After no less than 2 hours and 15minutes of frustration, may the interview finally begin.
Note that this isn't a perfect transcription because all I can do is pause and resume, no replaying back if I didn't quite catch a word.
Oh and the answer about the detuning-end to Burden lies within
Mikael Åkerfeldt:
Hi guys. I'm Michael from Opeth
Fredrik Åkesson:
And I'm Fredrik.
Mikael:
From Opeth.
*laughs* And we're here to talk about our new album "Watershed".
*Coil starts*
Mikael:
It's not that we don't want to talk about our previous records, but generally once you've finished a record you leave it behind. You just move on, you know; try not to feel the pressure (of?) past discography. Obviously I was very happy with Ghost Reveries but it's not about topping what's been done, some people think it's the best album, some the worst, so it's all individual I think.
*Coil continues*
Mikael:
I'm not sure if it's good, better, getting better with every album, just different, I think that's more important to try and have some development with each album. We think a bit of the unexpected is good, (and) the sequence of a record is very important. We had some different ideas on which order we were going to put them in, but on this first song, which is called "Coil" basically we decided to put it first on the album because otherwise you'd be drowning inside these big chunks of pretentious, big, epic songs, you know, so it was really, for us, it felt like the only proper choice to put first on the album.
Fredrik:
Also I really like the contrast between the first one "Coil" and that goes into the second one "Heir Apparent", it's quite a contrast, really.
*Heir Apparent makes itself known*
Mikael:
You need to have somewhat of an open mind if you're a musician. I used to be, like, when I was younger I'd only listen to metal and thought everything else was pretty much crap butI've expanded my horizons, so to speak and started listening to so many different kinds of music. The only thing that exists is good and bad music, really, so I don't really think of us in terms of being a metal band. I think we're basically a bunch of musicians who like music, all sort of music.
I'm a massive consumer of music, I buy records all the time and hopefully it's something that I can get inspired by when writing for Opeth but usually as a collector I buy shitty albums just because they're rare, unfortunately, but I love music; if I've got money to spend on something then I'd rather get records than go down the pub and get wasted.
I love making music, the great side to being in a band
[he says something about touring] is writing music. I wrote my first song "I hate hip-hop"
*laughter from Fredrik* and I loved it, so...basically, we feel that 9 albums in that we don't have too many limits or boundaries and stuff, even though we are a "metal" band to begin with and even "extreme metal", I think the limits that we had have kind of blurred out over the years and now it's pretty much we find ourselves in the situation of "wow, I can do pretty much anything" from our own limits, our own tastes.
Fredrik's brought absolutely nothing! No, Fredrik's been a great inspiration for me to write these songs, I think both him and Axe, who're the new members of the band...his name's Axenrot but we just call him Axe...anyway, they kind of triggered me into writing some songs, I wanted to impress them basically: their first studio album for Opeth, I want them to think "Wow! I want to play these songs, I want to work on this material and make it better", whatever, and Fredrik is a very accomplished guitar player and his lead particularly is one-of-a-kind, and we make him work pretty hard.
Fredrik:
For me, being a fan of the band for a lot of years, really, it's amazing to get this opportunity to play with Opeth and I've put in a lot of time learning all the songs, you know, and a lot of areas of my guitar-playing had to improve, like my acoustic fingerpick style of playing and they've been really really nice to me aswell..
[Mikael interjects]:
So far.
Fredrik:
Heh. It's also really cool to record the record (while touring?), it really makes me feel more involved in the band.
*Burden starts after Heir Apparent*
Mikael:
This song, Burden, which is basically a ballad, actually I was listening to a Scorpions song called "Living and Dying" and I'm kinda "want to write a song like this" but I love it, it's a very vocal song, very melodic and everything and I love the song but it's probably not the most original song ever done, but it was like a little "hello to the past" kind of ballad, to the 70s. You know, I've always been big on the "ballad" songs, I used to dance, get chicks to the Scorpions...I had a good reputation as being a good dancer ...if there was some "When The Smoke Is Going Down" by the Scorpions, I'd always get picked up by girls.
I think we always had a lot of acoustic guitars. In the past I've always wrote a lot of the songs on acoustic guitar, but I think I did most of
these songs, on Watershed, on electric guitar...but yeah, I don't tend to think in terms of "oh! there's too many heavy metal riffs, now I've got to do some acoustic stuff", you know, it's usually I start writing a song and most of the time it kinda...sounds
[sounded like "sketchy"], it kinda happens on it's own, I don't need to think too much when I write, it kinda...the song leaves me, once I have a couple of riffs, I let go and then I don't have to think too much, it just comes to me.
*cut back to Burden, where I fail to sing along since my throat is kind of sore*
I think progressive rock has got a bit of an upswing in the last couple of years and I think it has a lot to do with bands like Tool and The Mars Volta,
[missed the next bit, though he mentions Porcupine Tree and Dream Theatre]. It's been frowned upon a bit, especially in the UK I think, but I think it's just another option for the people who are tired of the radio squalor, whatever. I think once you get involved in music, you start digging around the record stores looking for new stuff, for me it was like that anyway. I just listened to basically what everyone else was listening to and later on I kinda developed my own taste and just started looking for new stuff. I think progressive rock today, those bands do shift a lot of albums, the state of the music industry isn't affecting these bands as much as whatever, maybe Britney Spears, whatever. I think people actually really want to support the bands by going out and buying the records and definitely a lot of people come to the shows. It's a good thing.
In the past, we basically, we didn't go into the studio with much preperation at all, I love experimentation. This time around we were pretty well prepared: [the album] was written, we'd been rehearsing for around a month or so, five weeks...
Fredrik:
Yeah, we sort of had to be sure we were able to pull these songs off live before we entered the studio...they sounded fairly good, I think.
Mikael:
Yeah..yeah, we did experiment with a lot of things, like the acoustic guitar falling apart which
[unheard], but I love it, on a musical level I would say it sounds good but, you know it kind of adds...youknow...the song, which is called "Burden", is a ballad...almost a power ballad. Sorry! It's a beautiful song which I think we like to kind of destroy things like that, that was our way to destroy it, and that was a very spontaneous heat-of-the-moment kinda thing.
Fredrik:
Michael was playing this acoustic part and he asked me to twist the tuning knobs right down while he was playing.
Mikael:
Sounds horrible. I love it.
*cuts to the Burden outro*
Mikael:
When we first played it to the record company, I mean...we were sitting behind them, laughing behind their backs when we saw their heads kinda turning at each other, looking like "what's that??" you know, but I think it's one of those...I guess it's an acquired taste! I think it's pretty cool.
*Porcelain Heart starts up*
Oh! And that was all they said. There's me been getting annoyed that it's now past midnight and I still thought they were going to "commentate" the last three songs on the album
Thanks for having mercy Mike&Fred.
