo Effect, is the band formed by Dark Tranquility vocalist Mikael Stanne alongside former In Flames members Jesper Strömblad, Peter Iwers, Daniel Svensson, and Niclas Engelin.
We recently learned the band had completed the creative process for their second record and were in the mixing stages. Moreover, the band played this past week at ProgPower USA and clearly brought greatness in spades. However, Strömblad – who has been battling alcohol addiction for more than a decade – has been absent from several band's live shows, with The Haunted's Patrik Jensen filling in for him.
Frontman Mikael Stanne was asked in an interview with the Scars And Guitars podcast if Strömblad will be part of the group's lineup when he and his bandmates tour Australia in November, but it seems the chances of that are very slim.
"I don't think so. No. For Jesper, traveling is a big issue for him. So he won't be going with us to Australia. I don't think so. I would love to, and it would be awesome. And let's see. And I know he wants to, but he also knows that if you have addiction problems like he has, being on a 25-hour flight and stuff like that, it's just not the best environment for him. But we'll see. But I really hope so. It would be fantastic." Stanne explained.
When podcast host Andrew McKaySmith asked Stanne if Strömblad was still an active member in the songwriting process for the band, he said: "Oh yeah, absolutely. And that's what I love. He brings so much to it. And it's amazing to see. Going to the studio when we started kind of recording for the next album, Jesper's instinct is so kind of finely tuned and so kind of instinctual that we can sit and work on something that we've been working on for hours and hours and then Jesper goes in and says, 'Let me take a stab at this,' and it's solved."
"He just has this way of finding just the perfect kind of melody or the perfect rhythm or perfect riff to kind of like solve any issues we might have with a song." Stanne enthused. "And it's amazing to see. So he contributed a lot to the new songs that we've been writing. And it's great to see."
