Opeth gets massive 12 page spread in the new issue of Close-Up Magazine

[Stilgar]

The overexertion had more reasons. During the recording of "Deliverance" his grandmother got hit by a car and died. Shortly thereafter his grandfather died from cancer.
- They meant a lot to me.

At the same time OPETH as a constellation was in bad shape. Foremost because Martin Lopez was struck by recurrent anxiety attacks.
- It was because of him that we missed the concert in Jordain, that we were extremely hungry for. He wasn't feeling well. He broke down just before we were going to go there. I was just going to pick up the phone to order a taxi to the airport when he called. He cried and said he couldn't go, that he didn't have the strength to.

In May 2006 he was forced to quit. At that time he had been replaced on several live performances by Martin Axenrot.
- I remember when we were at some hot place and were gonna go to the beach to take a dip. He didn't want to come along, but after a while he came along anyway. When he took off his shirt everybody was chocked. You could see that it was the body of a person that was ill. When he quit he left for Uruguay. I just spoke with him and he was feeling really good. He was happy and seemed to be totally on. It was really nice. And he gained some weight. He was heavier than me.

Even stronger reactions came when the guitar player Peter Lindgren chose to quit. In May 2007 he quit a sixteen year long membership in OPETH.
- It was really hard. In a way I can also see that it was necessary. Now we're a new gang, in many ways. But purely musically it didn't mean that much. He and I wrote together foremost on the first two records and that's more than twelve years ago. He meant a lot to me to have as my right hand, but he didn't have the same glow for the music. In addition to that, we're both guitar players, the others have their unique placements for their instruments and it's up to them to fulfill everything. As two guitar players one is almost more prominent than the other. He always liked the music, but he wasn't as enthusiastic. He's also somewhat of a leader, which he couldn't be when he didn't contribute that much musically. And then he got tired of all the touring. I though that was a bit hard, and it will always be a bit hard, but it led to something good.

 

[Cerberus III]

To those who insult Mikael, his family, or any of the other bands members and their families, all I have to say to you is this... don't make yourself known to me.

 

[Stilgar]

Every week Peters replacement Fredrik Åkesson rehearses together with Martin Mendez and Martin Axenrot. Without the front man and the keyboard player.
- They're crazy. That's how you want it when you have a band. It's so easy that it just becomes some kind of "un-pep". That you become too comfortable. Now we've moved it around a bit. Peter and I had the same background, we liked the same music and all metal. When he came up with a riff, I didn't get really surprised, in the same way that he probably didn't get surprised by my stuff. When Fredrik plays something of his own it feels cool. It's the same with Per. And that's at the expense of losing the bands... what should you call it... the idea of the classic setting.

For Mikael Åkerfeldt OPETH's classic setting was the one on their debut "Orchid", with Peter Lindgren, Anders Nordin and Johan DeFarfalla.
-It was perfect. Anders and I had grown up together and were great pals. But to have a pal-band, it just doesn't work. It's a damn myth, actually. You shouldn't really have any business with your friends. I remember we said to each other: "You and I will always play music with each other. Yes, we will." A few years later, he quit. He was probably pressured by his parents, because we didn't make any money back then and he wanted to get an education. It was really hard for me. But you always meet new people. When we met Martin Lopez it was definitely like an energy injection. He was seventeen-eighteen years old and the only thing he wanted to do was to play the drums. It was unbelievably fun. Nobody complains about that member change today.

He claims, with thoughtfulness, that OPETH now feels better than the band has ever felt.
- There are no question marks, nothing that goes against us. Everybody pulls in the same direction. Everybody is mature, everybody is finished with their crap. Everybody knows they will be musicians. Peter had his education. He's highly educated, to say the least. I don't know exactly what it is, but he's gone to KTH. He's a damn professor. In literature, I believe, some sort of "master of science". I don't know what it's called in Swedish, I've only heard him talk about it in American interviews. And he says that it's not like this, but one of the things that I didn't quite like was that when we were done touring "Ghost Reveries", he applied for a job within that field. I can understand that, but he already had a job. He was a musician, right? That said a lot, I think.

Another light in the quitting was that it could rebuild the duos friendship.
- In the beginning of the career we always hung out, but after all the touring we were never really together. Except for a couple of new years eves. Now we're also in that age when you're not as dependent of your friends, because you have a family and so on, but it's still important to me. Maybe it's more important than playing together. Because Peter is an unbelievably nice guy. I like him like hell. Anna and I were at his place last weekend. It was his thirty fifth birthday. We never talked about work or career, we've never done that. We blabbed about SAXON. When we came there. He had placed his records so that on the short side of the shelf, where you can see the covers, there were only SAXON albums. Even though it destroyed the alphabetical ordering.

 

[rayden_ad]

thanks very much !

 

[TheWickerMan]

We should create a 'Stilgar appreciation thread'.
Thanks a lot for doing the translation for us, Stilgar. You rule and you even have Dan Swanö on your avatar!

This interview is really good, it's nice to hear/read the musicians talk about other things besides answering the trivial musical questions.

 

[Stilgar]

We should create a 'Stilgar appreciation thread'.

Heh. Thanks.

Thanks a lot for doing the translation for us, Stilgar. You rule and you even have Dan Swanö on your avatar!

You're welcome.

Yeah. That's Dan and my son from when we met him a few years ago. He's a damn nice and down to earth guy.

This interview is really good, it's nice to hear/read the musicians talk about other things besides answering the trivial musical questions.

Yeah. Close-Up is good that way. They have a habit of not asking the ordinary questions that everybody else asks.

 

[LeeFH]

Stilgar, you're an effin' legend! Thank you for translating all that!

 

[Stilgar]

In January 2007 Mikael Åkerfeldt wrote on OPETH's homepage: "Wow, looks like we got ourselves a new breed of idiot OPETH 'fans' on our tail, huh? Mindblowing guys...really!"

The target for that message was the bunch of forum visitor that questioned the choice of the replacements after Peter Lindgren and Martin Lopez.
- You must be allowed to get angry, he states. I get more annoyed when people are attacking someone else in the band than if they go for me. Me, everybody complains about. About my singing, about my songs. They complain and say that the new album will suck because Peter and Martin isn't on it, but it doesn't. It doesn't suck. I guess they can listen to "Blackwater Park" again in that case. It still frightened me when I thought about if people would still be interested, or if they'd think the soul had disappeared now. I think that the music deserves more than some kind of bitterness over the switching of members.

- At the same time I'm like that myself and have a hard time seeing Janick Gers as a real IRON MAIDEN guitar player or that the things with Blaze Bayley are any good. I've tried to listen to the melodies, but damn... they're not any good either. But I understand that it has to do with me worshiping their classic setup.

 

[Stilgar]

When OPETH plays in the USA, the band asks every venue if the audience is searched at the entrance. A security measurement after the written threats.
- If some people think we're idiots because we do so, then they can think that. I'm worried sometimes. It's not fun if you just want to play and have fun and at the same time have to worry for someone to shoot you. But it's basically just the USA, because the weapon laws are quite different there. A certain percentage of more people have guns there.

If someone gets up on the stage, that person will get punched.
- Not from me, but we have a guitar technician who's damn big. He likes throwing people down. It's ok if someone does a stage dive, but many get the idea that they should stay. If that happens, they get thrown out. I've really not told him to beat people up, but I just don't want anybody to be there. I think all bands feel the same way, if you have some success but don't play in big venues. If we play at a small club in Texas, then it's so easy to bring a gun in. If the thing that happened to Dimebag hadn't happened I wouldn't have cared, but I'm actually a bit scared.

In Sweden he avoids the subway at night.
- Peter Lindgren and I got mugged by a man with a knife on the subway the day before we were gonna record "Blackwater Park". I got mugged by a man with a gun once too, but I didn't have any cash on me. We didn't have any cash that time either, but it felt that it was gonna cost us our lives. He tried to take my guitar. I held on to it and said "that one you're not taking". He pulled on it for a while. He didn't pull put the knife, because other people entered the train and he got off.

The alternative has been to take a taxi.
- The panic you get when someone like that comes in and you know that you can't go anywhere, it's quite hard. I used to be able to fall asleep at the subway and wake up in Farsta Strand (end station on one of the subway lines - Stilgar) without anything happening. Most of the time there are no problems, but those two times are enough for me to feel that it's not worth it. Nowadays I go out so seldom that I feel I can spend those extra three hundred kronor just to get home safely. During daytime there are no problems, even if it's tough when traveling with kids. There are a lot of nice people, but there are also so many psychopaths and disgusting people out there. Sometimes I just want to move out to the wilderness.

Every time he walks around in the city someone who recognizes him comes up to him.
- It's fun, I think. It's not on a royal family level. But of course you want to be anonymous when you're anonymous. When I walk around with Melinda I'm not the guy in the band. Even if I like it when people come up and want to talk it feels strange, because I also want to be an unknown person that no-one knows anything about. I don't want everybody to know stuff about me. Damn, I'm more paranoid than I thought.

He says that he's gotten used to the feeling of meeting people that obviously admire him.
- We usually meet the fans when they hang around at the bus. Some people are fanatic, but it's always fun. To go to the other side of the globe and meet someone who knows everything about you and loves your music, there are worse things to experience. At concerts it can bee much. I was at MEGADETH last time. There I could feel how the eyes were burning. And at the Melloboat last March, there were an incredible amount of people that came up to me. I got all sweaty and dizzy from that. But it's really nothing that's tough.

 

[Stilgar]

He states that he wants to "act good".
- I want the fans to leave thinking "he seems to be really cool, he was really decent and nice". Without using clichés like "Tack som fan. See you after the show...". Bullshit like that. I want them to get a feeling that they had a real exchange from the meeting.

In all the cases when Mikael Åkerfeldt has met his own idols, he's gotten that feeling.
- I've met David Coverdale and Ronnie James Dio and they were so damn nice. I want to be like that as well. It's hard, you often get the same kind of compliments and it's not easy to make them feel relaxed on such a short moment. You want to say the things they expect you to say. But I'm not a bastard.

David Coverdale he met after being invited to a WHITESNAKE concert by the guitar player Doug Aldrich.
- We had a beer and suddenly he asked: "Do you wanna hook up with me and DC?" It was Anders "Blakkheim" Nyström (KATATONIA, BLOODBATH) and I. I though "shit". When we came to his dressing room he said: "Hello Michael, how's the band going?" He had probably been told by someone who I was. I gave him a few records and ge got to sign a few covers. I don't remember what I answered on his question. "Good" or something.

Ronnie James Dio he met at a festival in Japan.
- Peter, Mendez, our sound guy and I were going to have a drink at the hotel. A bar in a cool art déco style with a sixties feeling, with some kind of "Shining" vibe. There was Dio with his drummer, Simon Wright or whatever his name is. When we came in he stood up and said "hello guys!". I had never met him, only worshiped him my whole life. I think he confused us with someone else, because he acted like he knew us well. We sat and talked all evening and it was really nice.

 

[Vivören]

Damn, these translations are good.

I just compared them to the Swedish text just for the hell of it, and it's spot on. Good thing I didn't translate this, I suck at it.

When I walk around with Melinda I'm not the guy in the band. Even if I like it when people come up and want to talk it feels strange, because I also want to be an unknown person that no-one knows anything about. I don't want everybody to know stuff about me. Damn, I'm more paranoid than I thought.

That's funny, I saw Mike in Stockholm a few years ago and I was gonna go up to him and just say hi and shake his hand and tell him how much his band has meant to me, but I didn't because he had a little girl with him (I assumed it was Melinda), because I didn't wanna disrupt the father/daughter thing with my fan rants.

 

[Dante's Inferno]

Great interview (probably the best I've ever read of Opeth).

Great translation too. Stilgar: another thanks, this time from me. Keep up the good work!

 

[opeth8]

This has been a great read. Thanks for all your time & effort. It's greatly appreciated !

 

[Stilgar]

Mikael Åkerfeldt says he's as much a fan as his own supporters.
- I absolutely know how hard it is, the thing when you want to go there and say something, but don't know what. There are a thousand things you want to say, but you can't get into a deeper conversation on that short of a time. I'm lucky to be able to meet people I admire in my work.

One of them is the former SKID ROW singer Sebastian Bach. They met in connection to a festival in Vienna.
- We'd stressed there to get there in time, we came fifteen minutes before we were supposed to play and I just changed my clothes and ran up on stage. Then I realized that two people were standing on the side. I realized on of them was Sebastian Bach. He came up and said "hey, dude!". Started talking. Said "rock!" and stuff.

During the whole gig he stood behind the scene headbanging.
- Afterwards, he and the guitar player Metal-Mike Chlasciak came and told us to have a beer at their bus, because they were apparently big fans. Mendez and I went over there. Meanwhile Bach had an interview with one of those journalists that likes to "frame" you, almost provoke you. It was impossible with Bach, because he just turned everything over. It must have been the best interviews that anyone has given ever. I laughed so hard I cried. At the same time he was sitting and talking with us and suddenly he just flew up and turn on his new record. He took my beer bottle and sang into it. High-five was supposed to be used constantly.

- Suddenly he said that he was going to go to bed or something, but before he left he said: "Later you're gonna go with me and watch GUNS N' ROSES from the side of the stage." I told him that I didn't know if it was possible. "I'll take care of it", he said. When GUNS N' ROSES were going to play there were security everywhere. Mendez and I were sitting at the bar, thinking: "Damn! What if he was serious? It would be fun to watch GUNS N' ROSES together with Sebastian Bach. But he's joking, of course... But what if?"

- We knew where the bus was, so we said we were gonna go that way and have a smoke. We stood there and kept a lookout. Finally he came running and said "good that you're here!". We were standing there waiting like two children. "I'm just gonna go inside and take a dump", he said, and ran off again. And then it took quite a while. After a while we decided we couldn't just stand there and walked back, thinking it wouldn't happen. After a couple of beers he came running inside and shouted "where the hell did you go?". Then we got to follow him, he walked in front of us like a gazelle and past the first guard post, past the second post, past the third post. When he had gotten us past the last post, he turned around and asked "who's the man?". And I said: "You are." Then Mendez, I, Izzy Stradlin (ex-GUNS N' ROSES), the TOOL guys and Sebastian Bach got to stand there and watch. Axl Rose walked past. I'm not a fan, really, but he is a royalty within rock music. It was quite special. And Bach was blabbing along all the time. About anything. He was really funny.
- Sounds like pretty trying.
- I'd love to have a party with him, so to speak. You wouldn't even need any music. My friends and I sometimes talk about what guys you'd like to have at a party to guarantee it to be fun and we've come to the conclusion: Sebastian Bach and Dave Grohl. If they're there it will most likely be quite fun.

 

[Stilgar]

Damn, these translations are good.

Thank you.

I just compared them to the Swedish text just for the hell of it, and it's spot on. Good thing I didn't translate this, I suck at it.
That's funny, I saw Mike in Stockholm a few years ago and I was gonna go up to him and just say hi and shake his hand and tell him how much his band has meant to me, but I didn't because he had a little girl with him (I assumed it was Melinda), because I didn't wanna disrupt the father/daughter thing with my fan rants.

*nod* That's what I would have done as well.

EDIT: Only 3 parts left of the main interview... Gonna go sleep now, but I should be able to translate at least one more part tomorrow... And then there's this short questions part and reviews of all the albums...

 

[Hedon-]

stilgar you own, ive read it all
sebastian bach seems really cool lol

 

[Cerberus III]

Stilgar, you're a God.

Of translation!

 

[Sea Of Darkness]

Hey Stilgar, thanks for your patience and kindness. I appreciate it very much, dude.


I'm quite shocked by Mike's words about those emails. I still cannot believe my eyes. Get a life, you futile existences.

 

[Kirkfjell]

Yeah, thanks alot Stilgar! Very interesting read.

 

[Lord Byron]

I was quite shocked about what he said about the subway and getting mugged. I was using it quite a lot when i was over there. Then again i'm a 5 foot 9 Irishman who weighs 189 pounds.