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A few issues back I did an email interview with one of my musical hero's Mikael Akerfelt of Opeth. It was a great interview, but I really wanted to meet the man in person for a more in-depth discussion of the band's latest masterpiece "Watershed". Well, I finally got my chance. Opeth was on the bill for the Progressive Nation Tour and he (Mike) and I had a nice long chat about all the things I could possibly think to ask in an hour's time span. Mike was very relaxed and extremely cool. The interview was not rushed and was very lengthy. I got pictures and autographs and then for the third time saw Opeth in all their metal glory. It was a night I won't ever forget.
Movement- First off I want to tell you how much of an honor this is to meet you. I love you guys.
Mikael - "Thanks."
Movement - Blackwater Park was a phenomenal record. It was the first album I bought. I read an interview with you and Peter (Opeth's former guitarist) and I just went out and bought it. And that was it. The new record (Watershed) is amazing.
Mikael - "Thank you."
Movement - Lets talk about The Progressive Nation Tour. How has it been going so far?
Mikael - "Good. We just have tonight and tomorrow night left on this tour. It's kinda of slow because we're not headlining, so in a way it's nice to start touring for this album not headlining. So we can just kind of have a slow start to it all. But all the bands are really cool; the Dream Theater guys are cool to us. I wasn't familiar with "Three" or "Between The Buried And Me" before this tour, but I like both bands. Especially Three kind of blew me away."
Movement - I got their latest cd to review and they were really good. So you guys have only an hour to play and your normal set is 2 hours or maybe longer so are you doing the same set list for all the shows?
Mikael - "Yeah, it's pretty much the same. We have a few headlining shows where we're doing smaller clubs and then we're playing the regular set. But it's mostly the same songs every night. It's kind of nice as well to get into the sense of security, besides there's no reason to switch around."
Movement - As far as the new material goes, how many songs of that are you playing ?
Mikael - "Just one."
Movement - I have seen some footage on you tube and looks like it's Heir Apparent. I'm sure it's going well.
Mikael - "It's going really well. Obviously we're going to play more once the album is released."
Movement - When you are playing the few headlining shows between the Progressive Nation dates are you playing any more of the new material or sticking to the one song?
Mikael - "No we're not going to play more until the album is released, which is any time now. Once it's been released... well we have to practice a little bit you know? We'll end up playing two maybe three songs from the new album."
Movement - You mentioned in an older interview that Per (Opeth's keyboardist) wanted to play a couple of older songs that you have never performed live. Care to share what songs those are going to be or keep it a secret.
Mikael - "No, we're probably going to keep it a secret in case it doesn't happen. We picked up a few songs that we never really played and started rehearsing them. Some we need to work on more than others. One of them was "Wreath", which we play now on this tour."
Movement - Do you guys play "Bleak" on this tour?
Mikael - "No, not on this one. We played it on the last tour."
Movement - Yeah I was there. That's my favorite song.
Mikael - "A lot of people love that song so we're going to have bring it back into the set."
Movement- How did you feel when he (Per) suggested those two songs?
Mikael - "Yeah! It's usually me who comes up with what songs we gonna play so I love when the other guys come up with songs they want to play. Especially if they're obscure songs that we never played. I'm like "wow" you know, I get excited. So I like that. I think it's cool to bring out other songs because people have seen us many times and once in a while we pull out one of these obscure numbers."
Movement - I saw you twice on the "Ghost Reveries" tour and each time you played different stuff, so it was nice catching both shows.
Movement - "On a lot of the older material where you usually did a lot of the guitar solo's is Fredrik (Opeth's new guitarist) going to do some of your stuff or will it stay the same? Since he's new and his solo's are just for the new album are you going to trade off or anything like that?"
Mikael - No, I was thinking about giving him my solo's for some songs, but it's just a solo, it's no big deal. Basically he's playing Peter's solos on the older songs and he is doing it note for note, which I think is important for him because he's the new guy and if he comes in and does another solo...
Movement - "People are going to look at him like huh ???"
Mikael - Yeah, like what the fuck is he doing? We just agreed, both of us, that we should do it this way even though some of those solo's are boring to play or whatever. He completely understood that. People want to hear those solo's, I want to hear those solo's.
Movement - "I love the solo he did for "Heir Apparent" it was flashy but tasteful. All of his stuff on the new album is like that. Obviously he's got shred chops, but he doesn't go crazy with it."
Mikael - We went through all the solo parts together and I told him that I know he can shred, and you love to shred and it's tempting to go into a band and show what you can do, but I don't like shredding if it doesn't serve a purpose. I think it can bring a song down; pointless shredding. I can hate it you know and there's moments when I love it, when you really need it on a part. But on other parts it's like "what the fuck" it's not music any more.
Movement - "It's just acrobatics. I totally agree."
Movement - When your looking for inspiration do you ever look back at your older material? Maybe something you did early on you might want to try and do something similar but different? Modify it a little bit?
Mikael - "No. I know the older albums so well that I don't really listen to them before writing for a new one. Because I got them in my head. I don't like looking back because those ideas were done back then and in many ways there still with me, but I like to look forward. In some ways I guess I'm repeating ideas over again, but I can't ever recall thinking I want to do something like I did back in 97' or something like that."
Movement - You guys recently played the Melloboat so will there be an official DVD?
Mikael - "Yeah they filmed it, but the sound is horrible and there may be some legal issues. I don't know if we will even be on it."
Movement- I hope so.
Mikael - "It was a pretty cool show."
Movement - I wanted to go into a gear a little bit. I noticed that lately on a couple of shows you were playing Marshall amps . Normally you are Laney guys. Why the change?
Mikael - "No for that gig it's as simple as I was going on the boat with my wife and daughter and I ask the guys to pick up my amp and they forgot my Laney amp. So, I played a Marshall. Frederick is playing Marshalls now, he's not playing Laneys."
Movement - I know you use BOSS multi effect units and I understand you plug them into the clean channel on the amp and just use the distortion from the BOSS and not the amp distortion? Why not use a two channel amp with the clean and gain channel and switch back and forth between them and use the other effects from the BOSS?
Mikael - "I don't know. It's how I did it back in the day, like when you have the stomp boxes and plug into the clean channel and you have the distortion in the pedal and that's the way I perceive this multi effect. It sounds really good and it's got many advantages, because we're doing a lot of festivals and sometimes we can't have our own gear and have to use rented stuff. Basically with this setup I can plug into any amp and get a good sound fast."
Movement- In the studio do you use the amp distortion or the pedals?
Mikael - "No in the studio we never use the pedals."
Movement - I guess it's also a matter of convenience with as many changes in the songs. Ever thought about getting a custom pedal board built?
Mikael - "No, we're pretty much set with these pedals. Frederick actually is using the distortion from his amp and just using the other effects from the pedals. His setup is a bit more complicated than mine. I have been happy with my set up. If it ain't broke don't fix it."
Movement- I know this question has been asked a lot; but is there any more talk of the project with Mike Portnoy (Dream Theater) and Steven Wilson (Porcupine Tree)?
Mikael - "Well, the only thing we actually talked about was, " hey we should make it happen" and that's about it. No, we haven't really talked that much about it but I am pretty sure it's gonna happen. It's more likely to come out when nobodies expecting it."
Movement - Speaking of Steven any thought's on another Opeth/Porcupine Tree tour?
Mikael - "No, haven't really talked about it and it's not really easy to just say "hey let's go on tour" there's a lot of fucking politics involved, money etc..."
Movement - Which sucks. Because you just want to be musicians and you don't want to deal with all the red tape.
Mikael - "But it would interesting to go out with them again because we're friends with those guys..."
Movement - They recently made a video of the new song "Porcelain Heart" and did one from the last album (Grand Conjuration) as well. Does it bother you that they have to edit the songs so much?
Mikael - "Yeah of course it does, but that's the only option, because if it's too long they won't play it. The album's done, my work is done. These edits... I hate them, but I see them as trailers. The purpose why we do them is to get people to check out the album. It's like Martin Scorcese trying to do a two minute trailer of Taxi Driver, you can't have all the best bits in there, but it's to get people into the cinema. That's the way I see it."
Movement - You mentioned a long time ago that the lyrics for "Watershed" were personal and they were not going be printed in the cd booklet. There's obviously a story behind it. Is it something you care to share?
Mikae l- "No. I don't really want to talk about them. A lot of people are saying I'm selfish..."
Movement - No, if it's personal I understand.
Mikael - "Yeah but I feel kind of stupid writing these lyrics when I am not going to put them on an album that will be released world wide, but that's the way they came out. It did present a little problem because it's not open for interpretation and I don't want people to ask me, "what does this line mean" because I don't want to answer it."
Movement - It's understandable. It's your music and you have that right and no one should say anything otherwise.
Mikael - "I wanted to write these lyrics. We see the music as a way of artistic expression or whatever... That's why I got into music in the first place. I don't have the same love for writing lyrics as I do for writing music, but I have started to enjoy writing lyrics more. I don't see it as therapy or anything like that."
Movement - I think it's hard.
Mikael - "Yeah it is! It's just words but it can make you feel something."
Movement - I don't know if it's just me but I have a large music collection and listen to a wide variety of music and there's some bands I listen to where I like it, I enjoy it, but then there are some that it's emotionally and lyrically even more. I thought that your album Damnation was amazing. It was like the darkest Pink Floyd type of album I had ever heard, if I had to compare it something. I will reach for your music before I reach for other stuff sometimes because I can't find anything to move me. A lot of bands aren't making that kind of music today, it's just a lot of corporate stuff.
Mikael - "I think it depends on what your looking for. A lot of people might think that Damnation is a bloodless shitty record, but for me that's what we want to do. That's the kind of dark music we like and I also like music that isn't pop music that kind of get's you....in a certain state of mind that gets you thinking about your past, future, or whatever....I can get really irritated if it's music that doesn't say anything. Thats the reason I don't like most metal bands today. It's just nothing, nothing there."
Movement - There's a few of them...
Mikael - "Yeah I know, but most of the time when I put on a new metal album; it's well performed, sounds good, but there's something missing. So that's why I am kind of stuck... well I missed out on a lot of music obviously when I was growing up, because most of favorite bands are sixties and seventies bands. So I'm kind of taking that back now."
Movement - I understand, because I buy a lot of music, get a lot music to review and there's a lot of it that's just eh...and there's so much corporate stuff where one band does something and then there's fifty bands coming out that sound just like them.
Mikael - "I think that the label is seen as a big evil and they are just interested in making money, which of course they are interested in making money, but the bands should be to blame to. The bands are the ones looking at other groups and saying "hey, I want to sound exactly like them." So I think you shouldn't put all the blame on the record labels. I think it's hard to find an identity being in a band and it's just so easy to get started copying somebody else. To be honest, if wasn't for the record labels we wouldn't have artist's like Pink Floyd. They did sign those bands. When I talk to some other band's their influences go back only about three years and I say "you don't listen to anything other than metal or anything else older?" I take for granted that if your a musician you love music and I just tap into everything and I like lots of differen't genres. A lot of metal bands stay confined to music that's in their own genre."
Movement - I saw on your myspace blog you were listening to Vangelis - "Earth". I have that on vinyl. I love his stuff, he is a great composer and I love a lot of electronic music as well. I thought that was so cool.
MIkael - "You need to listen to other styles of music, especially metal bands or you just end up sounding like everybody else. I'm not saying that the way we do it is the right way, but it works for us and at the end of the day we don't end up sounding like a thousand other bands."
Movement - Another thing that set's you apart is that you can really sing. A lot of bands can do death or black metal vocals but can't sing at all. I don't know how you go back and forth between the two styles so easily. And you have never had any vocal training?
Mikael - "No and it's never presented a problem. I have never had any music training either. I don't know how to read music or what the names of chords are but it works. In a way I would like to have that kind of knowledge, but then maybe it would stop me in my tracks. I would do what I am supposed to do instead of what I want to do. There's an example from this album where I had done something on the keyboard and our engineer was like, "that's wrong Mike you can't have that note because it's not in the scale." I was like, "it sounds good". The engineer was saying it sounded like shit and people will listen to that and say it sounds like shit. So he changed it by taking the note out and asked me what I thought of it. I said it sounds like nothing. Nothing happens now. He said it was so much better. I said no it wasn't. We put it back and now you can hear something happens."
Movement - It gives the songs dynamics. If it sounds good to you then it is good. I heard that you did some vocals for Ihshan's (former Emperor guitarist/frontman) new record how did that come about?
Mikael - "Well we have been friends for about ten years or so and he basically asked me. He sent me the song and I did the vocals in the studio."
Movement- On the deluxe edition of Watershed there were some extra songs and one was to be a cover of Alice In Chains - "Would". Now I hear it will not be on the album? What happened?
Mikael - "Well basically nothing happened. We just decided not to have it on there because it wasn't as good as the other songs."
Movement - I was looking forward to that...
Mikael - "Yeah a lot of people were looking forward to it."
Movement - Did you guys know that K.D. Lang's new album was called Watershed? I thought that was funny.
Mikael - "Yeah I heard about that but I was like, whatever."
Movement - At least there was no legal problems.
Mikael - "No, she doesn't have the rights to the name."
Movement - Are you getting any people coming up after the show on the Progressive Nation tour who have never heard you guys and saying how much the liked your music?
Mikael - "Very good response from the crowd. We pull a lot of people to be honest. But we do see a lot of people (and you can see who they are) who never heard us before. The Dream Theater crowd is kind of easy to see who are there only to see them. But we get a good reception after every show. Yesterday was a bit painful at the show in Miami because... especially the front row seated audience which all had VIP tickets from Dream Theater and you go out there and try to get some kind of reaction and their like, (crosses arms looks up with blank stare) nothing. It was king of rough yesterday to be honest but I think we won over some people."
Movement - One more thing, when are you guys coming back hear to headline?
Mikael - "September."
Movement. So we don't have long to wait. Will you be back in Florida?
Mikael - "Yes. It's gonna be nice because we have a lot of good idea's for that show."
Movement - Well I appreciate all your time man. Thanks so much.
Mikael - "Thanks."
www.opeth.com
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