Andrew: Welcome to Triple J, Peter.
Peter: Thank you, thank you... you got my name right aswell.
Andrew: Excellent, I did receive the album last week and I can say, ah, after the first listen the majority of the album did stick in my head instantly, and that obviously includes the y'know, 10 minute plus epic tracks that uh you guys are reknowned for delivering, specially tracks like Deliverance being the title track and Master's Apprentices. Uh, since Blackwater Park was such a huge release for you guys, did you feel any pressure in bringing up this uh, follow-up album.
Peter: ah, not really. It was rather the opposite, I mean we never feel any pressure to... sort of, excel ourselves or anything but what we really DIDN'T want to do was another Blackwater Park album. We had no inspiration for doing it and that would have been so obvious, also to do y'know the same thing uh since Blackwater Park was a very successful album, from our point of view aswell. We thought we needed to do something really different y'know just in order to feel comfortable with what we were doing. We just thought that we should put out a really heavy album, y'know and it's just that we had alot of material that was mellow and acoustic aswell, so this friend of ours, Jonas from Katatonia, the singer said 'why don't you just put out 2 albums at the same time?'
Andrew: Yeah that's what I heard, enlighten us on that. I know that obviously the Deliverance album, which is out next week is, I guess, the sort of more extreme side of the band, but I do believe the second release, being Damnation is set for a release... uhh, March next year..?? is that true?
Peter: That's uhh, it's not oficial just yet, I think. But that's the plan at least, to release it in March, yeah.
Andrew: Did you sort of wanna separate alot of the more melodic parts on this record, coz there are alot of melodic passages on throghout most of the songs on Deliverance, will Damnation be ENTIRELY acoustic?
Peter: Uhm, y'know as... not acoustic only, but we got clean guitars.. it's just that we don't have any double kick drums or screaming vocals or just you know really heavy guitars. Uhm, the idea is not to seperate the things, firstly, it's just that we wanted to have the album to be heavy you know ad you know all the dynamics are there as there usually are on Opeth albums, but we also wanted to do a different THING which is you know, Damnation is really the mellow album, y'know production, it sounds like it's produced in 1971 or something, it's really y'know, stripped down, the drums y'know we don't have Martin doing solo all over the place, just stripped down playing, the songs are shorter a bit. Y'know, its an experiment really.
Andrew: Just talking about the production ON Deliverance, ah to me, it's really given the music, ah so much strength in the sound, it's really so sharp, are you guys happy with the result, still continuing to use Steve Wilson?
Peter: Yeah, ah I mean, as for when I look back at everything, I'm really satisfied because, haha, the sound pictures, is more raw and that's what we were striving for but also we needed to actually trust our own ears in this recording because we recorded in a studio where the guy, y'know the guy who ran the studio was a POP producer, so he didn't have a clue whatsoever, we didn't realize that he was fairly incompetent, to be honest, so we had to do it on our own y'know. And looking at the backway, we are satisfied because it could have been really shit y'know. I'm happy.
*A Fair Judgement fades in and plays through*
Andrew: Looking back at the, I guess looking back at the albums from day one I mean you being a long-staying member of the band aswell.. ahh, I've always gained the impression from Opeth's music that you guys are always in complete control of EVERYTHING, not just writing the songs, but also the production duties, ahh and what studio you guys choose to record from.
Peter: ahh, I mean we ARE in total control because the record label trusts us completely, which is y'know it's really nice to see that because we don't have... they don't tell us what to do or whatever because they trust us and we... they also know that we wouldn't let them y'know having an impact on who to produce or what studio we should use or whatever. We feel really confident in our relationship with them, that makes us feel really confident in ourselves aswell, because we can... we can ALMOST do whatever we want, it's just that, y'know when we play the stuff for them they go like 'ok, I hope it's really good', but they also KNOW that it's good y'know so... and we also.. we're bound to release only things that we're really happy with.
Andrew: Yeah, just talking as alot of people I've introduced Opeth's music to and it does take people quite a while to digest especially the lengthy tracks, like 10 plus minutes.. uhh just curious about your recording process, I mean do you generally record all these songs in STAGES?.. piece by piece?
and people, that's all I can be bothered writing so far... stay tuned for the rest of the transcript when my hands and ears have recovered... haha.
Peter: Thank you, thank you... you got my name right aswell.
Andrew: Excellent, I did receive the album last week and I can say, ah, after the first listen the majority of the album did stick in my head instantly, and that obviously includes the y'know, 10 minute plus epic tracks that uh you guys are reknowned for delivering, specially tracks like Deliverance being the title track and Master's Apprentices. Uh, since Blackwater Park was such a huge release for you guys, did you feel any pressure in bringing up this uh, follow-up album.
Peter: ah, not really. It was rather the opposite, I mean we never feel any pressure to... sort of, excel ourselves or anything but what we really DIDN'T want to do was another Blackwater Park album. We had no inspiration for doing it and that would have been so obvious, also to do y'know the same thing uh since Blackwater Park was a very successful album, from our point of view aswell. We thought we needed to do something really different y'know just in order to feel comfortable with what we were doing. We just thought that we should put out a really heavy album, y'know and it's just that we had alot of material that was mellow and acoustic aswell, so this friend of ours, Jonas from Katatonia, the singer said 'why don't you just put out 2 albums at the same time?'
Andrew: Yeah that's what I heard, enlighten us on that. I know that obviously the Deliverance album, which is out next week is, I guess, the sort of more extreme side of the band, but I do believe the second release, being Damnation is set for a release... uhh, March next year..?? is that true?
Peter: That's uhh, it's not oficial just yet, I think. But that's the plan at least, to release it in March, yeah.
Andrew: Did you sort of wanna separate alot of the more melodic parts on this record, coz there are alot of melodic passages on throghout most of the songs on Deliverance, will Damnation be ENTIRELY acoustic?
Peter: Uhm, y'know as... not acoustic only, but we got clean guitars.. it's just that we don't have any double kick drums or screaming vocals or just you know really heavy guitars. Uhm, the idea is not to seperate the things, firstly, it's just that we wanted to have the album to be heavy you know ad you know all the dynamics are there as there usually are on Opeth albums, but we also wanted to do a different THING which is you know, Damnation is really the mellow album, y'know production, it sounds like it's produced in 1971 or something, it's really y'know, stripped down, the drums y'know we don't have Martin doing solo all over the place, just stripped down playing, the songs are shorter a bit. Y'know, its an experiment really.
Andrew: Just talking about the production ON Deliverance, ah to me, it's really given the music, ah so much strength in the sound, it's really so sharp, are you guys happy with the result, still continuing to use Steve Wilson?
Peter: Yeah, ah I mean, as for when I look back at everything, I'm really satisfied because, haha, the sound pictures, is more raw and that's what we were striving for but also we needed to actually trust our own ears in this recording because we recorded in a studio where the guy, y'know the guy who ran the studio was a POP producer, so he didn't have a clue whatsoever, we didn't realize that he was fairly incompetent, to be honest, so we had to do it on our own y'know. And looking at the backway, we are satisfied because it could have been really shit y'know. I'm happy.
*A Fair Judgement fades in and plays through*
Andrew: Looking back at the, I guess looking back at the albums from day one I mean you being a long-staying member of the band aswell.. ahh, I've always gained the impression from Opeth's music that you guys are always in complete control of EVERYTHING, not just writing the songs, but also the production duties, ahh and what studio you guys choose to record from.
Peter: ahh, I mean we ARE in total control because the record label trusts us completely, which is y'know it's really nice to see that because we don't have... they don't tell us what to do or whatever because they trust us and we... they also know that we wouldn't let them y'know having an impact on who to produce or what studio we should use or whatever. We feel really confident in our relationship with them, that makes us feel really confident in ourselves aswell, because we can... we can ALMOST do whatever we want, it's just that, y'know when we play the stuff for them they go like 'ok, I hope it's really good', but they also KNOW that it's good y'know so... and we also.. we're bound to release only things that we're really happy with.
Andrew: Yeah, just talking as alot of people I've introduced Opeth's music to and it does take people quite a while to digest especially the lengthy tracks, like 10 plus minutes.. uhh just curious about your recording process, I mean do you generally record all these songs in STAGES?.. piece by piece?
and people, that's all I can be bothered writing so far... stay tuned for the rest of the transcript when my hands and ears have recovered... haha.
