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

[Jackehh]

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.
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.

I would probably react the way you did as well, I live quite close to mikael (Södertälje) actually but if I saw him I would probably hesitate... Although I would probably just go and say a simple "thanks for your great music" and then make my leave, trying not to disturb him but hell, he and the band deserves so much credit for what they are doing. But nevertheless you dont want to be a fanatic and I think its quite easy to imagine åkerfeldt or anyone in the band for that matter feeling quite uneasy when some random person greets them

Oh and thanks stilgar for the translations although I could read the mag myself gonna buy it soon...

 

[noura]

Stilgar, thanks for continuing! I'm surprised at how indepth this interview is, some great insight. Definitely surprised at the hate mail...what the fuck?!

 

[LeeFH]

damn i don't want this interview to end! incredible read! thanks again!

 

[Kalabalik]

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.

Yeah, so did my girlfriend and I, but we made sure to stay away from the subway in the evenings and of course at night. Something you should do in any big city for that matter, unfortunately.

I alla fall, tack som fan Stilgar!!

 

[daimonion]

One of the most interesting interviews i've read in ages. Theres more left, right..?

 

[Kalabalik]

Theres more left, right..?

To answer your question:

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...

(I am sorry, but I seriously can't stand it when people ask questions when the answer is already there, right under their noses.)

 

[daimonion]

To answer your question:



(I am sorry, but I seriously can't stand it when people ask questions when the answer is already there, right under their noses.)

Yeah, there we go. I haven't read any other than the interview posts. - And this new one.

 

[Stilgar]

"Watershed" is described by Mikael Åkerfeldt as an album that takes OPETH further, in a bigger extent than before.
- After our previous recordings, I've always been fairly negative, but now I feel a bit pepped up. I want to start with the next one. Fur us it's innovative, I think. It's important, that it feels so energetic for me that I want to continue. It opens doors for future creation. The title hadn't been completely honest if it would have been used for an earlier creation.

A new element is heard in "Coil". There Nathalie Lorichs, who lives with Martin Axenrot, contributes with something that in previous interviews has been rejected.
"Female song within metal as a little spice I think is overrated. I don't want to count myself to the gothic, romantic bands. I'd rather listen to bands that have a female singer that sings all the time. Even if it might fit with our music it will probably never happen", said Mikael Åkerfeldt in Close-Up #44.
- I'm a walking contradiction, he admits. No, I still feel that way. What I was referring to was bands like NIGHTWISH and WITHIN TEMPTATION, when it becomes like a gimmick. The female singer has to wear her "Lord of the rings"-dress and stand there and sing. It feels like it's often structured to fit in that genre and sell records. I like good singers, regardless of their sex, and I don't want anyone to believe that we're trying to profit from that genre. I heard her voice and liked it. When we recorded the song people asked: "Aren't you going to sing the last verse together?" But that's not what I was looking for. To sing alternating verses and then reunite at the end. I wanted total separation between us two, it wasn't supposed to be romantic or sweet. It was supposed to be sad. But she's a chick, she is. I once said that we never would have keyboards either, because you could do everything with the guitar. Then I fell in love with a mellotron.

The special edition includes a bonus track and three covers: ALICE IN CHAINS "Would?" ("sounds like the original, only worse"), Robin Trowers "Bridge of sighs" ("it was the last one I recorded, I sound like Peter Criss") and Marie Fredriksson's "Den ständiga resan" ("the guitar solo is supposed to sound Stockholm, like in the movie 'G' when Robban walks along the docks in the morning").
- If you know me and know what I listen to it's not strange at all that we're doing a Marie Fredriksson interpretation. I like good music. Period. If you choose to do a cover, you choose a song that you like. We know there's no commercial value in doing such a song, or to do a cover at all. Unless you're LILLASYSTER.
- Or EVERGRAY, who remade Dilba's "I'm sorry".
- That's odd. I can actually question that. I have nothing against EVERGREY, but it's interesting: why that song? And to then release it as a video and the whole package... If our record company would suggest that, I'd get pissed. To not even want to use one of our own songs.

 

[Stilgar]

When we meet, there's a month left before OPETH is going out on the road again. First a week in England, then a month in the USA, before the European festival season starts.
The quintet is in a constant big venture. The "Ghost Reveries" tour lasted for a total of nineteen months.

An obvious sacrifice for a father of small children.
- I'm not ready he says. I'm never ready to leave my family. The moment when you're about to sit down in the taxi and go, it's not fun. You weep. You stand there and don't want to go, don't want to let go. Now Melinda hast started saying things like "I don't want you to go, because then you can't play with me". But what can you do? The alternative is to get a job where you leave in the morning, are away all day and then come home all tired in the evening. The time I get when I'm home with the kids, it's quality time, dammit.

Mikael Åkerfeldt has previously worked in a guitar store, record store, and at OK Däckcenter (gas station where you can buy/change tires - Stilgar) in Fruängen.
- In some ways it was a very nice job. You didn't have to think very much. Just change tires. Heavy and dirty. But I only did it because I didn't have any money.
- Can you feel like you want to stop having music as a profession and take that kind of job again?
- Absolutely, I can. Sure. I can get jealous of people that live like that. It might sound that I look negatively on that, on the humdrum existence with going to work Monday to Friday and then get drunk. But the safety in it, I can miss that.
- Will it happen?
- Yes, I believe it will. I will probably always work with music, but I'd like to get an idea about something. I don't know what it could be, but some kind of... business. I'm actually bouncing some ideas with a friend. Now it's the music that comes first, but I can be interested in having a Svensson life (expression for the average swede - Stilgar). Dammit, I am very much Svensson when I'm at home. OK Däckcenter I don't believe I would appreciate if I knew that it would never end.

 

[Stilgar]

To start his own record store has been a plan of his for many years.
- That line of business isn't so lucrative, but I believe that sometime I will do it. Then it'll be with vinyl. Something specially geared towards enthusiasts, independent of how todays music goes. CDs are totally dead. You have to appeal to the collectors. It would fit me well. Besides, I think I'm quite service minded, a pretty good seller. I'm probably a good employee actually. I'm never ill and I'm very orderly. When I was studying I was practicing in an ICA store. There I loved putting tins in perfect rows with just the right amount of space in between. Nice, straight and clean. Yes, a record store, I can definitely consider. But I don't want to sell my own records.
- Were you close to selling your collection when you got burnt out?
- No, I wasn't. I didn't even consider it actually. I bought a lot of records, but when I finally got one home that I've looked for for a long time, I just... didn't have an interest.
- But you kept buying?
- Yes. It was more like impulsive shopping. I sat on Epay and layed a bid. "Who cares.". I'm damaged. I've thought about selling it sometime. Or hell knows what I'm gonna do with that crap. There's a lot of good music in there.
- Has your attitude to the collection stayed the same? Have you established an understanding that this isn't really that meaningful?
- I know it's not meaningful, it's always been that way. It's an anticlimax to receive a record. It's the hunt that's the thing. How's that DEEP PURPLE song? "It's not the kill/It's the thrill of the chase..." It's a bit like that actually. But I love my records. I take them out and look at them, smell them, play them from time to time as well of course.
- Do you only collect LP editions?
- I have a lot of CDs, but they don't mean anything to me. They're just plastic. I want it to be a bit putrid, old library smell, like a sixties record. But I do buy CDs. I would never download something. I pay for my music. And if I get a new album I'd probably rather buy it on CD than LP.
- Why?
- I don't really know.
Short silence.
- I might buy both, anyway.

 

[rayden_ad]

Stilgar you are my hero.

 

[Korlich]

thx a ton.

 

[vhou812]

Stilgar, thanks very much for your hard work on this, if you're in London ever, I owe you a beer!..
To the people that send hate mail....get a life.

 

[Nailed Reaper]

Stilgar, you are the man! Thanks a lot!
Now I can translate to russian that english text that was translated from swedish, bwah!

 

[Iki-ilkkuja]

Great translations... truly great!

 

[Stilgar]

Mikael Åkerfeldt about...

...making music videos.
- We're a visually weak band. I don't know how I want us to be presented more than "the forest". If you take pictures in the forest it always turns out well. I had an interesting discussion about it with someone who was a photographer or artist (in the sense of painter or sculptor - Stilgar). When I hear really beautiful music, I can get shivers. She couldn't, but she could get the same kind of shivers from seeing beautiful pictures. I thought that was cool. It would be really interesting to combine those worlds. But you know that a video is shown maybe ten times and then it's gone.

...getting bad reviews.
- If you'd say that our new record is crap, I'd go back and check what you've reviewed before. If you've liked a single record I think is crap, I would be able to dismiss your whole review of us.

...meeting former members.
- It's uncomfortable to talk about OPETH with them. They ask and in some way you don't want it to sound like we're so unbelievably busy and oh my god, it's going well. You don't want to say it's bad either, but something in the middle. "It trots along I guess."

...having returned to BLOODBATH.
- I'm not talking about BLOODBATH like a real band, even though it maybe is. I'm in it and I love it, but the new mini-cd "Unblessing the purity" was a sloppy job from my side. Anders Nyström and Jonas Renkse from KATATONIA called from the studio when they've tried out some singer that didn't quite make it. "What are we gonna do?" they asked. "I don't know" said I. Then there was a long silence. "What? You want me to come down?" So I did it as a favor. I didn't think I'd react so strongly to the material, but it was the best death metal since MORBID ANGELs "Domination". And then we hung outside of Rocks some night and all members of BLOODBATH were there. The we stood in a circle and said: "We are BLOODBATH."

...that OPETH is going to become a book.
- I write a lot for the homepage and think that we should collect it. It's not going to be any refined reading. I've asked Mendez and the others to write as well. When we talk memories we often go "Oh, yeah!". An incredible amount of things have happened, but you forget. Everybody should really write down their memories. Everybody's lives are interesting. I don't write a diary, it would feel like I had to. My wife does, but I can only write when I get the inspiration. I don't want a ghostwriter that makes things nice and easy to read, I want it to be like I'm talking and it should be personal. When it'll happen I don't know. We'll write and then we'll see if it turns out well. Or it will probably not be a question of if it's good or bad. I don't think anybody is going to say "what a good book!", but instead "oh".

...The Örebro studio Fascination Street.
- It's good there, I think. You can live there. There's a kitchen and a washing machine. A Coop (a grocery store - Stilgar) across the street. And the producer Jens Bogren is very skillful. We had planned to record in Stockholm, for the sake of my family, but he made up a schedule based on that I'd be able to go back home during the weekends. It was the first time we had a little discipline. We got up a quarter to eight. Recorded until seven in the evening and went to bed at midnight. It sounds boring, it's not quite MÖTLEY CRÜE, but it was really nice. It's been so many years when we've only chaosed and wasted time and money on smoking up lots of cigarettes. A catastrophic waste of everything.

...being mentioned in the media in connection to a pedophilic driver in the USA and robber chases in Norway.
- It wasn't very fin being connected to a guy who had child porn in his computer. I can be annoyed with that. Swedish magazines can cover HIVES or DUNGEN doing a signing in a store in New York. Hives actually does have a career, but there are a lot of Swedish bands that are being covered that are much smaller than we are. Us nobody writes about when we tour. When there's a scandal, everybody calls.

 

[Stilgar]

Ok. That's it for me. If someone else wants to translate the album reviews, be my guest.

 

[TheWickerMan]

...getting bad reviews.
- If you'd say that our new record is crap, I'd go back and check what you've reviewed before. If you've liked a single record I think is crap, I would be able to dismiss your whole review of us.

Again, thanks a lot for the translation.

 

[rayden_ad]

Album reviews someone please!!!!

 

[MadMeg]

Stilgar, you rock! Thanks so much for the translation.