Jan Håkan Haugland was born in Norway, but didn't stay there for long. When he was eight months old, his father got a job at the Broby mansion in the suburb Märsta outside Stockholm, so the Haugland family moved there. Håkan has three brothers and a sister. He found his love for music early on. "My mother had a bunch of old Swedish records, kind of folk music, and we had a little gramophone. I couldn't have been more than five or six years old. I started to play these records. I just liked the music. I didn't really like the kind of music, but I liked music." At the same time Håkan wanted to play music himself. "I played on my mother's pots and pans. I remember I got this toy guitar. I used to play, pretending that I was a guitarist and having these shows for my mother and father in the living room, haha!"

When he was eight years old, he listened to the radio and heard "Smoke on the Water" by Deep Purple. "That was the first time I heard Deep Purple, actually, on that radio show. 'Machine Head', 'Highway Star' and those songs. And I found out that I liked the more aggressive kind of music. From there I started listening to groups like The Sweet and Nazareth, and then I went over to KISS, Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow and Deep Purple." In 1976 he went to see Rainbow in concert at the Stockholm Concert Hall. "I got Cozy Powell's autograph outside the concert hall. A convincing introduction to the rock 'n' roll. Rainbow at the concert hall. Fuck, how strong it was!" Cozy's powerful drumming inspired Håkan to become a drummer himself and think, "I'm gonna play the drums just like him." Shortly after, his parents gave him his first drum kit as a confirmation present. "I had dreamt about that for a long time. They bought a used drum kit at the Expert store in Märsta."

When Håkan was 13 years old, he and a friend started a band. "I didn't know what to play. I liked drums and I liked bass guitar. I decided on playing the drums just because a drum kit would be less expensive than a bass amplifier and a bass guitar. I got sacked because I was hitting the drums too hard. I was playing too loud for the other guys." In 1979 Håkan and some friends formed the band Toxic. "Our first concert was at a friend's house on his birthday." Later that year he, Håkan Sundberg and Christoffer Hofgaard formed the trio Trilogy. Their influences were Rush, Deep Purple and Black Sabbath. "The idea was a really Rush influence and we wanted to play really complex instrumental heavy metal, lots of solos. I was the lead singer, so I was playing drums and singing at the same time."

In 1982 Trilogy participated in the national talent contest "Rock-SM" and played in the same part competition as FORCE. Trilogy lost and FORCE qualified for the quarter finals. Later on FORCE changed its name to EUROPE and won "Rock-SM". Håkan still remembers that night. "I watched the final on TV. I sat there, pretty pissed off, with my arm in a cast and couldn't do anything..." After that, Trilogy split up and Håkan started to become more interested in synth rock. When he was in high school, he and two schoolmates formed the band Vox Humana, which was influenced by Gary Numan and Ultravox. Later on, Håkan tried out for Yngwie Malmsteen's Rising Force, but didn't think he fitted in.

At that time Håkan worked together with his father at the Stockholm-Arlanda Airport, but he still wanted to go on with his musical career. "Either I had to find a famous band in Sweden, or I would have tried to do like Yngwie and move to America because I wanted to be a musician." One day when Håkan was about to go home, his father met him in the doorway and told him that there had been a phone call for him. "He said, 'Some guy from a record company or management called up and he asked for you, and he left his phone number, so please call him up." Håkan did and found out that it was EUROPE's manager at the time, Thomas Erdtman. EUROPE was looking for a new drummer and Erdtman told Håkan that the band members had said they wanted to try him out. "It was like a dream coming true." Håkan met up with the band at their rehearsal place at Berns in Stockholm and received a tape with four songs to rehearse to: "Seven Doors Hotel", "Scream of Anger", "Wings of Tomorrow" and "Treated Bad Again". "Then there was nothing left to do but go home and rehearse like hell." After that, Håkan hooked up with the band for the deciding rehearsal. "We just went for it and the guys said, 'Well, you're in!'" The reason he decided to take the artist name Ian Haugland was because "Håkan was too hard to use internationally. 'å' would be difficult to use because it doesn't exist in English. I took Jan and made it to Ian. Mostly because of similarity and because of Ian Paice."

In 1986 Ian played on Tone Norum's debut album, One of a Kind, which was produced and written by Joey Tempest. John Norum and Mic Michaeli also played on the album. After EUROPE went on hiatus in 1992, Ian reformed Trilogy, who released their first album, Lust Provider, in 1994. In the same year Ian played on the Baltimoore album Thought for Food and the Niva album No Capitulation, and he, Mic and John Levén joined Glenn Hughes for his From Now On... album and tour, which resulted in the live album Burning Japan Live. In 1995 Ian played on the R.A.W. album First, and he and Mic joined Brazen Abbot, a band that was formed by former Baltimoore guitarist Nikolo Kotzev. Brazen Abbot released their first album, Live and Learn in 1995, and the following year John Levén joined the band. With John in the line-up, Brazen Abbot released the albums Eye of the Storm in 1997, Bad Religion in 1998 and Guilty as Sin in 2003.

In 1996 Ian and John Levén were asked to take part in vocalist Benny Söderberg's new project. The band was called Clockwise and released its debut album, Nostalgia, the same year. At the same time Ian started the pop project Brains Beat Beauty, which released the album First Came Moses, Now This in 1997. In the same year he played on the R.A.W. album Now We're Cookin'. In 1998 he participated in several projects: He played on the second Clockwise album, Naïve, made guest appearances on the Candlemass album Dactylis Glomerata and the Totte Wallin album Mmm Blues (och lite country), and recorded a cover version of the Black Sabbath song "Changes" for the Ozzy Osbourne tribute album Ozzified. In addition to that, Ian, Mic and Levén played on the Thore Skogman album Än Är Det Drag. 

Clockwise recorded a cover of the Journey song "Send Her My Love" for a Journey tribute album, but the album was never released. Demos for a third Clockwise album were recorded, but nothing more. In 2000 Ian started to work as a radio host at Rockklassiker, Stockholm's rock radio station. "I got the job after they interviewed us about a one-off Millennium show EUROPE did." He was the host of the morning show Morronrock from 2000 to 2009, and nowadays he's hosting the afternoon show Eftermiddagar med Ian Haugland. In 2000 Ian and Mic played with blues guitarist Tommy TC Carlsson, Sha-Boom and the Deep Purple/Whitesnake cover band White Purple. In 2001 Ian, Mic and Levén all took part in Nikolo Kotzev's Nostradamus, a project that was released as a concept album. In the same year Ian played on the Baltimoore compilation The Best of Baltimoore. In 2002 he played on the Sha-Boom compilation FIIIRE!!, and an Uli Jon Roth tribute album. In 2003 Ian was the vocalist in the project band 10.67, which recorded a cover of the KISS song "Rock 'n' Roll All Nite". The band was completed by Lion's Share guitarist Lars Chriss and DJ's from Rockklassiker. In the same year Ian, Mic and John Levén joined the project band Last Autumn's Dream, which released a self-titled debut album. However, later that year EUROPE reunited, so Last Autumn's Dream had to recruit new members.

Ian is currently living in Stockholm. He has three children with his ex-wife Marita Haugland (née Isaksen), Simon, Jannie and Linnéa. Simon made a guest appearance in the music video for "Hero", the second single from EUROPE's sixth studio album, Start from the Dark.