And a quick translation of the interview above:
OPETH: GHOST STORIES, by Bjørn Nørsterud.
As of writing, I have heard Ghost Reveries, the new Opeth-album, but I hadn't heard it when I did this interview. It's not supposed to be easy I guess, but the Swedish masterband still wants to talk to the press, and who would say no to such a conversation? First, the band is releasing a new album on a new record label, and second there's some excitement surrounding the sequel to the "Deliverance"/"Damnation" duo, the two albums the band released in a short time period and which were rather different from each other. While "Deliverance" was a brutal version of the quartet, "Damnation" showed a more symphonic and progressive side of Åkerfeldt and his company. So how would the next album turn out?
Will it sound like "Deliverance", or like "Damnation", or something inbetween? Guitarist Peter Lindgren knows the truth and talks about it all from a hotel room somewhere in Sweden.
We do the interviews from a hotel this time, to get some peace. Come Thursday we are going on a tour to the United States, it's called a festival tour actually. A bit like Ozzfest, just smaller. I think it will be interesting, especially because the other bands are so different from us. Most of them are metalcore bands, that's what is "in" over there these days. It's a bit weird, in America it's very popular, but here in Europe it seems that this hybrid genre isn't popular at all. Personally I must admit I don't think metalcore is very exciting, heheh, I think they all sound the same. I agree with you; if you want brutal music, you want good and classic death metal, not that mix these groups perform. But whatever, people can like what they want to like.
I say one of the best death metal acts in existence is called OPETH, even though the group is much more than just that genre too, which makes Peter chuckle. I wonder whether the new album will be like "Damnation" or "Deliverance", or something inbetween, as mentioned earlier?
It will be like what you said last, yes. First, it's a single album, there's a difference, so.. We are a death metal band, but we also have many melodies, lots of acoustic parts, and that's how we have chosen to present ourselves on the new album. Long songs with many different themes, to get the dynamics in, just like always, hehe. After we did "Damnation" we learned how to write ballads which are relatively short, and we have one of those too. There are a few songs in the style of "Damnation". Still, sixty out of sixtyseven minutes are classic OPETH, the way people know us.
[Could this be why Peter left? It could seem like he wanted more of the death metal, while Mikael wanted to move into seventies rock/prog?]
How was the reaction to "Damnation" anyway, it is an album that doesn't really represent the band in a typical fashion?
Actually it went much better than what I had believed. I expected a lot of complaining and whining, but a lot of hardrock fans thought this was a very good album. Most people probably understood this wasn't supposed to be a new style, it was an album we wanted to do as an experiment, simply because we love this kind of music too. We thought, since we are the band we can do whatever we want, hehe. We did release "Deliverance" too which is the most brutal album we have released, so.. No, we had a lot of good reviews for that album. It was meant as a kind of tribute to our heroes from the progressive seventies, get in a mellotron and it all. On "Damnation" there's mellotron everywhere, and it can be dangerous to drown everything in that instrument, but it turned out fucking good, hehe. As you say, a few of the songs are without, but they have other keyboards, so yeah, they're in the same style anyway.
So is there mellotron on the new album, called "Ghost Reveries", too?
There'll be mellotron on this one too, yes. Pär Viberg of Spiritual Beggars has become a permanent member of the band now. It is very exciting for us to have a musician who really can play the keyboards. Before it was just us and our ideas, but now we have a pianist and has been one for twenty years. He knows exactly what to do with the instrument. He has a lot of ideas, so we have used mellotron, Hammond organ, piano, Fender Rhoades, everything that exists. We have also tried to mix it into the sound so it doesn't just sound like a band with keyboards, if you know what I mean. He has also helped with arrangements and riffs, done things differently, something we all did by the way.
How about the lyrics, are they in the same vein as before?
Yes, they are very dark, pretty Satanic actually this time. They are also of that type that aren't obvious on the first read. Still no corpsepaint, that seems too tiresome to me. Takes hours to put on the makeup every night.
Not that I would have believed OPETH to appear in that kind of costume anyway, but Peter is a man with a sense of humor, and so am I.
We can't escape the change from Music For Nations to Roadrunner, something that wasn't really the band's fault, it was rather that the first mentioned label quit, and the band was left standing without support. Was this a difficult time for the band, or did things go smoothly?
It was as you say a fact that MFN was shut down because the company was bought up by BMG, and then they threw out all the bands connected to the label. We did have many offers, and in the end we were looking at two - Roadrunner and Century Media. The reason why we chose Roadrunner was not that they offered more money, as can be read on the Internet, but the fact that we were very impressed by the way they work, they are very professional, and knew what they were doing. Besides, before it has been a problem for people to actually find our records - it won't be like that anymore. Before we worked hard with our tours without getting anything free from the label. We'll still work hard, but this time we want something back, get it? Promotion and stuff like that.
We all remember how exciting Roadrunner was in the eighties and how many great bands existed at the time. The label's had a down period the last years what concerns real heavy metal, but...
Right. That's what I relate Roadrunner to, all the old death metal bands, King Diamond and all that, that's what I relate Roadrunner to. All that nu-metal shit on the label now is not worth listening to, but to me Roadrunner remains a good death metal label. It seems that the label is about to return to its roots these days; Cradle Of Filth is there, they went the same route as us, from MFN to Roadrunner. I can't deny that the label has a band like Nickelback, haha, but it doesn't matter to us what label we are on. We had recorded the entire album before we signed the deal, so there is no reason that people should be anxious about us turning into a nu-metal band. We would have been strange on any record label, whether we signed with Century Media, SPV or Nuclear Blast. There are few that are like us, and that's what we've been striving for, to be a unique band.
There are many bands that have learned the tricks of the trade from OPETH, November's Doom for example?
I have heard them, yeah, and it's positive that someone is inspired by us, by all means. There are many bands that sound like In Flames for example, but not many sound like Opeth right?
If we ask Peter to look back in time, we can ask him if he is pleased with what the band has achieved so far?
Definitely. Our goal in the band is to like what we play. We want to put in as many inspiration sources as possible. We want things to go well, something we have managed from the beginning. Things have gone increasingly better with time. That is positive, because we have never released a music video for one of our songs, we have never had a specific image, and that's why I believe we have fans because they like the music we play. It gives us respect, which is more important than having an album that breaks through and disappears quickly. We've been doing this for fifteen years, and with every record we are growing bigger. That is what is important, to work with the band without being trendy, and still have a solid fanbase.
OPETH in a nutshell. When it comes to other projects, the band members have no time to do anything besides the motherband. Mikael's had a period in Bloodbath. Pär, as a newbie in OPETH, has Spiritual Beggars, a blues band called Sky High and other small bands, but as Peter mentions, now that he has become an OPETH member, Pär won¨t have the time for that anymore.
Steven Wilson has been an important ally previously. No more...
We hoped to work with him this time as well, but he was too busy with Porcupine Tree this time around, recording an album and touring, so there was no time. There was a time when we had to realize that we wouldn't collaborate with him, which was a pity, but it was turned into something positive anyway. We used a guy named Jens Borgrän this time, he's worked with Katatonia, Soilwork and Pain of Salvation previously. He's an unknown so far, even though he's worked with these bands.
We were very happy even though we took a chance working with an unknown producer. He turned out to be very professional, so he ended up mixing the album as well, which we hadn't planned. We had a great time working with him, I daresay he is the next big star producer in Sweden.
OPETH released a DVD last year. It turned out great, but I wonder how the audience reacted when you performed the calm songs of "Damnation" that night?
Well, it was announced that way, so the audience knew it beforehand. We had practised the songs in Sweden first, but it was still a kind of premiere since we had never played a concert like that before, a calm set, break, then a brutal set. I think it must have been cool for the audience to see us like that, with that type of variation in the concert.
Whatever happens, OPETH is a fantastic band. As I mentioned earlier I have heard the new album now, and you can look forward to it. A new classic is on its way!
If not, check out a translation below.
