Sibling rock duo The Haunt, made up of Anastasia Grace Haunt and Maxamillion Haunt, sat down with Music Manager Alicia Kobasic during their November 7, 2025 stop of their New Addiction headline tour at A&R Music Bar in Columbus, Ohio. The duo talked finally releasing their debut album, designing their setlist, pre show rituals and more.

Alicia Kobasic: How’s the tour going so far?

Anastasia Grace Haunt: It’s been amazing. It’s our first headline tour ever, so we’re super excited.

Maxamillion Haunt: It’s been insanity. I don’t think we expected the scope of it. We left originally for the European leg of it, which was first in June right around when the album dropped and it was just absolute insanity. This whole year of headliners and stuff has just been really really crazy for us. We’ve been supporting bands for a long time so coming out and doing our first headline tour has been kind of a dream come true for us.

AK: Has there been any super memorable moments or shows so far in the tour that stand out in your mind?

AGH: We just played our hometown and I think that had an amazing energy.

MH: It was Halloween.

AGH: It was Halloween and it was sold out, so that felt great to go home and do that.

MH: Absolute chaos.

AGH: It was insane, we thought.

AK: Your album New Addiction came out this summer. It’s your first album – how does it feel to finally have an album out?

MH: Feels good! You know, we’ve kind of always been putting out music since like 2017 so, for us, it doesn’t feel all that different. But it is really cool to have a record that’s one full body of work that we’ve spent a while working on and not just a couple of EPs.

AGH: It feels pretty good. I’ve been wanting this for a long time, to have one big body of work and I think we need an even bigger one so that’s on the horizon for us.

AK: Going into make the album, was your process or mindset different from going in to just make singles or EPs? How was that different for you?

AGH: Completely different. We went in kind of like knowing we wanted a full body of work and that’s how I wrote the music videos, according to that, and they all tell the same story which I think that music does as well.

AK: How has the fan’s reaction been to the album? Are they loving it? Are there any standout favorites so far?

MH: It’s interesting because different songs have resonated with different audiences. On streaming, “Masochistic Lovers” with Escape the Fate, “New Addiction” and “Bad Omen” have taken off. And then, in person, those songs do really well when we play them live. But, in person, some songs that were kind of sleepers on the record, I feel like “Dead to Me” and “Claws”, have been really big standouts in the live show. So, it’s kind of been all over the place. It’s fun to play the live show ’cause we play the whole album front to back and play a song we didn’t know people would really love as much as some of the more popular ones and see people in the audience start getting excited about that.

AK: You mentioned working with Escape the Fate. What was it like working with them for “Masochistic Lovers”?

MH: It was really cool! We had originally written the song and then we sent it over to Craig [Mabbitt], and initially it was Ana’s vocal on the second verse of that song and then Kevin Thrasher was the producer on the song. So, he’s obviously good friends with Craig and we sent it over to him and he loved it, and he recorded the vocals. We actually didn’t meet him in person until we went to record the music video. He recorded [his vocals] at a studio in Phoenix, so we flew out to Phoenix and we recorded the music video. It was the Lionsgate and we took time to meditate together and I think that was really important to the success of the song that came later. It charted Top 40 on Rock Radio, which was our first time ever doing that, so it was really cool for us.

AK: You also worked with Mod Sun. How did that come about?

AGH: Honestly, same sort of thing. We played a show with him back in February [2025] and we had the song fully complete. It was me singing the second verse and we had met him. I think we kind of just sent it out for the fuck of it to see if he would be down, and he was. He has such a high intense amazing energy and I think he really made the song.

AK: Is there anyone else on your dream collab list for future releases?

AGH: Yeah.

MH: Oh, for sure.

AGH: Oli Sykes

MH: Yeah, Bring Me the Horizon for sure. That’s our number one, for sure.

AGH: We had a lot but he’s definitely number one.

AK: Is there any artist that you pull inspiration from when you are writing or producing or anything when you’re working on music?

AGH: We have lots of influences from how we grew up. Definitely like White Stripes and Royal Blood.

MH: I feel like a lot of nineties hip hop influence.

AGH: Vocally I’m always inspired by Amy Winehouse and blues/jazz singers.

AK: You’ve been putting out music since 2017 and I’ve been following you guys since 2018. Are there any old songs that you keep coming back to that the fans are just like, ‘you have to keep playing this, we love it so much’.

AGH: Yeah, we actually just added it for this tour. We never play “Cigarettes and Feelings”. We’ve never played it on any tour ever and we decided to play it on this tour because people were honestly begging for it, so we couldn’t resist anymore.

AK: I remember [inaudible] walking around my college campus listening to that song and that’s actually when [Skylar Bridgeforth and I] became friends.

AGH: So cool!

MH: That’s crazy!

AK: It came on when we were in the car and [I was] like, “You know The Haunt?” I never thought anyone else would know them!

AGH: It’s the kind of thing where we wrote it when I was like fifteen, so it doesn’t really resonate with what we’re making right now, but we still love it.

MH: It doesn’t really feel like us anymore, but it is still something that like – once you release a song like that, it’s kind of like the fans’ now and they really want us to play it. We created a version of it that we feel suits our harder rock sound now. It’s fun and kind of different, so it works out.

AK: You mentioned playing the whole album for this tour. When picking out other songs to put on the set, are you trying to create a vibe or just kind of picking your favorites? How are you designing the set?

AGH: When we started the tour in June, we were playing most of the album and for this leg of the run we decided to just do the whole thing.

MH: I was going to say, I mean, it’s kind of vibe-based. There’s certain songs like “Cigarettes and Feelings” felt like, ‘okay, this is our first headline tour we have to play this song’. You know what I mean, based on popularity. Then there’s certain songs we’ve been playing for a really long time that we just want to continue playing. “I’m Not Yours” is an example of that where it’s one of our favorite songs to perform, so we just always do. [It’s] kind of a balancing act between popular songs and songs that we just want to play.

AK: Do you have any pre-show rituals before you go onstage?

AGH: We are usually a little late, so that’s a ritual.

MH: ‘We’ meaning ‘her’.

AGH: And then, once I get there, we have a moment and we pray with Pebbles.

MH: We let Pebbles bless the band, our rabbit, we let him bless the band.

AGH: You’ll see him onstage tonight. He’s always with us. I’m trying to think of anything else. We overcaffeinate, for sure.

MH: Chug a Red Bull.

AGH: I learned my lesson the hard way. I did two Red Bulls recently – never do that. Two Red Bulls is too much.

MH: Never go for for two Red Bulls.

AGH: Never two Red Bulls back to back. Space it out a little bit. That’s my tip.

AK: Where can everyone find you online?

AGH: You should follow us everywhere @wearethehaunt and you should stream all of our music on all platforms that you can stream music on, The Haunt…

MH: (laughing) That is our band name. Stream us on Apple Music, Spotify. Watch our music videos on YouTube because we put a lot of time and effort into those.

AGH: And check out our dates ’cause we might be coming to a city near you.

MH: Yeah this tour is not ending soon.

Check out The Haunt’s debut album wherever you stream music. You can buy tickets to The Haunt’s New Addiction tour here.