Here's my rather long interview with Peter Lindgren...thought I'd share it with you all. It was done last year before a show that Opeth played in Dallas, Texas on their tour with Nevermore. Peter turned out to be one of the coolest guys I've ever met in any band, ever. Gives some great insights into Opeth's music and how it's created, hope you enjoy it! 
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How has the tour gone so far for you guys?
This tour is actually two tours. We did eight dates with AMORPHIS, in April, in the northeast United States and Canada. Then we did the same thing with NEVERMORE again. We started in Denver, and then we went up through Chicago, Toronto, and all those places. Now we're coming down south. And the tour is going really well, better than we ever expected
How has it been, compared to Europe?
It's hard for me to compare, because we haven't done a proper tour in Europe since 1996, and that was for "Morningrise", and apparently at the time we weren't very well-known. We did the tour with CRADLE OF FILTH, and their audience is not our audience. It was a good tour, but we're also gonna do a tour when we get back to Europe. But I think in the US, it's as big as "the whole" of Europe, and it differs from place to place, as it does in Europe. I mean, southern Europe is really crazy, but Sweden is really calm and "stiff". And it's sort of the same here in the US, although people here can be really crazy too
OPETH's music is so varied. I know that, where I'm from, the audiences are into mainly the brutal stuff, the DEATH METAL y'know! But you guys cover the whole gamut with your music: the heaviness, the acoustics, the melodies, the brutality, everything How do the audiences tend to respond to the "variety" in your music, in the live situation?
On stage, we try to do what you can hear on the albums, and we've just been doing it for such a long time. The acoustic parts we do with clean electric guitars, and there seems to be loads of die-hard fans coming to our shows, and they know what's going on. So we really don't baffle them at all! But I think people that haven't heard us might be y'know they come up to us 'HOW do you DO that?', and it's like 'we just turn the distortion off' (laughs) But we've been doing it for so long! All these people ask us 'how do you pull off all of these long songs on stage?' but we've been doing it for over ten years now.
(chuckling) Yeah I'd always wondered about that myself, because my personal favorite OPETH album is "Morningrise", and that one's got the 10-minutes songs, and then there's "Black Rose Immortal" (we both laugh) Do you guys ever cut songs short?
NO!
That surprises me, I was hoping you'd do a "Morningrise Medley"!
Well, people ask if we can play "Black Rose Immortal", and that would obviously be almost half the set! So maybe when we're headlining but when we only have like 50-55 minutes, that's like half the set, so we just have to choose some of our "shorter" songs
DAMN! Only 55 minutes?!?!
Yeah, 50-55 minutes on this tour, and that means five or six songs
So what's the setlist for tonight?
Well I don't know how much time we'll have, but we try to cover all the albums.
So one song per album?
Yeah. But it depends, five minutes before we get up on stage we decide what to play
(amazed) Well anyway We've got a lot of Canadian readers, and I just wanted to ask, on their behalf, how was the general response to you all in Canada? I understand you drew some pretty massive crowds there!
We went to Toronto, Montreal, and a place called Rimouski. In Rimouski, we had a good show, but it seemed like none of the people there had even heard of us! But Toronto and Montreal was absolutely crazy! And actually for those two cities, we did them both with AMORPHIS AND NEVERMORE, so we did them twice in two weeks. And all four shows were great! So at the time, we were thinking "maybe we should just go between Montreal and Toronto every day, back and forth" (laughs)
On a personal note, and I'm sure I can speak for many other people from North America who had to pay import price for "Still Life", it wasn't available here in the States for like over a year and a half, and to say that it pissed me off would be a drastic understatement! But now thanks to Koch Records, you seem to be doing well here with "Blackwater Park"
Well we're on Music For Nations, and they don't have American distribution either, but they put some of their bands on Koch, us and CRADLE OF FILTH for example, and usually Koch is doing, like, World Wrestling Federation and Pokemon, stuff like that
They ARE?!?!
Yeah! I was in their office, and I expected to see all of the gold-albums, like Music For Nations had, but they had all this WWF-stuff! It's like "what?" But they do a really good job for us. The new album is the easiest to get I think, and "Still Life" seems to be the hardest.
Well, I've just been seeing it in stores, in special slipcases, but I had to pay like $23 for the friggin' thing!
That's insane, because I think if Peaceville could just pull themselves together and get some Stateside distribution
Well I've just now started seeing some MY DYING BRIDE and DARKTHRONE re-issues by them lately, so at least they're doing SOMETHING now
Really! But it's way late now because "Still Life" has been out for like two years in Europe. We released it in October '99 in Europe
Yeah But anyway, I've got another question you may not want to answer: rumour has it that you guys don't rehearse before going into the studio, or at least you don't rehearse more than 2-3 times. Do you have, like, certain parts written beforehand, or whole songs arranged, before going into the studio?
What we do is, like we have the basics done, the basic riffs, drumming, and the basic arrangements I guess, but no lyrics are written, not many vocal lines are written. We like to spend loads of time in the studio, just experimenting
How long did "Blackwater Park" take?
Two months. And it's pretty boring to be in the studio for two months, but then again, the first album ("Orchid") we recorded in 12 days. We'd been rehearsing the songs for three years, and knew exactly what to do, so we just went in and "ch-ch-ch-ch-ch ". But then again, at the end of the day, there were no surprises for us! On the new album, when I got back home it was like "oh yeah, wow, I don't remember that part!"
(laughing) Yeah I would think it would be more interesting for YOU to listen back to an album in that sense, because it's more "spontaneous" sounding, as you guys are known for with your music, the spontaneity is what I think really catches the listener, even on "Orchid" I get that feeling
It's exciting for me, but it's DARING, too, because you're not sure! I mean in the studio we try to work until we're satisfied, and I'm really satisfied with all five albums. And when we left the studio for this one, I was satisfied too. But when I listened to it at home, there were all these surprises, and sometimes it happens like "ohhh, that's really good!" I just think it's another way of recording things, and actually, for "Still Life" we rehearsed twice, and we thought that was not enough, so we rehearsed THREE times for this one!
(laughing) Oh yeah, you gotta put in that extra one I guess
But then again, you know, someone told me that if you don't rehearse that much, it's fresher when you PLAY it. I don't know, maybe that's true
Another thing I've found with OPETH is that it seems like certain songs could perhaps be TEN songs in one, with all the dynamic changes, at least in the eyes, or rather, EARS, of most listeners. But then you guys do songs like "Harvest" on the new album, which seems like a borderline "radio-friendly" song, with the octaved clean vocals and general laid-back vibe. How did that song come about?
That one was written beforehand. It was one of the few that was pretty much totally written before we went in to record, including the vocal lines
That's what I thought.
Yeah, on each album we try to "expand". Like on "Morningrise" we did the "To Bid You Farewell" ballad, that was a risky thing to do, because at the time, no one really did ballads. We got criticism for that, but after doing it, we could do whatever we wanted on every album. So now we can have "soft pop" songs on every album (laughing). It's just about good music for me, I don't care about tags or anything. If people call us Death Metal and they put one of THOSE songs on, if they don't like it
(interrupting) Man, I hear people calling you all "Progressive Death Metal", "Symphonic Blackened Metal", even "Forest Metal", but I just say "they're just OPETH!"
Well, yeah, it's all about music, that's pretty much it.
That's what separates you guys from almost every band I think, the whole "genre"-thing doesn't matter when it comes to your music!
Thank you!
Anyway Steve Wilson from PORCUPINE TREE came in for 12 days to help you all with the recording of "Blackwater Park" correct?
Well when he arrived we had recorded all the basic structures like the rhythm guitars, bass, and drums. His help was with the vocal lines and the guitar leads mostly, with SOUNDS basically, because he's really good with SOUNDS, and we wanted to experiment a bit with vocal sounds.
Yeah I can hear at some parts, with the vocals Some people have actually dubbed them as "cell phone" vocals
(laughing) Yeah, I love that
Hahaha, I know
Well you know, it's just one of the effects, but we had been trying to get that effect on each album.
Is that a direct PORCUPINE TREE-influence?
Actually, it's more influenced by early BLACK SABBATH albums like "Paranoid" On that album they had a thing called a "Lesley", it's a rotating amplifier, and the speaker's rotating, and it makes this strange "wah-wah-wah-wah " It is sort of a radio-voice or a telephone voice, but it reminds me of that Lesley-thing, and I always liked it because it's really 70s-sounding. The telephone-voice is not really 70s, but I like it anyway, so we just put it on there.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like with "Still Life" you sort of "broke through" in a way with your general sound. The production came up in quality for starters, and you guys had always used Studio Fredman right?
No, the first two albums were recorded in Unisound, which was Dan Swanö's studio. But he shut it down, so we had to find another one, and around that time, AT THE GATES' "Slaughter Of The Soul" album was out, so we thought we wanted to record in Sweden, but we didn't want to sound like a "Gothenburg-band", and they had this good production, and we recorded "My Arms " there, and that one sounded really different because we had loads of problems at the time with the band. The two original guys from the first two albums left (Anders Nordin and Johan DeFarfalla), so we had this new drummer who was really insecure with our music, and we didn't have a rehearsal room or anything. Fredrik (Nordström) didn't know what we were about in the studio either, he didn't really know what to do with our music. I mean I like the album, because it's really aggressive, but if you listen to the sound production, it's really rough, which is COOL though
Yeah, that's a lot of people's favorite OPETH album actually
It's not like this album (pointing to my copy of "Blackwater Park"), this one is more well-rounded sounding
It seems like on "My Arms Your Hearse," the production sounded a lot like "Morningrise", but on "Still Life" it sounds like all the levels came up on all the instruments, it's much more crisp sounding.
Well on "Still Life", we were a 4-piece (they had been a 3-piece, with Mikael Akerfeldt doing the bass on "My Arms " - Gabe), we had been around for awhile, and all the guys in the band were adjusted to our sound. I think "Morningrise" and "My Arms " sound totally different actually, because "Morningrise" is really clean and "My Arms " is really rough, but that's also because the music changed. We didn't do many twin leads anymore, we did more chords and riffing. And on "Still Life", it's sort of a mix between "Morningrise" and "My Arms " musically, it has both chords and leads to it, and we were much more secure as a band. Fredrik knew what we were about, so he could produce it more properly. But actually, on this album (referring again to "Blackwater "), he just set the sounds. We engineered this one ourselves, except when we had Steven Wilson come in to help. Fredrik mixed the whole thing, but now he knows what we're all about.
This album sounds like you hit the nail on the head production-wise. I think it's the best album since well my personal favourite will always be "Morningrise", it'd be pretty hard to top that one if you ask me. I'm sorry, I'm old-school I guess
That's funny, because some people think that "Morningrise" is too mellow, or too this or that, a lot of people say "My Arms " is their favorite, and I think it's proof that we do good music all the time, or maybe we do the same level of BAD music all the time (laughs), but it's like people can kind of choose, with us, their favorite songs and albums, and I think that's cool!
I'm constantly seeing debates about OPETH and which album is the best one and all that (note: I then went on to rant and rave about how great OPETH is in every way and blah blah blah, I won't go into it) So do you all have regular jobs aside from the band?
We all have part time jobs. I just graduated from college before I came on this tour (can't remember what major he'd told me before the interview - Gabe), so I gotta find out, during the summer, WHAT AM I GONNA DO WITH MY LIFE? (laughs)
How many copies do you guys sell, on average, from album-to-album?
I think worldwide, we sell about 40,000, but the new album has sold like 70,000 already, so I think that's gonna help the other albums to sell more. I was surprised to hear about that. And I think "Still Life" is just over 40,000, I think.
Well, if it'd had immediate Stateside distribution, it probably would have sold just as much as "Blackwater " damnit!
I think when people hear the new album, they will maybe go find the other albums, or I HOPE they do
(after more childish complimenting) Another thing I'm always reading and hearing about is that OPETH will "never release a bad album".
Well, for US at least, we are never gonna put out a bad album, because when we record a new album, we don't care about what happened before. All of those albums, even this one, now belong in the past.
My favorite thing about OPETH is the softer, acoustic parts, while a lot of people like the heavy, aggressive parts. There's always a nice balance of those two aspects on each album, even on "My Arms " which was more of a heavy album. Does there exist the possibility that OPETH will take the heavier path, to the exclusion of the softer parts, or vice-versa?
I don't think so. When we record a new album, like I said, all the other albums belong in the past, and it's just what we're all about at the MOMENT. But since we're fucking MUSIC lovers, all of us, we'll keep all those different things in there. I love acoustic guitars and clean vocals, but I like heavy riffing and stuff like that, and as long as we're still into all that, we're gonna put it all in there. The day we're sick of clean vocals, we're gonna abandon that, or acoustic guitars, or distortion or whatever! But I don't think that's gonna happen, because if you look at MY record collection, I've got fucking everything from Joni Mitchell to MORBID ANGEL. I love them all, so we try to put everything in there. That's what OPETH is about, good music. We have been doing it for such a long time, so now people know that we can do all these different kinds of music, and we blend it all into a song. That's what I like, we can do whatever we want, and as long as we like it, we're gonna do it.
And about the "good album" thing, we never pay attention to what people are gonna think about it, we just record it for ourselves, and as long as we're satisfied with it, that's all that matters. And in that sense, yes, we are never gonna put out an album that WE are not satisfied with. Then again, people might hate it. But if we like it, fair enough. Maybe the day after that the record label will drop us, but what can you do, y'know
(laughing) Well how IS Music For Nations treating the band so far?
They are the most professional label we've worked with by far! All of a sudden things are happening for us, we're getting endorsements, we're in the States doing a massive tour now, we've got lots of festivals this summer to play and all that. None of this happened on the last album. Well, NOTHING really happened on that album (laughs)
No tours for that album either?
Well we were supposed to tour with MY DYING BRIDE, but since we changed record labels and all that, we couldn't do the tour.
So just out of curiosity, you guys were in Studio Fredman when SOILWORK were recording their album. How did the two bands work around each other?
Well, Studio Fredman is two studios actually. We recorded in the big one, because we had rented it out, and we also mixed the album there. But then SOILWORK recorded their stuff in the small studio and mixed it in the big studio after us, when we had left. It wasn't a problem, I actually prefer to be alone in the studio when recording without being bothered y'know. There was a pop band recording in there while we were there called (or what sounded like) NAZARENE STREET (but don't quote me on that - Gabe), and I didn't like them that much. But SOILWORK were really cool! So if every band is like SOILWORK, then it's good to have two bands in there I guess, because you can hang out and have fun! And Mikael sang some lines on their album
Yeah I was gonna ask about that, did they ask Mikael do lend his vocal godliness, or did he kindly volunteer?
They asked him to come in, just for fun, and I think it was cool because we had already finished recording by the time they arrived, and they are really technical guitar players, man! They can play all of our stuff like that (snaps fingers)
Yeah, they're a great band. But it's even been rumoured that Mikael sang almost ALL of the clean vocal parts on SOILWORK's album, but it was just on that ONE song right?
Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was just that one title track. Björn is singing on the other ones, and he has a good voice. He took some lessons I think, and he does a great job on the album I think! Mikael just came in one day to do the vocals for fun, and it turned out really good.
If you can answer this one, has Dan Swanö left the heavy metal scene pretty much, since I guess he's really close with the band I thought you might know about this rumour I keep hearing
After he quit the studio, I think he kept some of the equipment to record stuff, and for example, Anders from KATATONIA recorded his DIABOLICAL MASQUERADE-stuff with him. But Dan is ALWAYS gonna continue recording stuff, cause he's a big music-lover too, but I think he's pretty much out of the Metal-scene. Then again he recorded the BLOODBATH thing with Mikael, Anders and Jonas
Is there a BLOODBATH-album on the racks?
I'm not sure really, that's mainly Anders' thing, and he's gonna write everything and the guys are gonna go down and help record it. And they said to me, because I asked Mikael if they're gonna record a new one and he said no, probably not. But that was awhile ago, and they keep getting all these requests from people to do another one, so maybe they will do it.
So has anything been planned yet for the next OPETH album, or are you guys gonna take a break when you get done with all these shows and then go from there?
I guess after all the touring, we're gonna take a short break. Not a year-long break like METALLICA would do, but just a couple of weeks. Then we'll start writing stuff for a new album, but none of us really have the time to write ten riffs a day on the tour bus, I don't even have a guitar on the bus. Maybe this summer we'll do some writing. But when we start writing, it's a quick process. It'll take us like two months usually.
Do you and Mikael go to each other's houses often to share riffs and stuff before going into the studio?
We used to do that, but now on the last album, he wrote most of the material. I will usually meet him and give him a tape of my riffs
I was really wondering about that, on a lot of your stuff, both guitars are playing parts that are somewhat "opposing" They sound very different, but somehow they just fit together in the end, especially on the acoustic parts
That comes about when we record. Because we usually have just one guitar part written, and then when we record everything else a couple of days later, we do lots of experimenting, and just add whatever we think sounds good.
OK, some closing questions now, I've kept you long enough. Do you favor the acoustic guitar when you write your stuff, or is it mostly written on electric?
When we wrote "Morningrise", and actually even "My Arms ", me and Mikael went to each other's places with acoustic guitars, and we wrote everything on acoustic guitars, even the heavy riffs, because if it sounds really heavy on the acoustic, you can be sure it'll be fucking HEAVY when you add distortion. On "Orchid", we wrote some riffs with the distortion, but after awhile it's just the distortion that sounds good and not the riff itself, so if you do it on acoustic guitar, you can be sure that when you play it on electric, with good production and everything, it'll sound REALLY good!
(after yet MORE random praise) Who are some of your personal guitar heroes?
The reason for me being in this business is probably Kirk Hammett.
Kirk Hammett?!?!?
Yeah, but you know that was when I was twelve years old and he was really fast, but when you listen to his solos today it's like shit. But he's the reason for me picking UP the guitar, as like a first influence. I think one of the better guitarists of all time in the Metal-genre is Eddie Van Halen. When you see all these guys doing the technical things, it's usually him who invented all of it. But then again I'm not really into guitar players who are really fast, because I think there are too many of them now. I prefer a guy who can, like, pick a tone and hit it, and it sounds good for like 30 seconds holding onto it, like Robin Trowers, the blues player, he's got the "feeling", and that's what I'm more into nowadays.
A lot of people think that your riff playing is totally technical, but I don't think OPETH is so much about "technicality"
90% of our riffs are pretty simple actually. But there are some riffs that are hard. Some people think that we are technical gods or something, but a guy like Jeff Loomis, for example, that guy can outplay anything we play! But he's really technical so
Five favourite albums at the moment?
(thinking) KATATONIA - "Last Fair Deal Gone Down", PORCUPINE TREE - "Lightbulb Sun", PORCUPINE TREE - "Stupid Dream" Ummm There's actually a band I listen to right now called BLACK HEART PROCESSION, it's like country
(laughing) COUNTRY?!?!
Yeeeahhh, well it's not country exactly, it's like slow, singer/songwriter, painful type stuff, their album's called "Three", I really like it and uhhh (long pause) Oh yeah, SIXTEEN HORSEPOWER, an American band, they're like this religious country Rock-band, but they've got the "pain" and the "nerve". They are so religious, it almost sounds "evil", if you know what I mean (chuckling)
And what about your Top 5 Metal-albums of all time?
METALLICA - "Master Of Puppets"
MORBID ANGEL - "Altars Of Madness"
MORBID ANGEL - "Blessed Are The Sick"
ENTOMBED - "Clandestine"
DEATH - "Leprosy"
Well I am satisfied, it was a real pleasure for me Peter! Thank you for taking the time for this interview, really looking forward to the show
Sure, no problem! Thank you as well. Hope you enjoy it
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How has the tour gone so far for you guys?
This tour is actually two tours. We did eight dates with AMORPHIS, in April, in the northeast United States and Canada. Then we did the same thing with NEVERMORE again. We started in Denver, and then we went up through Chicago, Toronto, and all those places. Now we're coming down south. And the tour is going really well, better than we ever expected
How has it been, compared to Europe?
It's hard for me to compare, because we haven't done a proper tour in Europe since 1996, and that was for "Morningrise", and apparently at the time we weren't very well-known. We did the tour with CRADLE OF FILTH, and their audience is not our audience. It was a good tour, but we're also gonna do a tour when we get back to Europe. But I think in the US, it's as big as "the whole" of Europe, and it differs from place to place, as it does in Europe. I mean, southern Europe is really crazy, but Sweden is really calm and "stiff". And it's sort of the same here in the US, although people here can be really crazy too
OPETH's music is so varied. I know that, where I'm from, the audiences are into mainly the brutal stuff, the DEATH METAL y'know! But you guys cover the whole gamut with your music: the heaviness, the acoustics, the melodies, the brutality, everything How do the audiences tend to respond to the "variety" in your music, in the live situation?
On stage, we try to do what you can hear on the albums, and we've just been doing it for such a long time. The acoustic parts we do with clean electric guitars, and there seems to be loads of die-hard fans coming to our shows, and they know what's going on. So we really don't baffle them at all! But I think people that haven't heard us might be y'know they come up to us 'HOW do you DO that?', and it's like 'we just turn the distortion off' (laughs) But we've been doing it for so long! All these people ask us 'how do you pull off all of these long songs on stage?' but we've been doing it for over ten years now.
(chuckling) Yeah I'd always wondered about that myself, because my personal favorite OPETH album is "Morningrise", and that one's got the 10-minutes songs, and then there's "Black Rose Immortal" (we both laugh) Do you guys ever cut songs short?
NO!
That surprises me, I was hoping you'd do a "Morningrise Medley"!
Well, people ask if we can play "Black Rose Immortal", and that would obviously be almost half the set! So maybe when we're headlining but when we only have like 50-55 minutes, that's like half the set, so we just have to choose some of our "shorter" songs
DAMN! Only 55 minutes?!?!
Yeah, 50-55 minutes on this tour, and that means five or six songs
So what's the setlist for tonight?
Well I don't know how much time we'll have, but we try to cover all the albums.
So one song per album?
Yeah. But it depends, five minutes before we get up on stage we decide what to play
(amazed) Well anyway We've got a lot of Canadian readers, and I just wanted to ask, on their behalf, how was the general response to you all in Canada? I understand you drew some pretty massive crowds there!
We went to Toronto, Montreal, and a place called Rimouski. In Rimouski, we had a good show, but it seemed like none of the people there had even heard of us! But Toronto and Montreal was absolutely crazy! And actually for those two cities, we did them both with AMORPHIS AND NEVERMORE, so we did them twice in two weeks. And all four shows were great! So at the time, we were thinking "maybe we should just go between Montreal and Toronto every day, back and forth" (laughs)
On a personal note, and I'm sure I can speak for many other people from North America who had to pay import price for "Still Life", it wasn't available here in the States for like over a year and a half, and to say that it pissed me off would be a drastic understatement! But now thanks to Koch Records, you seem to be doing well here with "Blackwater Park"
Well we're on Music For Nations, and they don't have American distribution either, but they put some of their bands on Koch, us and CRADLE OF FILTH for example, and usually Koch is doing, like, World Wrestling Federation and Pokemon, stuff like that
They ARE?!?!
Yeah! I was in their office, and I expected to see all of the gold-albums, like Music For Nations had, but they had all this WWF-stuff! It's like "what?" But they do a really good job for us. The new album is the easiest to get I think, and "Still Life" seems to be the hardest.
Well, I've just been seeing it in stores, in special slipcases, but I had to pay like $23 for the friggin' thing!
That's insane, because I think if Peaceville could just pull themselves together and get some Stateside distribution
Well I've just now started seeing some MY DYING BRIDE and DARKTHRONE re-issues by them lately, so at least they're doing SOMETHING now
Really! But it's way late now because "Still Life" has been out for like two years in Europe. We released it in October '99 in Europe
Yeah But anyway, I've got another question you may not want to answer: rumour has it that you guys don't rehearse before going into the studio, or at least you don't rehearse more than 2-3 times. Do you have, like, certain parts written beforehand, or whole songs arranged, before going into the studio?
What we do is, like we have the basics done, the basic riffs, drumming, and the basic arrangements I guess, but no lyrics are written, not many vocal lines are written. We like to spend loads of time in the studio, just experimenting
How long did "Blackwater Park" take?
Two months. And it's pretty boring to be in the studio for two months, but then again, the first album ("Orchid") we recorded in 12 days. We'd been rehearsing the songs for three years, and knew exactly what to do, so we just went in and "ch-ch-ch-ch-ch ". But then again, at the end of the day, there were no surprises for us! On the new album, when I got back home it was like "oh yeah, wow, I don't remember that part!"
(laughing) Yeah I would think it would be more interesting for YOU to listen back to an album in that sense, because it's more "spontaneous" sounding, as you guys are known for with your music, the spontaneity is what I think really catches the listener, even on "Orchid" I get that feeling
It's exciting for me, but it's DARING, too, because you're not sure! I mean in the studio we try to work until we're satisfied, and I'm really satisfied with all five albums. And when we left the studio for this one, I was satisfied too. But when I listened to it at home, there were all these surprises, and sometimes it happens like "ohhh, that's really good!" I just think it's another way of recording things, and actually, for "Still Life" we rehearsed twice, and we thought that was not enough, so we rehearsed THREE times for this one!
(laughing) Oh yeah, you gotta put in that extra one I guess
But then again, you know, someone told me that if you don't rehearse that much, it's fresher when you PLAY it. I don't know, maybe that's true
Another thing I've found with OPETH is that it seems like certain songs could perhaps be TEN songs in one, with all the dynamic changes, at least in the eyes, or rather, EARS, of most listeners. But then you guys do songs like "Harvest" on the new album, which seems like a borderline "radio-friendly" song, with the octaved clean vocals and general laid-back vibe. How did that song come about?
That one was written beforehand. It was one of the few that was pretty much totally written before we went in to record, including the vocal lines
That's what I thought.
Yeah, on each album we try to "expand". Like on "Morningrise" we did the "To Bid You Farewell" ballad, that was a risky thing to do, because at the time, no one really did ballads. We got criticism for that, but after doing it, we could do whatever we wanted on every album. So now we can have "soft pop" songs on every album (laughing). It's just about good music for me, I don't care about tags or anything. If people call us Death Metal and they put one of THOSE songs on, if they don't like it
(interrupting) Man, I hear people calling you all "Progressive Death Metal", "Symphonic Blackened Metal", even "Forest Metal", but I just say "they're just OPETH!"
Well, yeah, it's all about music, that's pretty much it.
That's what separates you guys from almost every band I think, the whole "genre"-thing doesn't matter when it comes to your music!
Thank you!
Anyway Steve Wilson from PORCUPINE TREE came in for 12 days to help you all with the recording of "Blackwater Park" correct?
Well when he arrived we had recorded all the basic structures like the rhythm guitars, bass, and drums. His help was with the vocal lines and the guitar leads mostly, with SOUNDS basically, because he's really good with SOUNDS, and we wanted to experiment a bit with vocal sounds.
Yeah I can hear at some parts, with the vocals Some people have actually dubbed them as "cell phone" vocals
(laughing) Yeah, I love that
Hahaha, I know
Well you know, it's just one of the effects, but we had been trying to get that effect on each album.
Is that a direct PORCUPINE TREE-influence?
Actually, it's more influenced by early BLACK SABBATH albums like "Paranoid" On that album they had a thing called a "Lesley", it's a rotating amplifier, and the speaker's rotating, and it makes this strange "wah-wah-wah-wah " It is sort of a radio-voice or a telephone voice, but it reminds me of that Lesley-thing, and I always liked it because it's really 70s-sounding. The telephone-voice is not really 70s, but I like it anyway, so we just put it on there.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like with "Still Life" you sort of "broke through" in a way with your general sound. The production came up in quality for starters, and you guys had always used Studio Fredman right?
No, the first two albums were recorded in Unisound, which was Dan Swanö's studio. But he shut it down, so we had to find another one, and around that time, AT THE GATES' "Slaughter Of The Soul" album was out, so we thought we wanted to record in Sweden, but we didn't want to sound like a "Gothenburg-band", and they had this good production, and we recorded "My Arms " there, and that one sounded really different because we had loads of problems at the time with the band. The two original guys from the first two albums left (Anders Nordin and Johan DeFarfalla), so we had this new drummer who was really insecure with our music, and we didn't have a rehearsal room or anything. Fredrik (Nordström) didn't know what we were about in the studio either, he didn't really know what to do with our music. I mean I like the album, because it's really aggressive, but if you listen to the sound production, it's really rough, which is COOL though
Yeah, that's a lot of people's favorite OPETH album actually
It's not like this album (pointing to my copy of "Blackwater Park"), this one is more well-rounded sounding
It seems like on "My Arms Your Hearse," the production sounded a lot like "Morningrise", but on "Still Life" it sounds like all the levels came up on all the instruments, it's much more crisp sounding.
Well on "Still Life", we were a 4-piece (they had been a 3-piece, with Mikael Akerfeldt doing the bass on "My Arms " - Gabe), we had been around for awhile, and all the guys in the band were adjusted to our sound. I think "Morningrise" and "My Arms " sound totally different actually, because "Morningrise" is really clean and "My Arms " is really rough, but that's also because the music changed. We didn't do many twin leads anymore, we did more chords and riffing. And on "Still Life", it's sort of a mix between "Morningrise" and "My Arms " musically, it has both chords and leads to it, and we were much more secure as a band. Fredrik knew what we were about, so he could produce it more properly. But actually, on this album (referring again to "Blackwater "), he just set the sounds. We engineered this one ourselves, except when we had Steven Wilson come in to help. Fredrik mixed the whole thing, but now he knows what we're all about.
This album sounds like you hit the nail on the head production-wise. I think it's the best album since well my personal favourite will always be "Morningrise", it'd be pretty hard to top that one if you ask me. I'm sorry, I'm old-school I guess
That's funny, because some people think that "Morningrise" is too mellow, or too this or that, a lot of people say "My Arms " is their favorite, and I think it's proof that we do good music all the time, or maybe we do the same level of BAD music all the time (laughs), but it's like people can kind of choose, with us, their favorite songs and albums, and I think that's cool!
I'm constantly seeing debates about OPETH and which album is the best one and all that (note: I then went on to rant and rave about how great OPETH is in every way and blah blah blah, I won't go into it) So do you all have regular jobs aside from the band?
We all have part time jobs. I just graduated from college before I came on this tour (can't remember what major he'd told me before the interview - Gabe), so I gotta find out, during the summer, WHAT AM I GONNA DO WITH MY LIFE? (laughs)
How many copies do you guys sell, on average, from album-to-album?
I think worldwide, we sell about 40,000, but the new album has sold like 70,000 already, so I think that's gonna help the other albums to sell more. I was surprised to hear about that. And I think "Still Life" is just over 40,000, I think.
Well, if it'd had immediate Stateside distribution, it probably would have sold just as much as "Blackwater " damnit!
I think when people hear the new album, they will maybe go find the other albums, or I HOPE they do
(after more childish complimenting) Another thing I'm always reading and hearing about is that OPETH will "never release a bad album".
Well, for US at least, we are never gonna put out a bad album, because when we record a new album, we don't care about what happened before. All of those albums, even this one, now belong in the past.
My favorite thing about OPETH is the softer, acoustic parts, while a lot of people like the heavy, aggressive parts. There's always a nice balance of those two aspects on each album, even on "My Arms " which was more of a heavy album. Does there exist the possibility that OPETH will take the heavier path, to the exclusion of the softer parts, or vice-versa?
I don't think so. When we record a new album, like I said, all the other albums belong in the past, and it's just what we're all about at the MOMENT. But since we're fucking MUSIC lovers, all of us, we'll keep all those different things in there. I love acoustic guitars and clean vocals, but I like heavy riffing and stuff like that, and as long as we're still into all that, we're gonna put it all in there. The day we're sick of clean vocals, we're gonna abandon that, or acoustic guitars, or distortion or whatever! But I don't think that's gonna happen, because if you look at MY record collection, I've got fucking everything from Joni Mitchell to MORBID ANGEL. I love them all, so we try to put everything in there. That's what OPETH is about, good music. We have been doing it for such a long time, so now people know that we can do all these different kinds of music, and we blend it all into a song. That's what I like, we can do whatever we want, and as long as we like it, we're gonna do it.
And about the "good album" thing, we never pay attention to what people are gonna think about it, we just record it for ourselves, and as long as we're satisfied with it, that's all that matters. And in that sense, yes, we are never gonna put out an album that WE are not satisfied with. Then again, people might hate it. But if we like it, fair enough. Maybe the day after that the record label will drop us, but what can you do, y'know
(laughing) Well how IS Music For Nations treating the band so far?
They are the most professional label we've worked with by far! All of a sudden things are happening for us, we're getting endorsements, we're in the States doing a massive tour now, we've got lots of festivals this summer to play and all that. None of this happened on the last album. Well, NOTHING really happened on that album (laughs)
No tours for that album either?
Well we were supposed to tour with MY DYING BRIDE, but since we changed record labels and all that, we couldn't do the tour.
So just out of curiosity, you guys were in Studio Fredman when SOILWORK were recording their album. How did the two bands work around each other?
Well, Studio Fredman is two studios actually. We recorded in the big one, because we had rented it out, and we also mixed the album there. But then SOILWORK recorded their stuff in the small studio and mixed it in the big studio after us, when we had left. It wasn't a problem, I actually prefer to be alone in the studio when recording without being bothered y'know. There was a pop band recording in there while we were there called (or what sounded like) NAZARENE STREET (but don't quote me on that - Gabe), and I didn't like them that much. But SOILWORK were really cool! So if every band is like SOILWORK, then it's good to have two bands in there I guess, because you can hang out and have fun! And Mikael sang some lines on their album
Yeah I was gonna ask about that, did they ask Mikael do lend his vocal godliness, or did he kindly volunteer?
They asked him to come in, just for fun, and I think it was cool because we had already finished recording by the time they arrived, and they are really technical guitar players, man! They can play all of our stuff like that (snaps fingers)
Yeah, they're a great band. But it's even been rumoured that Mikael sang almost ALL of the clean vocal parts on SOILWORK's album, but it was just on that ONE song right?
Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was just that one title track. Björn is singing on the other ones, and he has a good voice. He took some lessons I think, and he does a great job on the album I think! Mikael just came in one day to do the vocals for fun, and it turned out really good.
If you can answer this one, has Dan Swanö left the heavy metal scene pretty much, since I guess he's really close with the band I thought you might know about this rumour I keep hearing
After he quit the studio, I think he kept some of the equipment to record stuff, and for example, Anders from KATATONIA recorded his DIABOLICAL MASQUERADE-stuff with him. But Dan is ALWAYS gonna continue recording stuff, cause he's a big music-lover too, but I think he's pretty much out of the Metal-scene. Then again he recorded the BLOODBATH thing with Mikael, Anders and Jonas
Is there a BLOODBATH-album on the racks?
I'm not sure really, that's mainly Anders' thing, and he's gonna write everything and the guys are gonna go down and help record it. And they said to me, because I asked Mikael if they're gonna record a new one and he said no, probably not. But that was awhile ago, and they keep getting all these requests from people to do another one, so maybe they will do it.
So has anything been planned yet for the next OPETH album, or are you guys gonna take a break when you get done with all these shows and then go from there?
I guess after all the touring, we're gonna take a short break. Not a year-long break like METALLICA would do, but just a couple of weeks. Then we'll start writing stuff for a new album, but none of us really have the time to write ten riffs a day on the tour bus, I don't even have a guitar on the bus. Maybe this summer we'll do some writing. But when we start writing, it's a quick process. It'll take us like two months usually.
Do you and Mikael go to each other's houses often to share riffs and stuff before going into the studio?
We used to do that, but now on the last album, he wrote most of the material. I will usually meet him and give him a tape of my riffs
I was really wondering about that, on a lot of your stuff, both guitars are playing parts that are somewhat "opposing" They sound very different, but somehow they just fit together in the end, especially on the acoustic parts
That comes about when we record. Because we usually have just one guitar part written, and then when we record everything else a couple of days later, we do lots of experimenting, and just add whatever we think sounds good.
OK, some closing questions now, I've kept you long enough. Do you favor the acoustic guitar when you write your stuff, or is it mostly written on electric?
When we wrote "Morningrise", and actually even "My Arms ", me and Mikael went to each other's places with acoustic guitars, and we wrote everything on acoustic guitars, even the heavy riffs, because if it sounds really heavy on the acoustic, you can be sure it'll be fucking HEAVY when you add distortion. On "Orchid", we wrote some riffs with the distortion, but after awhile it's just the distortion that sounds good and not the riff itself, so if you do it on acoustic guitar, you can be sure that when you play it on electric, with good production and everything, it'll sound REALLY good!
(after yet MORE random praise) Who are some of your personal guitar heroes?
The reason for me being in this business is probably Kirk Hammett.
Kirk Hammett?!?!?
Yeah, but you know that was when I was twelve years old and he was really fast, but when you listen to his solos today it's like shit. But he's the reason for me picking UP the guitar, as like a first influence. I think one of the better guitarists of all time in the Metal-genre is Eddie Van Halen. When you see all these guys doing the technical things, it's usually him who invented all of it. But then again I'm not really into guitar players who are really fast, because I think there are too many of them now. I prefer a guy who can, like, pick a tone and hit it, and it sounds good for like 30 seconds holding onto it, like Robin Trowers, the blues player, he's got the "feeling", and that's what I'm more into nowadays.
A lot of people think that your riff playing is totally technical, but I don't think OPETH is so much about "technicality"
90% of our riffs are pretty simple actually. But there are some riffs that are hard. Some people think that we are technical gods or something, but a guy like Jeff Loomis, for example, that guy can outplay anything we play! But he's really technical so
Five favourite albums at the moment?
(thinking) KATATONIA - "Last Fair Deal Gone Down", PORCUPINE TREE - "Lightbulb Sun", PORCUPINE TREE - "Stupid Dream" Ummm There's actually a band I listen to right now called BLACK HEART PROCESSION, it's like country
(laughing) COUNTRY?!?!
Yeeeahhh, well it's not country exactly, it's like slow, singer/songwriter, painful type stuff, their album's called "Three", I really like it and uhhh (long pause) Oh yeah, SIXTEEN HORSEPOWER, an American band, they're like this religious country Rock-band, but they've got the "pain" and the "nerve". They are so religious, it almost sounds "evil", if you know what I mean (chuckling)
And what about your Top 5 Metal-albums of all time?
METALLICA - "Master Of Puppets"
MORBID ANGEL - "Altars Of Madness"
MORBID ANGEL - "Blessed Are The Sick"
ENTOMBED - "Clandestine"
DEATH - "Leprosy"
Well I am satisfied, it was a real pleasure for me Peter! Thank you for taking the time for this interview, really looking forward to the show
Sure, no problem! Thank you as well. Hope you enjoy it
